Friday, September 30, 2016

One Year of Daily Blogging: The Power of the Habit

Today marks the end of the first year for this blog. This is the first post, which a year ago tomorrow exactly.

Success is a habit. I want to succeed as a writer, so I write as a habit. Blogging is how I started this habit, and maintaining this habit is a necessary condition to the success that I want. Some posts are longer than others. Some are about political or cultural concerns, and some are just me going on about stuff I like, but they are nonetheless there.

But I posted, dammit, every single fucking day. I didn't want to at times, but I did it anyway. The habit--not the goal, not the willpower, or any of that finite stuff--is what got me here. That habit is what will push me forward to other success in writing, such as the book (10,000 Pots) that I'm working on now.

The power of the habit got me here. That power will allow me to become a success book writer and publisher, again by making a habit of writing and publishing books. That habit, now that I comprehend what it is and how it works, is something I can use to improve my health, my wealth, and anything else that I want to change to my benefit.

I'm not saying anything that someone has not. I am only testifying that doing this as a habit has delivered on the promises made, and thereby confirming an old saying: Excellence is a Habit; We Are What We Repeatedly Do.

(Oh, and my birthday is a week from today. It's going to be good.)

Thursday, September 29, 2016

My Life as a Gamer: I Hate The Tryhards

There is something about RPGs that drive me nuts, and that something is that too many of them bring on the tryhards. You've seen these guys. They're the theorycrafters who come up with simulations, from which they decree what is Best and what should be Benched. Be it World of Warcraft, Dungeons & Dragons, or Darkest Dungeon or whatever- they suck the fun out of the RPG genre by making it all about math and benchmarks and shit that you would only care about if you were competing at a level where that was worth a damn.

I ran into this in World of Warcraft, again.

The word is that my main character's primary specialization (Fury Warrior) is subpar for raiding. The details that the spergs leave out are:

  • The assessment comes from inaccurate simulations.
  • The simulations are inaccurate because the assumed conditions, at multiple points, are WRONG.
    • No encounter in the game fulfills the assumed encounter situation.
    • No character in the game fulfills the assume character build or Artifact Weapon build.
    • No player in the game fulfills the assumed performance capability.
  • That's FOUR wrong assumptions, and only ONE being wrong busts the validity of the simulation.

Let me put this simply: Bad Inputs Produces Bad Outputs.

And bad inputs are common as catpiss with these sperging tryhards, so of course they get bad outputs and then they make bad conclusions from them. The current suite of character guides at sites like Icy Veins show this, and the play culture that this sperg-driven dynamic creates turns players off from social play modes such as dungeons and raids. Why? Because you are either Best or you are Benched, especially with pick-up groups (who use conformity to the metagame narrative as shorthand for player skill, which is another Bad Conclusion from Bad Data).

This is why I stick to my guild as much as I can. Sounds player fundamentals are far more important than making certain your characters values in a spreadsheet meet some bullshit (and wrong) benchmark; someone who isn't The Right Build who Got Gud at what is expected out of a character of that class and spec in a group is a better pick than someone who shits rainbows out his ass on Warcraftlogs but stands in the fire, doesn't follow the kill order, or otherwise is incompetent at the most basic skills in the game and thus is dumber than advertised.

It's the difference between between putting a pro driver in a souped-up hot hatchback street racer and a kid fresh out of Driver's Ed in a top-tier Formula One car, and then having them do 500 laps around Daytona. The kid's far more likely to fuck up and wreck than the pro is to not perform the best he can with what he's got. Player Skill matters, and that skillset includes habits that go beyond what you do while you're logged into the game and playing.

There's more to Git Gud than how you math a spreadsheet when it comes to RPGs, something that too many spergs forget and thus fall into the trap of thinking that virtual robot fighting is all that there is to playing RPGs (especially those with no tabletop RPG experience, or only with tomes-of-rules sorts like Pathfinder, and not the real thing like the older D&D editions), and there is more to World of Warcraft in particular than raiding in general (and Mythic raiding in particular).

The tryhards need to stop sperging, and that includes those making the games. None of you are helping. NONE of you. Gaming is not a math equation, especially in RPGs, and you ain't going to make it so by stamping your feet and insisting on it. Want proof? Go play Diplomacy.

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Cashing Out: When To Move On

Early Voting has begun in many states, including where I live. I received my ballot for the General Election, and I've since filled it out and sent it back. Since I sent my ballot in, my interest in--my emotional investment in--this election dropped like the Hindenberg. I recognized what happened, which I will describe in casino terms: I cashed out.

Having done the one last thing I can do to influence this election in legal terms, what remains is persuading others to do as I did. Quite frankly, several others I follow are far better at doing this than I am and I hate reinventing the wheel. So, rather than do something I really don't want to do, I'm taking the return from my emotional investment and putting it to new investments that only I can (or want to) do. Writing 10,000 Pots is one of them. Finishing The Burning of Hugo and my other fiction projects is another. Playing my games of choice is also part of that.

In short, the principle behind financial investment--seeking a profitable return some point later--applies to human endeavor in general. You leave relationships when they take more out of you than they give, as you do with jobs and other things you put time and energy into in order to seek specific benefits from in return.

This is one of those skills that can only be mastered by doing it. You have to know when to move on, regardless of if what you move from was a good or bad thing for you. Experiences are living things, and living things inevitably die; thinking that a thing endures as the mountain, seeming for eternity, is a fool's game. Your father dies. Your dog dies. You will die. So will your job, your marriage, your status, and all other things in one's life; they grow, they wither- they change.

Staying in a situation where you cannot benefit or be of benefit helps no one and only makes things worse. That is when you move on. So, cash out your energy; take your emotional profit, or eat your loss, and move on. Go do something else, invest elsewhere, and begin anew another cycle of life.

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

A Simple Follow-Up to a Simple Idea

Just as gaming only has to concern itself with making good games, and getting better at playing them, so it is true that writers only have to concern themselves with writing good work while readers only have to get better at reading them.

I can repeat this with comics, film, television, academia, and more.

Just as with gaming, "Muh Diversity" and so on has no application to the field and should be curb-stomped into oblivion- and no further encroachment tolerated.

(My sister turns 40, so I'm going to do some family time, hence the short post.)

Monday, September 26, 2016

A Simple Lesson Simply Put

I'm putting an Appendix P into 10,000 Pots. Here it is in its entirety:

Appendix P: Pineapple on Pizza

I like it. I ain't got to explain or justify shit. Deal with it.

See that second sentence there? That's the lesson: you are not obligated to justify yourself or explain yourself to anyone else on command, or even on request. Contrary to what a lot of people errant believe, you don't have any obligation to do that.

Sunday, September 25, 2016

My Life as a Gamer: HIVE, E-Begging, & SJW Convergence

This is what SJW Convergence looks like, folks.

This woman put up a begging campaign so that she can push some Social Justice crap into whatever the fuck she's going to pass off as proper gaming product. In this case, it's to pay her way to an international SJW cult front meetup call HIVE (How appropriate for an SJW cult front). This is not about raising capital to do business where such had not been done before. This is not emergency aid to cope with an Act of God. This is someone who thinks that they ought to go to this event, which is wholly irrelevant to actually making good games, regardless of their own ability to pay their own way. Her statement at her e-begging page says as much (using the typical weasel words of that cult).

In short, she wants people to give her money to go to San Francisco (which is a red flag right there; so many SJW front orgs are out of San Francisco now, and afflict Silicon Valley therefrom) to listen to more successful SJW death cultists and network with other cultists so she can go back and be a more effective cultist pushing her poison to people who just want to play fucking games. Instead of what someone who actually brings value to any form of gaming actually does: make fucking games.

This is NOT about gaming. This is about furthering SJW convergence in the gaming world, about spreading the disease that is Social Justice, and making multiple media of entertainment (and the stores that sell them, and the events that feature them, etc.) nothing more than propaganda outlets that impose and enforce ideological mind control far worse than anything seen in the former Soviet Union (or in North Korea or mainland China now).

This is about someone who sucks hard and refuses to Git Gud, then resorting to the aid of a corrosive death cult to keep her in a position where she should not be on her own merit- and in return she'll make certain that no one else will ever be in a position to out-compete her and thereby show just how suck-ass she really is. (This pattern repeats with every other wanker in a scene who can't cut it, but whose ego won't allow them to admit it and either Git Gud or Get The Fuck Out.)

I'm going to make this crystal fucking clear to you chucklefucks:

THE ONLY THING GAMING NEEDS TO DO IS GIT FUCKING GUD. Nothing else matters. Nothing else even comes close.

In plain terms, the following:

  • Makers need to git gud at making games.
  • Gamers need to git gud at playing games.
  • Git Gud or GTFO.

That's it. That's all there is to it. You can take your intersectionality, micro-aggressions, Muh Diversity, Muh Representation, and all of that other utterly irrelevant and pointless bullshit and shove it up your asses. It has no place in gaming. It never had. It never will.

Saturday, September 24, 2016

My Life as a Shooter: Ruger Mark IV!

I haven't done a post about firearms in quite some time. Lots of stuff going on that I found more important than firearms, shooting, etc. to spend time on here at the main blog so that got shoved to one side- especially since the specialist gun bloggers have their beats on lockdown.

Then I got word that Ruger released the Mark IV.

I love a good target pistol, and that's what the Mark IV is: a full-sized semi-automatic handgun, chambered for .22 Long Rifle, intended to be used as a target pistol for recreational shooting, competition, or training purposes. While there are others that have, and do, fill this role (Browning's Buckmark and Smith & Wesson's Victory are most prominent right now.) Ruger's been around for decades and his earlier models still hold their value so long as you do your part and maintain it.

And that leads to the big knock on the Mark III and earlier versions. Disassembly is so bothersome that the manual can confuse you and now many just refer to a video to show you how to do it without messing it up or breaking something. Ruger knows this, and any new model had to address this long-standing criticism. With the Mark IV, Ruger delivers.

Goddamn. One-button, tooless disassembly. It's as simple as it is with an AR-15 (which is "Push in one pin, pull upper receiver off lower, done." for most purposes- i.e. field stripping and maintenance). I want a Target model yesterday, and a few more magazines for it.

And I have a birthday in two weeks. Just sayin'.

Friday, September 23, 2016

Gawker Still Hasn't Learned: The Unpersoning of Palmer Luckey

Gizmodo Media (formerly Gawker) hasn't learned from its losses in court. Neither has its fellow travelers. No sooner than Oculus founder Palmer Luckey comes out as a Trump support than the coordinated hit-pieces come up to attack him for it with slurs, and likely crossing the lines of defamation. It's good thing for he's not based out of Minnesota, because Defamation gets you put in jail here.

The SJWs in the business haven't learned their lesson either, and are now colluding against him for no other reason than his politics.

By the way, that "funding white supremacy" crack? That's false, and both Kuchera and Abrams know it's false. They're lying, in public (as they are Tweeting, which is public discourse), about Palmar with the intend to ridicule him and injury him in business and are NOT making fair commentary or acting in good faith. Again, in Minnesota, that's a crime; it's one of the reasons SJWs here have to be more careful than they are elsewhere. But these folks aren't careful; they're reckless and see no problem with going after anyone or anything they think will compel the target to comply with them.

They'll do it even if it, in and of itself violates their Narrative. For Palmer, they went after his girlfriend, Nikki Moxxi.

Such heroic figures. Such class acts. (Someone get those two copies of right away, or link them the Survival Guide. They need that shit NOW.) What we're seeing here is a classic Point & Shriek swarm attack, with the intent to Discredit & Disqualify prior Disemployment for BOTH of them. The idea is to cut them off from society and their support networks in order to terrify them into bowing down to them.

They do it because it works.

They do it because even being rendered bankrupt by a civil court decision will not stop them. As we've seen in the wake of the Hogan trial, many of those disemployed due to the bankruptcy at Gawker ended up at similar outfits and resumed their SJW convergence activities. What I also expected is that those still at Gawker (now Gizmodo Media) and its sister sites would just Double-Down and Project even harder in their Lies- as the Three Laws of SJWs demand.

They will keep doing it until they start feeling real, direct, and immediate pain in consequence for their actions. That will mean criminal arrests, as they will inevitably screw up someplace where their behavioral norms do not apply, and it will be repeated exposure of their wrongdoing punished by criminal arrests and prosecution that will finally put a real spanner in their Internet Hate Machine.

Until then, what you can do is go over their heads and write emails to their new owners--Univision--informing them that Uni's new subsidiaries are already going rogue and damaging Univision's brand by doing so.

If you are in a position to start digging down on these people, investigating what these SJWs do and how they do it, do so and expose it; if you won't expose it yourself then work through a cutout (Pax Dicksenson & Chuck C. Johnson's Wesearchr now allows user-generated bounties for information. Check their FAQ for how to blow the whistle.) to protect yourself. Maintain the boycott on their advertisers as best you can, and contact their advertisers to remind them of the damage to their brand they risk by association. Keep watching these SJWs like hawks, and once they step over the line hammer them good and hard; lawfare works.

Thursday, September 22, 2016

Getting Off The Pot: There Will Be Booky-Book

The other night, I'm hanging out in Oliver Campbell's Twitch channel as he plays Enter the Gungeon. I mention that I decided on putting out a book, but I wasn't down on the specifics yet. Well, now I am, and the reason is because of stuff I mentioned and he pointed out that night in chat.

10,000 Pots: How I Went From Writing Papers To This Book (Working Title)

My fiction works are stalled, and I need to do something and get it out. This? This I can do, do far faster, and with authority that you can feel in every word.

I've been writing in some form of another, on a routine basis, on a variety of topics, for almost 15 years. It started with writing papers as an undergraduate, wherein even my underclass courses had me writing something on a weekly basis per course. During that time I had an acquaintance get me set up at Livejournal, back when you needed an invite code. I made use of that for years as my primary blogging outlet. Then I went back into academia for graduate school, moved over to Dreamwidth, and in 2009 I started blogging here at Blogger. I've been doing weekly posts at two other blogs I run for years, and almost a year ago I began doing daily variety blogging here at this very blog. Here, there, elsewhere- millions of words, some informal and some quite formal.

That's discipline, folks. I made a habit out of writing. Sure, some posts and papers were longer than others. Some demanded different tones, different approaches, different voices, and so on, out of me but I did them. Some I did better than others, and where I goofed I figured out (with and without feedback) what I goofed and why.

I did this for years. I had not even noticed it until I reviewed the story about the potters that I reference in the tentative title. (Long story short: pottery students got split into two groups; one group agonized over one perfect pot and the other just made pots until they got it right; the latter group achieved competency faster through iterative improvement while the former got paralyzed through fear of failure.) The point here is that, while I coped with my own fear of failure, I iterated myself into a position of competency approaching mastery with regard to my writing- only specifics remained as frontiers to push, especially in the fiction side of things.

So, this isn't going to be a how-to book in the form of me instructing you how to write. It's going to be a show-you book in the form of me testifying about how I sucked, why I sucked, and how I iterated my way past various obstacles that resulted in you reading this very book. No, it's not going to be that big either; if I hit a page count equal to Gorilla Mindset or SJWs Always Lie, that will be the upper limit.

And this post? Part of what I learned, and I don't just mean building a hype train. Cernovich would get this in a heartbeat, and I bet Vox Day would also, by saying I'm going to do this thing.

Going indie with this, doing a Kindle release on Amazon first and later POD via Createspace, and I'm going to need some help when I get done with the manuscript. For now, if you have any better title ideas, throw them down in the Comments; I'll follow-up later on what help I need.

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Reposted: "Of Alt-West and Alt-White" by Vox Day

Since Twitter decided to puss-out and censor Vox Day, and this post is relevant to current events, I'm reposting it entirely here (with a link to the original post) so that it can be linked on Twitter. If you have an issue with it, go there and tell it to Vox's face; you bitch here and I'm deleting it out of hand.


Of Alt-West and Alt-White

The question is not whether there are at least two distinct branches of the Alt-Right already or not, but whether the Alt-White branch can get its swastika panties sufficiently unbunched to cooperate with the Alt-West and the Alt-Lite in the pursuit of its stated objectives, or if it is more interested in competitive navel-gazing and purity-spiraling.

After a few run-ins with true-believing Stormfronters who have been Alt-Right since the distant dawn of primordial identity politics in 2010, both here and on Twitter, it has become abundantly clear that the combination of a legitimate fear of entryism and an understandable case of spotlight envy, the Alt-White is having some serious trouble dealing with the inevitable problems of success and popularity.

It's rather like a company that has sales that are rapidly growing. The increase in demand for your products is great, but it is still a real problem. How are you going to get the additional products made? How are you going to pay for them? Are these new customers going to stick around or will they disappear before you can even expand your manufacturing capacity? These are good problems to have, but they are definitely problems that will need to be addressed.

First, is a distinction really necessary? Yes, without question. This should be obvious, since Alt-White, Alt-West, and Alt-Light are all different strains of identity-based thought that are all also observably distinct from mainstream conservatism or libertarianism. In this sense, all three are ALTernatives to the traditional RIGHT. Hence the Spencer-coined term.

Second, should all three be considered Alt-Right? Here I would argue no, that while it is reasonable to describe both Alt-White and Alt-West as Alt-Right, the Alt-Lite should not be. The reason is that while both Alt-White and Alt-West sign on to the greater part of the 16 Points of the Alt-Right I've laid out, and which most Alt-Rightists have generally endorsed, the various people who make up the Alt-Lite are all over the place with regards to most of them.

The Alt-Lite, in other words, is the larval form of the Alt-Right, which means that they are not, practically speaking, Alt-Right in any meaningful or functional sense. They are merely those still undergoing the intellectual transition that most Alt-Rightists have made, at one point or another. Alt-Lite is a transitional stage, not an end point.

By contrast, the Alt-White and Alt-West are both destinations. Once one gravitates towards one branch or the other, or as may be the case, is directed there by virtue of one's identity, one is simply not going to eventually move towards the other one. This leads us to the third question, what are the key differences between the Alt-White and the Alt-West. The following are my observations; I am quite willing to be corrected by someone who can speak more credibly for the Alt-White.

  1. Alt-White is for whites only. Alt-West is pan-racial and pan-national, which should not be confused with being multicultural or equalitarian or pro-diversity in the egalitarian sense.
  2. Alt-White is primarily concerned with white nationalism, and secondarily concerned with European nationalisms. Within the Alt-White, there is already a discussion concerning what the difference between a generic white nationalism and the specific European nationalisms are; I suspect there will eventually be a further distinction between American and European branches of the Alt-White. While the Alt-West supports white nationalism, that is not its sole concern, as it supports all nationalism, European or otherwise.
  3. Alt-White is neutral to hostile on Christianity. Alt-West is strongly pro-Christian, as it believes Christianity to be one of the three pillars of Western Civilization aka the historical Christendom. Pro-Christian includes, but does not require, actually being a Christian.
  4. Alt-White is neutral to hostile on Israel. Alt-West is pro-Israel, as it supports all nationalist homelands.
  5. Alt-White is hostile to very hostile to all Jews everywhere. Alt-West is friendly to Israeli Jews while hostile to globalist Jews and anti-nationalist Jews.
  6. Alt-White has a romantic view of National Socialism. Alt-West regards it as a suicidally stupid but semiotically useful form of German nationalism.
  7. Alt-White is neutral to pro-white imperialism. Alt-West is anti-imperialism, as it regards imperalism as being societally enervating and self-destructive.

As you can see, within the context of both the 16 Points and the grand political spectrum, Alt-White and Alt-West are largely in accord. They generally share a philosophy and a direction, but their priorities and perspectives are different. More importantly, with the possible exception of Christianity in the long term, there is very little reason for conflict between Alt-White and Alt-West, indeed, the distinction between the two eliminates the Alt-White's primary objection to the Alt-West, which is the possibility of being sidelined by the media and by the larger potential appeal of the Alt-West.

Some have accused me, and Milo, and several others, of wanting to assume the mantle of leading the Alt-Right. That is the exact opposite of the truth. In fact, one personal benefit of articulating the distinction between the two primary branches of the Alt-Right is that it makes it clear that a) there can be no unitary leader, and b) even if there could be, that unitary leader could not possibly be me due to my identity as an American Indian and member of La Raza.

The more significant benefit is to quell the fears of the Alt-White that they will be sidelined by their more numerous allies. But the Alt-West needs nothing from the Alt-White, and by establishing a separate identity, a much broader spectrum of members are made possible while respecting the rigid borders of the Alt-White. Regardless, the simple fact of the matter is that the Alt-White is not the only alternative to mainstream conservatism.

There are much bigger battles ahead than settling the question of whether Christianity is a necessary component of Western Civilization or not. Because we know the white race is absolutely a necessary component of it, and that is why, whether one is inclined towards the Alt-White or the Alt-West, every member of the Alt-Right who values both whites and the West has immediate and mid-range objectives remain exactly the same.

As before, this is not intended to be a definitive delineation of the differences between the two branches of the Alt-Right, but the starting point for an intelligent discussion. Keep it civil and substantive as those more interested in posturing will be spammed. As for those who will claim that Alt-West, Alt-White, and Alt-Lite are not genuine "things", keep in mind that as a political taxonomist, I am creating nothing. I am merely describing what observably already exists.

Labels: #AltRight, #AltWest, philosophy

In case anyone cares, I lean Alt-West, and that's due to being anti-imperialist (indeed, anti-empire) more than anything else.

YouTube Dun Goofed: YouTube Heroes

Well, we knew that YouTube has a serious Social Justice Warrior death cult problem--that it was converged--but why must they be so fucking predictable both in their schemes and in their incompetence? Here we have "YouTube Heroes", which is really just gamified snitching. I'm a bit late on this, as Breitbart already has an article on this bullshit.

Of course, this hasn't gone unnoticed.

Go on, see for yourself.

No one with a lick of sense does NOT see that this would be horrible. Be they moderate people within polite sensibility-

-or a thoroughly irreverent shitlord-

-is having this bullshit. It's being recognized for what it is: SJW Convergence mutating into Control Of The Narrative. This is the goal of SJW entryism: to repurpose the converged organization for the purpose of furthering control of the Narrative and spreading SJW influence elsewhere.

That's How Cancer Literally Works.

And that's why we say that SJWs are Literally Cancer, because by their behavior they demonstrate that this is so. Because cancer always kills what hosts it, that is why we say that SJWs are death cultists; what they converge they degrade and destroy, leaving naught but death and ruin in their wake. But, until it dies the cult continues to lie within lie to keep the lie alive for as long as it can- and that's what YouTube Heroes is: a lie upon a lie.

Time to fork YouTube, folks.

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Kek Wills It: Fork Alternatives NOW

He ain't kidding. The Establishment media complex has so thoroughly destroyed its credibility that no one of any sense takes them seriously anymore. I only care about the weather forecast, and now I double-check that against outside meteorological sources just to be certain. That, folks, is how bad American media is due to this election. No, it won't get any better. No, it doesn't deserve to recover; it's too far gone, so it needs to be put down, burnt to ash, and those ashes salted.

We have now exposed the Establishment media as being openly and wholly biased in favor of their own interests, which Sick Zombie Hillary represents this time around. Hit piece after hit piece thrown, only to be mocked and countered with irreverent meme magic that co-opts those rhetorical attacks and turns them against the Establishment. Meanwhile, that same alt-media now takes over actual reporting more and more. This has not gone unnoticed.

No matter how this election ends, or who becomes President of the United States, the damage done to the Establishment's primary means of day-to-day Narrative Warfare cannot be underestimated. The signs of that same Establishment looking to do something about it can be seen in the moves by social media corporations to actively suppress dissident speech, choke off distribution of dissident ideas, and cover their asses by handing off oversight of the Internet to the United Nations (and let states like Saudi Arabia have even more influence over it). That threat needs to be taken seriously, and it needs to be dealt with in the manner that the Internet itself operates: see it as damage to the network, and route around it as fast as possible.

That means forking alternatives, and then spreading word of them so they get the critical mass of users needed for the Network Effect to kick in and let it take over. I'm already set up at Gab.ai, and I think I'll set up at Minds soon also. I'm also aware that Vox Day and some of the Dread Ilk are also at work on forks of current popular social media, and I await their reveal and rollout. Forking decentralizes, and ruthless forking upon confirmation of convergence is necessary to ensure that the Internet remains decentralized enough to avoid conquest and closing of the frontier. Do it for Pepe. Kek wills it.

Monday, September 19, 2016

#The Kek Offensive: Shine On You Brilliant Shitlords

I got online today to find that Twitter is awash in Pepe memes, all part of a hashtag campaign to mock the living shit out of Sick Hillary and her gaff at calling Pepe a Nazi frog.

This is brilliant trolling, by some hilarious shitlords, and many a kek shall be had at the expense of Zombie Hillary. If you thought Trump's use of meme magic to transmute the Deplorables into power to fuel his momentum was something noteworthy, then the Kek Offensive should get your attention. Why? Because this is a popular resistence against a clearly shit candidate for one of the powerful government positions in the world, AND IT IS WORKING!

Here's a few (and only a few) of the ones I find most effective:

That last one was by professional political cartoonist Ben Garrison, so when you start getting profession shitlords on board you know it's going to blow up. This is meme magic in action, and it's already freaked out Heat Street enough to revert to its cuckish mean and apologize for it. (You morons; you know better.) And, in Kek's mercy, Pepe himself explains why meme magic is real and effective:

Gamergate was only the beginning. Now others have learned from it, and are employing its means and methods to fight their own battles. Listen to Pepe. Begun the Meme Wars have.

Shine on you brilliant shitlords.

Sunday, September 18, 2016

Globalism is Treason

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague."- Marcus Tullius Cicero circa 58 B.C.
Globalism is Treason.

The bombings in New York City and New Jersey, as well as the stabbing in St. Cloud (Minnesota), are predictable consequences of the treachery of the Globalists in the various levels of government in the United States. Whether it be in the name of a hostile religion, or of a hostile secular cult, both such inciting memetics only have the purchase in the West (in particular in the U.S., this time) due to the active pursuit of criminal treachery against the American Nation by these same Globalists.

Globalism is Treason.

Globalists openly admit that they want to move these alien and foreign nations into the West in order to change the demographics driving the West from one that resists their will into one far more compliant and manageable, where they get what they want done while living wholly and utterly segregated from those same alien and foreign nations- and ruthlessly suppress attempts to get at them.

Globalism is Treason.

Globalists believe themselves to be a truly transnational cosmopolitan elite that has at last solved the Praetorian Guard Problem with robot killers that they control (which is the real goal for Drones; they want Terminators), the Spartacus Problem with robot workers (which is why we will NEVER see a Basic Income out of them; robot workers cull people out of the workforce, to be culled out of the population by the Terminators), and the Mortality problem with Transhumanist medical technologies (so they outlive us, eventually becoming immortal if left unchecked). Once all of this is in place--and it's not yet--they'll get their Utopia, and the rest of us get discarded.

Globalism is Treason.

The plan, of course, means sacrificing everyone who is not them on their altar of Utopia: a sacrifice of blood, bone, and fire heretofore unseen in known history. As with the Social Justice death cult that they use with aplomb to get their way, they too lie, double-down, and project- and that also means sacrificing YOU for their power. Such is the legacy of treachery, starting first with betraying the very fundamental truth of their existence: they are are but Men, and not the Gods they believe that they can become, and never shall be more than that. Once you betray the truth itself, in favor of the Lie, the rest is easy by comparison and such criminality is second-nature.

GLOBALISM IS TREASON!

So deal with it as such, and give these traitors a traitor's end.

Saturday, September 17, 2016

Meme Magic is Real

Pack it up. Pack it in. Let me begin. Battle me? That's a sin.

No, that's the opening stanza to "Jump Around".

But damn if that is not what I just saw there. Folks, this is why Trump will win this election. He takes what sunk previous GOP candidates and turns it into energy and momentum for himself. This man is a goddamn genius of Rhetoric, a master at handling the media, and he has his finger on the pulse of the American people.

Remember all the people in the United Kingdom who woke up the day after Brexit won and said "What? How? Everyone I know voted Remain! Well, this is going to repeat itself with Hillary losing to Trump. All of the same elements repeat themselves, including a complete divorce from reality that the professional pundit class had from the common people- and those common people are sick of this shit. Folks who ordinarily stay home will vote. It's 1980 all over again, as I said before, but goddamn is it going to be a massacre. Goodbye GOP, and goodbye Dems. Good riddance to BOTH of you, you useless traitors and cucks.

Friday, September 16, 2016

Preach Gaming Presents: The Legacy of Wrath of the Lich King (& What It Says About MMOs)

Preach is a veteran World of Warcraft player based out of the United Kingdom (specifically, out of England), and he's one opinionated son of a bitch. That's why I like the guy. Most of what he does are gameplay guides, but he does do retrospective videos like this from time to time and when I saw this come into my YouTube feed I had to mark out time to watch it.

He delivered. While I did raid and do PVP in Vanilla and The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King remains my favorite of all of the expansions to date. (Yes, over Legion, and if Legion keeps delivering it will surpass Wrath by its end.) However, what I think was the big draw is something Preach only hits on early.

Wrath of the Lich King is the end of Warcraft 3.

For a lot of people, they wanted closure over the stories left unfinished when Warcraft 3 ended. World of Warcraft picked up a lot of them, and The Burning Crusade direct addressed one of those loose threads with Illidan. However, Arthas and the Scourge remained undone and so when Wrath hit of course folks piled on to play. They wanted to tie up those threads, and they got what they wanted in no uncertain terms.

The massive dropoff with Cataclysm is because, for many, the story was over.

Yeah, plenty of other factors involved, but for many those other factors were just excuses to justify their decision to end their subscription and stop playing the game. Mists of Pandaria and Warlords of Draenor did little to bring them back, and (despite the facts) popular perception of Pandaria being a Kung-Fu Panda knockoff was a huge repellent while Draenor being a Burning Crusade rehash made little friends.

Legion, on the other hand, is bringing folks back. Yes, going back to the well (Gul'dan and Illidan) gets knocked on, but as other lore bits come out and gets talked up folks who dropped away after Arthas died are seeing that the something they wanted out of the game seems to have returned. In short, Legion took up all of the remaining loose ends (Turalyon, the Army of Light, Argus, etc.) while clearing out figures whose narrative relevance has ended and is going all-in on the storytelling.

That's something a MMORPG publisher has to take notice of: you need both top-tier gameplay and quality storytelling to succeed IF, and ONLY IF you want to make a Themepark style of MMORPG. That translates as Relevant Things to Do, Competent Mechanism to Do It With, and Satisfying Explanations to Do It At All. You need all three things, and you need them in proper balance, if you want to succeed in the MMORPG space as such a style of product.

Thursday, September 15, 2016

Prime Goof: Dungeons & Donalds

I am not so serious or earnest all the time. I like my goof as much as the next guy, and this parody account on Twitter is hilarious.

I laughed something fierce. Maybe you need to be a gamer to get the most out of it, but normies can get the gist of most posts. This is just the sort of silly stuff that makes this election cycle's nastiness not so bad. Oh, and if you like decent political comedy this will be fine.

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

My Life as a Gamer: Legion Delivers

Yeah, talking World of Warcraft again. Sue me. I like the game.

On my main character I'm at the new cap of Level 110. I'm now delving into the endgame stuff that Legion has to offer, and so far it is working as intended. I have plenty of things to do, things to do in the world areas--the open zones of the Broken Isles--that actually matter, and I am loving it.

Yes, my alts are being neglected, and that's because I'm wanting to get ready for when the raids open next week. Other than getting on my Priest to do the daily cooldown for the materials needed to make Hexweave Bags (32 slots; still the biggest I know can be made), it's been my main doing stuff and gearing up.

Look, Legion delivers. It's yet to fail to do what it set out to do. The scaling works as intended. The questing, both as you level and once at the cap, works as intended. The dungeons work as intended. I expect that the raids will when released for players next Tuesday. Even the Order Halls work as intended, both in the revised mechanics reused from Garrisons and their use as a coherent quest chain in its own right. Hell, even PVP is fun to do again, and I haven't enjoyed PVP since The Burning Crusade.

Okay, now I'm not going to say you should start playing if you have never been a WOW guy, but if you are a lapsed player then wait for a sale and buy in then. You'll enjoy what you get, even if you end up playing a different class or spec than you used to (because all of them are very different now).

World of Warcraft: Legion delivers. It is everything that Warlords of Draenor should have been, but was not. It is an apology, and I accept it as such.

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Do You Even Check Who You Follow on Twitter, Man?

I get plenty of Follows and Unfollows over a week. Most of the come-and-go types are folks who can't be bothered to actually check the timeline of whom they consider following. I have this as the Pinned Tweet on my timeline:

Which refers to this Tweet by Daddy Warpig:

The common pattern is that someone follows me, thinking that I'm going to be just like this other guy that also follows me that they follow, and then I retweet a whole bunch of stuff from folks they can't handle or freak out about or post links to blog posts they don't care about (or get offended at) and unfollow.

They didn't take the 30 seconds it would take to scroll down my timeline and see what I routinely Tweet or Retweet, and then consider if they want to see that in their Twitter feed before hitting the Follow button. They're being careless, and then getting mad when their carelessness bites them in the ass.

Really, folks, take the time you spend taking a drink out of your coffee mug to review that user's timeline. Your experience with Twitter will greatly improve just by doing this as a routine habit. You will not need to block people nearly as often, if at all. You will not need to mute people nearly as often, if at all. Abuse, harassment, etc. are easily handled by you choosing wisely whom to follow before you do so; stop being dumb about what is entirely within your control.

Monday, September 12, 2016

Cloning Tabletop RPGs Ain't Hard, Bob.

Cloning a tabletop RPG ain't fucking hard, folks. Especially if you're not looking to publish it, but just use it at home. As proof of concept I'll do a bare bones clone of a Palladium Books game, just enough to get started playing at home.


You're using the d20 System as your engine. Don't even bother with anything else. You can count the tabletop RPGs that aren't really D&D in other-genre drag or have some different rules bolted on with one hand, and the rest are a bunch of wankerriffic unplayable crap you're better off burning for fuel or wiping your ass with, so don't fight it- make a virtue of necessity and just fucking use d20.

What you are NOT doing is using it blindly. You're going to strip this motherfucker down to its fundamental elements. For our purposes, that means the following:

  • The Six Standard Stats: STR, INT, WIS, DEX, CON, CHA. (Yes, we're junking Physical Beauty; no one cares and its useless, where what matters is Reaction Adjustment and that's Charisma. Speed is separate entirely.)
  • The Three Standard Saves: Fortitude, Reflex, Will. Don't need anything else.
  • The Core Mechanic: d20+Bonus vs. Target Number. Always Roll High.

See that? Lots of stuff folks expect as normal got junked: classes, levels, skills, Hit Points, etc. all tossed. Why? Don't need them!

Classes got junked because this is, in practice, a single-class game: Everyone's a Mech Pilot. Levels got junked because they don't do what you need from them for this game. Skills are irrelevant as-written; what matters is what you're trained to do, and that requires time and effort. The same is used for damage or injury and recovery; you need time, materials, and a secure location. That also means that XP gets junked; you want to improve? Then you have your man mark out the time necessary to put in the work, and then do it- just like real life. Furthermore, certain basics are just assumed; these assumptions, in a published work, would be specified and spelled out so there's no time wasted arguing about it.

Mechs work as wholesale stat block replacements, and there is a scaling system in place for Man/Mech interactions.

Damage is a flat out Fortitude Saving Throw, meaning each attach is Save or Suck if not Save or Die. Attacks are vs. the target's Reflex Save, by default an opposed roll; vs. mooks that should just be Save+10. Armor flat-out negates attacks, provides a bonus to the save, or both. Scaling differences have similar effects, often in both directions. Specific damage effects (disarms, etc.) are adjudicated at the table by the GM as he sees fit.

Character Generation: Roll 2d4+8 in the above order. The minimum score ensures baseline competency, while selecting for above-average scores as the norm (vs. the usual 3d6 distribution), which is necessary for mech pilots. All character are the same species, and assumed to be male aged 16-21 (1d6+15). Your pilot is Trained as a Soldier, a Fighter Pilot, an Astronaunt, and a Mech Pilot.

  • Fundamentals: Competent with English, written and spoken. Competent with basic arithmetic, physics, geometry, calculus, and trigonometry.
  • Soldier: Basic military training assumed. Is physically fit, has basic unarmed melee combat training supplemented with knife, club (baton) and spear (bayonet) training. Competent with pistols, shotguns, and rifles. Knows basic military protocols.
  • Fighter Pilot: Knows basic and military flight protocols. Can land on a carrier, fly at night or in severe weather. Can fly any small plane. Can fly any aerospace fighter. Competent dogfighter.
  • Astronaut: Can fly any space or trans-atmospheric boat or small ship. Knows spaceflight and re-entry protocols. Competent in zero-G and knows how to use a spacesuit.
  • Mech Pilot: Knows basic and military mech protocols. Familiar with all Earth mechs; Competent with his specific assigned model.
Your man starts with his assigned mech, the rank of 2nd Lieutenant, assigned housing, and a monthly salary of $2000. Whatever else he needs will be issued when he is deployed into the field, at the GM's discretion.

Design Intent: What matters is "Can you do this under stress?" in terms of skill, so a binary proficiency system is a good idea. This employs, in a freeform fashion, Feats. It starts with Familiarity (i.e. can do it; 20 hours of training and practice), Competence (400 hours gets you a roll without incompetence penalties), and Mastery (10K hours; removes all possibility of fucking up on your end of the roll). In short: Can Do It, Can Get It Right, Can't Get It Wrong.

Binary conditions are also commonplace in the playable spaces: either you did the thing or you did not , you got hurt or you did not, etc. and there is no reason to fuck it up with mechanics that don't work this way. When relevant, removing or adding conditions (e.g. Mastery of your Mech means your attacks and saves can't auto-fail on a Natural 1, because you Can't Get It Wrong; you can only be bested by your opponent (i.e. lose the contested roll).)

Damage and Injury interacts by countering benefits or imposing penalties. (e.g. Enough damage to your Mech and you can auto-fail again until you swap or get it fixed.) Aside from the use of Saves, this is deliberately left unspecified because this is best handled at the table by the GM to make rulings on the spot according to the emergent events arising in play.


Now I'll have to clean this up if publication is the plan, but for home use this is just fine. Things that need to be cleaned up can be done at the table, and should be anyway in response to player feedback; that's just good playtesting protocol. However, this is a viable, playable Palladium clone. All you need to settle on from here is how to stat up the mechs themselves; I suggest using the existing Size categories as a basis, and introduce a basic Scale interaction rubric for when Dick tries to use anti-mech rockets on foot against Fabulous Fromage's mech.

Sunday, September 11, 2016

Narrative Warfare: #SickHillary Collapses & MSM Acts Like Baghdad Bob.

Yes, I am following the election. How can I not? The amount of effort I would have to put in to avoid all contact with the election would end with me living in total isolation until some time next year. (You forget, folks, that December is when the Electoral College meets and then in January is the legal transfer of power between President and President-Elect. Earliest time to end this show is February.) The folks I have on my Twitter feed are on the ball with this election season, such as Mike Cernovich, to the point of driving news cycles and campaign strategies.

That old bitch is dying, and we are well into replaying Weekend at Bernie's (or, if you prefer the original, What's the Matter With Harry?), putting the DNC and Sick Hillary's campaign into panic mode. Vox Day is right to suspect that she won't make it to Election Day at this rate, and after looking at the footage I concur with that opinion. Trump should be hammering away at Sick Hillary's health issues, which are far worse than previous episodes such as those of Woodrow Wilson or Franklin D. Roosevelt, as it shows both the degeneracy of the Democrats as well as their desperation to hold on to the White House.

But I'm going to step back a bit. It's not about the Dems or the GOP, but about the fact that both parties (as revealed by the "conservatives", the Cuckservatives, who are actually conserved (and conserve) nothing and never have) are both controlled by folks like George Soros and do put on political theater to disguise how American government power actually works. What Sick Hillary's campaign reveals is that both parties prefer weak individuals to occupy the office, around whom a junta coalesces that actually runs the show; this has been the case since Nixon, regardless of the party- yes, even (especially) with Saint Reagan.

Sick Hillary is a puppet, just as her husband (also looking and acting more like a walking corpse), for the people who run her campaign and at the control of those who finance it. It was true of Obama (and Romney, and McCain), it was true of Bush 43, Reagan, Ford, and Carter- and it would be again under Sick Hillary. She's be used to do the frontman work, but actual shot-calling would be done by hidden unelected individuals kept far from public scrutiny- much as it was with Bush 43 and Obama. The shit conditions we have now, WORLDWIDE, would certainly get worse with Sick Hillary in the White House.

(Aside: Bush 41, Nixon, and LBJ were just as bad; the difference is that they were active co-conspirators and not puppets. The closest thing to an honest President we've had until now was John F. Kennedy, and he was no angel by any means. He was merely his own man, as Trump is, and that alone was what got him killed. That Trump also has no need for their money makes him even more dangerous to them.)

Part of that includes using the power of legal, legitimate ownership of media assets to control the narrative of this election. That's why the mainstream media, the Establishment media, is so routinely in the tank for Sick Hillary. This power to control public perception, to control what is said and what those words mean, is not to be dismissed as irrelevant; it is that very power that's kept this hoax of an Estalbishment going for nearly a century. They're doing Baghdad Bob bullshit.

Now one fucking man, using a few mobile apps, a smartphone, and a laptop computer with a strong and fast Internet connection, has blown that Establishment media out. One fucking man: Mike Cernovich. Others already in the alt-media game piled on, such as Paul Joseph Watson out of Infowars, and more followed that lead (e.g. Mark Dice, WeAreChange, VDare, et. al.) to show the people at-large that this story wasn't getting served- and in turn served the MSM their pink slips. Look, just go read and follow Cernovich already; he's on this like white on rice. Watch his Periscope streams, sub to his YouTube channel (which he should use more often), and buy his books. Dude's making good on the promise of the power of the Internet- and showing YOU how to be better than him as he does it.

We're getting the Trumpenreich, and in large part it's due to citizen journalists like Mike Cernovich doing this in his spare time, because no one respects frauds or weakness in leadership (which is why those past examples concealed it utterly while in office) Now that we have one clear example of counter-action in Narrative Warfare that works, we're seeing the Globalists wanting to shut it down; watch for more of that, on top of what we've got now, in the months to come.

Saturday, September 10, 2016

My Life as a Gamer: The Round-Up

World of Warcraft

Late last night, just after the 10pm news, I hit Level 110 on my main character. I would have hit that on Wednesday, but tech issues last week fucked me out of two days; nonetheless, I'm there and ready to get going- oh wait.

I did this through using Order Hall missions that award XP to your character, every Profession quest I encountered, and then all--and I do mean all--of the quests in just two zones: Stormheim and Highmountain. I still have to play through Azuna and Val'sharah before moving on, and I still have to do Suramar before I can unlock World Quests. During this time, I have to run at least two dungeons (Eye of Azshara and Darkheart Thicket), and I've already got a quest for a third (Maw of Souls), and I have to finish my Order Hall campaign.

Gearing up, therefore, is going to be delayed; I can only hope to meet the minimum Item Level needed for Heroic Dungeons by Tuesday, and I likely won't without going total No Life (and I don't like doing that). As I write this post, I'm listening to #9 of Laps Around Dalaran (the Fatboss TV podcast) and they're talking about how the endgame right now has all you need to keep you busy on just one character for weeks--if not months--on end. As I expected, Legion is not that alt-friendly- especially right now during the launch period. However, it is casual-friendly; if you're not a Mythic Raider or Rank 1 Gladiator you will not be disappointed at there being a wealth of worthwhile things to do at the cap.

Hearthstone

This week's Brawl is a repeat Brawl--the one with preset decks, but you choose a second class at the start and that class's cards get mixed into it--so I knocked out a few quests and used the accumulated gold to buy another Adventure wing. As I maintain a strict Free To Play policy with this game, I'm well behind the curve on Adventures, so don't expect me to go nuts on the Karazhan Adventure anytime soon. That sad, the free prelude for Karazhan--and the one associated Brawl--have been hilarious so far.

Steam

Like anyone else with two brain cells to rub together, I only buy on Steam when the game is on sale. I got the Anniversary Edition of Titan Quest (which includes the sequel) and the Ultimate Edition of Dragon Age: Origins recently, for $12.50 total. Damn. Right now, Styx: Master of Shadows is on sale for under $8 and I'm tempted to snatch it up despite just being added to a backlog of games, and I'm thinking that I have refrain now in anticipation of a more desired game's inevitable turn to be deeply discounted.

Fantasy Flight Games

Their license contract with Games Workshop expires in a few months, so all of their licensed games will go out of print and Organized Play using them will cease to exist. Anyone who did not see this coming is a fool. Either Games Workshop is not satisfied with the work relative to the reward, or they found another party that will do what FFG did in a way GW benefits better from and a new contract will go to them. If you like what FFG did, the time to buy their shit is now. (For me, that means only Talisman, and I don't care that much.) Not that I think FFG will feel much in the way of pain; they've got plenty of other popular properties, many of them owned by FFG, and will do just fine (barring SJWs running that company into the ground).

Attack on Titan

I've been watching Oliver Campbell and MisfitDruid at Twitch play this game. Oliver's doing it on PS4, while Misfit's doing it on PC, and I realized a few things right off the bat: I rather like how this game plays, despite not being a fan of that genre of game in general; they did a good job of translating the anime into a playable product (making something go from passive consumption to active participation is a challenge); the team behind this game knew their limits and respected those limits, resulting in what they could do being rather well done. Go look it up, and wait for a sale if you want to buy into it.

Friday, September 9, 2016

Muh Representation: Still Utterly Fucking Retarded

Most Social Justice cultists are white dudes with some bullshit psychology defects who got sucked into the cult. That defines damn near all of the tabletop RPG death cultists and virtue-signalers, such as those who put that bullshit into D&D's 5th Edition. You'll never see this shit out of a Japanese RPG house (and they do exist) because it is so pants-on-head retarded that you have to be brainwashed or insane to think otherwise.

And that, folks, is why you see it in tabletop RPGs now: because the folks who run them are brainwashed, insane, or fucking retarded. Do yourself a favor, cut them off, and go make your own; it's not at all as hard as you think (or these people would be making the real money, in videogames).

Thursday, September 8, 2016

Vogel's Right: It IS About the Experience

He's right. The power of videogames is that they provide virtual experiences to the player. This is why, as early as the late 1970s, the U.S. military began digging into this technology for training purposes. (The commercial release of the tank trainer, Battlezone is the evidence of this fact.) This trend would go on to include Law Enforcement agencies adapting training films to become interactive exercises, supplementing real-world force-on-force training, which would be fed back to the military in due course, and then used as a recruiting tool (e.g.

So yes, the real worth in the medium is in provision of experience to the player in a manner that allows nigh-direct translation to real life situations. Put this way, it is not hard to see why Vogel argues that they are not art but superior to it.

Play Real-Time Strategy games? You learn how to develop resources, plan and execute a strategy (and change it to adapt to changing circumstances), all under stress. That's leadership training. Play a fighting game? You learn about timing, tactical decision making, how to get inside the other guy's OODA loop, and training yourself to be cool under pressure; that's not just useful for athletes, but for ANY competitor. RPGs? Self-assessment coupled to development planning and implementation, under a paradigm of persistent effort and delayed gratification, often in a team-based environment, while pursing objectives both personal and communal (and learning how to prioritize them). And all of them, to varying degrees, reward persistence over time--the entire Git Gud mentality--as central to defeating the challenges presented.

This is not idle talk. The conversation about videogame design, as with tabletop game design, is in terms of player experience now. Not just the often-cynical tone taken about "retention" and "engagement", but actually getting into the psychology of what experience is and how it works (at varying degrees of competence and sophistication) is a big deal right now because it's making big bucks for those that nail it. In other words, delivering on the experience produces results- results that show up on the balance sheet.

All that SJW bullshit? It doesn't. That's why it gets rejected. Hard. Deliver on the experience players want and profit. Fail and die.

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

My Life as a Gamer: Take Your Franchise Seriously When Expanding It

The RPG experience is videogames is markedly different from what it is in tabletop. First, and foremost, videogames cannot yet deliver on the sorts of experiences that tabletop RPGs allow simply due to differences in medium. That is a matter of technology and overcoming it may prove to be more trouble than its worth. Second, and almost as important, is that the commercial demands for a viable business imposes constraints above and beyond that which technology alone achieves. These two factors account for why the RPG in videogames routinely conforms to a themepark style of gameplay experience.

Expanding on a successful themepark RPG has risks, same as any other franchise expansion. Be it a MMORPG (such as World of Warcraft), or a single-player RPG (such as Dragon Age or Path of Exile), or some form of blend (e.g. Dragon's Dogma), you run the risk of souring the entire franchise when you add something that is dissonant in tone to the existing corpus. That's why you test early, often, and repeatedly well before you go live- and you start by making it work on paper, as if it were a tabletop RPG.

So, let's show where you start and that's with writing it down. I'll demonstrate using a fictional (but popular) example: adding Vrykul as a playable character race option to World of Warcraft.


(Note: This version is the version I envisioned during the time of the Cataclysm expansion and doesn't take into account what came up since. Upon request, I shall post a new one that I came up with to account for what we know now as of Legion.)

Vrykul Player-Character Proposal

Design Intention: Vrykul characters entering the ranks of the Alliance or the Horde are meant to be few in number and grow slowly in population over time. This is due to being assimilated by conquest in the wake of the Northrend Campaign against the Scourge and the Lich King. The requirements for creating a Vrykul character should be lightened or removed if future expansions create circumstances that permit it without creating an inconsistency with the lore to date.

Requirements: A player must have on his account the following to enable Vrykul as a character option:

  • A character at the level cap for the desired faction.
  • A character that is Revered with either the Valiance Expedition or the Hand of Vengeance for the desired faction.
  • A character who has the Fall of the Lich King Achievement, either 10 or 25-Man.

Classes: A Vrykul may be a Warrior, Hunter, Mage, Shaman, or Priest.

Racial Abilities: All Vrykul have Titan's Legacy (Active, 3min CD; as Dwarf Stoneform, turns the player into an iron-skilled model for the duration). Horde Vrykul have Val'kyr's Kiss; Alliance Vrykul have Titan's Will (as Way of the Forsaken, same CD). They speak Common (Alliance) or Orcish (Horde) and their own language (Vrykul). Racial mounts are protodrakes (flying) and dire bears (ground).

Starting Zone and Play Experience: Vrykul characters, like Death Knights, begin above Level 1 and aligned with the Scourge. They have their own starting zone and play experience. Vrykul begin in Howling Fjord, fighting the Alliance and the Horde for the Scourge and the Lich King. The emphasis here is in proving one's worth, as the Val'kyr are watching on the Lich King's behalf, so that one can ascend in power and prestige to become one of the Lich King's champions. However, the war goes against the Vrykul and they conquered tribe by tribe and zone by zone to the feet of Icecrown until they are faced with an unbeatable force and faced with the choice of surrender or death. This choice masks the player's decision of which faction to align with, and the epilogue integrates the Vrykul character into the Cataclysm events with a survey of major changes post-Icecrown before feeding them to either Mount Hyjal or Vash'jir.

Part One of the zone is where the character spawns. He is Level 75, and he spawns just outside Utgarde Keep. His initial mission is to repel the Alliance forces besieging the village right outside, followed by providing relief to the flanks held by the Horde on the cliffs to either side. Then he is sent away to assist the Vrykul at Skorn and at Gjallerhorn, only to find that in his absence Utgarde Keep has fallen and King Ymiron had been slain when Utgarde Pinnacle had been sacked. He fights to protect a retreat to Grizzly Hills, only to fall under a two-pronged attack by the Horde there; held in place by the Orcs while the Forsaken bombard them with the an early version of the Plague. Forced to flee, he gets the call to gather at the Wrathgate, where he participates at the side of the Lich King until the Forsaken plague ends the battle.

Part One introduces the character to Sylvanas and Tirion, and through Tirion hears about Varian. Sylvanas and Tirion take note of the player late in Part One and begin to order their subordinates to target the player in particular, recognizing the player as a rising Scourge champion. Basic abilities for the class the player chose are parceled out similar to how Death Knight abilities are, and specific quests are designed to make use of them; this, by necessity, means some quest tweaking to ensure the success of this goal. Talents are likewise parceled out slowly, instead of dumped all at once, and quest design adjusted accordingly. The player ends Part One at Level 77.

Part Two begins with the player in Icecrown. He is sent to assist Scourge forces in resisting the Argent Crusade's advance into Icecrown, and then in resisting the Ebon Blade's attempt to establish a base in Icecrown, before he is sent to lead a large Scourge force against the site of the Argent Tournament. When that raid is defeated, he fights in the Arena against Sylvanas, then against Varian, before he faces Tirion in a fight that the player cannot win; beaten, he is sent back to Icecrown to tell the Lich King that the Crusade marches on Icecrown. The Lich King orders the player to stand at the foot of Icecrown and hold the line at all costs. This battle, against the Crusade and the Alliance, goes just as badly as expected; overrun, his forces destroyed or fleeing, Tirion and Varian confront the player- surrender or die. If the player chooses to surrender, his weapons are broken and his armor stripped from him as he's taken in chains away. If the player chooses to die, Varian executes him; Sylvanas appears with a Val'kyr to raise up the player as undead and takes him away. Part Two ends at Level 80.

Part Three is the Epilogue. The player's character now has all Talents and abilities of any other character of that class, and receives from this series of quests a set of gear one would expect of any character who had moderate success in raiding Icecrown Citadel during Wrath of the Lich King, enough so that he is not immediately replacing gear upon his first steps into Hyjal or Vashj'ir. It ends with Varian or Sylvanas formally accepting the Vrykul into the Horde or Alliance; the character's Reputation is Friendly with all other races and Honored with his own as well as with that of their patron- a reflection of the prestige of that leader. Then he gets the breadcrumb to start on Cataclysm and goes from there normally.


Notice that I rarely talk numbers here, and then only as easy references to known elements (racials) or gameplay benchmarks (levels). The idea at this stage is to see if the concept itself conforms to established canon of lore, has a compelling concept that compels further elaboration, and otherwise gets the attention of the rest of the team. Using a known example (Death Knights) helps to make this easier to pitch successfully, and allows discussion to move immediately to details rather than spend time hammering out basic expectations. It also makes it easier for you to avoid making something that won't sit well with what your player expect out of your game.

What would a World of Warcraft player expect out of a Vrykul addition? Given the time I mention above, it would be utterly dissonant to NOT play out a starting experience like what I outline above. There is no other easily-accepted way to make playable Vrykul happen successfully at that time. (That is not the case now. Legion did a lot to change the circumstances.) There are other ways, but they require far more work to achieve the same end; it involves making use of all the lore surrounding Ulduar, but the structure is the same: fight Alliance & Horde, lose, choose to go with one of the winners. The reason it's harder? For all the love of Ulduar as a raid, the dungeons that went with it weren't so well received (especially Halls of Stone), and the excitement of playing the losing side of the entire reason for the Northrend War is lost- only in retrospect would anyone involved realistically perceive the important of all of the events involving Ulduar. Far less risky to go with the dramatic hotness of the Lich King.

There are other risks involved, but you eliminate most of them from the get-go if you take your property seriously when you aim to expand upon it and fulfill the expectations that you'd already established for your audience- expectations that your audience took up and invested greatly into. Don't fuck that up; give them what they paid for, literally and otherwise. Don't include anything else- anything at all. They want a classic cheeseburger. Don't give them tofu patties.

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Narrative Warfare: Yes, Virginia, SJWs Are Delusional

The response to the 1st Annual Dragon Awards has been nothing if not entertaining in its own right, right down to the predictable results from the SF-SJWs who are desperately trying not to look like they're scared shitless that the crap they foist via the wretched Hugos and the decrepit WorldCon just got its shit pushed in again by the real SF/F fans going to cons that actually want them there.

You've seen it all by now, so I won't belabor the point, but I'm going to hammer something that came over my feed last night that keeps cropping up like the Herp:

The Tweet Oliver replied to? The usual SJW thing about Muh Diversity and Muh Representation. Of course the coward nuked that Tweet when she got gainsayed good and hard, blaming Muh Mentions and so on. But, if you really want confirmation that SJWs in the writing and publishing world really are as delusional as advertised, and you hate your Sanity score, go on and check that nutball's timeline.

Of course, this means that it's time to summarize this insanity, which I did in part below:

It ain't hard to do something similar for Muh Diversity and the like. These cultists are so fucking retarded that they truly believe that their crazy bullshit ideology. They are so far into their echo chamber that they fail to see the collapse of the old publishing world, the one that they converged, as Amazon (and the self-published authors that increasing work with them) as well as new outfits like Castallia House kneecap them and leave them to be eaten by the zombie horde.

They can't create. The books festooned with all the honors that they can bestow sell for shit compared to competent writers who know how to do the hustle, and where to do it. (Just look at Brian Neimeier's Souldancer vs. N.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Estate.) When put into a field that they do not control, and people are free to choose, they choose the stuff that's got competent storytelling that fulfills actual needs from the audience- which is not the SJW propaganda pap. Your race, sex, age, position about pineapple on pizza, etc. doesn't mean shit; your ability to tell a fucking story does.

Merit. SJWs don't have it, and you (and I) know it. That's why they have to rely on begging, bullshiting, and bullying to get buy while the rest just fucking write and publishing stuff people will actually pay for and read with joy. SJWs. Not even once.

Monday, September 5, 2016

LeoPirate: The #CONLeaks & Pro-Pedo Crash Override Network

Note: If Leo's video gets nuked, I'll try to edit in a mirror.

Look, here's the TL/DR: Leo's nailing it here. What these leaks expose is that the entire anti-Gamergate narrative is a bald-faced lie while they are guilty of everything that Gamergate accused them of doing. Conspiring to dox their enemies, organizing harassment campaigns to target their enemies in order to silence them online and nuke their income via disemployment, and using their media connections and industry connections to manage their narrative while damaging others.

Oh, and actively intervening to protect a fucking child predator. That's right, they protected a pedophile.

These chat logs confirm that Vox Day's Three Laws of Social Justice Warriors are tack-driving accurate and precise in being a correct:

  • Social Justice Warriors Always Lie.
  • Social Justice Warriors Always Double-Down.
  • Social Justice Warriors Always Project.

(Buy the book already and do yourself a huge favor.)

Aside from Cheong, who did a Heel-Face Turn and switched sides, all of those in these logs remain enemies of gaming and gamers. They should be dealt with as such, with no mercy due to being allies and enablers of a pedophile.

Sunday, September 4, 2016

Ahoy is Back! The FAL in Videogames

Ahoy's back, and this time he's talking about the FAL and its history in videogames.

For its purpose, Ahoy's commentary is spot-on. What he missed is that, like the American intervention that forced the FAL into a full-powered rifle cartridge, the FAL's disproportionate appearance in videogames stems from American dominance of the genres where it would be found. Both the makers and the players suffer from a lack of history behind the tools and events that the games present, so it is not surprising to see that left on the table until later when European houses and actors in the business could get noticed and heeded.

By the way, Ahoy ain't kidding about the performance of the FAL. Various knockoffs are making their way into the American firearms market, albeit as semi-automatic only rifles (no full-auto capability), and that recoil is noticeable. That's why you don't see such firearms used outside of a Designated Marksman or Sniper role these days when used by institutional operators. (And no, those are not interchangeable terms.) Even so, the M1A (the semi-auto only version of the M14) is still more popular in the U.S., and more available, even at higher prices.

Saturday, September 3, 2016

My Life as a Gamer: The Need for Player Engagement

Welp, it finally happened. I'm watching the World of Warcraft panel at PAX West, and the devs announce a free companion mobile app for Legion that focuses on managing the Class Order Hall and monitoring the World Quests in the Broken Isles. The joke about Garrisons became real.

I ain't even mad. Like it or not, mobile apps to handle the busywork end of MMORPGs should've become a thing years ago. So far, only a mobile authenticator and (for a fee) access to the Auction House, but this changes things. (Oh, and it will be available on Tuesday for Android and iOS, usual sources.)

So, why is this a big deal? Player Engagement.

The successful gaming businesses focus around keeping players engaged with the game as much as they can. For MMORPGs in particular, what that means is finding ways to get players to think about and pay attention to the game above and beyond logging in to do a raid or fight in the Arena once they hit endgame. Some go all Merchant Lord and play the Auction House. (Hello, Elvine!) Many are champion bonecrushers that dominate in PVP, and others are veteran dragonslayers for whom the raid game is the game. A lot of folks get into sourcing raw materials for crafters, and those crafters make gear to supply demand.

But most folks have real world commitments or interests that don't allow them to be logged in for more than the length of a NFL Football game (and often less than your standard pro soccer match), so if they're not already in the running for raiding or PVP they often drift off as there is little engagement from the game.

This mobile app, and others like it, provide an alternative to being logged for a significant number of players. This makes the app part of a larger scheme of retention mechanisms designed to prevent players from leaving an active state of participation by allowing them to participate in part of the game when they can't be logged in and playing. As most players are working adults, with other demands on their time, having a thing to permit them to stay in the game keeps them engaged- and engagement means retention, which means more revenue.

For the far-thinking game business, this sort of thing is a logical bridge between introducing a subgame and spinning it off into its own thing. Gwent, for example, from The Witcher 3, is now on this path. Had there been a Gwent mobile app that allowed you to play Gwent using one of your game saves, that would've hit big and showed demand for a stand-alone spinoff.

And no, tabletop people, you should NOT ignore this. Hell, you should've been on this like white on rice years ago with mobile apps for rolling dice, managing character sheets for players and NPCs; to be fair, some of you have done something like this, usually in the context of wargaming, but you RPG motherfuckers need to step up- or allow someone else to fill that niche for you, as you're now doing with Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds. Having ways to stay engaged away from the table is a good idea for all gaming media, and finding a way to make it a revenue stream without being scummy about it is what will make it work for you.

Friday, September 2, 2016

1980: The Year the Rot Set In

I've been tracking the results of digging into the trends influencing the publishing of science fiction and fantasy since the original impulse to dig into Appendix N of the 1st edition of the Dungeon Master's Guide for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons in the hope of explaining why so much changed in tabletop RPGs since 1974.

This lead to me reading the Castalia House blog's series on Appendix N, itself in part inspired by Grognardia's digging into that list of old genre fiction that informed Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, and other early tabletop RPG creators in the late '60s through the '70s, and recently came a post that made some interesting conclusions. Vox Day already quoted the most relevant part of the post, so I'll direct you to his post on this matter if you want his remarks (which mirror my own thoughts). The same applies to his remarks regarding Brad Torgersen on the reality of SocJus tolerance..

What it comes down to is that 1980 seems to be a breakpoint.

Look, I can go on about this, but that would unnecessarily duplicate effort already spent in the linked posts and their comment threads. Yes, go read the comments, because you're getting good commentary and additional information that the posts proper omitted. What matters is this: The folks who left in 1980, and their descendants, are coming home and making SF/F great again.

Thursday, September 1, 2016

Narrative Warfare: YouTube Begins the Purge of WrongThink

YouTube began demonetization of videos it deems unfriendly to advertisers. So far, all but a few targets are anti-SJWs. As many people pay some or all of their bills by way of ad revenue sharing, this attack by Google and YouTube is an attack on independent media. Sounds absurd? Let's hear from one of the most potent independent media figures as of this post: Mike Cernovich.

That which the Social Justice death cult controls is converged to serve the cult over all other concerns. (When folks like me refer to this phenomenon as "convergence", and things so afflicted as "converged", that what we're talking about: turning the org into a front for spewing forth death cult bullshit.)

The soft always precedes the hard. "Voluntary" measures always precede mandatory ones, and what this means is that the wise recognize this as the tell warning of the purge. This demonetization is the first soft step, aiming to starve independent media outlets out of business and thus preserve the Mainstream Media from that threat. The next will be channel closures going up in frequency and for channels that are not meant to provoke and outrage (such as Evalion).

Now, before this goes off on the Doom & Gloom train, let's think for a moment. As I write this post, I've chatted with one of the ladies who follows me on Twitter. It's been a moderate discussion, and we've come upon a point that I think is a silver lining: that this system is not really in the hands of either channel creators or advertisers. Rather, it's data-driven and bot-executed according to some algorithm with minimal human oversight- and those people are YouTube personnel. What I think would be beneficial for both creators and advertisers is for more human control, and by those two parties in particular, in this process.

In short, if I run a channel that does videos about handguns then I want to link up with an advertiser selling accessories for handguns such as holsters or travelling lockboxes. That's not how it works right now, and instead such arrangements must be done outside of any structure that YouTube provides. (There's that "Just make and maintain the damned road." paradigm again popping up; make it easy for people to access your marketplace, and do business there, but otherwise staying out of it.) Instead, it's being used to control what is said--idea propagation--and that's why I oppose it.