I'm all for the controversy for this game.
Hell, I'm for a child of active duty servicemen playing this game and getting upset.
You know why? Perhaps this will be enough of a shock to stay with these kids and when they grow up, they can vote with that small amount of emotional scarring in mind.
I feel that the average person is too far removed from what real violence our fighting men and women are in; and for these games to have just enough of that real world to taste bitter, is just fine with me.
We've wasted too many good people in Afghanistan and Iraq. There have been too many lives lost and broken to justify any sort of "victory" from these ruinous wars.
Besides, isn't that what our men and women really fighting for? The freedom of speech, self-expression and choice? Give them the decision.
Hell, I'm for a child of active duty servicemen playing this game and getting upset.
You know why? Perhaps this will be enough of a shock to stay with these kids and when they grow up, they can vote with that small amount of emotional scarring in mind.
I feel that the average person is too far removed from what real violence our fighting men and women are in; and for these games to have just enough of that real world to taste bitter, is just fine with me.
We've wasted too many good people in Afghanistan and Iraq. There have been too many lives lost and broken to justify any sort of "victory" from these ruinous wars.
Besides, isn't that what our men and women really fighting for? The freedom of speech, self-expression and choice? Give them the decision.
@Bricked: Unfortunately for Sony, you seem to be minority. Also, sleep mode is always a little iffy for me, especially with the battery life on the PSP.
Without having a quick save function where the game is no longer drawing power from the battery, I can forget what I was doing and come back to the PSP a couple of days later having lost my progress because I didn't save.
Not to mention, if I wanted to play a console game, I'd play it at home. I bring a handheld to play between doing things that are going to take my full attention.
Without having a quick save function where the game is no longer drawing power from the battery, I can forget what I was doing and come back to the PSP a couple of days later having lost my progress because I didn't save.
Not to mention, if I wanted to play a console game, I'd play it at home. I bring a handheld to play between doing things that are going to take my full attention.
@canuckgamer: Right there man. Right there. You said it right there. They have utterly destroyed this kids life just because he spoke one careless sentence.
@senselocke: How long ago were you a teenager to forget how it was?
For some people, Highschool was utterly cruel and empty.
The feeling of being isolated, ridiculed and bullied at the same time having all these crazy hormones scrambling your thoughts can drive some people to say some messed up things.
It's easy for these type people to identify with the Columbine shooters. Angry, bullied and sad, but no one knew, or no one cared. What did they do? They brought attention to their despair in the worst way possible, with violence and death.
But that doesn't mean that everyone who can identify with these misguided children deserves suspect.
I should know, I identified with them when I was a child.
The shootings happened while I was a senior in highschool, I wore the black clothes, listened to the same music(still do, KMFDM is great,) and played the same video games.
What was I rewarded with? Suspicion and hatred by my peers without doing anything but be myself.
I got angry, I said some bad things, vented with my friends... like almost every teenager in the world.
But then, I grew up. That was way back in 1999. I'm on the cusp of being thirty years old now and I still haven't harmed a single person on this planet.
Who knows what further ostracization will do to this kid?
Keep in mind, the Columbine kids did this because they essentially wanted to commit suicide. They just planned to take as much of their source of pain with them as they could.
Now that they've made it harder for this kid to fit in to society, who knows what will happen in the long run?
@senselocke: How long ago were you a teenager to forget how it was?
For some people, Highschool was utterly cruel and empty.
The feeling of being isolated, ridiculed and bullied at the same time having all these crazy hormones scrambling your thoughts can drive some people to say some messed up things.
It's easy for these type people to identify with the Columbine shooters. Angry, bullied and sad, but no one knew, or no one cared. What did they do? They brought attention to their despair in the worst way possible, with violence and death.
But that doesn't mean that everyone who can identify with these misguided children deserves suspect.
I should know, I identified with them when I was a child.
The shootings happened while I was a senior in highschool, I wore the black clothes, listened to the same music(still do, KMFDM is great,) and played the same video games.
What was I rewarded with? Suspicion and hatred by my peers without doing anything but be myself.
I got angry, I said some bad things, vented with my friends... like almost every teenager in the world.
But then, I grew up. That was way back in 1999. I'm on the cusp of being thirty years old now and I still haven't harmed a single person on this planet.
Who knows what further ostracization will do to this kid?
Keep in mind, the Columbine kids did this because they essentially wanted to commit suicide. They just planned to take as much of their source of pain with them as they could.
Now that they've made it harder for this kid to fit in to society, who knows what will happen in the long run?
@fratto: I don't think piracy really killed the PSP.
I think it's lack of early support, watered-down ports of PS2 and PS games, terrible sticker price out of the box, bad media selection in UMDs, terrible battery life due to all the moving parts and including only one analog pad(most of the games that use it were also designed to used two analog pads.)
For the longest time, the PSP didn't have ANYTHING but ports and watered-down versions of full titles. Sony continued to not get it with further iterations of their portable, up to and including the dead-on-arrival PSPgo.
Even people who usually buy games(like me) hacked their PSPs merely to play roms on them and rip my games to the mem stick(also bullshit proprietary hardware.)
Also, have you PLAYED a PSP a game? They claim it's like having a "Home console in your hand!" and it is, however, home console games aren't made with the same design choices as handheld. Handheld games are made to play small bursts of at any time, easy to save and put down, the "home console experience" just doesn't translate well.
You can experience this for yourself by playing Final Fantasy Tactics for GBA then play War of the Lions on PSP and see what translates better on a handheld.
With the way the console is set up, poor battery life, excessive load times, bulky UMDs and clunky game design, no wonder the console failed so hard.
Besides, it's WAAAAAY easier to buy a R4 and pirate but the Nintendo DS-series of systems is still a success.
I think it's just all because Sony tried for a money grab, just like they did with the PS3, people would have none of that, so they bought late, they bought used and they hacked them.
I think it's lack of early support, watered-down ports of PS2 and PS games, terrible sticker price out of the box, bad media selection in UMDs, terrible battery life due to all the moving parts and including only one analog pad(most of the games that use it were also designed to used two analog pads.)
For the longest time, the PSP didn't have ANYTHING but ports and watered-down versions of full titles. Sony continued to not get it with further iterations of their portable, up to and including the dead-on-arrival PSPgo.
Even people who usually buy games(like me) hacked their PSPs merely to play roms on them and rip my games to the mem stick(also bullshit proprietary hardware.)
Also, have you PLAYED a PSP a game? They claim it's like having a "Home console in your hand!" and it is, however, home console games aren't made with the same design choices as handheld. Handheld games are made to play small bursts of at any time, easy to save and put down, the "home console experience" just doesn't translate well.
You can experience this for yourself by playing Final Fantasy Tactics for GBA then play War of the Lions on PSP and see what translates better on a handheld.
With the way the console is set up, poor battery life, excessive load times, bulky UMDs and clunky game design, no wonder the console failed so hard.
Besides, it's WAAAAAY easier to buy a R4 and pirate but the Nintendo DS-series of systems is still a success.
I think it's just all because Sony tried for a money grab, just like they did with the PS3, people would have none of that, so they bought late, they bought used and they hacked them.
It's not allowing me to edit my own post, so let me point out, my "your" should be "you're".
Whenever I think of Hawaii I get this image of an Elvis and Gilligan's Island-era beach, where the surfers are all clean-cut and the girls are wearing these ultra-mod one piece bathing suits, all of them with impeccable hair.
And it gives me an idea for a game.
A game about a car wash. Not a cold, unfeeling mechanism of car-cleaning, but an old-timey wash-by-hand, late-night USA Network movie type of car wash.
When each car enters the wash a song starts, matching the looks of car and driver. Metal for say a Camaro, Classical for a Benz. The intro would start with a soft, simple and as the player washes the car correctly, a meter fills and the music would swell, adding additional flourishes and instruments to the score.
Ala Mad Maestro, the buttons and analog sticks would require different levels of pressure to clean off different levels of dirt from the car. The "dirt" would be arrayed to make you feel like your "playing" the car like an instrument, similar to Guitaroo Man's guitar playing elements.
You'd be able to outfit your car-wash personnel how you see fit and unlock new clothing, environments, songs for your carwash.
Eh, that's probably a bad idea, now that I read it...
And it gives me an idea for a game.
A game about a car wash. Not a cold, unfeeling mechanism of car-cleaning, but an old-timey wash-by-hand, late-night USA Network movie type of car wash.
When each car enters the wash a song starts, matching the looks of car and driver. Metal for say a Camaro, Classical for a Benz. The intro would start with a soft, simple and as the player washes the car correctly, a meter fills and the music would swell, adding additional flourishes and instruments to the score.
Ala Mad Maestro, the buttons and analog sticks would require different levels of pressure to clean off different levels of dirt from the car. The "dirt" would be arrayed to make you feel like your "playing" the car like an instrument, similar to Guitaroo Man's guitar playing elements.
You'd be able to outfit your car-wash personnel how you see fit and unlock new clothing, environments, songs for your carwash.
Eh, that's probably a bad idea, now that I read it...
@Fraser Allison: I think I needed to clean up my own post a little bit.
I guess the point I was trying to make is that setting and genre have a direct correlation to the elements of a game. When the game contains multiple elements, the elements must be judged as a whole.
GTA4, Fallout 3 and Crackdown 2, these are all games that have a violent setting. Violence is as an essential part of these virtual worlds and their narrative.
We agree upon one thing, the execution(no pun intended) of that violent content, when rendered poorly, can detract from the overall experience.
That being said, the games you list all suffer from the ills of being sandbox games. Sandbox games are notorious for their mixed bag in the gameplay department, more specifically, the combat(gun or otherwise) systems.
In the effort to give players something other than violence to inflict, developers often need to graze from as many gameplay pastures as the setting dictates. When taking open-world games, we're talking about many pastures indeed.
As I stated in my original post, if you take the violence out of these games, you change the genre. Similarly, if you focus on one element of the game, you also change genres.
In an ideal world, all of the games elements would have meaning and polish. Each game's driving would be on the level of a Forza game, their gunplay on the level of a Call of Duty game, their narrative and story telling as good as a Mass Effect game. Each of those genres end up focusing on one element and refining it.
You have to judge a CoD game on it's shooting, a Forza game on it's driving and a Mass Effect game on its writing. When you're looking at a game that includes all of these elements(ala GTA4) is it fair to judge it's content and meaning on just one when it does it all?
To sum it up, if you focus on any one set piece to these big open games, you'll see flaws. That's the point though, they are all smaller set pieces to the overall narrative of the setting.
Violence, Exploring, Storytelling, Transversing. Do they all have to be deep and meaningful? In my opinion, no, as long as the sum equals a great and meaningful experience.
In the cases of GTA4 and Fallout 3, I think they do.
I guess the point I was trying to make is that setting and genre have a direct correlation to the elements of a game. When the game contains multiple elements, the elements must be judged as a whole.
GTA4, Fallout 3 and Crackdown 2, these are all games that have a violent setting. Violence is as an essential part of these virtual worlds and their narrative.
We agree upon one thing, the execution(no pun intended) of that violent content, when rendered poorly, can detract from the overall experience.
That being said, the games you list all suffer from the ills of being sandbox games. Sandbox games are notorious for their mixed bag in the gameplay department, more specifically, the combat(gun or otherwise) systems.
In the effort to give players something other than violence to inflict, developers often need to graze from as many gameplay pastures as the setting dictates. When taking open-world games, we're talking about many pastures indeed.
As I stated in my original post, if you take the violence out of these games, you change the genre. Similarly, if you focus on one element of the game, you also change genres.
In an ideal world, all of the games elements would have meaning and polish. Each game's driving would be on the level of a Forza game, their gunplay on the level of a Call of Duty game, their narrative and story telling as good as a Mass Effect game. Each of those genres end up focusing on one element and refining it.
You have to judge a CoD game on it's shooting, a Forza game on it's driving and a Mass Effect game on its writing. When you're looking at a game that includes all of these elements(ala GTA4) is it fair to judge it's content and meaning on just one when it does it all?
To sum it up, if you focus on any one set piece to these big open games, you'll see flaws. That's the point though, they are all smaller set pieces to the overall narrative of the setting.
Violence, Exploring, Storytelling, Transversing. Do they all have to be deep and meaningful? In my opinion, no, as long as the sum equals a great and meaningful experience.
In the cases of GTA4 and Fallout 3, I think they do.
Since I live in Nebraska and everything else worth a damn is out of driving range, I plan to attend this event on Saturday.
I will be bringing my pocket camera to capture the tens of minutes of events offered.
I will be bringing my pocket camera to capture the tens of minutes of events offered.
That's a lot of words to make the statement: "gameplay mechanics are bad unless they make them good." When reading this it seemed the writer never had a clear stance to take.
He seems to struggle with the statements, "Violence is great when it's made well." and "Games could use a bit less violence." If the act of violence is fun as a gameplay element, wouldn't you want more of it?
Violence is part of any predator's life, and an essential part of human life. We no longer have to kill for our food and laws help us solve our differences without violence, but let us remember, we're only three centuries removed from that stuff.
Video games, just like all the other media(Books, Movies, TV) has a story structure. Almost all involve the resolution of some sort of conflict, be it taking down a gang member or talking to little Johnny about drugs.
The challenge comes from the setting you want to be in. Can you make compelling and engaging gameplay from the non-violent parts of your setting/story?
Let's take one of the writer's examples, Fallout 3. With this story you have several conflicts to resolve. You vs the Environment, You vs the People and You vs The situation.
Pulling out the two conflicts that don't exactly connotate violence, Environment and Situation, you have a question to ask yourself.
"Can I make an interesting gameplay experience out without including violence?". The answer is almost always "No".
Taking the violence out of a Fallout game would essentially change it's genre. Instead of an action RPG, it would be more like an adventure game. While text and exploration are okay for some people, it isn't exactly a popular genre.
Staying true to the source material is also essential. Fallout wouldn't be fallout without the violent conflict resolution. The violence lends situational narrative to how life regressed to the base instincts. Showing how humanity descended into bleak madness during the struggle to survive.
Hell, just look at the amount of violence in related media. Mad Max, A Boy and his Dog, The Road. These all contain a healthy dose. This shows how much setting dictates content.
You can apply the same thought process to the remainder of the mentioned games. Hell, even the Harry Potter book series ended in a big old heap of violent content.
Can you make a game without violence in it? Sure. I just don't know if it could be a traditional narrative without and still have engaging gameplay.
I think humanity as a species would have to change significantly before the majority of our stories don't include violence.
He seems to struggle with the statements, "Violence is great when it's made well." and "Games could use a bit less violence." If the act of violence is fun as a gameplay element, wouldn't you want more of it?
Violence is part of any predator's life, and an essential part of human life. We no longer have to kill for our food and laws help us solve our differences without violence, but let us remember, we're only three centuries removed from that stuff.
Video games, just like all the other media(Books, Movies, TV) has a story structure. Almost all involve the resolution of some sort of conflict, be it taking down a gang member or talking to little Johnny about drugs.
The challenge comes from the setting you want to be in. Can you make compelling and engaging gameplay from the non-violent parts of your setting/story?
Let's take one of the writer's examples, Fallout 3. With this story you have several conflicts to resolve. You vs the Environment, You vs the People and You vs The situation.
Pulling out the two conflicts that don't exactly connotate violence, Environment and Situation, you have a question to ask yourself.
"Can I make an interesting gameplay experience out without including violence?". The answer is almost always "No".
Taking the violence out of a Fallout game would essentially change it's genre. Instead of an action RPG, it would be more like an adventure game. While text and exploration are okay for some people, it isn't exactly a popular genre.
Staying true to the source material is also essential. Fallout wouldn't be fallout without the violent conflict resolution. The violence lends situational narrative to how life regressed to the base instincts. Showing how humanity descended into bleak madness during the struggle to survive.
Hell, just look at the amount of violence in related media. Mad Max, A Boy and his Dog, The Road. These all contain a healthy dose. This shows how much setting dictates content.
You can apply the same thought process to the remainder of the mentioned games. Hell, even the Harry Potter book series ended in a big old heap of violent content.
Can you make a game without violence in it? Sure. I just don't know if it could be a traditional narrative without and still have engaging gameplay.
I think humanity as a species would have to change significantly before the majority of our stories don't include violence.
@Seiryuu: I think the problem people are having isn't the story is "evolving", but that it feels so vastly different from the series trademarks.
Take Samus for instance, she becomes orphaned, isolated and placed in an alien environment all within the first decade or so of her life. The bird-like surrogate parents that found her, changed her. They forged her into a blade and pointed her in the direction of the pirates.
She joined the military in the effort to be more focused on executing her purpose : killing pirates. But what led her to stop being in the military and becoming a bounty hunter?
Well, first off, she's known only isolation from her own kind for the majority of her life. How would this factor into making meaningful bonds with other humans? Perhaps her comfort with being by herself is what fueled her to forsake the federation and become a bounty hunter.
Hell, the only real emotional response you get from her is when a metroid that mistook her as mother is killed. This may indicate that even a metroid, a parasitic alien creature, is easier for Samus to identify with than her own kind.
This lends credence to the many user comments stating that this didn't feel right. And it doesn't, it feels "un-Samus" as Samus has been established as a lone bounty hunter.
For samus to suddenly be all talky, and working together with a squad of individuals, seems extremely out of character. For someone who's been so emotionally scarred and who's purpose is to reap ultimate revenge, being friendly and cooperative seems out of place.
Or in other words, it doesn't feel "evolved" in a sense of story telling, it feels "ham-handed". I get the idea that a marketing person had his hands in the cookie jar during the development process. I feel the workings of a focus group and pressure to put famous actors/voice actors into the mix. You see, metroid never had a wide-market appeal in Japan, and I see this as an effort to wrangle some popularity.
You see, Metroid was never popular in Japan, perhaps it was for the reason that the atmosphere in the game was more important than the narrative. Perhaps not. It just feels that the whole project has been a misfire to what the series has established, and that's why people are pissed.
Take Samus for instance, she becomes orphaned, isolated and placed in an alien environment all within the first decade or so of her life. The bird-like surrogate parents that found her, changed her. They forged her into a blade and pointed her in the direction of the pirates.
She joined the military in the effort to be more focused on executing her purpose : killing pirates. But what led her to stop being in the military and becoming a bounty hunter?
Well, first off, she's known only isolation from her own kind for the majority of her life. How would this factor into making meaningful bonds with other humans? Perhaps her comfort with being by herself is what fueled her to forsake the federation and become a bounty hunter.
Hell, the only real emotional response you get from her is when a metroid that mistook her as mother is killed. This may indicate that even a metroid, a parasitic alien creature, is easier for Samus to identify with than her own kind.
This lends credence to the many user comments stating that this didn't feel right. And it doesn't, it feels "un-Samus" as Samus has been established as a lone bounty hunter.
For samus to suddenly be all talky, and working together with a squad of individuals, seems extremely out of character. For someone who's been so emotionally scarred and who's purpose is to reap ultimate revenge, being friendly and cooperative seems out of place.
Or in other words, it doesn't feel "evolved" in a sense of story telling, it feels "ham-handed". I get the idea that a marketing person had his hands in the cookie jar during the development process. I feel the workings of a focus group and pressure to put famous actors/voice actors into the mix. You see, metroid never had a wide-market appeal in Japan, and I see this as an effort to wrangle some popularity.
You see, Metroid was never popular in Japan, perhaps it was for the reason that the atmosphere in the game was more important than the narrative. Perhaps not. It just feels that the whole project has been a misfire to what the series has established, and that's why people are pissed.
Ungh, what a circus. Metroid was never about this narrative experience, it was about the atmosphere.
You, and only you, lost in a labyrinthine derelict ship or pirate-infested planet. The oppressive tension that comes from being alone, where the very environment is hostile to your presence, threatening to overcome you...
...you know, like ALIEN! The game was modeled after Alien and that movie was more about atmosphere than narrative.
Instead, I get this j-poppy celebrity tie-in that drips with the possibility for wide-market appeal in Japan. Style over substance. Problem is, this series was never popular in Japan. It was resurrected from the trash bin for the western audience with as it is more or less inline with western tastes.
I'll test it out, I suppose, but man, there's nothing like someone completely missing the point.
You, and only you, lost in a labyrinthine derelict ship or pirate-infested planet. The oppressive tension that comes from being alone, where the very environment is hostile to your presence, threatening to overcome you...
...you know, like ALIEN! The game was modeled after Alien and that movie was more about atmosphere than narrative.
Instead, I get this j-poppy celebrity tie-in that drips with the possibility for wide-market appeal in Japan. Style over substance. Problem is, this series was never popular in Japan. It was resurrected from the trash bin for the western audience with as it is more or less inline with western tastes.
I'll test it out, I suppose, but man, there's nothing like someone completely missing the point.
Well, I'm sure the GBLT community is happy they don't have to out themselves every time they file a support ticket.
Also, it's good that real names won't be used for targeted phishing attempts. It would have made those fake emails look a whole lot more official if they had your real name on them.
This idea was an abortion and an attempt to save money on support tickets only. I just wish some people were smart enough to understand that this would just make things worse, not better. Look at trolling and facebook.
Also, it's good that real names won't be used for targeted phishing attempts. It would have made those fake emails look a whole lot more official if they had your real name on them.
This idea was an abortion and an attempt to save money on support tickets only. I just wish some people were smart enough to understand that this would just make things worse, not better. Look at trolling and facebook.
@Batsuichimonji: I agree. The second I heard that Ono-san was making a new game, my heart sung.
I was stoked. Darkstalkers 4... the game I've wanted for years and years and years was finally going to get made! Nope! Another Vs game!
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea, but goddamn I've been waiting for Darkstalkers for a long time.
I was stoked. Darkstalkers 4... the game I've wanted for years and years and years was finally going to get made! Nope! Another Vs game!
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea, but goddamn I've been waiting for Darkstalkers for a long time.
It's a great composition and idea. Reminds me of Quiz and Dragons meets the DnD arcade game.
One thing kinda bothers me though (I'm an artist myself, so that's how I noticed) arms on people usually cut off near the crotch area. Specifically, the top of the wrist at the end of the pelvic bone (when the arms are straight down to the sides). These arms are much longer than that.
Beh, that's just me being anal though.
One thing kinda bothers me though (I'm an artist myself, so that's how I noticed) arms on people usually cut off near the crotch area. Specifically, the top of the wrist at the end of the pelvic bone (when the arms are straight down to the sides). These arms are much longer than that.
Beh, that's just me being anal though.
I wouldn't mind trying to stuff my massive bulk into one of these shirts!
...honestly though, with the pacing of the books, I can't help but wonder how he's going to end it in one more volume.
...honestly though, with the pacing of the books, I can't help but wonder how he's going to end it in one more volume.
Yes, actually, I do have a suggestion!
Get Pop Cutie! From Koei. I found it in the dump bin at Best Buy and thought I'd do a joke review on it. Instead of a joke, I found the game to actually be fun. I played it at my fiancee's parents house for five hours straight!
I'd say give it a whirl, and it's only 15 bucks!
Get Pop Cutie! From Koei. I found it in the dump bin at Best Buy and thought I'd do a joke review on it. Instead of a joke, I found the game to actually be fun. I played it at my fiancee's parents house for five hours straight!
I'd say give it a whirl, and it's only 15 bucks!
I live in a constant state of horror. You see, what I'm afraid of, is, arcades disappearing.
Born in 1980, the best place for me to play games was the arcade, the bright screens, the clack of arcade sticks, they made me feel at home.
I recently went back to my old arcade (family fun center in omaha) and found it a shell of it's former glory.
I used to go often, but they kinda stopped repairing the machines when a group of teenagers or two would mess up the mechanisms. I refused to come if my favorite games weren't available.
But the worst part is, that community, where you know everyone in the room, where you know their skill and their flaws; the ones you can fight tooth-and-nail against, then go get a pizza...
--- it will be gone forever, and that's what I'm afraid of.
Born in 1980, the best place for me to play games was the arcade, the bright screens, the clack of arcade sticks, they made me feel at home.
I recently went back to my old arcade (family fun center in omaha) and found it a shell of it's former glory.
I used to go often, but they kinda stopped repairing the machines when a group of teenagers or two would mess up the mechanisms. I refused to come if my favorite games weren't available.
But the worst part is, that community, where you know everyone in the room, where you know their skill and their flaws; the ones you can fight tooth-and-nail against, then go get a pizza...
--- it will be gone forever, and that's what I'm afraid of.
Well, I guess my problem with the game room is, it started out with a whimper instead of a bang.
To sell something like this, especially to the wider audience of the contemporary gamer, you have the pull out all the stops right out of the gate.
As someone who grew up in arcades, this seemed awesome. I had imaginings of vintage fighting games, SHUMPS, perhaps a Magician Lord or some Capcom sidescrollers. Instead, we get some of the most dated(gameplay and graphics wise) games possible.
I understand that we'll be getting the better stuff later and I understand needing to test the waters. But what I hope doesn't happen, because of the release schedule and what's available now, is that people will grow disinterested and the idea will flop.
Ah, once again, Mr. Fahey, your story hits a little close to home.
I did something similar to MUSHing when I was younger. It was in "Arts & Entertainment' chats on AOL. Some kinda crazy mixup of Anime, World of Darkness and Dn'D Rping. For four years, I was knee deep in online relationships, drama and general heaps of garbage.
I did the same things you did, I drove many distances to see women who'd clash with me time and again. Engage in cheap and petty attacks, just to see me hurt. It got to a point where I had a website (a homestead website!) dedicated to hating on me, using my desperate attempts at human contact against me.
That's when I took a step back from the internet, and looked at myself. I did not like what I had become. Sad and pathetic. So I changed myself.
Nice to see that you rose above the mire that other hateful people tried to drown you in. You continue to be a driving force that brings me to Kotaku.
I dunno if you'll see this Tim, or 108, as I've known you from the years on insertcredit.com, it's forums and it's IRC chat. I've always appreciated your particular brand of writing. You manage to reward literacy by painting a more vivid picture with your thoughts and feelings in a particular subject.
Many people might mistake you writing so much about your personal life as being a bit ego-centric(who isn't a little bit at least) but don't understand it as setting a frame of reference. A place to identify with your feelings and the occurrences that brought you to why you were feeling it. People who are normally into reading a blog-only format of writing, might not recognize it as the literary tool it is.
You and Mike Fahey end up bringing me to this site more than any other conglomeration of news. That's mostly because you put a human element into what most people want to digest quickly. You, for analyzing your feelings about a particular subject and Mike for making it seem like he's honestly excited about his writing job.
Anyway, thanks for this and your articles in GAMEStm. #timrogers
