Jimquisition: Sexual Failing

putowtin

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Jul 7, 2010
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jehk said:
OT: Only thing I disagree with is the shity music bit. I've always loved this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jc_xqnTKWw] song despite not really liking the many of the scenes during which it played.
Agreed, really love the Dragon Age/ Dragon Age 2 soundtracks.

And maybe they're not the best, maybe the animation when we get to the love scenes are bad (just skip them) but I think the love interest options in Bioware games adds to the story. If I hadn't have romanced Alistair in Dragon Age would I have convinced him to stand up for himself? Would he have taken the throne?

Agree to disagree on this one Jim
 

Lightknight

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Nov 26, 2008
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ThinkerT said:
I think it's completely relevant. If it's just "sex", then what you say is true, but that then is the crux of Jim's complaints - it's just sex as an achievement in the game, not any sort of mature intimacy. However, if the sex is the culmination of the developing relationship, I think anyone who's begun a committed relationship can attest that many things change at that point.
Not necessarily. Hell, some people start relationships with sex. This is just somebody defining what sex is and what sex should be portrayed as when it isn't that static. Can in impact the relationship? Sure. Look as Shepards relationship with Jack in Mass Effect 2. It is the PERFECT example. Jack will oblige casual, meaningless sex early on. But the relationship between you and her is irreparably harmed for you taking that out. A little bit of delayed gratification and you can have an ongoing meaningful relationship with her.

But what I'm saying is that, in a fight to save the world, what kind of impact does it have outside of that relationship? The relationship, sex included, is and will always be a side-story in most games. Sex is a part of a relationship. It is a natural step and aside from it usually being an increased intimacy in the relationship, it doesn't usually bleed out into daily lives.

I guess it depends on where you are in your life. A teenager or early college student would have a much more inflated opinion of it than a married adult or any individual that has had multiple relationships where this is just a step. It's just a stage of a relationship that some people don't get to. I don't think the hero should be a emotional weakling aobut it just to give the event some kind of unrealistic drama about it. So I'm not sure what Jim wants. Does he want them to reconvene every three days after they've had sex to talk about it while doing their nails?

thebakedpotato said:
Someone's not gotten a new job and had to send the awkward facebook message of "Hey, remember the time when I occasionally expelled bodily fluid on your face? Yeah I didn't expect to meet you again either. How do you wanna play it?"

Sex is the most complicated thing in our society and culture. Tradition and etiquette and all sorts of other shit are based off it. It is enshrined and embraced and condemned and other words all at the same time. It is, essentially modern man and society coupling with the need to procreate, and the desires and instincts such evolutionary drive creates within self conscious beings.

To see it handled in the same way as a lockpicking minigame...
There has to be criteria unless we develop characters that are actual AI. How do you propose it be done without criteria?
 

rynoth25

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The "Friend Zone" is not a "dismal purgatory certain men have contrived to describe the feeling you get when you are kind to a woman and she has the audacity not to repay you with sex."

The "Friend Zone" is a situation where a woman is fully aware of a man's attraction to her, rebukes his advances, but then proceeds to use him for emotional support much in the same way men are accused of using women for sex. Just because a girl says she's not interested doesn't mean that your feelings toward her magically go away, and there are women who will take advantage of those emotions.
 

generals3

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Fistful of Ebola said:
In other words, exactly what I just said? There's being contrarian then there's just rephrasing my own points to make it look like you're disagreeing.
And than there is being very bad at expressing yourself. What i said is totally different from what you said.

" Do you think and alternate version of Wolfenstein where you play as a Nazi is so widely played by neo-Nazis because it makes them neo-Nazis or because it reinforces their neo-Nazism?" =/= playing as a neo nazi because you're one to begin with (which doesn't imply either a transformation or a reinforcement).

We do not "shrug" it off, an investigation is done and it's determined that the accidental killer was not negligent and the killing occurred due to reasons beyond his/her control then he's exonerated.
If there was criminal negligence it starts getting into involuntary manslaughter territory. Once the killing has been determined to be accidental it's being shrugged off.

Make issues out of such issues? So it's already an issue but we shouldn't take it as such? Sounds like the issue is that you don't want the dominant paradigm challenged. Regardless, you really can't throw my argument back in my face in this instance, because I never claimed the hegemonic discourse is always correct. I'm pointing out that the hypothetical "dystopia" you refer to already exists depending on who you are. Racists and misogynists can't operate as openly today as they could sixty years ago, you can't slap your secretary on the ass then lynch a black boy for whistling at a white woman anymore. And that's really your complaint here, you don't want to have to be held accountable for your own bad behavior.
What I obviously meant was: making a big issue out of one which is barely one to begin with. I guess you could call swatting a fly animal abuse but crying murder over it surely is taking things out of proportion? That's my point.
And it's not a manner of how you cannot operate. It is about how we would operate. By making a huge deal of non-issues (or barely issues) and often relying on creative thinking to actually get there the only logical solution is to adopt scientific paper like standards to everything that is being communicated. Otherwise "offense" will continue being caused. And since obviously that's "wrong" why beat around the bush? Let's just go there straight away. And if it's not the ultimate goal than maybe some complaints need to be revised.


How exactly do you maintain a healthy, happy relationship despite being unhappy?
If the reason you'd make yourself happy is for a relationship i'd say you have a bigger problem than a unhappy relationship. Being happy is what you do for yourself. You do it regardless of your "relationship status". As such I don't see how that is "investing in the relationship", at least not in a direct manner.

Character development is always key to the story, if you're writing a good story anyway. How the plot changes your character and your character changes the plot is integral, but if you have multiple characters with conflicting goals then the plot surges forward regardless of how it changes. To go back on the GRRM analogies, the plot of ASOIAF is constantly changing and moving forward. An assassination might happen here, a character might have a change of heart and fundamentally alter the course there, a character might do something and change it back, but its moving forward regardless and the gorram Others aren't waiting for anyone.

This is the problem with the romance subplots of Mass Effect et al, they occur outside the main plot, whether you fall in love with Morrigan or Leliana, Liara or Ashley does. not. matter. And because it doesn't matter your courtship does. not. matter.
The fact the romance stories didn't actually matter. That's a valid complaint for sure. Now off course i personally don't care that much because in my experience usually when romance drives a plot it does so in boring ways and usually the plot suffers in quality. But that's me and my opinion.

No, it doesn't! If thirty out of thirty-one people expect to be served a steaming pile of cow shit at a restaurant that doesn't change it to fillet mignon.
No but it does justify why the restaurant serves a steaming pile of shit and suggests that perhaps filet mignon is not as good as you make it out to be. (considering taste is 100% subjective, I personally think cheese is close to be on par with a steaming pile of crap but i know a lot of people don't agree)

Food critics don't have to sit on their hands and ignore it when that restaurant serves more cow shit despite claiming to serve the finest foods. It's the same damn principle here; Bioware is serving up a platter of bad slashfic and calling it "tasteful and mature", we're not obligated to ignore the bullshit there. The fact that bad slashfic is what the fans of Mass Effect are expecting doesn't absolve Bioware from criticism.
And what determines what is fine food? If people prefer crap isn't it the critics who may have the crappy taste?

How is he interpreting it in the worst way? It is what it is; Bioware and Quantic Dream have a history of making very shallow romance subplots and presenting them as artsy. Jim found commonalities in their presentation with how a worrisome element of the male population views relationships. Calling out two video game developers is not a condemnation of gaming as a whole. Interestingly, the person who is being hyper-sensitive and interpreting things in the worst possible way is you. There's an article I want you to read that sums up your problem, that privilege views any surrender of ground as an attack [http://www.overthinkingit.com/2012/07/18/video-games-political-correctness/].
The found commonalities are based on the most negative interpretation possible of what is presented, that's how.

I'm guessing you're new to criticism of art in any form; critics often ground their criticism in existing social concerns and trends.
And I've found many critics to be really bad at what they do. So i guess that explains that.


So our only options are shallow love scenes or spousal abuse? Yeah, that's not a false dilemma in the slightest...
game mechanics wise yes. Gameplay is based on scripted reactions to actions. If the idea a woman has sex as a result of the gamer giving positive inputs is bad the only way out of that is by having him giving negative inputs. Remember we're talking about romance as part of the gameplay here.

Oh for fuck's sake, read this wikipedia page [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slot_machine] and come back to me before continuing to use the slot machine analogy. I will say it again, a slot machine is not an action followed by a scripted reaction. Repeating that multiple times doesn't make each subsequent iteration more true.
Euhm, maybe you need to call up Jim than. He clearly used it as follow "as long as you put enough emotional coins in it you will get sex" (well i'm paraphrasing because i really don't feel like going through his bad video to have the exact words). This suggest a fixed reaction as a consequence of an input (as if it was, *gasp* scripted). Which is INEVITABLE in games when gameplay is involved.

Yet games have somehow managed complex and interesting interactions between characters before, somehow because Bioware and Quantic Dreams can't make an interesting romance subplot this means gaming as a medium can't do it.
Only possible if it doesn't involve gameplay. The limitations to game mechanics will always reduce the "complexity" of interactions between characters.

I can't possibly facepalm at this enough, the response to bad storytelling is not to head-canon a better story into existence.
Who said bad? All i said is "has blanks". All stories have blanks. And I'd say stories which don't are probably horribly boring.

See, I don't even think you have a clue what the fuck you're talking about. You criticize romance subplots for existing; then criticize people for criticizing Bioware/Quantic Dream's romance subplots because good ones would be be too long and uninteresting, then cite Metal Gear Solid and its hour long cutscences vomiting exposition all over the player as good storytelling. You don't have a consistent, logical point to make. You're just here complaining about complaining and utterly failing to see how it relates to your own complaints. There's no point in even continuing this conversation because the entirety of your dialogue is just blasé contrarianism.
Good ones? Again, who used the word "good"? All i'm talking about is that I find it weird that someone needs all details in order to avoid the worst possible interpretations because if something isn't there than there's nothing there. After all we all know all stories are 100% complete. We always follow all characters 24/7 and know exactly what they do and think at any given moment.
 

keserak

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Aug 21, 2009
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The Ubermensch said:
>I don't like Abbot, but we need to get our debt under control
...We have a debt to GDP ratio of under 20%
>But we need to get it under control
Japan has a debt to GDP ratio of 210%, but due to those investments they are going to dominate the domestic robotics industry for the next 80 years
>Oh, but we need to get our debt under control
Don't you have a mortgage? you know, debt, that's building up equity.
>But Australia's got several billion dollars in debt
Australia's a fucking nation
>Oh, well I'm still voting Liberal
I can't speak for Australia, but taking you at your word, this is a rightwing screed that works in the U.S. as well. The trick is that the source of the debt is never discuss. In the U.S., that's the military, eating up 54% of the budget. But that, too, is a dodge: the military isn't meant to protect the U.S., but fuck over anyone who doesn't get with the kleptocratic program of a narrow elite and, even more importantly, keep contractors flush with cash. And once you get to the other 44% of the budget, a sizable portion of that is welfare for the extremely wealthy. So if you cared about the debt, you'd care about those two things. . . but the people who claim to care about the debt never do. Instead, they want to screw over people of the wrong skin color/social class, and they need a cudgel with which to justify it. Thus, on election day, the rest of us have to pay the highest economic price possible because a group of jackasses can't reconcile their marathon masturbation sessions to exotic models with their searing racial hatred. It's not a lack of logic, but a lack of ethics.

treeroy said:
keserak said:
treeroy said:
. . . it is very much is about one person wanting a relationship and the other wanting friendship.
The relationship includes sex, so, by your own account, you're wrong. You don't get to slam a person for not wanting to be involved with you, and you sure as hell don't get to slam a gender because you're not able to convince them to sleep with you with inducements. The problem with the friendzone is that it automatically begins with self-indulgent entitlements.

There are people that would just be happy to have a friend. To have friends, then criticize them because they won't sleep with you, is the ultimate in jerkish entitlement.
I think we have different understandings of what the friendzone is. Where I come from, it's when a guy likes a girl but she wants to just be friends rather than be in a relationship. Of course relationships involve sex, but the idea of the friendzone is nothing to do with sex. It's not about wanting to shag your friend, it's about having feelings for them and that not being reciprocated. And it is nothing to do with entitlement.
But, clearly your definition is different.
As I mentioned before, no one in the U.S. seriously used the term "friendzone" any other way than what I'm describing before the internet existed as a large social phenomenon (early nineties), and I strongly suspect this newfangled definition was a way to re-color a particularly antisocial phenomenon.

You can even see it in this thread. Again and again, there are people here who -- seriously -- maintain that the point of the definition is that the woman is doing a bad thing. The fact that, in that case, the only way that there is any conflict would be if the man were also doing a bad thing to is irrelevant to them, because, in their mind, being a man means being entitled to the bodies of others. There wouldn't be a term here if there wasn't any misogyny.
 

Lightknight

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Nov 26, 2008
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rynoth25 said:
The "Friend Zone" is not a "dismal purgatory certain men have contrived to describe the feeling you get when you are kind to a woman and she has the audacity not to repay you with sex."

The "Friend Zone" is a situation where a woman is fully aware of a man's attraction to her, rebukes his advances, but then proceeds to use him for emotional support much in the same way men are accused of using women for sex. Just because a girl says she's not interested doesn't mean that your feelings toward her magically go away, and there are women who will take advantage of those emotions.
Exactly. The friendzone is lamenting unrequited love. This is a perfectly legitimate thing to frustrate anyone who is in love with a person who will not have their love but still wants to use them as a friend. To relegate this situation to a guy just being horny and mad that he's not getting some "deserved" sex is a great injustice to the condition afflicting humankind since time began.

I do find it surprising when such an avid and clearly qualified wordsmith like Jim mixes a term like this up with something intrinsically depraved and dirty.
 

The Ubermensch

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Mar 6, 2012
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keserak said:
I can't speak for Australia, but taking you at your word, this is a rightwing screed that works in the U.S. as well. The trick is that the source of the debt is never discuss. In the U.S., that's the military, eating up 54% of the budget. But that, too, is a dodge: the military isn't meant to protect the U.S., but fuck over anyone who doesn't get with the kleptocratic program of a narrow elite and, even more importantly, keep contractors flush with cash. And once you get to the other 44% of the budget, a sizable portion of that is welfare for the extremely wealthy. So if you cared about the debt, you'd care about those two things. . . but the people who claim to care about the debt never do. Instead, they want to screw over people of the wrong skin color/social class, and they need a cudgel with which to justify it. Thus, on election day, the rest of us have to pay the highest economic price possible because a group of jackasses can't reconcile their marathon masturbation sessions to exotic models with their searing racial hatred. It's not a lack of logic, but a lack of ethics.
Yeah, but in saying that debt is not a bad thing, and America doesn't really need to give a shit about debt BECAUSE it's got the most powerful military in the world. But I get what you're saying "WE NEED LESS DEBT, BUT WE ALSO NEED MORE DAKKA" is kind of hypocritical. However, that 2.8 billion going to DARPA should never bet touched and if anything increased. Their cybernetics research, advanced weaponry and weather control projects all have really interesting civilian applications.

In my opinion though, a national budget should always be in debt unless the CFM has a very good reason to expect a massive recession. If it's in surplus... that's money that could be going to things that improve health care, roads, education, research, robotics and it's just sitting there doing fuck all. I've got no issue with taxes proving you don't waste my money and don't just leave it somewhere to rot.

A lot of this drama is just that, drama to distract you from the real issues. Those being that we are in an Aristocracy, there is a glass ceiling that most of us will never be able to break through, and if we do, we have to compromise our ideals. The decisions are made by unknown men in back rooms.

A friend posted this a few days ago; Russel Brand adequately emulates my thoughts and frustrations with the current political climate, of which, this whole notion of the "friend zone" is a small but none the less important part of understanding the psyche of the disenfranchised masses, and the mind of a 20-30 y.o gamer. Which is why I'm like "well rather than spend all this energy on yelling at people about a minor specific thing, why don't you use it on fixing the root cause."

Guys, do not accept your circumstances simply because its the right thing to do. If a relationship with a woman is dependent on sexual intercourse, then it's fucking dependent on sexual intercourse. If she's not interested move on, but don't let anyone tell you that it's unacceptable to want that. Providing what you want doesn't harm anyone else don't let anyone talk you out of doing anything you want or voicing your opinion that "This shit is wrong."

 

Deadcyde

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while i agree that sex isn't being handled maturely here, video games are fantasy. Not reflections of reality, if i wanted a real interaction with a woman. i'd go and meet one. Also, stop denying a woman's agency in using a man for emotional validation then denying him that same validation, ala friendzone. It's as sexist as the loids saying sex is a reward for emotional validation.
 

O maestre

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Nov 19, 2008
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From an evolutionary stand point, the payoff/goal for any social interaction, for a heterosexual male, is sex. Especially if you prescribe to Richard Dawkins selfish gene, which is not just about biological altruism.

I know I am in the minority here, but it seems to me that it is quite pretentious to discard the idea of slotting "emotional points" for sex, when it is quite natural.

Yes it is lazy to cram it into a game due to some minimum content requirement check-list, but the presence of sex as a reward is an emulation of what social interactions at their core are about. If you don't mind the pun, "Tit for Tat" (or "Tat for Tits" in this case) is viable, and crucial game theory.

A more accurate reflections of success would be incredibly difficult in an interactive medium, especially since when it comes to social success it is very subjective what peoples goals are, and if they even are aware of their goals with a specific person. That kind of personalisation is not really possible yet, definitely not in a "choose-your-own adventure" type game

I am not endorsing this kind of thinking wholeheartedly though, not all natural behaviour is legitimately good or fit for intelligent and civilized people, just look at rape a relative good reproduction strategy just ask Genghis Khan, but a crime that is beyond terrible. I know I have digressed, and I know that most rapes are not sexual in most cases, but acts of pure malice and downright evil.

Edit: Also the whole evolutionary prerogative goes both ways, there is no point whining about not being chosen, no matter how much you think you have slotted up and are entitled to a relationship of some sort, she might still go for the 6.2 dude with the cool ride, abs and sideburns... because sideburns.
 

RolandOfGilead

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Dec 17, 2010
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I don't know Jim, being nice to me is a pretty good way to get in my pants.
I don't lament the friend zone because a woman doesn't give me sex, I've always thought the friend zone was the idea that sex was impossible with a particular person, like I say at the beginning of the post, being nice might allow a woman "private access" but there are some women I'm not going to sleep with no matter what.