John Scalzi, Game Dev

This is hilarious. Scalzi is trying to impress his fellow SJWs with his game dev credentials, which are so much better than those belonging to the many devs of #GamerGate.

“I write video games. I think it’s pretty obvious GamerGaters don’t speak for anyone but their own pathetic selves.”
– John Scalzi, 6 August 2015

Needless to say, #GamerGate was unimpressed with Scalzi’s credentials. Beginning with Mark Kern, who worked on Starcraft, Diablo II, and Warcraft III before becoming team lead on the original World of Warcraft.

Mark Kern ‏@Grummz
I had no idea you could just write video games into existence. Guess we won’t be needing these designers, profs, artists, devs.

Dal Gren ‏@DalGren
Researching, I can only find one video game he’s written (Midnight Star). So…he’s lying about the amount.

The Deuce ‏@ibbibby
Scalzi lying about his involvement in gamedev like he does about his blog traffic? Say it ain’t so!

Mark Kern ‏@Grummz
He lies about his blog traffic?

The Deuce ‏@ibbibby
Yeah. He’s a shamelessly dishonest self-promoter.

The Deuce ‏@ibbibby
@voxday is the one who noticed and pinned him down on it. See these articles http://voxday.blogspot.com/search?q=scalzi+traffic …

Mark Kern ‏@Grummz
Oh wow, Scalzi really inflated those numbers.

No Fun Allowed ‏@nochafaa
Damn, Scalzi is turning out to be a bigger tool than I thought.

It was a bit amusing for me to see this, as on August 6th I was on my way back from GDCE. I currently have two games in development, one game in temporarily suspended development, and three more of my game designs will be in development shortly. (Hence my request for questions from experts in various games; I’d like to have at least 2,000 questions and answers before development starts.) Guests at my SAE-sponsored game development course that begins next month will include studio heads, lead game designers, veteran programmers, university professors, magazine editors, and other industry professionals who will share their perspectives on designing and developing games.

To have one writing credit on one failed mobile game doesn’t make you a dev. It means you’ve dipped your toe in the industry. (And to the real devs: if you had asked me, I would have told you a mobile rail shooter was very unlikely to work. Not all past mechanics are worth mining.) If John Scalzi genuinely wants to learn how the industry really works, he should take my course because he obviously knows very little about it. As Grummz wryly observed, one does not “write video games”. The insiders can always spot the fakers and the wannabes.

As for Scalzi’s frequent claims that I envy his career, I remind you of the Third Law of SJW: SJWs always project. And speaking of my career, here is a piece of concept art from one of our current projects in development.

Yes, that’s exactly what it looks like. Think of Joust, only with modern graphics, powerups, and the addition of a vertical element that involves goblins with catapults and orcs with scorpios. The hawk-riding elf is also armed with various magic spells for air-to-ground combat and he can ride other flying beasts with various abilities. I always wondered why there weren’t scads of Joustalikes, but I figured it out when I played the little-known Joust 2: Survival of the Fittest. John Newcomer transformed the core game from horizontal with vertical elements to a vertical game, which considerably changed the gameplay and made it very difficult while subtracting from the fun. That failure made Joust look like a dead end from a game development perspective; if the producers can’t make an effective sequel, who else can expect to do so.

So, I thought, what if we gradually brought in additional vertical elements to the horizontal game, plus provided powerups to prevent the difficulty from overwhelming the player too quickly? That turned into an arcade spinoff of my Elven Raider design that was signed by Elephant in 2008, but never made it into development. Although set in Selenoth, Elven Raider preceded A Throne of Bones. And as it happens, The Wardog’s Coin is what resulted when I turned one of the scenarios from Elven Raider into a short story.

This isn’t the only game we’re developing at the moment. Another one will be out in September, and I’ll post some screenshots in the next two weeks. The thing is, it is very clear that the big fish in science fiction don’t realize how small and insignificant their little pond is compared to the Vast Sea of Dev.

ASaltMineNamedZilla ‏@gameragodzilla
What games did he make again?

Bizz McTavish ‏@Bizz408
he’s not a Dev, he’s some B-list Sci-Fi writer

ASaltMineNamedZilla ‏@gameragodzilla
I know. Did he write any games worth talking about?

Bizz McTavish ‏@Bizz408
nope. he’s a nobody.

Silvertongue ‏@SilvertongueDvl
He’s writing for an ios game. He’s bragging about writing for a _mobile game_.

Drew ‏@omgMyCat
Miyamoto, Kojima, Romero, Scalzi… lmao

Midnight Star was released in February 2015. It has an average 68 review score from 8 critics on Metacritic. It does not have enough any user ratings. One can only conclude that John Scalzi should have written it better.

“Midnight Star sure looks promising, but comes up short in execution with
extremely watered down gameplay that is too bland, and repetitive to
recommend.”

Bland and repetitive gameplay in a mobile rail shooter? Who could possibly have foreseen that? In the meantime, KiA appears to have discovered ethics in SF journalism.

The game of questions

Based on the enthusiastic response of the many game experts here, I’m going to go ahead and collect as many complete 10-question sets for as many video and computer games as you guys are willing to contribute. This is for a competitive quiz game that I believe will serve as a model for future games of its type. The structure makes it a lot more fun than the normal sort of quiz game, and it’s complete with powerups that make the game modestly tactical.

If you contribute, there will be free game coins in it for you.

Don’t post the questions and answers here, but email them to me with the subject QUESTIONS. All I’d like you to post here is what game(s) you’re going to address so we don’t get multiple sets of the same game. For example, I’ve already done Swashbuckler and Warlords, and an example of the former follows.

The goal is to have at least 2,500 questions covering all platforms and eras in the initial quiz game. So that’s 250 games, and I’m not an expert in 250 games, so I’m going to need some help. The questions should be as straightforward and non-verbose as possible. Don’t get cute with trick questions except PERHAPS at the Expert level, and make sure the Easy questions are easy enough that anyone who ever played the game even a little could probably answer.

Swashbuckler
PC (Apple II)
Action
1980s

EASY

1. What weapon does the first enemy carry? (club)
2. What key do you hit to switch direction? (S)
3. How do you kill an animal? (sword down, M)
4. How many points per kill? (1)

MEDIUM

5. What happens when a snake bites you? (You die)
6. What happens when a rat bites you? (Can’t thrust)
7. What is the fourth enemy missing? (Leg)

HARD

8. What is the secret to getting easy kills? (Thrust right after second enemy killed)
9. What is the background of Level Three (Sail)

EXPERT

10. What enemy, introduced on Level Three, does not fit the pirate theme? (Samurai)

Trump crushes feminist speech police

This is how you handle it when someone calls you sexist, misogynist, or whatever other label they seek to use to discredit, disqualify, or distract you:

MEGYN KELLY, FOX NEWS CHANNEL: Mr. Trump, one of the things people love about you is you speak your mind and you don’t use a politician’s filter. However that is not without its downsides, in particular when it comes to women. You’ve called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals. Your twitter account–

DONALD TRUMP: Only Rosie O’Donnell.

KELLY: For the record, it was well beyond Rosie O’Donnell.

TRUMP: I’m sure it was.

KELLY: Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women’s looks. You once told a contesttent that it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees.

Does that sound like the temperament of a man we should elect as president?

And how do you answer the charge from Hillary Clinton, who is likely to be the Democratic nominee, that you are part of the war on women?

TRUMP: The big problem this country has is being politically correct. I’ve been challenged by so many people and I don’t frankly have time for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesn’t have time either. This country is in big trouble. We don’t win anymore. We lose to China, we lose to Mexico both in trade and at the border. We lose to everybody. Frankly what I say and oftentimes it’s fun, it’s kidding, we have a good time. What I say is what I say. And honestly, Megyn if you don’t like it, I’m sorry. I’ve been very nice to you although I could probably not be based on the way you have treated me, but I wouldn’t do that. But you know what? We, we need strength, we need energy, we need quickness and we need brain in this country to turn it around. That I can tell you right now.

Megyn, YOU are a part of the big problem the USA has. Every SJW, every self-appointed thought policeman is a part of the problem. And it is time to start making sure that every time they try to play thought police, we cram that concept right down their throats.

“The big problem this country has is being politically correct.” It’s certainly one big problem that gets in the way of discussing any of the actual issues that matter.

It was good to see Trump put Kelly in her place. I have never understood the conservative affection for her. She’s a feminist, she’s PC, and she’s pro-immigration, ergo she is on the other side.

That being said, good for her and Fox News for actually putting the candidates on the spot for a change.

So much for “Christian Zionism”

All those evangelicals who are so keen to profess how they love Israel even better than they do America or Jesus Christ should perhaps consider that their affections are not returned

The leader of a far-Right Israeli group has risked arrest by apparently voicing support for arson attacks on Christian churches amid an official crackdown on Jewish extremism.

Benzi Gopstein, the outspoken head of Lehava – which has drawn notoriety for its violent assaults on Jewish-Arab assimilation – made the remarks at a panel discussion for Jewish yeshiva students when asked by a fellow panelist if he believed burning down churches in Israel was justified.

He later tried to evade accusations of inciting his followers to fire-raise, saying it was the government’s responsibility to carry out what he presented as a religious teaching of the 12th century Jewish philosopher, Maimonides.

“Did the Rambam [Maimonides] rule to destroy [idol worship] or not? Idol worship must be destroyed. It’s simply yes – what’s the question?” Mr Gopstein told the panel.

His comment alarmed his questioner Benny Rabinovich, a journalist, who told him: “Benzi, I must say I’m really shocked by what you’re saying here. You are essentially saying we must go out and burn down churches. You’re saying something insane here.”

Told by another panelist, Moshe Klein, rabbi of Israel’s Haddash medical centres, that the discussion was being filmed and that his remarks could lead to his arrest, Mr Gopstein answered: “That’s the last thing that concerns me. If this is truth, I’m prepared to sit in jail 50 years for it.” 

This is a reminder of the fact that diversity+proximity=war. It’s also a reminder of the fact that immigrants transform the land, the land doesn’t transform the immigrants.

I’m a Zionist myself, but not on the basis of being a Christian. Israel for the Jews, Germany for the Germans, France for the French, and so forth. If you want relative peace, that is the way to achieve it. But I would no more attend a church that flew an Israeli flag than one that featured a female pastor. Both are unmistakable signs of a church that follows the world rather than Jesus Christ.

How could it not be fair?

If sex is merely a matter of self-expression, there is no reason to even distinguish between sports for “men” and for “women”.

50-Year-Old Transgender Basketball Player Joins Jr. College Women’s Team…Is This Fair?

This is the story of Robert Ludwig, now Gabrielle Ludwig, a 50-year-old recent sex change operation recipient who is now playing for the women’s basketball team of Mission College in Santa Clara, Calif.

After her procedure this past summer, Ludwig petitioned the court for a new birth certificate that would designate her sex as “female.”  On Nov. 30, a judge awarded her the new birth certificate and in the eyes of the government, Robert Ludwig is now officially Gabrielle Ludwig.

That one piece of paper opened doors for Ludwig. However, there were concerns that her previous time as a college player might be a problem. Back in 1980, then-Robert Ludwig played for Nassau Community College and the bylaws of the Community College Athletic Association only permit a player to participate for two years. But the athletic association decided to reinstate Ludwig’s full eligibility, based on the fact that he was now legally a “she” and deserved the full two years of permitted playing time with her new gender.

Hey, if Caitlyn Jenner won the Men’s Decathalon in the Olympics, clearly all bets are off. And therefore, we can stop fretting about wage gaps, disproportional representation, and sex-based affirmative action, and get rid of Title IX now.

That will be the correct response to any woman complaining about “sexism”. Sex is just a social construct, so just call yourself male and start reaping the benefits.

Those who serve and know not

To them, too, we owe our thanks. It’s tremendously amusing to listen to the science fiction SJWs projecting and declaring the Puppies to be pathetic losers while they whine and cry and gnash their yellowed, decaying teeth. A sniveling SJW named Chris M. Barkley is only the latest to strike the usual poses:

Contrast this with Mr. Beale, who, on the surface seems to have some moderate amount of talent as a writer, editor and publisher, who has gone out of his way to trumpet and advance notions of homophobia, sexism, racism with provocative slander, libelous insults and threats, wildly delivered with what I can only describe as a pseudo- intellectual flair. However, those talents, which could have been used for the betterment of literature and culture, are instead being used to soil and defame it. Beale’s latest attempt at seeking attention, a worldwide call for a boycott of all TOR authors and books, is as pathetic as it is futile.

All of the activities of the Sad and Rabid Puppies might have been easily laughed off, had they not made good on their threats and effectively gamed the Hugo Award nominations this year.

Millions of words have been spilled, pounded, spit out, spit upon, leveraged and expounded upon this subject by thousands of commentators, bloggers, pundits and literary critics since the nominations were announced.

I tell friends and acquaintances that are not familiar with sf fandom that this is not the first fannish feud to spill out into the consciousness of the public, nor will it be the last. With internet connectivity, hair trigger tempers and the willingness of people to stay up WAY PAST their bedtimes to correct stuff on the internet, it is certainly the most public display of asshattery in fandom that general public has ever seen.

I consider what Brad Torgenson, Larry Corriea and Theodore Beale have collectively done, is a direct attack on what fans, writers, editors, publishers and literature itself. And I consider this attack on fandom and the Hugos is a personal attack against me….

 I do not obsess about it but I have been wondering whether he really understands that a life is a legacy for those who follow him.

There is room in fandom for rational discussion, debate and even dissent. There is no room however, for empty rhetoric and false conjecture, death threats, bullying, hateful and blatant racism, sexism and gay baiting, which is what the Sad Puppies now stand for, forever tarred with the same brush as and the Rabid Puppy crew, whether they like or not.

Moreover, this means that while we may have to listen to the inane and idiotic diatribes of Theodore Beale/Vox Day, we do not have to endorse or accept them.

Margaret Keifer’s life is an exemplary example of what every fan’s, every person’s life should be.

What Theodore Beale and his followers have forcefully shown, is that they are incapable of empathy, kindness or human decency.

They have my pity, and little else.

So brave. Thank you for this. Of course, what they don’t recognize is that one can’t soil sewage. And one can’t defame the infamous with the truth. And I would correct him: the SJWs not only don’t have to endorse or accept anything I say, they quite clearly aren’t listening to anything I have said. I’ll try again:

I am not one of you. I do not want to be one of you. I don’t want your attention, I don’t want your awards, I don’t want your respect, I don’t want your pity, and I don’t want anything to do with you. I have never wanted anything to do with you. In my opinion you are left-wing human wreckage whose worldview is outdated, irrational, nonsensical, and ignorant.

You are neither my intellectual nor moral superior. You are not even my intellectual peer. Your morality, to the extent it can be called that, is a parasitical parody of the real thing. I do not respect you, I do not value your opinion, I reject your values, and I deny your competence to judge me in any way.

I turned my back on your freakish community and everything it stood for as soon as I had the opportunity to see it clearly for myself at Minicon in 1997. I dutifully did my panels and never went to another SF convention or attended another SF-related event ever again. I don’t associate with losers, child molesters, or creepy rape enthusiasts, and SF fandom consists of little else. I never submitted a short story to a science fiction magazine or submitted a novel to a science fiction publishing house because I didn’t have any professional respect for most of the community’s incompetent institutions.

All the SF community had to do was leave me alone and I would have left it alone. I did so, more or less, for 16 years. You didn’t. For over ten years I was repeatedly attacked, unprovoked, by various members of your weird little community. I ignored most of their repeated jabs, their libels, their false accusations, their nasty insinuations, and their insults. Out of sheer contempt, I ignored most of their attempts to obtain my attention. But when John Scalzi, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, N.K. Jemisin, and Steven Gould, among others, made an attempt to publicly destroy my reputation, I decided I would not ignore it any longer.

So, you’ve got my attention now. And you should have known better to draw the contemptuous eye of the Supreme Dark Lord of the Evil Legion of Evil upon you. Because the Rabid Puppies, and the Dread Ilk, and the Ilk, and worst of all, my 391 397 Vile Faceless Minions, are coming for you. Not just this year, not just next year, but always and forever until you are gone. By all means, cry more about how much we hurt you; the VFM like nothing better than the taste of your tears.

The Sad Puppies want to fix what the SJWs have done to the detriment of science fiction over the last three decades. I respect that, although I think it makes more sense to demolish a building and build anew rather than attempt to shore up a termite-infested structure. But Rabid Puppies are not Sad Puppies. We want nothing more than to crush SJW bones, drink SJW blood, and leave a smoking hole where every SJW institution used to be.

We’re not incapable of empathy, kindness or human decency, we simply have no mercy for SJWs. There will be NO PLACE in science fiction for SJWs.

And that is why, on behalf of the Rabid Puppies, I wish to personally thank every SJW in science fiction who voted for No Award in any category this year and award you this badge as an expression of my personal gratitude.

 
Another File 770 SJW adds:
The puppies lack of empathy and self righteousness will ensure they are
unaware of what they have wrought or feel they are entirely justified in
doing so. Their dogmatic certainty of certain “truths” makes it
impossible to have a rational discussion with them since there isn’t a
common set of assumptions on which to base a discussion.
We know what we’ve done and as we expected, the SJW reaction has entirely justified our actions. And the next time one of them is whining about how we don’t talk to them, don’t listen to them, and don’t pay any attention to their opinions except to laugh at them, we will remind them that they themselves have declared it is “impossible to have a rational discussion” with us.

“A Reliable Source” in the real world

This link to an FBI activity alert was sent to me by a reader with the comment that it didn’t take long for “A Reliable Source” (which appeared in Riding the Red Horse) to become non-fiction.

Middle-Eastern Males Approaching Family Members of US Military Personnel at their Homes In Colorado and Wyoming, as of June 2015. 

SOURCE: An officer of another law enforcement agency.

In May 2015, the wife of a US military member was approached in front of her home by two Middle-Eastern males. The men stated that she was the wife of a US interrogator. When she denied their claims, the men laughed. The two men left the area in a dark-colored, four-door sedan with two other Middle-Eastern males in the vehicle. The woman had observed the vehicle in the neighborhood on previous occasions.

Similar incidents in Wyoming have been reported to the FBI throughout June 2015. On numerous occasions, family members of military personnel were confronted by Middle-Eastern males in front of their homes. The males have attempted to obtain personal information about the military member and family members through intimidation. The family members have reported feeling scared.

It’s my opinion that large-scale drone warfare could be easily counteracted by targeting the drone operators and their family members. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if countries like Iran, Russia, Israel, and China already have near-complete lists of every US military drone operator and their home addresses. There are only 1,200 of them, after all. In less than 24 hours, the entire US drone fleet could be rendered inoperative, which is the main reason AI-controlled robodrones are inevitable, the various moral and technical concerns about unintended consequences notwithstanding.

I also wonder if their awareness of being the most vulnerable link in the chain is one reason why “drone pilots are quitting in record numbers.”

What passes for SJW “journalism”

It’s not just about ethics in science fiction journalism, it’s about the way SJWs regularly get the most basic facts completely wrong. Because – all together now – SJWs always lie:

Adam Roberts @arrroberts
In a nutshell, my thoughts on the 2015 Hugos kerfuffle.

“Nazis. I hate these guys.”

Metayahu@Metayahu
It’s even funnier because the white guy is married to a black woman.
NAZI

Adam Roberts @arrroberts
Since I nowhere call Torgerson (or anyone) a Nazi, I’m not sure of your point.

Peat Moss ‏@DrinkerOfScotch
Do you not see the picture included in your original tweet? The one that says “Nazis, I hate these guys”?

Adam Roberts @arrroberts
You were originally responding to my Guardian piece.

Peat Moss @DrinkerOfScotch
I wasn’t responding to anything previously. So you’re saying you just happened to mention Nazis and Hugos for no reason?

Adam Roberts @arrroberts
The ‘Nazis’ joke (from days before) was about Vox Day. Through to be accurate he’s not a Nazi: he’s a clerical fascist.

Peat Moss @DrinkerOfScotch
Thanks for the clarification. Good to know exactly what your biases are.

Adam Roberts @arrroberts
I have beliefs, predicated on principles, experience and thought. I’m sure you do too. Calling them ‘biases’ is merely rude

Peat Moss @DrinkerOfScotch
I think calling people fascists and misrepresenting the Sad Puppies as racist, sexist, and homophobic is just a bit more rude.

Adam Roberts @arrroberts
You are, perhaps, denying that Vox Day is a clerical fascist, or John C Wright a homophobe? We’ll have to agree to disagree

Peat Moss @DrinkerOfScotch
Vox Day is a libertarian. I disagree with many of his opinions, but he’s not trying to silence people or pass laws against them.

Filotto ‏@Filotto
no. We’ll have to agree you are an outrageous liar. @voxday is demonstarbly not fascist.

Adam Roberts @arrroberts
V.D. is a deeply religious Catholic with militaristic, racist and misogynistic views. He’s no common-garden libertarian.

Filotto ‏@Filotto
why do you lie so stupidly? @voxday is NOT a catholic. And you lie about the rest too.

Vox Day @voxday
You’re pig-ignorant, Roberts. I’m not a Catholic and never have been. I’m not racist or misogynistic either.

Vox Day @voxday
If you were an actual journalist, not an SJW parody of one, you’d talk to me, not to others about me.

Robert G Evans @drawncutlass
Well said.  The whole Sad Puppies controversy has been marked by unethical journalism.

I’ll admit, I’m every bit as racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, and white supremacist as I am Catholic. And Old Martian. The funny thing is that the most recent Catholics in my heritage are a) the Mexicans and b) the Native Americans, two basic facts about me that the SJWs are desperate to deny.

Isn’t it remarkable how they will so readily claim me to be that which I am not, while simultaneously omitting to mention that which I indisputably am?

Au revoir, Reaxxion

I’m disappointed to learn that Roosh is shutting down Reaxxion, as I think there is a real need for a game site like that and I thought the writers were doing some excellent work there.

I’ve decided to close Reaxxion after approximately nine months of operation. Traffic has not grown to a level that allows the site to financially sustain itself. We have not been able to consistently surpass 250,000 page views a month.

I take full blame for the site’s commercial failure. The writers and editor did a great job trying to achieve my vision of what Reaxxion should be, but in spite of that, the growth did not occur. I attribute this failure to creating the site from a spontaneous idea (in response to gamergate) instead of developing it organically based on an actual need. The fact the gamergate continues to be successful and influential in other communities shows that I did not even provide a substantial need to the audience it was intended for.

We’re pretty busy with some other projects, but perhaps when things transition to the next phase, we’ll be able to take a look at doing something similar. But notice how Roosh has implemented the “fail faster” philosophy. That is one reason he continues to be successful.

Success = Try, Succeed/Fail, Try Something Else.
Failure = Try, Quit, Mope.

My 10-second diagnosis is that there were no game reviews or industry news, which rendered it all opinion, no news. But I salute Roosh and the writers for making the effort. It was a good one.

Nazis, Nazis everywhere!

The SJWs are extending their thought-policing from SF to romance:

For Such a Time by Kate Breslin is an inspirational historical romance between a Nazi concentration camp commander and a Jewish prisoner. It was nominated by the Romance Writers of America for Best First Book and Best Inspirational Romance in 2014. It won neither category, but the book’s presence as a nominee has upset a growing number of people.
At Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, we undertake a community review project to try to give every RITA_nominated book a review before the awards are announced. The review for this book was written by a guest reviewer named Rachel, and it is extraordinarily good in my opinion.
Rose Lerner and her BFF have compiled a collection of the 5-star reviews for this book, as well.
After the RITA awards, which were held on July 25, 2014, I wrote a letter to the Board of Directors of Romance Writers of America to explain (or try to explain) why this book’s nominations were so offensive and upsetting. I sent this letter via email and received a response from the president of RWA. But in the conversations I’ve had online over the last few weeks, I’ve suggested people let the board know about their feelings as well.

You vill not read vat ve do not VANT you to read. Make no mistake, the SJWs are thought police and they have NO problem declaring that a book is unmeritorious on the basis of its content.