Aggro’s Arcade: Insert Penny to Discontinue

This is a fucking bad idea.

I shouldn’t be writing this post, it’s a stupid ass decision on my end, but what the hell, feel free to go ahead and flame me in the comment section for taking the initiative. I’m going to admit that I am ill with a secret man crush on Aggro, joking, but Aggro and I have mutual respect for each other, at least for the moment, until he probably reads this post and screams zi’omgwtffukronesbbq and suffocates his EverQuest II monkey by flinging his poop at it, a stuffed monkey he received as a special gift from SOE…

I read Aggro’s site every week day and I enjoy the gander. But, everyone makes mistakes, we all have dumb posts and when we put our thoughts in front of an audience, players just like developers will be scrutinized for their opinions. Aggro’s latest post where he rants against Penny Arcade is lame in my opinion. Yet, I must admit, even I have a lot more stupid posts than everyone else…

Learn 2 rant newbs: There should be some type of official learning course on how you construct a entertaining rant. In fact, ancient lore from the almighty ice weasels stated ranting is an art form, it requires tactful talent and careful structure because if waxed correctly the result of your pontification will be eloquent even if presented in an infuriated manner.

If I were judging Aggro’s rant against Penny Arcade I would give it nothing, but at least he was honest with himself, albeit my fellow citizens before you indulge in your own tirades against me in the comment section…. I want to provide you with a few steps that I follow which some of you may want to take into consideration before going public.

Checking the Facts: Before publishing a rant, always fact check two times before publishing, you shouldn’t edit it after it’s published, and if you do, you’re fucked. If someone can discredit different areas of your rant where you attack and attempt to make a point and you knowingly realize you have lost your argument, your rant is worthless and you will end up looking like a fanboi jacktard or a lincoln park emo bitch who must have an array of razor blades strewn about their desk.

Do your research: Besides checking the facts, you want an informed opinion on what you are defending and attacking. If you don’t do the research it might be best not to rant at all because your rants foundation is built will be morass and will basically have no merit.

Back Peddling: Aggro committed a cardinal sin when it comes to ranting and probably hoped that the majority of his readers wouldn’t notice it. He edited his original rant in his favor. Is this practice fair? I edit shit all the time after I post, usually to fix a misspelling, so it’s up in the air. I won’t say what Aggro edited out because he knows what it is. Avoid editing your original rant if possible, think before you write.

Overall Quality: If you suck at ranting, don’t do it. You will be burned, being honest in your rant and especially credible is very important.

Ad Hominem Attacks:

An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin, literally “argument to the man”) or attacking the messenger, is a logical fallacy that involves replying to an argument or assertion by attacking the person presenting the argument or assertion rather than the argument itself.

This is a dangerous grey area in pontificating, unless you are attacking a midget or a person missing a limb with wooden legs and dressing up as lesbian pirates, ad hominem attacks against these instances are a-okay. On a serious note, if you intend on using ad hominem attacks you are bound to offend someone and I would use these attacks carefully. You may offend someone you didn’t mean too. This is a mistake I have made several times. You must keep this in mind, a lot of harsh pontificators won’t care either way, that’s their intention when using these attacks. In special circumstances, I just don’t give a fuck and let bombard my target with arsenal of vulgarities, but in the back of my mind I know I should stay away from going off the deep end and avoiding blatant slander. One of the better methods in presenting an ad hominem is by injecting humor such as Gabe did against EverQuest II artists.

Gabe: It is completely without life. There is no love or care given to any piece of it. The entire thing was made by robots in a vacuum.

I know there must be artists working at SOE. The only thing I can think of is that they are simply cogs in some corporate machine. They must be given no freedom at all. In fact after looking at the game I wouldn’t be surprised if they are beaten daily. Their spirits have been broken. The troll models specifically may even be some kind of internal attempt to destroy the game and strike a blow against their corporate masters.

I laughed, if ad hominem attacks are used in a rant, this is how they should be done. Harsh? Yea, but ranting is normally fucking harsh by nature, if this were a civil debate, another set of ground rules would be in play. Ranting should be funny and entertaining, it’s better than representing yourself a crying jaded emo cockslogger.

Aggro’s response: Can’t you just say, “I really hate the art in EQII. I know that’s a subjective thing but I don’t like it.” Do you have to bash the actual artists? I’ve complained about the armor graphics and character models plenty of times without attacking the artists on a personal level.

I have met some of the artists who work on EQII and let me tell you they are not robots. Far from it. They pour as much blood, sweat and love into their work as anyone I have met. Their eyes light up when you talk about a zone they designed. They are passionate about what they do.

So even if you don’t like the final product, I see no need for that form of comment.

Cry more please. I met the artists and they work so hard and they’re people like everyone else man! Can we go hug and have butt sekz now? I like Aggro, but this isn’t a good response to Gabe’s attack on EverQuest II artists, sure it’s civil, but according to Aggro is like the tagline of what his blog “overnuking” not “cupcake making” or “playing nice.”

It gets worse when Aggro initiates his Ad Hominem attack, which is something he does purposely as he makes a point about making an example of sinking down to Gabe’s level.

Take a good look at Tycho’s avatar on their comments page. Take a good look at Gabe’s avatar. Ah, they are the guys from the comic! They must look like that in real life. Um, no.

That’s what Gabe and Tycho look like in real life. Don’t believe me? Do a google search. Now I can’t get past those visuals. Why don’t they draw their comics as accurate representations of themselves, as they imply? I can’t get past that. Penny Arcade sucks.

This is really fucking stupid, and I feel like a total retard even commenting on this shit. Aggro makes his point, but in the process he seriously discredits himself. This is exactly what you do not want to do for an ad hominem attack. If you wanted to spin this another way I would have attacked their web comic directly and intertwined it with the ad hominem attack on Gabe’s self claimed talent as an artist.

For example: “I just received this free trial to check out Penny Arcade’s comics. I have to pay REAL comics so this free one must suck. I know they’ve been around for years, so I started from the beginning and you know what. I can’t believe these fucking asstarts would call this piece of shit a comic.. The art is horrendous, I wouldn’t even call it art for that matter, they should make a new definition for guys like Gabe who can’t draw and instead define art as lines with color down syndrome, because it’s like a retarded gay donkey puked all over himself and then killed itself over a computer canvas. The ony thing I find funny about Penny Arcade is how Gabe actually somehow considers himself an artist, look at all the shit he reuses, all this bastard does is cut-copy-paste his work and only change the backdrops and facial expressions. This prick earns himself a few contracts and gets in bed with Brady Games and Blizzard and he thinks he is the fucking Pope of web comics and is some expert on game art. Yea, art is fucking subjective, but lets check out how fucking inept Gabe’s statement is regarding his opinion on the art in Everquest II.”

I figured since it was free I’d give EQ II a shot yesterday. Tycho’s right about my take on the game. I found it nearly impossible to get past the visuals. The entire game looks like it was made using Poser and Bryce 3D. Actually some of that Poser art looks better than the shit I saw in EQ. It feels like it was all put together by computers and algorithms rather than artists. It is a world designed by math rather than imagination. There is no evidence of style in any of the characters or environments I saw. We were all talking about the game yesterday and the best word we could come up with to describe it was “sterile”. It is completely without life. There is no love or care given to any piece of it. The entire thing was made by robots in a vacuum.

“The entire game? Listen you stupid shit, EverQuest II is a fucking mmorpg, this isn’t some Sega Genesis game you used to play in your mother’s basement while Tycho was giving you a reach around and donkey punching you with his joystick. It would take you months to see most areas in this virtual world, how long did you actually play the game for? I’m sure it wasn’t more than a few hours. You shouldn’t be playing games and commenting on them on the fucking main page of Penny Arcade if you can’t get past their art direction, some of the best games have shitty looking art.” (Etc. Something along those lines)

The game isn’t free either…I do think Gabe should have stated well if you are interested in another mmorpg and haven’t checked EverQuest II, now might be a good time since you can grab the game on the cheap. I don’t like this game myself, but it’s because like my rant above, it’s mainly the art direction I didn’t like about it, there was not hook for me. Perhaps it will be different for you guys, but Gabe is a fucking dumb ass and I get the impression he puts in the effort to keep his juvenile mornic street cred more than his basic logical sense.

Gabe later responds including a response from John Smedler, SUPER CEO OF SUPER SONY ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT:

Normally I like you guys a lot.. even when you dig on us.. but it felt like you went personal on our artists. Low blow IMO

We have some of the most talented artists in the business and EQ II is a gorgeous game. Certainly art style is a subjective thing.. and if you want to bag on the art then that’s certainly your right. But unless and until you’ve had any of your art in a game calling people robots just seems weak.

John Smedley

President, Sony Online Entertainment

Gabe: I agree that SOE probably has some very talented artists working for them. However none of that talent is making its way into the final product. I think that the problem is EQ II has no unifying artistic vision. It’s a game designed by committee and that’s a sure way to kill creativity. If I were to look at individual portfolios I’m sure I’d have plenty of nice things to say about the artists that work there. But I’m not, I’m looking at EQ II and at looks terrible. Is that their fault? No I think it’s the fault of the corporate machine they are trapped in.

Art is indeed subjective. I gave you my impressions and that’s all. You see it differently and that’s great, good for you. To tell me that I am not qualified to have an opinion on the graphics in a game until I’ve worked on one is pretty ridiculous. Plenty of people tell me my work is shit and none of them ever made a fucking web comic.

Haha, shit, more terrible opinions from an ignorant dumb ass who has seen less than 5% of what EverQuest II has to offer, if that. Gabe needs to just shut the fuck up, but he won’t because he’s placed on a pedastel like a stranded princess with a bleeding pussy.. Also Smedley’s response is hilarious, calling his artists robots just seems weak? Smedley, normally you sir are the weakest link. You want to do something good for the genre? Quit your position for good and retire, you have enough money hats and stains on this fucking industry. Oh yea, on a final note Penny Arcade isn’t a game review site, it’s a typical journal of two popular guys who run a popular web comic and comment on games they play, basic 101 bullshitting. If anyone consider their asinine opinions as actual game reviews should probably get their head examined.

Oh and, the best argument against Gabe is their relationship to Blizzard, but they have ranted against Blizzard in the past numerous times. A lot of people feel the same way about EverQuest II, so I don’t believe Gabe was sitting around and thinking, oh snap, I love World of Warcraft so fucking much I need to go tell everyone how shitty I think EverQuest II is after only playing it to level 5 man! Everyone who works in the industry in some fashion is tainted and needs the occasional uppercut to the taint… Fansites, bias is fucking everywhere, even on this site.

People who don’t work at game companies, but also work in relation to the game industry need to make a living for themselves, it’s a pardox that can’t really be solved. Being honest is sometimes difficult when you think a game sucks and when you are honest about a competitor’s game and it’s done in a negative fashion you will get called out on it because you are a sell out, a fucking corporate schill. Best thing about it, options, if you don’t like it? Move along, find another website, magazine, etc.