Some things that piss me the fuck off
Feb. 18th, 2010 05:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenTime for a good old-fashioned gripe. Here's what's annoying me this week!
1. People who pronounce things wrong.
I don't mean people who don't speak English well or have accents. They are lovely and allowed to speak with accents all their life for all I care, especially if they are British. (Or Australian. Or Kiwi. Or even South African, though I will probably confuse that with one of the others--or all of the others at some point.) I mean people who were born and raised in America and obviously speak fluent English who insist on pronouncing words that they clearly have only ever read on paper in a way that is stupid and obviously wrong, and worse, no one corrects them.
Currently, after leaving behind my book last week, I am listening to an audiobook of The Stand. I haven't even caught up to where I left off, I was just enjoying having it read to me while I worked, did chores, etc. But the guy they've got reading it is going to drive me out of my goddamned mind. I mean, this is something that was recorded and edited and produced and no one stopped to go, "Buddy, you do not say things that way. Look it up the dictionary if you can't read it."
Stasis. Say it to yourself. Stasis. The dictionary would like you to know that that is pronounced STAY-sis. Not STAH-sis. It's bad enough I have to listen to you say "modem" as mo-DEM, which is weird but not wrong (according to the dictionary). I've lost count of the others, but STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT. Every time, I'm yanked bodily out of the goddamned story. STOP IT.
2. People who are anorexic presuming to lecture other people about their eating habits. Yes, this article has to do with the Kevin Smith kerfuffle, which should be discussed in terms of customer service and has instead devolved into "Fatties deserve it." But it's a good read. Because even if you want to make this about someone being fat, end of story, you really, really shouldn't let anyone that obsessed with food tell you what's right and what's not when it comes to a) eating, b) obesity, c) anything else. Obsessed people make very poor philosophers.
3. The fact that I'm probably going to have to buy this expansion.
Kotaku had a good article about the two-pronged strategy to encourage gamers to buy games new, which would funnel money to developers and not to retailers like GameStop that turn around used games, on which developers see nary a penny. One strategy was to keep the game relevant--to keep updating and updating and updating it with downloads to make it worth holding onto. This would keep the game in the hands of the few who do buy it immediately and would keep them from pawning it off, thus cutting down on the supply of (if not the demand for) used games.
I find this all incredibly obnoxious. In Mass Effect 2, one of the main teammates of your player character was obviously an afterthought add-on of just this type of system, thus making him uninteresting and conversations with him less interesting that bothering anonymous NPCs in the game. You needed to have him to get achievements, but you couldn't relate to him worth a damn. But you did need him for those achievements.
And I like these games. I really liked Assassin's Creed II. I don't even object to their being a second game with the main character from it as opposed to creating a new adventure with a new assassin. But not like this. Especially not when, as is the case with a lot of "downloadable content" what you're really doing is downloading the right to access data on a disc you've purchased. Maybe this DLC is different, but it's still dragging out the franchise and stringing along the fans, dropping substandard fare on them and hoping it's just good enough that they don't protest. Balls to that.
And, yes, I'm mad that I still want it. I will wait to hear reviews. The first reviews of AC II DLC were...not kind. Perhaps this ranting will all come to nothing. But I'll still be annoyed in principle, just so we're clear.
1. People who pronounce things wrong.
I don't mean people who don't speak English well or have accents. They are lovely and allowed to speak with accents all their life for all I care, especially if they are British. (Or Australian. Or Kiwi. Or even South African, though I will probably confuse that with one of the others--or all of the others at some point.) I mean people who were born and raised in America and obviously speak fluent English who insist on pronouncing words that they clearly have only ever read on paper in a way that is stupid and obviously wrong, and worse, no one corrects them.
Currently, after leaving behind my book last week, I am listening to an audiobook of The Stand. I haven't even caught up to where I left off, I was just enjoying having it read to me while I worked, did chores, etc. But the guy they've got reading it is going to drive me out of my goddamned mind. I mean, this is something that was recorded and edited and produced and no one stopped to go, "Buddy, you do not say things that way. Look it up the dictionary if you can't read it."
Stasis. Say it to yourself. Stasis. The dictionary would like you to know that that is pronounced STAY-sis. Not STAH-sis. It's bad enough I have to listen to you say "modem" as mo-DEM, which is weird but not wrong (according to the dictionary). I've lost count of the others, but STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT. Every time, I'm yanked bodily out of the goddamned story. STOP IT.
2. People who are anorexic presuming to lecture other people about their eating habits. Yes, this article has to do with the Kevin Smith kerfuffle, which should be discussed in terms of customer service and has instead devolved into "Fatties deserve it." But it's a good read. Because even if you want to make this about someone being fat, end of story, you really, really shouldn't let anyone that obsessed with food tell you what's right and what's not when it comes to a) eating, b) obesity, c) anything else. Obsessed people make very poor philosophers.
3. The fact that I'm probably going to have to buy this expansion.
Kotaku had a good article about the two-pronged strategy to encourage gamers to buy games new, which would funnel money to developers and not to retailers like GameStop that turn around used games, on which developers see nary a penny. One strategy was to keep the game relevant--to keep updating and updating and updating it with downloads to make it worth holding onto. This would keep the game in the hands of the few who do buy it immediately and would keep them from pawning it off, thus cutting down on the supply of (if not the demand for) used games.
I find this all incredibly obnoxious. In Mass Effect 2, one of the main teammates of your player character was obviously an afterthought add-on of just this type of system, thus making him uninteresting and conversations with him less interesting that bothering anonymous NPCs in the game. You needed to have him to get achievements, but you couldn't relate to him worth a damn. But you did need him for those achievements.
And I like these games. I really liked Assassin's Creed II. I don't even object to their being a second game with the main character from it as opposed to creating a new adventure with a new assassin. But not like this. Especially not when, as is the case with a lot of "downloadable content" what you're really doing is downloading the right to access data on a disc you've purchased. Maybe this DLC is different, but it's still dragging out the franchise and stringing along the fans, dropping substandard fare on them and hoping it's just good enough that they don't protest. Balls to that.
And, yes, I'm mad that I still want it. I will wait to hear reviews. The first reviews of AC II DLC were...not kind. Perhaps this ranting will all come to nothing. But I'll still be annoyed in principle, just so we're clear.
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no subject
Date: 2010-02-18 10:43 pm (UTC)>:( Sometimes I really hate people.
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Date: 2010-02-18 11:18 pm (UTC)Believe me, I'd love to live in a world where every visit to the doctor isn't accompanied by a stop-being-a-fatty lecture, but I'm not sure he helps the cause.
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Date: 2010-02-19 03:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-18 10:44 pm (UTC)Is harass one word or two? heh
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Date: 2010-02-18 11:06 pm (UTC)The first is the a in ace; the second is the a in ash.
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Date: 2010-02-18 11:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-19 03:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-19 04:17 pm (UTC)That being said, it is the job of people like me to make popular media conform to the most common language rules, and since I don't think Stephen King was discussing logic while using this word, someone should have corrected the speaker before they released the audiobook.
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Date: 2010-02-19 04:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-18 10:54 pm (UTC)Airline seats are always a concern, because they're designed to only be comfortable for people under 5'4" and under about 120 lbs., and then people are quite happy to yell about the fat person invading their space on the airplane. At least on Airtran, the cheap business class upgrades offer a decent compromise. Southwest in particular is infamous for mistreating fat people; I won't fly it if I have a choice.
Re: AC2 - Battle of Forli's been getting bad reviews, but Bonfire of the Vanities has been getting better buzz. So I'll end up having to buy it, as much as I hate their marketing strategy.
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Date: 2010-02-19 03:35 pm (UTC)Southwest has been getting--deserved--flack from all sides. They're the ones who booted a woman off a flight because they didn't think she was dressed appropriately. I mean, what? Unless she's violating decency laws, which she wasn't, why should that even matter to you? And the problem with the "no fatties" rule is not that the people involved are actually fat, are actually breaking Southwest's own stupid rules about fatness. It's that someone, at some stop, threw a power-mad fit about their nonconformity to slenderness. Both Smith and another guy who was removed from a flight for the same reason are frequent Southwest fliers. Smith was, previously, willing to buy two seats, as much for the ability to put other people slightly further away from him (him being famous and all) as for his weight, I'm sure. He and the other guy both were not allowed to use proof of the fact they fit in the damned seat to fly. That's BS. That's what the story should be about--it should be about Southwest booting passengers arbitrarily and targeting heavier people because they know that no one will stand up for them.
Point is, Southwest a solvent carrier, a rare thing these days, and because they've got a decent client base and are making money, they are prone to being just as dickish as any company that starts to edge out its competition.
As for Bonfire of the Vanities, I'll wait for reviews. I really did love Ezio's story. It was much more robust than Altair's. I felt like Altair was a cipher. He's already in the sooper-sekret organization, and the plot revolves around a thing he did wrong that one time. Not that you understand, right off, why it was so wrong. With Ezio, you're watching a character mature, in every sense of the word. I loved that, at the end, he'd been fighting for so long, he was exhausted with it and aware that his revenge had really not brought him any closure or measure of happiness. That's a very real sort of response, not at all what you'd expect from a presumably tireless player character of from your average tale of revenge.
So, I'm all for more of Ezio's story. I just would prefer to leave him be than to keep trying to wring more out of what should be a closed book. I liked the story so much that I really don't want them to ruin it, even if it means you don't get any more of his character. And on top of that, the last DLC wasn't supposed to be good. It makes me unhappy to see something good raked over for money.
Also, much as I do like Ezio, I'm really hoping that this doesn't distract Ubisoft from making a third title without him. I think they've done something amazing with this series, really built up and layered the mythologies of the present and past, and I want pay-off on those stories. I also want new stories. I'd really like to see anything of Desmond's life (new or old), or of some other ancestor. I mean, that's the attraction of the game and the smart marketing of it all ties into how they give you the familiar--to make your purchasing it more likely--along with something new--to challenge you to be involved with more than just the same-old, same-old. Personally, I'm hoping for a female assassin. Just because, why not? Also, there were rumors they were thinking about feudal or Edo-period Japan, which, hey, female ninja! And female ninjas, according to
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Date: 2010-02-19 05:14 pm (UTC)If not that...I'm skeptical of Japan, because Japanese history doesn't have as much appeal the the Americans and Europeans who are AC's main audience (sure, ninjas are cool, but the rest...) Given the focus on early 20th century industrialists in the AC2 files, I'd like to see something involving the 1900-1930 era. Make Tesla a major secondary character, filling Da Vinci's role in AC2. Assassinate presidents, posit some huge conspiracy behind Archduke Ferdinand's assassination and WWI, that sort of thing.
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Date: 2010-02-19 05:31 pm (UTC)If I were Ubisoft, I'd save that for a fourth game :)
I mean, you're absolutely right, that is the next logical place to take the game, especially with Desmond being all leveled up in the present. And because they will, eventually, run out of things to add to the overarching mythos that connects Desmond to what his ancestors discovered, they should probably jump on having Desmond actually explore this thread that he didn't really realize connected everything until just now. However, from a purely capitalistic point of view, it's in Ubisoft's best interest to hold back that conclusion--because, really, what could come after that resolution?--as long as they think they can without losing too many gamers. Given the depth they've got in this series, I'd say they could take it to five games, though that might be pushing it.
If not that...I'm skeptical of Japan, because Japanese history doesn't have as much appeal the the Americans and Europeans who are AC's main audience
See, that's just the thing: I wouldn't have said that the first game was a time all that many people were interested in, from among the core demographic I mean, either. And Renaissance Italy? I couldn't think of a less likely place to stage a video game. While you're right that Japanese history has less of a cultural impact on modern gamers in those areas, I wouldn't say that they are automatically less interested. I think the thoughtful gamers who enjoyed the locations of the first two games are the sort who will follow the trail wherever it goes, so long as the game continues to be interesting about it.
Regardless, you're right, there's a definite Euro-centric bias in a lot of ways. I'd like to see more done with, and more acknowledgment of, other cultures to whom Western society is indebted, but they skirted that when they didn't really go into the Saracen motivations (I don't think they did, I may be misremembering) in Altair's story. The contributions of, say, China, to the West is a great, under-told story, and I could see much being made of that. But probably it won't happen.
What I worry about is how far forward in time they will jump the story. Specifically, I'm worried about them doing what you suggest, and moving into the 20th century. I just...it's like my complaints about The Deadliest Warrior: once you bring guns into it, it stops being intimate and becomes about bein in ur city, shootin ur dudes. Ezio got close to that with his pistol, though it had limitations enough to make me prefer other weapons beyond my prejudice against guns. While I admit that most gamers won't have a problem with it becoming another run-and-gun franchise, I just find that so boring and so counter to what I've come to love about the series, which is its emphasis on thinking cleverly and overcoming limitations that you just won't have with a sniper rifle, you know?
I also find that WWI, WWII, and the time between them is just done as far as video games are concerned. We've got all the WWII we can support now, thanks very much. I'd be more interested to see some other time I didn't know could be as freshly realized in a video games as Ubisoft has delivered in the first two games.
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Date: 2010-02-19 06:39 pm (UTC)The first game takes place in the Holy Land, which everyone with any knowledge of religion should have some interest in (there's a reason I put AC1 on my "Best real-life locations in video games" list for that year for its 10th century Jerusalem). Renaissance Italy wouldn't have been that expected before "The Da Vinci Code" came out, but there's a bit more interest in it now.
Japan is actually a bit overrepresented in video gaming due to all those Japanese publishers; I don't see Ubisoft's French offices trying to go out of their Eurozone to use it. China's underrepresented, but it's very tough to work with.
I actually like using the 20th century, because it's the area of technique Desmond wouldn't have yet from Altair and Ezio, and one he'd need to properly take on the future Templars. There's a lot of room for an assassination game with guns, as opposed to a shooter, and WWI is severely underdone (which is why I suggest 1900-1930--the introduction of electricity, diesel, air travel, cars...) I can think of one recent game with some WWI setting (Days of Darkness? The one with the time traveller.) It shouldn't be a run-and-gun franchise, but you can do assassination with guns, and you'll have to if Desmond's going to do a plausible game in the near future where everyone has guns. It's also an era with, well, lots of assassins.
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Date: 2010-02-19 06:51 pm (UTC)Another problem with moving the series forward in time just occurred to me: move it too much closer, and you're going to run into people Desmond knows, or would have some record of himself, wouldn't you? I mean, it's all well and good to visit some relatives more than a half-a-millennium removed; they've got thousands of descendants, not just Desmond. But WWI would be Desmond's great-grandparents, at furthest remove. That's too close, I think, for him not to have some idea about them surely? Or am I missing something? It's been a while since Assassin's Creed...
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Date: 2010-02-19 07:33 pm (UTC)Desmond is approximately our age, I think, and the game takes place in 2012. I have little to no idea about my relatives who were adults in 1900-1920--the most we know is about one line of the family we could trace to Belarus that came over in that era. Easy plotline possibility, probably more thorough justification than Ubisoft would actually use: Desmond's great-great-grandmother came to the United States in 1905 in that massive wave of immigration, and left his great-great-grandfather behind in the old country; he planned to follow, but family legend is that he died before he arrived. The truth turns out to be that he stayed behind for his work as an assassin, which is (insert plot here).
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Date: 2010-02-19 08:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-18 10:57 pm (UTC)On the other hand, when you buy a plane ticket, you are not buying a trip from A to B, you are buying a specific amount of space on a plane going from A to B, which is priced accordingly. Hence first class. It sucks if you are too wide (or tall) to fit in that space. But I think the airlines have a perfect right to charge more if you are taking up more space than they have sold you, since you are taking it (on a crowded plane) from another paying customer. That's what they do with luggage. People don't have the right to be charged the same amount for a product regardless of their size--I mean, clothes don't work that way. Shoes don't work that way. Jewelry really doesn't (as someone with man-sized fingers, I cannot buy cheap rings).
So framing it as a debate about "endorsing bad eating habits" (jesus christ, seriously? You still think you can judge health by appearance?) is definitely wrong. Airlines not accomodating most of the population, wrong, but not new. Airlines exist to annoy us. If they weren't so damn convenient, they'd never be able to get away with so much inconvenience. But airlines enforcing rules about how much space they've sold you? That I'm cool with. (Until it happens to me, of course.) If they were up front about it--most people don't have an airline seat at home to check with before they buy tickets.
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Date: 2010-02-18 11:16 pm (UTC)Actually, the determining factors behind airplane pricing are nowhere near this simple and clear-cut. Same for clothing and jewelry prices, for that matter.
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Date: 2010-02-18 11:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-19 03:57 am (UTC)Of course it serves them if the entire population gets smaller--more people, more sales. So it seems like they're doing their small, ineffective part to try to shame people thinner, instead of actually selling something that fits most of the population.
I realize that most of my argument above about sizist pricing is about having to pay more for sizes that are outside the norm. In this case, it's the airplane seats that are outside the norm.
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Date: 2010-02-19 03:49 pm (UTC)The issue is, as Kevin Smith says at his blog (http://silentbobspeaks.com/?p=394), customer service. It is the problem of companies treating paying customers like absolute garbage and thinking they can get away with it. He begged people, on his blog post about it, to stop talking about whether or not it's fair to charge people extra who are heavy. It's not about that. It's about how they had a policy about seats, and however fair or unfair it was, they did not enforce it fairly. He passed their test; they kicked him off anyway. They targeted him because he was heavy, knowing that other passengers wouldn't defend him because most people, even those who aren't slim, believe themselves to be the aggrieved party on a flight. Seeing as most people have space issues fitting in plane seats, that makes sense. Everyone is acutely aware of how awful it is to have your very slight space taken up by someone else.
And the airline did not make it better in their apology. They covered their asses in print--making it clear that they viewed him as a problem first, customer second, human being dead last--while getting someone to call up Kevin Smith and pretend that they gave a damn he was inconvenienced. This is about a company violating its own rules and then, embarrassed when it is shown that they did so, trying to cover it all up. This should be a story about Southwest not being trustworthy. That's what I'm focused on.
(Granted, that link above was about weight. Forgive me the tangent. I just find that Smith's argument about customer service is both more compelling and worthy of our time. We're not going to solve the issue of whether or not weight can be charged extra over this one instance.)
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Date: 2010-02-19 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-19 08:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-19 04:25 am (UTC)One of the most knowledgeable signals people I ever knew always called it "mo-DEM" (and he was around when they were invented). So I guess it's definitely an acceptable pronounciation, but always sounded weird to my ears all the same.
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Date: 2010-02-19 04:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-19 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-19 08:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-19 08:18 pm (UTC)Mao, though. Jesus. Half this country is using stupid communist BS against the president, but I'd bet they'd mispronounce Mao, too.
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Date: 2010-02-20 04:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-20 07:59 pm (UTC)