I've been trying to avoid using pronouns like "you" when writing here. I don't intend to write as if I am speaking to someone. There are two main reasons for this:
1) To assume that I have an audience on my young, content-free blog would speak not so greatly of my ego.
2) Realizing this but writing as if I'm speaking to someone anyways is just kind of sad.
So, I've been trying to avoid using 'you' in my posts. I have been marginally successful with this so far. However, it's becoming increasingly difficult to keep up. As you (watch what I do here*) may have noticed, I've decided to quit trying.
I think in conversations. I don't think in pictures, or music, or binary (as much as I may like to), I think in conversations. When thinking about anything, I have protracted conversations with myself on the subject and that's how I process ideas. I used to hate it, but now I've learned to embrace it. This post I'm writing right now, in fact, I already discussed at length with myself the other day.
Given this, it's hard for me to write down my thoughts without being addressive. (be addressive, B E addressive!) So, I've decided to just write what I'm thinking and leave it at that. So if I happen to use 'you' when I write, it's more like I'm talking to myself than to my assumed audience that doesn't exist. (hmm, on second thought, I'm not quite sure which is more sad...)
This also serves as the preface to the most recent idea I've had for this blog. As someone who is always having these internal conversations**, I've decided that if any of them are interesting, I'm going to put them up here. Don't really know how that will go, but we'll see. The hobby aspect of this blog (and it's entire purpose, by extension) has basically dried up and disappeared. I like having an outlet for writing though, so I'm going to try to keep it going. Content be damned!
============================================
* - This statement being the preemptive version of "see what I did there"
* - I mean, literally always***. If I'm not already engaged in a conversation with someone in real life, or asleep, there's a good chance I'm talking to myself in my head. This used to drive me crazy at night when I was trying to fall asleep, but I've learned to deal with it fairly well.
** - I am literally sick and tired of people misusing the word literally.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Gamerbee
Sorry, this one isn't going to be about 40k at all, but I felt like this guy really deserved his own post. Gamerbee was, without a doubt, the strongest player I saw at EVO2k10. (which, as it turns out, is the same number of characters as 2010 so isn't saving me any effort typing)
Some quick backstory.
EVO is the biggest fighting game tournament in America and is held in Las Vegas every year. Thousands of people come from all over the country (and the world, even) to compete. And when I say "thousands" I don't mean, like, two.
Justin Wong and Daigo Umehara are considered to be just about the two strongest players out there. They both hold great authority over the community. New games come out, events happen, or whatever and everyone calls up these two guys for interviews to get their thoughts. Granted, there are several people like this in the community, but most of them are more confined to being experts in one or two games. These guys are experts at fighting games, period.
These two are sort of like old rivals. At any given time, nobody is quite sure who is going to beat who in Street Fighter. Tournaments involving both contestants often come down to one versus the other for the top spot. Here is a famous EVO clip showing what is probably the clutchest shit of all time from their match in 2004.
That's about the equivalent of being down by three runs, bases loaded, 2 strikes, 2 outs, bottom of the ninth, and hitting a grand slam. Except that the ball flies into space where a benevolent, cosmic entity happens to catch it and personally return it to the field which makes everyone watching the game, both in the stands and on TV, simultaneously orgasm and crap their pants at the same time.
Anyways, Daigo is the reigning EVO champ and this year there was a lot of hype surrounding the JWong/Daigo rematch. Everyone basically expected the tournament to come down to these two squaring off for the top spot. (or as close to it as possible in a tournament with nearly two thousand entrants) But then something unexpected happened. JWong was eliminated way outside top 8.
This random guy, Gamerbee, playing with a character that everyone thought was shit, including JWong himself, handily defeated everyone he played. Justing Wong and JR Rodriguez being the biggest names I know of, though I'm sure there were more. Still though, JR and JW not making top 8 because of this random guy from Taiwan? That's crazy!!
His games were seriously intense. And not necessarily in the nail-biting, edge-of-the-seat kind of way, but more the "wtf is happening?!?" kind of way. It wasn't that he eked out a win against some top players, it was that he completely man-handled some of the best players in the country and ended up making 5th place in the whole tournament. All using a character that is widely accepted as being really, really terrible.
When he made it back to Taiwan, a big group of gamers had driven out to the airport to meet him and congratulate him with flowers and banners.
He even made it on the Taiwanese news!!
This guy basically just became a national hero. And a personal one to many as well, I'm sure.
Bravo Gamerbee. You deserve every second of it.
============================================
Here are videos of Gamerbee's EVO matches. The ones I could find, anyways.
In no particular order:
Gamerbee (Adon) vs Justin Wong (Rufus)
Gamerbee (Adon) vs JR Rodriguez (Akuma)
Gamerbee (Adon) vs Mike Ross (Honda)
Gamerbee (Adon) vs Henry Cen (Honda)
Gamerbee (Adon) vs Neo (Juri)
Gamerbee (Adon) vs Arturo Sanchez (Dhalsim
Gamerbee (Adon) vs Daigo Umehara (Ryu)
Some quick backstory.
EVO is the biggest fighting game tournament in America and is held in Las Vegas every year. Thousands of people come from all over the country (and the world, even) to compete. And when I say "thousands" I don't mean, like, two.
Justin Wong and Daigo Umehara are considered to be just about the two strongest players out there. They both hold great authority over the community. New games come out, events happen, or whatever and everyone calls up these two guys for interviews to get their thoughts. Granted, there are several people like this in the community, but most of them are more confined to being experts in one or two games. These guys are experts at fighting games, period.
These two are sort of like old rivals. At any given time, nobody is quite sure who is going to beat who in Street Fighter. Tournaments involving both contestants often come down to one versus the other for the top spot. Here is a famous EVO clip showing what is probably the clutchest shit of all time from their match in 2004.
That's about the equivalent of being down by three runs, bases loaded, 2 strikes, 2 outs, bottom of the ninth, and hitting a grand slam. Except that the ball flies into space where a benevolent, cosmic entity happens to catch it and personally return it to the field which makes everyone watching the game, both in the stands and on TV, simultaneously orgasm and crap their pants at the same time.
Anyways, Daigo is the reigning EVO champ and this year there was a lot of hype surrounding the JWong/Daigo rematch. Everyone basically expected the tournament to come down to these two squaring off for the top spot. (or as close to it as possible in a tournament with nearly two thousand entrants) But then something unexpected happened. JWong was eliminated way outside top 8.
This random guy, Gamerbee, playing with a character that everyone thought was shit, including JWong himself, handily defeated everyone he played. Justing Wong and JR Rodriguez being the biggest names I know of, though I'm sure there were more. Still though, JR and JW not making top 8 because of this random guy from Taiwan? That's crazy!!
His games were seriously intense. And not necessarily in the nail-biting, edge-of-the-seat kind of way, but more the "wtf is happening?!?" kind of way. It wasn't that he eked out a win against some top players, it was that he completely man-handled some of the best players in the country and ended up making 5th place in the whole tournament. All using a character that is widely accepted as being really, really terrible.
When he made it back to Taiwan, a big group of gamers had driven out to the airport to meet him and congratulate him with flowers and banners.
He even made it on the Taiwanese news!!
This guy basically just became a national hero. And a personal one to many as well, I'm sure.
Bravo Gamerbee. You deserve every second of it.
============================================
Here are videos of Gamerbee's EVO matches. The ones I could find, anyways.
In no particular order:
Gamerbee (Adon) vs Justin Wong (Rufus)
Gamerbee (Adon) vs JR Rodriguez (Akuma)
Gamerbee (Adon) vs Mike Ross (Honda)
Gamerbee (Adon) vs Henry Cen (Honda)
Gamerbee (Adon) vs Neo (Juri)
Gamerbee (Adon) vs Arturo Sanchez (Dhalsim
Gamerbee (Adon) vs Daigo Umehara (Ryu)
ILSP: Additional Notes
There are a few other things that I said in my omitted rants that I wanted to mention. They are mostly unrelated to 40k, but we'll see.
I mostly want to talk about people using sub-optimal characters in fighting games.
Characters in fighting games are not balanced. Some are better than others, some are terrible, and some are broken on purpose. There are always tier lists, though, and these are often the topic of heated discussion. Not nearly as much so as proposed 40k tier lists, but this isn't about that*.
No, what I wanted to talk about is how these tier lists exist, and are widely considered to be basically accurate, but some people like to play as sub-optimal characters anyways***.
Usually people do this because they just like that character, or because they are so good with them that it just doesn't matter. These players don't often win. They are guaranteed to have the most entertaining matches, and to do far better than anyone expects them to be able to, but they don't win tournaments. They will finish high (definitely top 8) but the best low-tier player just won't be able to beat a solid high-tier player.
So why do they do it? Because they like to. Because they know their character sucks, but that's who they enjoy playing so that's who they're going to play. But, and here's the important part, they don't whine when they lose. They understand the challenges they face entering a major tournament with Twelve, and they play as hard as they can to get as far as possible but never do they get upset when they lose.
Never do they say "no fair, Yun is too cheesy, play a real character and maybe we'll have a decent match" or anything similar. Wouldn't it be nice if the same were true in 40k? Imagine if the "Leafblower" debacle never happened at all. This is the state YTTH is already in, and the rest of the community needs to catch up.
The "leafblower" debacle happened and the community (as well as the asshat that played the list... say what you want about the guy, his reaction to his own list is about the most arrogant shit I've ever seen... so much so that I feel bad even linking it, but journalistic integrity must be maintained(HA!)) made a huge fuss about it and collectively cried nerf. Meanwhile, back at YTTH, everyone went "yeah, so what?" It's a strong list, sure. I'm pretty sure everyone who owned the IG book though, at some point, looked at it and thought about a similar list. At YTTH, it was a non-issue. Someone came up with a strong one-dimensional list. Cool. It wasn't anything particularly ground-breaking. Take an army full of all the best shooty/alpha-strike elements? GASP! It wasn't like the first time someone realized what wound-allocation really means in 5th edition. In 'Ard Boyz season, Stelek was posting a dozen lists a day, this could have just been another one of those. The point being that it's just an army list. Nobody "invented" it. Nobody needs to "apologize" for it. It's just another army list.
So then why did it get so blown out of proportion? Who knows, but I bet Not Brent had something to do with it. In fighting games, it would have gone like this:
-Someone realizes C. Viper is good because of XYZ
-People start losing in games to C. Vipers who have become good thanks to XYZ
-Everyone goes, oh dang I didn't know she could do that
-Everyone learns more about C. Viper and adapts to her "new" abilities
-Some people switch to playing C. Viper because she's cool now
-The world keeps turning
This actually happened a little bit after SF4 vanilla came out. Actually, it's happened several times. C. Viper, Rufus, and Akuma have all had similar things in SF4 vanilla. And maybe now Adon will have the same thing happen to him in SSF4 (chocolate) thanks to Gamerbee. Tier lists change constantly as people discover new things about the game. It's more of an expectation than anything. (as an extreme example, a trick to making ultras unblockable in SF4 was discovered right before SSF4 was released. It didn't change the tiers around any, but this just shows how long it might take for something big like this to be found) Why should it be any different in 40k?
It's worse than that, in fact. Fighting games are static. Once a game is released, it doesn't change. Only very recently with the current-gen systems has there been any ability to patch games, and the staple platform for fighting games (the arcade cabinet) still can't get updates at all. On the other hand, 40k changes constantly. New editions, new codices, new FAQs, new models, whatever. How is it that a community based on a totally static product is more open to change than a community based on something that changes every few months?
This is getting sort of long and I've run out of ideas, so to keep myself from ruining what I've got so far I think I'll end it at that.
YTTH (call them the Ynquisition, if you like) has the right idea. They aren't wrong. Everyone else just needs to catch up already.
***
============================================
* - Tier list discussions are usually more like "I think Makoto should be A+ tier, not A tier" rather than "I think Tau are actually in the bottom 5 and CSM will rock your face". By that I mean, everyone basically agrees on tier lists, but the exact positions of some characters may shift slightly.
It's a lot easier to make tier lists in fighting games, though. Official ones come from big events or some large time interval where all results and matchups are recorded and put into a grid ordered by whoever has the highest cumulative win percentage. Like this:
Doing this for 40k would be rather impossible considering you would have to have a row for every iteration of every army. Having a spot for "Orks vs Eldar" isn't sufficient because who knows what those army lists were like?
** - Let me take a minute (or several) to mention some noteworthy sub-optimal players.
Guilty Gear:
Koichi - Accent Core I-No player
Easily the best I-No in the world and one of my favorite GGAC players to watch. The thing that makes this person so remarkable is just how steap the tiers are in this game, and how low I-No is on that slope.
Eiji - Accent Core Sol player
While not quite as crazy-good as Koichi, he's probably the best Sol I've ever seen. Again, especially considering how average Sol is in this iteration of the game.
Dr. Stormlocke - Accent Core Robo-Ky player
Best Robo-Ky I know of and also my GGAC hero. I don't think he plays anymore, but I used to love watching him play when he was doing so regularly. The best thing about Stormlocke was that he really just didn't give a shit. (ps that video quality is awful, but it's one of my favorite vids of the Dr. at work)
Blacksnake - Accent Core Venom player
I think there is probably a better Venom player that I've seen play from Japan, but I don't remember the name and he isn't nearly as renowned (at least that I know of) as Blacksnake. This guy plays one of the most difficult characters in GGAC like he was nothing.
Nerina - #Reload Baiken Player
Now here is something. Of the above Guilty Gear players, all of their characters are not high-tier, but not complete shit either. I-No is the lowest of the characters above (if I recall, I haven't kept up with GGAC since BlazBlue came out), and she's still somewhere around mid-tier. Baiken in #Reload, however, was basically tied for worst in the game. Nerina didn't ever seem to notice or care, though, and carved himself a sweet niche in the #R PC online community.
(I have no video for this because nobody ever played #R seriously enough to record it, but it's still the truth)
Street Fighter
JR Rodriguez - 3rd Strike Akuma player
My hero at life, the universe, and everything. JR Rodriguez. This guy is the reason I play Akuma in 3S. This is JR in 40k terms: you can make decent Daemonhunters lists using ISTs, inducted guard, etc. JR plays pure Grey Knights. Akuma is a solid B/B+ character, and there are ways to play him that are more effective than other styles. JR plays him the fun way and still wins. As little meter wasted as possible on things that aren't Raging Demon/KKZ. Also, Mr. and Mrs. Akuma? How can you not love this guy?
Aruka - 3rd Strike Ibuki player
Another really-low-tier player that does way better than he should. One of the most fun guys to watch play 3S.
Chikyuu - 3rd Strike Twelve player
Twelve is so-bad-it's-kind-of-funny tier in 3rd Strike. This guy, however, plays him ridiculously well. Sometimes, the most skill in the world isn't going to help you get very far with a character (like Twelve) but he does way better for himself than I thought was possible. You can see in most of his clips, the first few rounds he'll do rather strongly, but then he starts to lose towards the end. This is more proof that Twelve is garbage rather than saying anything about the player. He comes out of the gate strong because people go "WTF? Twelve?" but then they see what he can do for a round or two and are able to easily adapt and counter him. Still though, very excellent player, this guy.
Gamerbee - SSF4 Adon player
Recent super-celebrity/national hero Gamerbee defeated Justin Wong (and a number of other great players) at EVO2k10 this year. Adon is not a good character, and he was still able to eliminate JWong with him. Gamerbee ended up placing 5th overall, and JWong far outside Top 8.
MvC2
Josh360 - Combofiend variant player
Ok, Combofiend is a pretty solid team. The levels that this guy takes it to, however, are completely unprecedented. He is my absolute favorite MvC2 player of all time!! Watch him handily destroy Brett, the best MvC2 player I know of using what is probably the strongest team in the game. See Dr. Stormlocke for the type of awesome that this guy is.
*** - I was trying not to add any footnotes after the giant one above, but I happened to think of something as I was writing the end of my post. This whole thing seems so obvious to me; I know the shining pinnacle of excellence that is the fighting games community, so naturally I would want the same thing for 40k. And it makes sense too, right? They're both essentially the same sort of thing: a social game with big venues/tournaments/etc. But perhaps it isn't so easy for other people to see this. Ok, obviously it isn't so easy for them to see, but I digress.
Fighting games necessitate competition. That's what they exist for. There isn't much of a hobby aspect (though many, including myself, build their own joysticks from scratch), and there isn't much of a fluff aspect. People don't refuse to beat Sagat with Ryu using anything other than a fierce Shoryuken because that's how it happened in the story. These are aspects of 40k that I love, but maybe I was preconditioned by fighting games to focus more on the competitive aspect.
I tend to notice a lot of people talking about competitive wargaming (the decent ones, not the douchebags ones, those types exist too but are somewhat out of the realm of this writing) are ex-card gamers of some sort that turned to 40k, or Warmachine, or whatever. Perhaps it's this background that makes people like us want the competition to be better, and people without this sort of experience just can't relate. My old game was good, why can't 40k be the same way? But if 40k is all you've ever known, then maybe you don't feel that strongly about competition.
I'm not trying to make a point with that. It's just something I happened to notice and thought was interesting.
I mostly want to talk about people using sub-optimal characters in fighting games.
Characters in fighting games are not balanced. Some are better than others, some are terrible, and some are broken on purpose. There are always tier lists, though, and these are often the topic of heated discussion. Not nearly as much so as proposed 40k tier lists, but this isn't about that*.
No, what I wanted to talk about is how these tier lists exist, and are widely considered to be basically accurate, but some people like to play as sub-optimal characters anyways***.
Usually people do this because they just like that character, or because they are so good with them that it just doesn't matter. These players don't often win. They are guaranteed to have the most entertaining matches, and to do far better than anyone expects them to be able to, but they don't win tournaments. They will finish high (definitely top 8) but the best low-tier player just won't be able to beat a solid high-tier player.
So why do they do it? Because they like to. Because they know their character sucks, but that's who they enjoy playing so that's who they're going to play. But, and here's the important part, they don't whine when they lose. They understand the challenges they face entering a major tournament with Twelve, and they play as hard as they can to get as far as possible but never do they get upset when they lose.
Never do they say "no fair, Yun is too cheesy, play a real character and maybe we'll have a decent match" or anything similar. Wouldn't it be nice if the same were true in 40k? Imagine if the "Leafblower" debacle never happened at all. This is the state YTTH is already in, and the rest of the community needs to catch up.
The "leafblower" debacle happened and the community (as well as the asshat that played the list... say what you want about the guy, his reaction to his own list is about the most arrogant shit I've ever seen... so much so that I feel bad even linking it, but journalistic integrity must be maintained(HA!)) made a huge fuss about it and collectively cried nerf. Meanwhile, back at YTTH, everyone went "yeah, so what?" It's a strong list, sure. I'm pretty sure everyone who owned the IG book though, at some point, looked at it and thought about a similar list. At YTTH, it was a non-issue. Someone came up with a strong one-dimensional list. Cool. It wasn't anything particularly ground-breaking. Take an army full of all the best shooty/alpha-strike elements? GASP! It wasn't like the first time someone realized what wound-allocation really means in 5th edition. In 'Ard Boyz season, Stelek was posting a dozen lists a day, this could have just been another one of those. The point being that it's just an army list. Nobody "invented" it. Nobody needs to "apologize" for it. It's just another army list.
So then why did it get so blown out of proportion? Who knows, but I bet Not Brent had something to do with it. In fighting games, it would have gone like this:
-Someone realizes C. Viper is good because of XYZ
-People start losing in games to C. Vipers who have become good thanks to XYZ
-Everyone goes, oh dang I didn't know she could do that
-Everyone learns more about C. Viper and adapts to her "new" abilities
-Some people switch to playing C. Viper because she's cool now
-The world keeps turning
This actually happened a little bit after SF4 vanilla came out. Actually, it's happened several times. C. Viper, Rufus, and Akuma have all had similar things in SF4 vanilla. And maybe now Adon will have the same thing happen to him in SSF4 (chocolate) thanks to Gamerbee. Tier lists change constantly as people discover new things about the game. It's more of an expectation than anything. (as an extreme example, a trick to making ultras unblockable in SF4 was discovered right before SSF4 was released. It didn't change the tiers around any, but this just shows how long it might take for something big like this to be found) Why should it be any different in 40k?
It's worse than that, in fact. Fighting games are static. Once a game is released, it doesn't change. Only very recently with the current-gen systems has there been any ability to patch games, and the staple platform for fighting games (the arcade cabinet) still can't get updates at all. On the other hand, 40k changes constantly. New editions, new codices, new FAQs, new models, whatever. How is it that a community based on a totally static product is more open to change than a community based on something that changes every few months?
This is getting sort of long and I've run out of ideas, so to keep myself from ruining what I've got so far I think I'll end it at that.
YTTH (call them the Ynquisition, if you like) has the right idea. They aren't wrong. Everyone else just needs to catch up already.
***
============================================
* - Tier list discussions are usually more like "I think Makoto should be A+ tier, not A tier" rather than "I think Tau are actually in the bottom 5 and CSM will rock your face". By that I mean, everyone basically agrees on tier lists, but the exact positions of some characters may shift slightly.
It's a lot easier to make tier lists in fighting games, though. Official ones come from big events or some large time interval where all results and matchups are recorded and put into a grid ordered by whoever has the highest cumulative win percentage. Like this:
Doing this for 40k would be rather impossible considering you would have to have a row for every iteration of every army. Having a spot for "Orks vs Eldar" isn't sufficient because who knows what those army lists were like?
** - Let me take a minute (or several) to mention some noteworthy sub-optimal players.
Guilty Gear:
Koichi - Accent Core I-No player
Easily the best I-No in the world and one of my favorite GGAC players to watch. The thing that makes this person so remarkable is just how steap the tiers are in this game, and how low I-No is on that slope.
Eiji - Accent Core Sol player
While not quite as crazy-good as Koichi, he's probably the best Sol I've ever seen. Again, especially considering how average Sol is in this iteration of the game.
Dr. Stormlocke - Accent Core Robo-Ky player
Best Robo-Ky I know of and also my GGAC hero. I don't think he plays anymore, but I used to love watching him play when he was doing so regularly. The best thing about Stormlocke was that he really just didn't give a shit. (ps that video quality is awful, but it's one of my favorite vids of the Dr. at work)
Blacksnake - Accent Core Venom player
I think there is probably a better Venom player that I've seen play from Japan, but I don't remember the name and he isn't nearly as renowned (at least that I know of) as Blacksnake. This guy plays one of the most difficult characters in GGAC like he was nothing.
Nerina - #Reload Baiken Player
Now here is something. Of the above Guilty Gear players, all of their characters are not high-tier, but not complete shit either. I-No is the lowest of the characters above (if I recall, I haven't kept up with GGAC since BlazBlue came out), and she's still somewhere around mid-tier. Baiken in #Reload, however, was basically tied for worst in the game. Nerina didn't ever seem to notice or care, though, and carved himself a sweet niche in the #R PC online community.
(I have no video for this because nobody ever played #R seriously enough to record it, but it's still the truth)
Street Fighter
JR Rodriguez - 3rd Strike Akuma player
My hero at life, the universe, and everything. JR Rodriguez. This guy is the reason I play Akuma in 3S. This is JR in 40k terms: you can make decent Daemonhunters lists using ISTs, inducted guard, etc. JR plays pure Grey Knights. Akuma is a solid B/B+ character, and there are ways to play him that are more effective than other styles. JR plays him the fun way and still wins. As little meter wasted as possible on things that aren't Raging Demon/KKZ. Also, Mr. and Mrs. Akuma? How can you not love this guy?
Aruka - 3rd Strike Ibuki player
Another really-low-tier player that does way better than he should. One of the most fun guys to watch play 3S.
Chikyuu - 3rd Strike Twelve player
Twelve is so-bad-it's-kind-of-funny tier in 3rd Strike. This guy, however, plays him ridiculously well. Sometimes, the most skill in the world isn't going to help you get very far with a character (like Twelve) but he does way better for himself than I thought was possible. You can see in most of his clips, the first few rounds he'll do rather strongly, but then he starts to lose towards the end. This is more proof that Twelve is garbage rather than saying anything about the player. He comes out of the gate strong because people go "WTF? Twelve?" but then they see what he can do for a round or two and are able to easily adapt and counter him. Still though, very excellent player, this guy.
Gamerbee - SSF4 Adon player
Recent super-celebrity/national hero Gamerbee defeated Justin Wong (and a number of other great players) at EVO2k10 this year. Adon is not a good character, and he was still able to eliminate JWong with him. Gamerbee ended up placing 5th overall, and JWong far outside Top 8.
MvC2
Josh360 - Combofiend variant player
Ok, Combofiend is a pretty solid team. The levels that this guy takes it to, however, are completely unprecedented. He is my absolute favorite MvC2 player of all time!! Watch him handily destroy Brett, the best MvC2 player I know of using what is probably the strongest team in the game. See Dr. Stormlocke for the type of awesome that this guy is.
*** - I was trying not to add any footnotes after the giant one above, but I happened to think of something as I was writing the end of my post. This whole thing seems so obvious to me; I know the shining pinnacle of excellence that is the fighting games community, so naturally I would want the same thing for 40k. And it makes sense too, right? They're both essentially the same sort of thing: a social game with big venues/tournaments/etc. But perhaps it isn't so easy for other people to see this. Ok, obviously it isn't so easy for them to see, but I digress.
Fighting games necessitate competition. That's what they exist for. There isn't much of a hobby aspect (though many, including myself, build their own joysticks from scratch), and there isn't much of a fluff aspect. People don't refuse to beat Sagat with Ryu using anything other than a fierce Shoryuken because that's how it happened in the story. These are aspects of 40k that I love, but maybe I was preconditioned by fighting games to focus more on the competitive aspect.
I tend to notice a lot of people talking about competitive wargaming (the decent ones, not the douchebags ones, those types exist too but are somewhat out of the realm of this writing) are ex-card gamers of some sort that turned to 40k, or Warmachine, or whatever. Perhaps it's this background that makes people like us want the competition to be better, and people without this sort of experience just can't relate. My old game was good, why can't 40k be the same way? But if 40k is all you've ever known, then maybe you don't feel that strongly about competition.
I'm not trying to make a point with that. It's just something I happened to notice and thought was interesting.
Friday, July 23, 2010
I'd Like Some Poundcake
So, I wrote a bunch of stuff about the BoLShit that's been happening lately at YTTH. Twice, actually. In the end, though, I scrapped the posts because they just went on too long and weren't very good.
See, I have this problem where I have trouble putting my thoughts into words so sometimes I try to just keep writing in the hopes that I will somehow accidentally get it right. A thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters; that sort of thing. I tried it twice on this subject, but both times ended up with nothing as comprehensible as I'd like.
The point I was trying to make is that this whole competitive vs non-competitive thing is stupid. My competitive background is in fighting games, and I feel like the 40k community could stand to be more like the fighting game community. In the fighting game community, regardless of why you enjoy the games, everyone plays competitively and there are NO douchebags and NO whining.
If someone brought Sean to a Third Strike tournament and then bitched about how everyone there was just playing 'cheesy' Chun Li and weren't playing for fun or were ruining the game, the whole room would go quiet and every other player would slowly turn to stare at the Sean player until they slowly backed out of the venue. This sort of behavior is just not acceptable or tolerated.
Awesome* Street Fighter David Sirlin felt so passionately about this subject that he wrote a book about it. Except that he felt it was too important for this sort of limited distribution so he put it all on his website, word for word, for free.
His message was simple: if you're entering a tournament, play to win. The game doesn't know about "cheese", or "honor", or whatever other attributes people project onto it, nor does it care about these things. The only thing the game knows are the rules. So if you lose because of arbitrary limitations you placed on yourself that aren't part of the game, then you have only yourself to blame.
If you're going to a 40k tournament, play to the best of your ability, period. And don't go with a chip on your shoulder either.
**
============================================
* - By awesome I mean, "inspiring, or characterized by, awe" not "Woah, awesome, dude"
** - Some things I wrote in my previous ramblings that I thought were neat:
I thought it was very interesting that after the initial ETC list criticizing Stelek did of the American team and then their resulting backlash, the other teams all started personally emailing him their lists saying "Haha, what you're doing is awesome, we want in on some of this! Here are our lists."
There has been some further backlash from European teams since then, however the fact remains that while these teams are making a fuss about what a mean doodie-head Stelek is, other teams think he's awesome. From what I've gathered, it seems like a lot of the teams complaining are about the American team equivalents of that country in the sense that they're all circle-jerking d-bags who in no way accurately represent their country's 40k community.
Like an overtaxed citizen making a last stand against their town's oppressive mayor, Stelek seems to be saying "We've dealt with your nonsense for long enough, we aren't going to take it anymore!"
This I just thought was some colorful writing that I didn't want to throw away. It is still the feeling I get from Stelek as of late.
Nobody ever goes all Hulk-smash on an event (back from the safety of their computer chair) because they just wanted to get together and have some fun games with their friends, but the other attendees were all mean, game-breakers who weren't playing for fun, and everyone was just playing Yun and repeatedly crushing their Remy into the ground.
In the fighting game community, competitive and non-competitive events and environments are very strongly disparate so these sorts of encounters don't happen.
If a couple of friends or renowned players show up [at a non-competitive fighting game event], things can often turn into everyone trying to beat those few people. Imagine Stelek showing up to your local shop's casual game night and tell me it wouldn't turn into everyone trying to test their mettle against him. The only real difference would be that in the world of fighting games, these are always friendly matches regardless of how heated the competition gets.
Everyone should play more like Brent.
See, I have this problem where I have trouble putting my thoughts into words so sometimes I try to just keep writing in the hopes that I will somehow accidentally get it right. A thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters; that sort of thing. I tried it twice on this subject, but both times ended up with nothing as comprehensible as I'd like.
The point I was trying to make is that this whole competitive vs non-competitive thing is stupid. My competitive background is in fighting games, and I feel like the 40k community could stand to be more like the fighting game community. In the fighting game community, regardless of why you enjoy the games, everyone plays competitively and there are NO douchebags and NO whining.
If someone brought Sean to a Third Strike tournament and then bitched about how everyone there was just playing 'cheesy' Chun Li and weren't playing for fun or were ruining the game, the whole room would go quiet and every other player would slowly turn to stare at the Sean player until they slowly backed out of the venue. This sort of behavior is just not acceptable or tolerated.
Awesome* Street Fighter David Sirlin felt so passionately about this subject that he wrote a book about it. Except that he felt it was too important for this sort of limited distribution so he put it all on his website, word for word, for free.
His message was simple: if you're entering a tournament, play to win. The game doesn't know about "cheese", or "honor", or whatever other attributes people project onto it, nor does it care about these things. The only thing the game knows are the rules. So if you lose because of arbitrary limitations you placed on yourself that aren't part of the game, then you have only yourself to blame.
If you're going to a 40k tournament, play to the best of your ability, period. And don't go with a chip on your shoulder either.
**
============================================
* - By awesome I mean, "inspiring, or characterized by, awe" not "Woah, awesome, dude"
** - Some things I wrote in my previous ramblings that I thought were neat:
I thought it was very interesting that after the initial ETC list criticizing Stelek did of the American team and then their resulting backlash, the other teams all started personally emailing him their lists saying "Haha, what you're doing is awesome, we want in on some of this! Here are our lists."
There has been some further backlash from European teams since then, however the fact remains that while these teams are making a fuss about what a mean doodie-head Stelek is, other teams think he's awesome. From what I've gathered, it seems like a lot of the teams complaining are about the American team equivalents of that country in the sense that they're all circle-jerking d-bags who in no way accurately represent their country's 40k community.
Like an overtaxed citizen making a last stand against their town's oppressive mayor, Stelek seems to be saying "We've dealt with your nonsense for long enough, we aren't going to take it anymore!"
This I just thought was some colorful writing that I didn't want to throw away. It is still the feeling I get from Stelek as of late.
Nobody ever goes all Hulk-smash on an event (back from the safety of their computer chair) because they just wanted to get together and have some fun games with their friends, but the other attendees were all mean, game-breakers who weren't playing for fun, and everyone was just playing Yun and repeatedly crushing their Remy into the ground.
In the fighting game community, competitive and non-competitive events and environments are very strongly disparate so these sorts of encounters don't happen.
If a couple of friends or renowned players show up [at a non-competitive fighting game event], things can often turn into everyone trying to beat those few people. Imagine Stelek showing up to your local shop's casual game night and tell me it wouldn't turn into everyone trying to test their mettle against him. The only real difference would be that in the world of fighting games, these are always friendly matches regardless of how heated the competition gets.
Everyone should play more like Brent.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
A bit late to the game...
So, there's been a big stink over at YTTH lately about the army lists of the folks from the American Team heading to the ETC. Their lists were posted on BoLS and they're just awful. Some are better than others, but some of them are sort of shockingly bad. Stelek then posted the lists on his site, analyzed them, and gave his criticisms. This caused a huge argument in the comments between YTTH-frequenters and BoLS members who owned some of the lists in question.
It sort of turned into a big nasty fight with lots of back and forth and such. I happened to miss most of it in action, but I went back and read the comments I'd missed* and it was fairly ugly.
Brent over at a Strictly Average blog** wrote a pretty good article (as he is wont to do) that sums everything up rather well. I was going to post my thoughts on it in a comment, but it got a little long so I thought I'd bring them over here where I can at least have the comforting knowledge that nobody will read what I have to say.
First of all, every time I saw anyone say "fence-sitting" I read it as "face-sitting" on accident. Really puts a whole different spin on the issue...
I feel like this was a useless fight. Usually internet fights are spawned by something worthwhile***, this one wasn't. Stelek really wasn't being that harsh in his analysis (nor was he wrong, but that's besides the point) and anyways list review is sort of the main focus of his site. It's what he does.
He was bashing the lists more than anyone personally (the worst thing he said on a personal level, I thought, was the comment about how "cool" internet names are) and he also was actually giving criticism and suggestions in some places rather than just "this sucks, mmkay?" which he often does. Especially considering the owners of the lists, he could have easily just posted them and said they were awful. Instead, he gave some (brief) words on why he thinks they suck. Sure he was still fairly abrasive in these words, but that's his schtick. Get over it already.
You can't honestly go to YTTH expecting Stelek to blow fairy dust up your ass and then get mad when he doesn't. I'm not going to attend a Lisa Lampanelli comedy show and get upset because it was low brow. (actually, can I just make that I'm not going to attend a Lisa Lampanelli comedy show at all...ever?)
The zombYs are somewhat to blame here too for all the instigating they did when the BoLS guys came over. Stelek can be as neutral as possible, but the second one of his regulars attacks someone from another community, they go "See! Everything we've been saying is right about Stelek, look at how poorly we were treated at his site!" even if Stelek wasn't actually involved or was even openly against the abuse. They went to his site, were treated poorly, therefore Stelek is mean. If they had come over, said their F U's, and then had not been retaliated against, things might have been different.
It's sort of like Stelek is Teresa, BoLS is Daniel, and the zombYs are Ashley from The Real Housewives of... oh, wait, forget that last bit...
...
Anyways, considering all of the evidence at hand, I don't think Stelek was in the wrong here. Sometimes he can push the limits a bit with these BoLS encounters in such a way that they may not be quite unjustified in their reactions, but this time that was just not the case. If anything he was uncharacteristically nice in his analysis. I can honestly say that I would not have been able to be quite as civil when commenting on those CSM and Eldar lists.
I don't see any reason why they would have thought it necessary to come to YTTH and start this fight. I thought they had pretty much stopped caring about him anyways? And then to break that on something so trivial as this? I just don't get it. I do think Brent may be on to something though with his 'these guys might be friends if not for the internet'. I lack the capability to put it into words though (some writer I am) so perhaps at a later date I will try to talk about it once I've had some time to think it over.
============================================
* - I read the article when it was posted and had less than a dozen comments and thought it interesting. I then later returned to the site and noticed that very same article had over 100 comments and new something must have been awry...
** - Is that an insult? Or a plug?
*** - Even if it is something completely stupid, it usually starts because of someone that actually believes in that completely stupid thing.
It sort of turned into a big nasty fight with lots of back and forth and such. I happened to miss most of it in action, but I went back and read the comments I'd missed* and it was fairly ugly.
Brent over at a Strictly Average blog** wrote a pretty good article (as he is wont to do) that sums everything up rather well. I was going to post my thoughts on it in a comment, but it got a little long so I thought I'd bring them over here where I can at least have the comforting knowledge that nobody will read what I have to say.
First of all, every time I saw anyone say "fence-sitting" I read it as "face-sitting" on accident. Really puts a whole different spin on the issue...
I feel like this was a useless fight. Usually internet fights are spawned by something worthwhile***, this one wasn't. Stelek really wasn't being that harsh in his analysis (nor was he wrong, but that's besides the point) and anyways list review is sort of the main focus of his site. It's what he does.
He was bashing the lists more than anyone personally (the worst thing he said on a personal level, I thought, was the comment about how "cool" internet names are) and he also was actually giving criticism and suggestions in some places rather than just "this sucks, mmkay?" which he often does. Especially considering the owners of the lists, he could have easily just posted them and said they were awful. Instead, he gave some (brief) words on why he thinks they suck. Sure he was still fairly abrasive in these words, but that's his schtick. Get over it already.
You can't honestly go to YTTH expecting Stelek to blow fairy dust up your ass and then get mad when he doesn't. I'm not going to attend a Lisa Lampanelli comedy show and get upset because it was low brow. (actually, can I just make that I'm not going to attend a Lisa Lampanelli comedy show at all...ever?)
The zombYs are somewhat to blame here too for all the instigating they did when the BoLS guys came over. Stelek can be as neutral as possible, but the second one of his regulars attacks someone from another community, they go "See! Everything we've been saying is right about Stelek, look at how poorly we were treated at his site!" even if Stelek wasn't actually involved or was even openly against the abuse. They went to his site, were treated poorly, therefore Stelek is mean. If they had come over, said their F U's, and then had not been retaliated against, things might have been different.
It's sort of like Stelek is Teresa, BoLS is Daniel, and the zombYs are Ashley from The Real Housewives of... oh, wait, forget that last bit...
...
Anyways, considering all of the evidence at hand, I don't think Stelek was in the wrong here. Sometimes he can push the limits a bit with these BoLS encounters in such a way that they may not be quite unjustified in their reactions, but this time that was just not the case. If anything he was uncharacteristically nice in his analysis. I can honestly say that I would not have been able to be quite as civil when commenting on those CSM and Eldar lists.
I don't see any reason why they would have thought it necessary to come to YTTH and start this fight. I thought they had pretty much stopped caring about him anyways? And then to break that on something so trivial as this? I just don't get it. I do think Brent may be on to something though with his 'these guys might be friends if not for the internet'. I lack the capability to put it into words though (some writer I am) so perhaps at a later date I will try to talk about it once I've had some time to think it over.
============================================
* - I read the article when it was posted and had less than a dozen comments and thought it interesting. I then later returned to the site and noticed that very same article had over 100 comments and new something must have been awry...
** - Is that an insult? Or a plug?
*** - Even if it is something completely stupid, it usually starts because of someone that actually believes in that completely stupid thing.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
On Absences
So, I've been away for a while. The reason for that is several-fold.
First, I've been busy. I may not be in school anymore, but my life still likes to find things to make me do.
Secondly, I had a sort of intense high followed by a terrible crash relating to 40k. After posting the Tyranids list I went and read the codex to actually see what it is like. This codex is incredible. Way better than even the SW codex that I loved so much. It's amazing to me how much variety it has and how well everything works together.
Units I love:
Hive Guard
Tyrannofex
Tervigons
Tyranid Warriors
Death Leaper
Trygons
Hormogaunts
Harpies
Carnifi
Old One Eye
Raveners
Hey, guess what, that's most of the available units. I just love how much overlapping support everything can give, and how troops are so dedicated to their roles. Want cheap CC? Bring Hormagaunts. Want a small elite army? Bring Warriors. Troops that are generalists that aren't really good or expensive enough to care what happens to them? Termagants. How about FREE TROOPS? Tervigons are good for that. One thing I hate about SM armies is that their basic troop is so good and expensive. Basically, I'd feel bad if I was wasting them sitting on an objective, or using them to block or as sacrifices or anything like that. Why do those things with the 15-20 point a model guys with actually decent stat lines, when I can do it with these Gaunts that are like 5 points a pop? (I suppose the reason there is that SM have actually decent stat lines)
Also, MC's seem like an obvious solution for someone that hates tanks like I do. Especially Harpies. Man those things are sweet!
So, I made that realization and decided to completely forsake the entire intent and title of this blog and switch my plans into making a Tyranid army. This was the high.
First, I thought I'd go the AdMech route because they're awesome and have a lot of things that mesh well with the Tyranid paradigm. (crazy technology enhancements really aren't that much different from crazy biomorphs) Then I realized that in order to make my average number of termigaunt-count-as units, it would cost me around $300 and probably most of my life. That's not even considering the other units I'd need. Or the fact that I still have no idea what to make for a Tervigon.* So, I thought that perhaps that wasn't such a good idea.
Then I (briefly) considered just running Tyranid models as Tyranids. Novel idea, right? Call me wishy-washy, but I feel like any past indiscresions I've had with the little extra-galactic bugs can be forgiven on account of their codex being totally the fucking shit. That, however, would still be a ton of money and effort. So I decided not to do that either.
This was the terrible crash. I'd gotten pretty worked up over how awesome the Tyranid codex was, and then was faced with the crippling realization that I can't ever play them.
So, I took some time off of wargaming. I still read some of my 40k blogs because I like the communities, but I basically quit caring about the actual content for a while.
Then I got back into the idea of Warmachines. And when I say Warmachines, I actually mean Warmachines/Hordes.** Before I started this blog (and before I had decided to get back into 40k) I had decided I was going to start Warmachines instead. I loved the models and lore, and the gameplay seemed really interesting so I thought I'd try something new instead of sticking with 40k. Also, the nationwide Warmachine campaign was just starting (or it was just about to start I think, I don't remember) and that really intrigued me. The PP boards have posts dedicated to selecting leaders for each faction and giving goals for the week, etc. It just seems like a really cool community-building thing. I had also thought it might be cool to try to learn it with my girlfriend. She is always looking for things that we can do together and while she isn't really into that sort of thing, she has expressed interest in my hobby for the sake of sharing hobbies. I thought WM might be a decent opportunity for this.
So, I got big into reading about the factions and had not quite convinced myself which one to play, when I realized that Warmachines lacks a certain level of inspiration. 40k sings to me like a muse. Look at the intent and then first revised intent of this blog? Custodes and AdMech armies. Things I would have to convert heavily. Things 40k makes me want to convert heavily. WM doesn't really do this for me. I look at the models and can barely even see myself painting them differently than their faction's traditional colors.
Perhaps this is because all the PP models are already awesome. Who knows.
Anyways, right now I think I'm leaning towards WM again. All of the awesome things that I love about the game/lore coupled with its insanely cheap entry fee are beginning to weigh on me. We'll see if it develops into anything, but for now it looks like my 40k-playing days are over before they even began.
===========================================
* - I kept coming back to this idea of, like, a dreadnought-legged walking mech thing that was basically a surgeon's table with all sorts of mechanical arms with various cutting utensils on them. Sort of like a field repair-station for injured and/or assimilated AdMech marines. Or possibly the same sort of idea but with a giant stasis-tube full of goo or something. Not exactly sure how either would come out, but those were the best I could come up with.
** - The way I see it, Hordes is like an expansion to WM in the video-game sense and therefore it is unnecessary to distinguish. Warmachines covers everything just like Starcraft actually means Starcraft: Brood War and Diablo II actually means DiabloII: Lord of Destruction.
First, I've been busy. I may not be in school anymore, but my life still likes to find things to make me do.
Secondly, I had a sort of intense high followed by a terrible crash relating to 40k. After posting the Tyranids list I went and read the codex to actually see what it is like. This codex is incredible. Way better than even the SW codex that I loved so much. It's amazing to me how much variety it has and how well everything works together.
Units I love:
Hive Guard
Tyrannofex
Tervigons
Tyranid Warriors
Death Leaper
Trygons
Hormogaunts
Harpies
Carnifi
Old One Eye
Raveners
Hey, guess what, that's most of the available units. I just love how much overlapping support everything can give, and how troops are so dedicated to their roles. Want cheap CC? Bring Hormagaunts. Want a small elite army? Bring Warriors. Troops that are generalists that aren't really good or expensive enough to care what happens to them? Termagants. How about FREE TROOPS? Tervigons are good for that. One thing I hate about SM armies is that their basic troop is so good and expensive. Basically, I'd feel bad if I was wasting them sitting on an objective, or using them to block or as sacrifices or anything like that. Why do those things with the 15-20 point a model guys with actually decent stat lines, when I can do it with these Gaunts that are like 5 points a pop? (I suppose the reason there is that SM have actually decent stat lines)
Also, MC's seem like an obvious solution for someone that hates tanks like I do. Especially Harpies. Man those things are sweet!
So, I made that realization and decided to completely forsake the entire intent and title of this blog and switch my plans into making a Tyranid army. This was the high.
First, I thought I'd go the AdMech route because they're awesome and have a lot of things that mesh well with the Tyranid paradigm. (crazy technology enhancements really aren't that much different from crazy biomorphs) Then I realized that in order to make my average number of termigaunt-count-as units, it would cost me around $300 and probably most of my life. That's not even considering the other units I'd need. Or the fact that I still have no idea what to make for a Tervigon.* So, I thought that perhaps that wasn't such a good idea.
Then I (briefly) considered just running Tyranid models as Tyranids. Novel idea, right? Call me wishy-washy, but I feel like any past indiscresions I've had with the little extra-galactic bugs can be forgiven on account of their codex being totally the fucking shit. That, however, would still be a ton of money and effort. So I decided not to do that either.
This was the terrible crash. I'd gotten pretty worked up over how awesome the Tyranid codex was, and then was faced with the crippling realization that I can't ever play them.
So, I took some time off of wargaming. I still read some of my 40k blogs because I like the communities, but I basically quit caring about the actual content for a while.
Then I got back into the idea of Warmachines. And when I say Warmachines, I actually mean Warmachines/Hordes.** Before I started this blog (and before I had decided to get back into 40k) I had decided I was going to start Warmachines instead. I loved the models and lore, and the gameplay seemed really interesting so I thought I'd try something new instead of sticking with 40k. Also, the nationwide Warmachine campaign was just starting (or it was just about to start I think, I don't remember) and that really intrigued me. The PP boards have posts dedicated to selecting leaders for each faction and giving goals for the week, etc. It just seems like a really cool community-building thing. I had also thought it might be cool to try to learn it with my girlfriend. She is always looking for things that we can do together and while she isn't really into that sort of thing, she has expressed interest in my hobby for the sake of sharing hobbies. I thought WM might be a decent opportunity for this.
So, I got big into reading about the factions and had not quite convinced myself which one to play, when I realized that Warmachines lacks a certain level of inspiration. 40k sings to me like a muse. Look at the intent and then first revised intent of this blog? Custodes and AdMech armies. Things I would have to convert heavily. Things 40k makes me want to convert heavily. WM doesn't really do this for me. I look at the models and can barely even see myself painting them differently than their faction's traditional colors.
Perhaps this is because all the PP models are already awesome. Who knows.
Anyways, right now I think I'm leaning towards WM again. All of the awesome things that I love about the game/lore coupled with its insanely cheap entry fee are beginning to weigh on me. We'll see if it develops into anything, but for now it looks like my 40k-playing days are over before they even began.
===========================================
* - I kept coming back to this idea of, like, a dreadnought-legged walking mech thing that was basically a surgeon's table with all sorts of mechanical arms with various cutting utensils on them. Sort of like a field repair-station for injured and/or assimilated AdMech marines. Or possibly the same sort of idea but with a giant stasis-tube full of goo or something. Not exactly sure how either would come out, but those were the best I could come up with.
** - The way I see it, Hordes is like an expansion to WM in the video-game sense and therefore it is unnecessary to distinguish. Warmachines covers everything just like Starcraft actually means Starcraft: Brood War and Diablo II actually means DiabloII: Lord of Destruction.
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