Zombie Pirate Ninja Monkey

Agendas Beat Truth

In the Academy, there is a hierarchy.  Everybody knows that the physicists and theoretical mathematicians are extremely intelligent, work hard to get where they are, and base their results on reproducible results, the scientific method, rigorous proofs and the like.

At the other end of the scale are the softest subjects, which include many of the so-called "social sciences".  Of these, the politically-motivated areas that share a methodology and grounding in proof with, say scientology are the worst offenders: gender studies, queer studies and the like.  These are agendas looking for a subject.  Such is their (quite justified) inferiority complex that they attempt to obfuscate and complicate their discussions, cloaking what they say in pseudo-science and critical theory.  Ironically, while attacking the idea of objective truth and absolute proof (very problematic for a Guardian reader) they ape those very elements wherever they can.

I don't write flame posts.  Look back, if you can bear the tedium, at my previous posts.  I grew out of internet flame wars back in 1993 or 1994, although the usenet posts do survive.  But... oooh, this makes me mad.

Now, Bonnie Ruberg is a nice person with interesting things to say and a very explicit agenda.  But her ongoing obsession with what she calls "transvestism" (people using toons of the opposite gender) in MMO's has become a somewhat wearying and one-paced addition to the generalist, virtual worlds blog Terra Nova.

Her first post was, frankly, laughed out of court.  It addressed well-worn and cliched areas and almost everyone knew how the conversation would pan out, from long experience on a variety of forums.  I think that the unwritten rule in the Houses of Parliament - make your maiden speech interesting and uncontroversial - is a wise one to stick to whenever delurking.  Anyway, she threatened more ("You may have won this round, my pretties, but I have author rights on this blog...  You cannot stop me and you have no /ignore function!"), and now she has delivered.

She claims it is an informal "study" [Edit: "Survey", not "study".  Thanks Aaron] of why individuals use characters of the opposite gender in online games.  She starts from the idiotic presumption - unforgiveable for someone of her intellect - that this is simply a variety of real-world cross-dressing.  She offers no evidence for her confusion of terms, despite receiving a mauling last time out.  Proof by blatant and repeated assertion.

In fact, look closely and the "study" is her posting on her blog regarding why people represent as other genders and getting responses from her readers.

Did it not strike her that credibility requires that she point out one or two details about such methodology?  That what she got was a study of individuals who read a blog on sexuality and gender in gaming?!?  A self-selecting study constituted entirely of those who chose to respond, mainly publicly!  So she got a bunch of touchy-feely responses from people who read her blog.  We tend to read blogs whose tone we generally agree with (see the bloglists of any left- or right-wing American blogger for evidence here).  So Bonnie suggested a theory on a number of occasions on her blog, then asked a question on it, and presents the results as some sort of "science".  Thousands of years of progress in logic and scientific method and this is what it comes to.  Politics.

A proper study, for what it would be worth (very little, I suspect) would have a sizeable cohort selected and weighted according to the demographics of the players (someone like Nick Yee, who brings real credibility and rigour to the genre, could help here).  I'd give you huge odds that the results would be the stunning conclusion that the bulk of those representing as another gender are men who like to look at pretty girls.  Not a stunning discovery, and unlikely to get the plaudits clearly desired.  It's all, I bet, about the elf-boobies.  The Lara demographic.

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Disclaimer  I should add, in the interests of openness, that although my main characters - Agamemnos and Gracci - are both male, they are Taurens, which presumably, in Bonnie's agenda-driven world, makes me some sort of furry.  In SWG I did play a female character for a while, because in the words of PvP Online, if I am going to spend dozens of hours looking at an ass, it had better be an attractive one.  Bonnie hates that argument, of course, and simply refuses to believe it when it is raised.  It doesn't advance her agenda.  Truth be damned.

Phear /\/\y m4d l33t sk1llz

Another totally World of Warcraft post, best ignored by the unaddicted.

I just checked last week's honour rankings for the Moonglade WoW server, and my newish PvP alt is the highest-ranked person at level 29 or below, which isn't bad since I am only level 27 in the current weekly stats (I've gained a couple since).  I've not really spent much time at all in the battlegrounds yet, but when in there I've been doing a lot of flag captures (usually 2 out of 3) and a lot of killing.

I've found a good pattern that wins almost every time: a kind of rope-the-dopes double play.  Take last night, where after three 3-0 wins in half an hour we had the alliance team on almost full defence, with seven of them in their flag room.  In response, I had our team set up with five in defence, three midfield and a normally-suicidal two in attack.  5-3-2, funnily enough, being my favoured Championship Manager formation as well :) ...

Anyway, I would sneak onto the ledge invisible, and call for a runner.  This usually meant sticking Mark of the Wild, Thorns, Regrowth and Rebirth on Bartuc, a level 27 shaman, and he would immediately sprint for the flag.  The extra 600-odd health he had pouring in from my buffs and heals would sometimes get him far enough to shift into ghost wolf once outside, and then he was as good as home with us dominating midfield.

But with seven of them using stuns, roots, hamstring and other movement-restricting plays on him, he would usually only make it about 20 yards past the cliff.  Foolishly but predictably, they would return the flag.  Meanwhile I am in cat form, hidden, sitting next to the flag point.  It appears, I sieze it, and sprint out.  The allies coming pouring back up to recapture it and I - with talents spent on 30% speed increases in cat form and the ability to sprint at 50% faster once every 5 minutes - tear past them, shifting form as necessary to discard roots and using my Insignia Of the Horde if they slap a fear on me.  I even have time to go to autorun and chat with my team on the way back about the best route in.

This works with only one shaman or druid, too: we sometimes used a hunter as a sacrificial runner.  He goes into the tunnel, gets killed halfway down it, I grab the flag and sprint out over the cilffs.  They literally cannot catch up.  Still sucks to be ally :)

How to defend?  Hold the ledge, don't leave the flag room empty when chasing the flag, don't return the flag until you have a couple of hunters or warriors there to get the next runner, and defend in midfield against the second runner: don't run up an empty tunnel.