Gamers Who are Asking for It

In my previous post, I mentioned how I am playing Crystal Saga now,and how I really am enjoying a return to PC gaming as a result. Remember I said CS enables co-op and competitive play?

One of the events that offers an opportunity for competitive play is the Sengolia Battleground event which takes place daily at server times 15:00 and 19:00. The fancy name is meant to hide from noobs the fact that it's like being a really slow guy who manages to catch a football and run to the touchdown zone.

In the middle of avoiding fifty-million people whose sole desire at the moment is to eliminate you in the most efficient and utterly humiliating way possible, you have towers; towers that belong to your faction and to the faction that's opposing you. While you are running around trying not to killed, your job is to destroy your enemies' towers, along with the ultimate fortification, the opposing teams' Crystal of Life.

Anyway, I'm in there fighting on the Spirit side and I noticed that Player X from my previous post and The Prince are on my team. X and The Prince come up with some pretty sweet tactics and another friend goes off to draw Demon threat.

While all this is going on, some lower-level player starts ranting about how Sengolia is rigged; (it's not) the developers have put in place controls that more or less equalize the playing field, probably because they got tired of drinking coffee brewed from noob tears...half the time, I get spanked in Seng too, because my teleport works the wrong way or doesn't work at all.

Anyway, after his ranting about that, he decides to take out his frustration on the Lunar Goddess. Who is on the opposing faction. And a nice person. But still SCARY to meet on a battlefield. I mean, her character's outfit is cute and frilly, but it's like a zombie Minnie Mouse that just keeps coming back. And zombie Minnie Mouse is distracting you with her cuteness so she can fire an arrow of doom right between your eyes...

While I'm pondering this and trying to avoid the Lunar Goddess and The Mightiest Disciple, it occurs to me that this idiot might be the one that appealed to The Plushie King to stop the Goddess from killing him in the Guild Resource Battleground. The Plushie King was not moved by these entreaties, and so the petition for clemency was flatly denied.

The GRB is another PvP event, and you must collect certain resources and transport them to the guild management guy. You have one hour, which is more than enough time to get everything you need even if you do get slaughtered a few times, which happens to everyone...hell, I was in their a few days ago and The Prince yawned in my direction and I died. It happened so fast, I couldn't even figure out how he killed me. I think he flicked a booger on me...but the best part; he whispers me and tells me, "sorry, I pressed the wrong key."

I still managed to complete the thing, even though after my unceremonious death, I scowled at the computer. In the words of the geektastic Wil Wheaton, "Don't be a dick." There really is no need for it and it makes people look stupid and immature.

Gaming and Gender Issues

I recently started playing a new MMORPG called Crystal Saga. The game mechanics are complicated, the environments are beautiful and it enables competitive and cooperative play. Sounds great, right? I was playing the game the other day when an important topic came up that instantly attracted my attention.

There was a lively discussion brewing in world chat about vanquishing bosses and lesser players. One player, whom I shall refer to as Player X in this post, contended that using the term, “rape” in the context of defeating bosses and lesser/unskilled players was harmless and when used in gaming context, a perfectly acceptable term.

Some players immediately piled on Player X, decrying his use of the term as offensive and trivializing a traumatizing event that has impacted many lives. Some players hurled insults at Player X over his continued insistence that the term was acceptable. Other players attempted to compromise; they attempted to suggest alternate forms of expression that were less charged, and alternate forms of expressing the satisfaction that comes with defeating the impossible boss that has excoriated you the other million times you have tried to go against it.

I watched as the debate unfolded, seeing it become organized along gender lines. Males tended to agree with Player X, and said female gamers were being overly sensitive and narrow-minded. Female players asserted that while everyone has a right to free speech, Player X was simply being asked to find a different way of expressing himself without offending. Player X refused this request, and continued to state he was fine with the term and would continue to use it.

Player X was then muted and ignored by many of the female, higher-level gamers of the group, and the debate ended. Everyone began to get back to the business of leveling up characters and fighting through dungeons. Everyone except me.

I began to think about Player X's actions and the reactions to his actions. Being a rape survivor myself, I thought about what his usage of the term in such an offhand manner meant to me. For me, it's not about whether or not I thought his usage of the term was appropriate or flippant; it's about the fact that this word does not define me, and his casual usage of it does not make me any less of a survivor or any less of a person.

If someone chooses to make an asshat of themselves, we have the option of trying to persuade them to see an alternate option, or we have the option to excise their malignancy from our midst through the use of mute buttons and ignore features. It all boils down to what option works better for us as individuals.

As for me, I'm glad I was in a position to see this debate unfold. Female gamers are often a marginalized minority in the gaming community, so this was an especially significant moment to me. We have struggled to be let into this boy's club, but we will not be denied. We are here. And, we're not leaving.