Recently Bioware said that in Star Wars The Old Republic will be no same gender romance arcs. While it has caused the expected heated debates, they know they will get through with it. Because they can do it with us.

In the Melian Dialogue of Thukydides history of the Greek War, when Athens wanted to raid the independent, small nation of Melos, they said: the strong do as they please and the weak have to suffer it. Apparently 2500 years later humanity hasn’t changed. Those who have no lobby are victim of prejudice and must suffer dishonouring their integrity.

Many gay fellow gamers told me, but SWTOR is such a great game, and a boycott would not change anything. And even more say, it is just a game, what does it matter?

Let me say to this a few things. I understand, a boycott likely would not change a thing. Too powerful and influential are those who hate us, those to whom our very existence is unbearable and who clearly would want to see or tolerate our destruction. It is true, the chances we can effect this are minimal. But for me, it is a question of moral integrity to stand for what I believe in. Either I believe in equality and respect and stand for it, or I accept and stay silent when the honour of others is trampled. There is no middle ground in questions like this. Alas, it is a very common thing in humanity, that when a minority is dishonoured, silenced and mistreated, the majority-society shrugs and says, what do I care. I am not black or gay or Jewish. And so injustice prevails.

Since WHEN is the argument, it doesn’t change a thing of any validity??? If you know a product is made with children work, you STOP buying it. Period. You don’t claim, hey but it won’t change a thing, or others do it too. No, you boycott products made by children, because IT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO! You do not bargain with companies who neglect some peoples integrity. End of story.

Others say it is just a game. To them I say: in matters of honour, respect and racism, there ARE no small matters! Imagine for a second Bioware would have announced, it had no black people in them. It would cause a major uprising. But since it is “just some gays” many shrug it off or even applaud it. Not so long ago, black people in America were forced to stay in certain spaces in a bus, and Jews in Germany were forced to wear a David Star. A small matter, people said back them. What do you fight against such small matter, they said. If a black person is forced to sit in a separated place, they said, it is because we do not wish to see black people close to us. This is no different. People don’t want to see gay people. They want them away, invisible, not exist. In a story focussed game, where romance stories are an integral part as in Bioware RPGs, the absence of gay & lesbian romance stories is not a small thing, it is a BIG statement, one that will have great influence.

Entertainment industry has a much greater influence than people admit or want to accept. When comic reading youths read about Gay Superheroes like Wiccan and Hulkling from Marvel, or see gay people in TV shows like Glee, it has a considerable influence to create tolerance and acceptance. It is a great thing. And the same is the message to exclude it. Such messages are of the greatest importance, for, to paraphrase Kreia, the world is moved from such small angles, through such small matters. In 2011, when so many games, TV shows, comics asf of the entire Entertainment industry have no issues to show gay people, this is a ultra conservative signal and something not to understand. A gay romance is not dirtier than a straight romance. Either love is sacred or love is dirty, and I vehemently deny that gay love is dirty when straight love isn’t. THAT is the signal such a decision shows. And that is why it is unacceptable to support Bioware with ANY game it further releases.

You can tell me a thousand times about how TOR is a product to be sold. I think that is bollocks. The gay superheroes never made people buy less Marvel comics. Sims sold record breaking despite even having gay sex and gay marriage! Fable, Dragon Age and other games who had gay romance and gay sex also sold well and were very popular. But this means to give in to those with hate, despise and prejudice. In terms of respect, dignity and equal rights is no small matter, no compromise. Just imagine for a moment, Bioware would have excluded black people. But gay people are fewer and they know they can do it with us, because too few will have solidarity. They know they will get through with it.

Adorno once said, the power of good is not that it triumphs over evil, but that we can say, despite all you did to annihilate us, we are still here. This is a day that is very unfortunate and tragic. A great wrong was done. But I know how it goes. “I am not gay, why should I care.” If I were not a spiritual person who had decided long ago that the human world is a place were darkness, chaos and selfishness reign and there is no hope in this world, I probably would have gone mad long ago. So I just see again what I already learned the hard way. That respect, decency and virtue are rare.

A decisive breaking point of the modernism with the old ways is what I call the dictatorship of utility. Ever since the advent of modern capitalism it is a fundamental principle of society that each part must be equally a cogwheel proving its usefulness. And where this principle in early capitalism was still one among many, it is now the only principle, beside which all others have no room anymore.

One of the rules of the old society for thousands of years was, that the value and standing of a person was presented in his appearance. The value of a person or a building was made visible by aesthetics. So respect, esteem and affection were passed on. Today even the upperclass make themselves common with the dreary look of “Tom, Dick and Harry”. Let’s take the area of ​​fashion. For millennia, from ancient Rome to the Victorian Age a person of decency had to dress accordingly. People were not men and women, but ladies and gentlemen, as not every stranger was spoken to in familiar terms. Today we decide only on the usefulness and comfort what is fashion. And the epitome of this bad habit are the outdoor jacket and the t-shirt. To me a t-shirt is children’s clothing, or something that maybe you can wear at home alone. This bad habit of men and even more dreadful for women, even beyond the 30 years, they are still running around with t-shirts as if they still were a student, preferably with a colorful print on it. Its quite disastrous. These people who walk around even beyond the 40+ years in baggy T-shirt (because it’s so convenient) and torn jeans, and then wonder that the teenagers scream at them like some buddy of theirs! Well, who makes himself common is treated in common, run around like a child and you are treated like a child. Previously existed the “esteemed Mr. Postman”, a respected person like a kind uncle, who came in a blue uniform with gold buttons and was a respected person. Today the postman running around in jackets made of plastic and cheap clothes, which hardly create more respect. As a man who wants to experience the difference, walk around just a few days in a decent suit, and you will notice how different people suddenly will react suddenly, how different you are treated as a customer! The same seller, the one yesterday ignored you in a T-shirt and jeans, suddenly acts with courtesy and respect. Often enough I’ve experienced this myself.

The false conclusion that we have is due to generation of the 1960s and 70s: that appearance is merely an illusion, a lie, and that is the mistake. But a man can be wicked, which is independent from the appearance. But a decent and elegant appearance is always perceived as pleasant, someone obviously does bother to present us a passable appearance, and we reward this with courtesy and respect.

The same applies to architecture and urban planning. If you look at some German cities in 1900 and compare it to what is in its place today, you need to be quite insensitive not to burst into tears. Let us take the new Kanzleramt the Chancellors Office in Berlin. It looks like a giant washing machine, which was suddenly dropped, and before it stands what is called “modern art”, which looks like a big, rusty wire from a construction site. Who will give this ensemble reverence, respect or? Who will go to those buildings with the same loving affection for the city and the authority, as the beautiful buildings of the classical age? If rusted beams account for art and cold surfaces of glass and concrete are our architecture, how will people attain a love for their environment? And much is caused by these fact. Today we have an unprecedented desire for vandalism in our urban environment. Hardly a wall without graffiti, paintings and destruction, hardly a day in Berlin, where rioters not burn some cars, where violent youths not beat strangers out of mere brutality, not a single window in buses and trains that is not scratched, hardly a seat in a train that is not damaged. And how can this be different in a city, where the German Academy of the Arts looks like a cheap electro discounter?

I am sure that there is a direct correlation between a decline of decency and respect of other peoples property, and the ugly aesthetics of modernism. Buildings that do not convey the beauty and dignity create no respect. After all, one must bear in mind: the shape of the architecture of the West exists, with minor variations since 2500 years! The columns, arches, capitals and all the basic forms of ancient architecture influenced the Western world and its monuments existed all up to the 19th Century. But the short period 1950-1980 was enough to tear down and destroy all that which had been proven two work for two and a half millennia. There is this theory of the “golden form” that there forms and proportions which people feel as comfortable which objectively have a positive effect on humans, as indeed also certain colours have a particular effect on humans, or light conditions and lines of sight. The postwar period rejected the knowledge of centuries of architecture. Modernism behaved like an urban teenage rebel, who deliberately goes against the decades of experience of the parents and makes it different, just to provoke. At all the provocation the basic grimace of modern “art”, as you can see theatre, architecture, monuments, you can look where ever you want: everywhere the viewer is confused, incited and provoked. We have lost the conception of harmony in the Western culture, a culture where art was to elevate the people above the now mouse grey monotony of everyday life, and it is no wonder that people today in their leisure time have an unprecedented need for escapism. People flee in television and computer games, movies and fantasy, because to them the life is cold and grey, and everyday life in the modern cities no longer appeals to any sense of beauty and elegance, but everything is grey and sober. From the drab modernism man flees into the brightly coloured computer games because he can bear the dead sober reality of the modern life no longer. It seems perhaps exaggerated to many, but it is my firm conviction.

I know most left-liberals do not want to hear such things and do it away as conservatism. They want an idealized society of freedom, and do not understand the mechanisms of human beings. A person needs an education to be able to handle freedom. But it started with the entire terrible anti-authoritarian education! How embarrassing and horrible to see these overworked mothers who tell their six ear old children why it now please put on his jacket or please eat the cucumber. Now infants are treated like kings. The dear child is entitled to do as it pleases. You may put on the jacket or not? No, oh well, there is nothing I can do, my child does not want to cooperate. Our parents just told us, pull on your damn jacket and eat the cucumber now, or else! Education and behaviour are nothing that fall from the sky, and even though I am an enemy of all violent education: to educate these kids like Princes, where every whim is allowed, creates a climate headed by violence, rioting and destruction of property in the long run. Of course, not every anti-authoritarian child brought up becomes a criminal offender, but all these modern children, many of which are already grown up lack this kind of respect, treat elder like their buddies, and create a decline in civility and good manners as the visible result. It only goes slowly and step by step, so you have to look more closely to notice it.

I’m just the last person who would say everything was better in the past, or would want back an authoritarian society of the 19th Century. But the leftists of the 1960s and 70s, virtually tossed out the baby with the bath water, and though for understandable reasons, ruined all bonds of respect, dignity and discipline. It takes its revenge. The public space is like a garbage dump in many cases today, people drop their waste where they go and live, rule vulgarity and violence, destruction of property and a the grey ugliness of modernism, so the people only want to escape into private amusement. Where once the people were engaged in this society , today they flee into the fictional dreams of TV and computers. Modernism has destroyed the proven experience of more than 2000 years of Western Culture with a few strokes and it will reap what it sowed in the downward spiral of a dying, soulless culture.

The end of modernism

A critique

In these days leading financial experts have recommended the EU, doubling the so-called “bailout” in the wake of the EU financial crisis of 750 billion to € 1.5 trillion. The most surprising for me was the fact that this has caused little excitement. It has been recognized with the same apathy as if a pound of butter cost 3 cents more tomorrow. I think this apathy is almost more remarkable than the phenomenon itself, and that’s something hot in the face of the sum. Perhaps it is simply the size of the sum that the average citizen can be thought of as little as astronomical proportions. Or are we all so certain of the impending doom that we dismiss it with a shrug? I felt it was a scandal, and yes, it is only the latest and certainly not last peak of development for 20 years.

For me, the scandal is but this simply: because foreigners decide about our German money, trillions in new sums differ depending on the mood of the day. Our voice? Zero. And the effect and meaning are at best dubious. Now it is certainly not such a surprising thing for most Germans to see that our politicians have at best a vague idea of ​​the reality. Or the so-called democratic politicians of other countries. But the assumption that countries like Greece, Italy or Portugal could ever meet such an economic power and economy in order to pay back € 1.5 trillion, I think is a dimension of reality denial, even my sceptical view of politicians has been very much surpassed.

An argument that one hears again and again: this money is nothing but a guarantee, not a gift. Of course this is formally correct. The fact is, though, that this is a pot available for loans from which countries can take as needed. What pressure to economize remains for the EU countries if they can have the confidence to get money anyway on this scale? Do we not destroy every pressure for better economy in the nations, if we provide huge amounts of credit, will it not just cause the contrary, a conveyance of levity? And we are talking about loans! So it is indeed money a country gets! So we can hope that we get the credit back. But how realistic is that in the face of such sums and such countries? Here the politicians act it as if all of a sudden and surprising were previously stable countries plunged into deep debt. But the opposite is true. Countries such as Greece, Portugal and Italy have always been economically weak, with rising debt and with little budgetary discipline. Or simply, they have always spent much more than they had, and it was well known to everyone. The overall budgetary positions and debt levels were indeed no state secrets! And yet we let these countries against better knowledge into the EURO and the European market, in the absurd hope that these countries after decades of mismanagement were suddenly serious financial marketplaces. You have to be really not a cynic to see how this expectations are over-stressed and absurd.

The other argument you just presented to us Germans like a mantra for 20 years from all sides: there are no alternatives to Europe. I deny that vehemently. There are always alternatives, but they are not enforceable in the current political landscape! Let us look at the five parties in the German Parliament, the Bundestag, then we will find that they ALL are in their programs actually differ only in nuances. One might think a bona fide contemporary, maybe all the parties are so reasonable, and they all have in common lots of insight in their mind. Given the economic doom we face in our system this is something the politicians can hardly keep the benefit. So one is an advocate of national independence and EU critic he wonders that no single party in the German parliament is sceptical towards Europe! On the contrary, all parties want the Euro, they all want the billions of “bailout”, they all want more rights for the EU in Brussels. Differences exist only in small formalities. Who wants more German sovereignty and less patronizing EU remains at the election with only extremists like the NPD, Communist Party and “Christian center” party.

One thing one must not forget: If they ever talk about the aid to Greece, then this is a huge scam! Help here is not meant for the Greek people, but the banks, the big capitalists and speculators who invested and reinvested money in Greece. These speculators are to blame for the crisis is here, and THEY get help! The simple Greek workers, employees or retirees will not get any help here. If a small pensioner from Athens because of the crisis tomorrow can’t pay his electricity or water he won’t be aided by the “bailout for Greece” with a single cent! Help will come to the speculators and shareholders, who have driven the country into crisis, the banks and the lazy stockholder who are sitting at home and earn millions by doing nothing. Those will get help here!

The fact is that more and more things that have been decided through regulations from Brussels, like the “cucumber curvature norm” or the “light bulb regulation”, by committees and bodies which here in Germany are unknown to the people, who are not legitimised by our people in any way, and who are not accountable to anyone. And on what grounds we have been sold to this? With the nebulous spectre of globalisation. Now it may well be that today in the economy several large companies are in competition with overseas regions. But I deny that this competition is more severe objectively. An industrialist in the late 19th Century has also been found to be in sharp competition, but not against companies from China and Japan, but domestic and neighbouring countries. But what was true then is true today, namely, that economies are essentially a national competition! A customer can just buy either a French Peugeot or a German Volkswagen. National economies are essentially competitors, and once you get by a few large projects such as aircraft and space flight aside, we have to deal with our national economy first. For individual projects there is always the possibility of bilateral cooperation, which could be arranged for a project for a time, without having to give away all the competences from our government permanently to foreign politicians!

It’s no malice, if we assume that a French or Italian EU commissioner acts more in the interests of his compatriots more than just ours. On the contrary, he would be a bad patriot, if he would not do it! It follows for me that only we can represent our own self-interests, that only we and the governments elected by us to take care of our concerns and wants. Only the German parliament is composed of citizens of our country and selected by us. Only our government and our parliament can be held responsible for us. In an EU however always reigns the smallest compromise, which must be found to persuade the 26 or more countries which all bargain for their interests, as it determines the mood of the day or just domestic political sensitivities, and we have to bow to it then. I think it’s not selfish when we say we Germans should remain independent in our affairs and decide them for ourselves. Just as we don’t want to be anyone’s master, we also do not want to be dominated. Which says nothing against temporarily cooperation agreements. But the responsibility for our policy must remain completely in our country, and this includes control over the currency!
The misery is compounded by our so-called “democracy”. I said so-called because one thing is indeed quite obvious: that the people’s will is implemented in the committees and parliaments is something very rare! Neither for the implementation of the Euro as currency, nor the billions of rescue package for Greece and other countries nor the EU Constitution would have ever gotten a vote of the majority in Germany ever! And while in all other EU countries, they had made polls about this, this has been decided in Germany against the people’s majority without any poll! It has been imposed upon us by the parliamentary authorities! There is no alternative, period. There is also no party in our parliament, which would not support the EU. So we can’t actually choose anything, which leads to another fact, and can be seen for the last 20 years of politics. No matter who was in the government, red- green, red-black, or black-yellow, all these governments differed only in nuances! That in any point the five “mainstream parties” have any distinct differences and there really are alternatives to vote, I think this is a rumour! No matter on what topic, pension, social security height, closing nuclear plants, health care – all these themes, the parties have only a few euros more or less, the nuclear step-out is two years sooner or later. Alternatives are sought in vain. What sense has an election when there are no alternatives? How does this differ from the days of the socialist one-party state?

One reason for this is that today politicians who suggest in any point of a profound change, they are removed from politics in no time. Let’s take the simple tax reform of Friedrich März and this plan in which there should be only three tax rates. Not one really profound change of approach was ever implemented in the policies of recent decades! Why? Because politicians today are under pressure from media, media which can inflame the opinion of the masses, and lull people with a mirage of the alternative-free “facts”. Anyone who breaks out of this corset, which fabricates the upright lie, that we live in the best of all worlds, is punished by the media as a fool or is simply ignored. What poison has been poured over some politicians like Lafontaine! No matter what one thinks of his political ideas, he at least has a couple of times dared to think outside the box, but any politician who does so will be vilified as a fool and political wrong-way driver. Politicians will be only be elected if one promises everything to everyone, because now everyone is like a little king who feels to have the right for everything.
It is the misery and the irony of our modernity, that we now almost choke on our own “achievements”. The Modernism has “freedom” and “self-realization” written on it’s flag. Everyone should realize yourself, take care of his fortune and everyone today feels as pimp king. And it takes its revenge. In politics, no party may move more without falling out of favour with the discerning audience, without being “voted out” like a candidate from “Big Brother”. Those are getting elected who promise everything and who appeals that everything stays as it is, no matter how absurd and irrational it is. With scorn and mockery these modern “bourgeois king” look to earlier periods. “As a human life meant little, they died for patriotism and kings, but how stupid was that!” Yes, and what a mousy smallness we have achieved today with our great freedom! Let us take the colonization of America. Back then, people have put into small walnut shells, without all certainty and were in the dark for many weeks on the ocean, everything for a dream, a vision of the ideal of a better life for the next generations. They had no guarantees only a huge risk, and a single human life meant little. It was not so important as the big picture! People were still willing to sacrifice for something larger, because only then something large is formed! Or take the unification of Germany 1870-71. Of course nobody wants to go to war. And then it was only the operation of a man, Bismarck, who forced the war of 1870. This created such a national feeling that it was possible to form Germany. One may criticize the war and Bismarck’s action as you want, without this war, we would still be divided into numerous small German states. It was this sacrifice that masses of people for the war, reported to his king and country, from which Germany has emerged. Whether by war or violence: what has emerged in the history of greatness, was because there were people to whom the idea was more important than their personal well-being, which today’s’ modern individual mocks as stupid sacrifice, and still it is the fundament on which the self-indulgent little kings stand on, and what they are no longer capable of creating. Such dangerous activities such as colonization of other planets is impossible with such a humanity, where everyone takes themselves so important, no matter the technical progress. We may not like to hear it: but with our ridiculous attitude in which we hold to our oh-so-great self-realization, we can never aspire anything great. And therefore our system which is going downhill can not be saved.

It would require a caste of leaders in politics, which are free from small-small media democracy. Politicians which do not subjugate them to the medias talk and people’s swing of moods day by day, but unite the splintered society and lead with a vision, a great idea how they want to shape our society! What we have today in politics is only one administration of misery, a tinkering around with what is actually there. They merely react quickly and frantically from case to case. And nowhere is this more apparent than in the current crisis. They have no vision of a society! They cover the rotting body with simple plasters. In a media democracy, it is no longer possible to create a larger vision, as the realization of a vision would require a very long period of time and greater effort, which today are no longer enforceable. This is the inevitable long-term suicide of modern society. It has an inertia, immobility and weakness, with which it just isn’t up to the demands of our time anymore and must, in the end, break down.

The Anarchist Manifest

Concept 1.1

Berlin, Dec. 10^th 2010 – On Human Rights Day

In itself, the definition of anarchy can always be only a concept and not a definitive text. Anarchy being open as an idea of maximum freedom changes with the will and new information and therefore it can never have an ultimate form.

Central idea

What is a society of anarchy? Anarchy is the maximum individual freedom, it is a visionary form of society in which the equal freedom of all people is the ultimate basis. Do what you will, but harm no one, is the core idea of anarchy. Anarchy does not mean total lack of rules, because such a thing does not exist. If there were no restrictions on the power of individuals in turn power would restrict the freedom of others. Therefore, an anarchist society can only exist in complete pacifism and perfect tolerance towards all ways of life. Because some things can only be established with joint efforts, however, a minimum of community organization is necessary because otherwise the people would fall back to the level of the stone age. We neither want to remain slaves of the financial system and nor of consumption, nor just to fall back in Stone Age conditions, but we want to create a new way of rising above both extremes free from any such thought patterns as “right” and “left”.

A community of anarchy founded on two pillars:

First, the will and the understanding of each individual. Each individual is free to do his will and to act upon their own intelligence or not to act.

Secondly, a truly anarchist community can only refer to actual concepts of reason, which is based on the sciences of man. To explain the life of the humanity requires the insights of psychology, sociology and biology. These fields of knowledge are to explain the internal and external conditions of human life. People’s lives have to substantiate these facts and can not live in ignorance of the facts of the human condition.

The four basic principles (human rights)

1. The goal of the anarchist society is the production and preservation of maximum individual freedom.
2. The freedom of every individual must be equal. This means that an anarchist society must have mechanisms to secure fairness and justice. Rules may only serve this purpose.
3. Everyone has the right to inviolability and integrity of his existence. The life of a man consists of three levels: he exists as a physical being, as a social being and as a spiritual being.
4. So that people can develop freely, every person must have maximum knowledge and education. Without knowledge man is not free but a slave of prejudice and manipulation. Through knowledge and education he can learn to make his life freely and express himselves creatively in accordance with his will.

To 1) The preservation of the maximum freedom is the core of the anarchist society. This distinguishes it from the illusion of “total anarchy”, which would only be the war of all against all. In this would be no freedom, because power would destroy the freedom of the other. Rules are here only as an idea to secure the maximum freedom as an agreement, not as command in any form. Everyone has the right to leave the community, but then he will also no longer be subject to the mutual protection. No one has the right to force another’s will by force or manipulation, whether he joins a community or not. The freedom of life is an inviolable human right of anarchy.

To 2) Without fundamental equality, freedom is an illusion. There can be no from of freedom, which robs others of their own freedom. This would only be a form of slavery.

To 3) The inviolability is one of the most important pillars of Anarchist society, and allows the existence of a society even in the anarchy.

a)      Physical integrity: A person has the right to a pristine corporeal existence. This includes food in order not to starve, to have decend clothing and a house not to be at the mercy of nature, as well as medical care to preserve his health. The physical integrity includes rigorous environmental protection, since man can only live permanently in a natural setting. This means that the law attaches to also to the right for  healthy food.

b)      Social integrity: A person has the right to social participation in any form, like any other human being. That means society must make all popular forms of social interaction available for everyone. This means for instance the right to free Internet and telephone, right to form groups of all kinds and making available the necessary material conditions for these. The right to move freem, to enable everyone to form his opinion idependently and to say his opinion freely; as well as to grant everyone enough material resources of a free-time activities.

c)      Intellectual integrity: A person has the right to be free of mental manipulation. He has the right to freely inform himself about everything, about any information at any time and any can be made available, unless two people agree to keep something between themselves by threir free will. He has the right for any form of education, anytime, for free, to have access to all intellectual and intangible products and to copy them for himself, if the product is not damaged by consummation.

On 4) The thinking man is free, the ignorant man is a slave. Therefore, in the anarchist society education, knowledge and creativity are of central important. Knowledge allows one to form his own judgments. To learn the skills to be self-sufficient to a certain extent is advised, since this too is a gain of freedom.

Individual points

I) Revision of the concept of the state & nation

In place of the state and the nation enters the concept of Community. The Community is a voluntary association of people in a region. This Community is self-administered, and not governed by specialists. So when there are tasks for the administration there shall be no politicians, no professional judicial or police forces, but only citizens taking over temporarily from case to case specific tasks. By blocking periods it is to ensure that no small number of people take control over time so that there are no professional politicians or lawyers. The administration of the municipality is the responsibility of all citizens. There is no force in a region to become citizen of a community. Although very human being is entitled to the four human rights (principles), none must be forced to participate in any kind of community or ever be subordinated to one against his will. Communities, such as the municipality (which replace the state) are voluntary associations. Only members may choose to participate in public decisions, and are secured by the Primary Care.

Offices will be awarded for a specific period to individual citizens. There are no parties or party programs. Those elected as trustee are not authorized as representatives, instead they have to make mandatory pre-election statements about what they stand for and what they want for the community. Any decision can be decided by the entire Community, like via a survey of all citizens. Only the Four Human Rights of Anarchist Freedom itself, which is the basis of the municipality, can not be changed.

These Communities are replacing nations and must kept in a manageable size. The basic idea is that too large communities can not be managed by real democratcy, and tend to form cliques which would in the end gain special influence again. In too large municipalities the citizens would lose track of what is going on in the Community. Municipalities are to be divided into sub-communities of about 10,000 inhabitants, who manage regional affairs. Only in a small community true democracy can prevail. The idea is that a Community is about a maximum size between today’s smaller counties and states. So as to have 100000 – 1 million citizens, not more. Even if a general coordination between local communities should be possible, there should be no formation of super-bodies and no giving away of rights of self-government of the Community in some kind

II) Revision of the concept of property

There is no intellectual property in things that are not diminished by consumption or rendered unusable for humans by use. Property exists is only in things which can only be used by one person or which are rendered unusable through use for humans.

For example, a pair of trousers can only be carried by one person, a sandwich can only be eaten by one person, then it is modified for further in an unusable state for people. Therefore, such “unique consumable” items can be owned as usual as property.

There is no ownership of the shared nature of things, neither genes nor rivers, mountains, the rain or the air can be possessed. Nature’s goods are for all people.

Not be owned as property are all things that do not deplete by consumption, or are damaged or rendered unusable for people and keep their function even when copied. So copies of images, texts (whether text or property, entertainment), music, software and the like are not covered by any right of property. Only the physical object itself, such as a sculpture or a painting on a canvas are allowed as property. Everybody is allowed to make unlimited copies of all but endless consumable items such as mentioned above. Possession is defined solely by things for personal usefuleness.

The philosophical justification, that an idea is not “made”, but comes to you. It’s like the universe that creates itself throught the medium of a person. These endlessly consumable things of so-called “intellectual property” are available to all, as ever they wish. As man consumes animals and plants to create, ie he merely borrows from the cosmos for his activities and sometimes in end he becomes food himself. He does not really posses anything what he creates.

III) Revision of income and work

All intellectual and material products are put into a “pot” and distributed the sum of all products to all citizens of a community equally. To give an incentive to work for the community, there are two stages. First, the care for Basic Security, the second the Bonus.

There is no money. The value of all products is determined by the entire community on a regular basis, so no speculation is possible. All citizens receive the same monthly number of “points”. The number of points is determined so that the basic principle #3 is fulfille, integrity pf physical state, social participation and spiritual development. In other words, everyone is getting enough resources for the physical well-being, social development and for spiritual edification and expansion of consciousness. Physical issues are enough food, clothing, housing, health and physical fitness. Social participation is free Internet and telephone, free supply of information, resources for community recreation. Mental concerns are access to entertainment and education, uncensored possibility of their own creative contributions in words, images and all other forms of art and science.

The bonus will be given as additional points to those who provide a few hours of their day or week for one of the three spheres, body, social or mind. Bodily concerns for these would be farmers, food industry (bakery, butcher, etc.), doctors, nurses, geriatric nurses, firefighters asf. Social issues these would be services on the Internet, sports clubs and any type of service for communal experience. For the spiritual sphere it would be for example artists, scientists and those who work for general entertainment. It should be weighted according to their importance for the common good. Thus, the supply of physical well-being is of highest priority, social second and spiritual care of third priority. Still there should be only moderate differences, so that there is no greater gap between individuals.

There should not be excessive and unnecessary accumulation of wealth, as this would be unfair. The life and work of a human being can never be much more valuable than that of another. That a man own several houses, several cars and yachts is compatible with an anarchist society. In general, the distance between the richest and the poorest citizens must only be moderate. The distribution of the total generated has to reflect this. There can be only so much property, as can be used for one’s own use.

Basically, the daily time of humans is to be set free through automation as far as possible. All work that can be done by machines should be done by them, because the general accumulated production is distributed to the community. Everyone who invents a machine or system to allow people to work less is to get a bonus. This should set people free to take care of their social and intellectual development.

IV) Revision of the law and judicary

There can be no professional judiciary. There only exists a general declaration of fundamental human rights and basic principles, however, no detailed codes. There has to be a minimum of formalities. All rules other than the principles of anarchist society must be considered temporary, and automatically cease once the fulfill their purpose or be rendered invalid as soon as they prove not to fulfill the purpose intended. Therefore, in addition to the basic principles (The Human Rights) any supplementary laws must never apply endlessly, but always run out at a certain limited validity period, after which either they end or they have to be decided again.

There are no prescribed rules and laws, but merely conventions of a community. Apart from the four human rights which apply to all as  inalienable basis of anarchist society.

Instead of judges are so-called moderators who ensure only that everyone is treated fairly and everyone who wants to speak has the chance to do so. Instead of a court there is to be a “mediation” by a jury. The selected jury consists of 12-20 people, all of which should have nothing to do with the matter. If necessary, specialists can be consulted, but do not act as a crucial support of the assembly, as it would be with lawyers. There are no professions such as judges and attorneys, not only consulting experts can explain to the jury and the congregation some of the complex issues as a neutral person. Each party in such a “settlement” can select a person who speaks for him, should he not feel verbally or mentally up to the task, so that the matter is not decided through the greater eloquence of one side. However, there can be no profession of judicary matters, otherwise if the Community would have these professions, like today’s lawyers, they would have the interest to create such a complicated legal system that they benefit from it, and people must not profit from any judicial process. Such a thing must be completely prevented. Who contributes his time as an arbitrator, representative or member of the jury shall receive only compensation for the work he can not otherwise do in time.

Any regulation temporarily agreed upon by the Community is to be written in such terms, so it can be understood by any average person. The entire codex of these must be small enough that any average person can memorize and know them.

Judgments are  being made through reason and common sense. A judgement must not violate the third basic principle (Human Right). A person may not be physically harmed by a ruling (ie, no death penalty, and no physical punishment), he may not be socially isolated (ie no confinement in prison) and he should not be limited intellectually, must therefore retain access to information of all kinds. Is a possible punishment to order working for the common good and a limited supervised living. This supervised living has to be as much like the normal living as possible.

For violent criminals and other offenders against the freedom of others, such as subversives or sexual offender is to consider that they are emotionally or mentally ill. They are not criminal but ill. Now a mental disease may be curable or incurable. If it is genetically and therefore incurable, he is to kept away for life under humane conditions. If his mental illness can becured, he is to be kept as long until a cure is attained. We reject today’s concept of “criminals” as a medieval perception. There are only people who intentionally attack either out of greed, then a system teaches them a better understanding and allow them  a later returned to the Community has to be established, since they are spiritually needy to be elucidated. Violence against others is a mental illess that requires appropriate treatment, not a crime that needs to be punished.

I fathomed myself as someone who is relatively more resilient to peer pressure. I was always an outsider type of person, and proud of my own way. And still, even I realize how often and profound I give into social pressure to a degree, that what was supposed to entertain and relax me, becomes a chore.

The most devilish pit I fell into, you can facepalm now, was FrontierVille. It is one of these Facebook games from Zynga, you build a neat little farm, and as one who loved simulations like The Sims or build up games like Settlers, it looked catchy. You can built tiny cute houses and plants and exchange stuff. The pitfall comes through the competition. While you don’t really have any enemy, you can and must visit the places of others, you get extra points for visiting them and doing tasks for them, and of course you see all the neat and wonderful things you want to have too! Sounds familiar? Well think of “inspect” and “gearscore”, eh?

And games like FrontierVille are devious, really, really devious. It always gives you missions to have new neat looking stuff, but of course all the REALLY good looking stuff needs tons of people to give you GIFTS. And they gift you if you gift them in turn. And if you don’t give into that your only chance is to buy it for “hooray today you get things cheaper” and they all tempt you from back and front. Over a little time of just wanting to try stuff I realized how pressured I felt to regularly gift people, to visit them and tend their gardens and have the same as they.

Now you may say, Elikal, it’s your own fault wasting time on such Facebook trash. But ask yourself, are you free of that in MMORPGs? Did you grind that raid instances for the Armour-set X because YOU really enjoyed doing it? Or wasn’t it pressure from your friends, guildmates or whoever? How often are people declined to join something because they don’t have the gear? How many people spent money on cool looking cosmetic items in ingame shops these days? How many thousands of faction points did you grind to get the cool hat or cape, just to stop looking like some average noob?

After giving into this more often than I’d like myself, I start to feel really critical about MMOs. While Frontierville is no MMO, it sort of opened my eyes how much we REALLY are manipulated to do tedious stuff we would never do, just because of the social pressure to measure up to other people’s presumed expectations, and so we all are in an upward spiral for ever more and ever greater items and we undertake even more menial and boring tasks just to have the appearance of coolness in the eyes of others and soak up their praise and envy! And in this I think no MMO has advanced the evil side of MMOs as much as World of Warcraft. I am serious here. The faction grind, the inspect, the gearscore, the armor raids, the daily tasks… ALL these things were either invented or popularzed by WOW. Like Pavlovs dog it trained people to love menial tasks. When the last new expansion was announced, I read many posts of people seriously explaining their happyness to have new factions to grind and new raids to grind.

Yeah, you say it is just some silly person, this Elikal guy ranting again. But maybe you step back and seriously ask yourself: do you REALLY do these things in MMOs because YOU want them? Or do you do them for others, for the social prestige, the peer pressure? Maybe it is time we all step back a bit and free outselves from these hamster wheels. And in all fairness, I really hope games like SWTOR and GW2 at least partially free us from these devious mechanics by their new ways to do things.

Don’t let yourself pressure into other people’s expectations!

Websters dictionary informs us what a nuance is:

nu·ance
noun
\ˈnü-ˌän(t)s, ˈnyü-, -ˌäⁿs; nü-ˈ, nyü-ˈ\
Definition of NUANCE
1: a subtle distinction or variation
2: a subtle quality : nicety
3: sensibility to, awareness of, or ability to express delicate shadings (as of meaning, feeling, or value)
Origin of NUANCE
French, from Middle French, shade of color, from nuer to make shades of color, from nue cloud, from Latin nubes; perhaps akin to Welsh nudd mist
First Known Use: 1781

Now that we have cleared that path, it is something I came to realize is what makes advanced age. Not that it is a natural occurance. But when you are young, your emotions are working in contrasts and your mind judges in absolutes. There is nothing wrong with it. You experience many things consciously the first few times, so the emotional impact feels enormous. You feel great or terrible, love is exhilarating or painful, there is great fun or great depression, people are great friends or really bad and terrible people. Friends and foes. This was the line which came natural to me when I was younger. People were on my side or standing in my way. Tho I guess it is a more widespread feeling for a man than a woman, and while it is not en vogue to admit such kind of feeling, I think it is the way most people feel when you are young.

You are supposed to be foolish. I mean, how can you not? Who can blame you. We are not born like geese, who know all they need to know the moment they break through the egg shell. There is one thing you can not learn instantly, something you can’t just hear from someone or read in some smartass book. The realization of nuances. Since they are tiny differences, we tend of overhear it. Many people get 70, 80 years old and never realize it. I guess as a matter of fact even the majority. Don’t believe me? Well, go to any internet forum about any triviality. Game forums for instance, and discuss any matter of little real significance. How good game X will be, or how bad. In the usually engulfing flame wars, when your distance yourself (which, I know, is getting difficult at some point) you realize how many see even such matters of trivial spare time fun as a warzone, where they only see friends or foes. You are either on their side (be it a fan or a critique), and if you are not, you’re a fanboi or a hater, who blindly follows some absurd conception, and you must be silenced, ridiculed and in any way broken. About computer games. If you follow forums of such simple spare time fun matters, and see people warring each other as if it were the Creed of the Church itself, it is a bit looking both entertaining in it’s folly as well as frightning. It makes one think, if humans are at war with each others even over such simple trivialities, how can we ever hope to respect and understand another in more dear terms? Our belief? Our race? Our culture?

Fortunately, there is a trick to it. Watch those forums again, and then make a list of those who write the most aggressive posts, be it pro or contra, and then check all their age. I bet you’ll find a very small ratio of people above 40 among them, because of said mechanics. Age is no guarantee for understanding. It is something you must want, you must seek. One important step is, that you realize, that other people do no see you in the same way you do. There is a difference in the way you think you are and other people get it. Yes it sounds trivial, I know, but when you watch people act, and really distance yourself from the matter itself, you will realize how many people are totally unaware what sort of impression they make. They usually see  themselves on the righteous crusade for the betterment of things. Truth VS Lie. Another youthful absolute.

To get older means to have the chance to see things in nuances, shades of grey or slight differences instead of stark contrast. You don’t have to condemn or praise a matter altogether. Things have some good and some bad things. People too. You just as well. And once you open up your mind for this, by and large a whole new cosmos unfolds before you. People have bad and good characteristics. You do. Such is reality.

What I came to realize, way more important than on computer games was, how ignorant I were towards nuances in other people. Sometimes you have to look twice to really see what influence the people around you have. Many people who you think are your friends, are in reality just your worst enemy. And some whose behavior angers you every time are in fact those are the ones you can really build on.

For instance, someone in my own family is a completely negative and pessimistic person. She spits poison over events and people from 30 or 40 years of the past. For her, everythig in the past, presence and future is doom, dark and bad. Maybe you know such people yourself. Every small triviality of the past dominates her mind, every gaze of some stranger is a reason to bitch and moan for hours, where any normal person would say his stuff and then move on. She is in a sick way fixed on the bad. Now while she is family, I love her dearly, as I feel is my duty. But the reality is, she is just poison. You will know if you know such people.  Being among them is just like being with a vampire. Afterwards you feel empty, drained, darkened in your own mood. Now these people don’t mean bad. But their influence is still a poison, and reality is, 9 of 10 of these people at a certain age will never change. They can’t see themselves as they are, and they will never hold any agreement to change. It takes some awareness to see, what people are bad for us. This is an extreme example, many of us will realize easily. But often the damaging influence are nuances, and very often they are very close. Parents particularly often, whose voices haunt us often all our lifetime. “See how dumb you are.” “Why did you do this again?” “It can only fail, you’ll see.” The cause all too often is we see things negative and root self-hatered. People have the power to drag you down with a few phrases, and often we are not aware of it. To be honest, the only thing I feel you can and must do, is banish those people from your life. Sounds harsh, I know, but people with a negative influence seek you for one reason alone: they need others to be as miserable as they. It kinda minimizes their suffering, because when others are as bad as they, it can’t be that wrong and absurd.

Really, that is the bottom of it. In small matters as in big matters, when you realize some person is just a poison, go. Leave. Ignore. You can not reason with a negative personality. Trust me, I know how hard it is. We want to proof our point. We want to help the person to get away from this idee fixe. You’ll only damage yourself in the way. If you are honest, 90% of all those realizations you came by: did you understand them because someone told you, or did you not come to it by yourself? I guess mostly the latter. It is our nature. We do not listen. I guess pride has a lot to do with it. Yes, sometimes, after a long time, we can admit, damn that person was right. But almost none has the generosity to do that right away. Yes, we will pretend to listen, because that is what is expected of us. But pretense and inner self and two very different beings.

Same goes with people who annoy us. They say some things we don’t want to hear. They have a way of doing things, which annoys the hell out of us. Lovers we skip because of some habit or intellectual notion we can not stand. How many will you send away because of that, who could be your best friend, and who could teach you a lot about life? I guess it is legion. Too many I know I have sent away who were great, insightful people, but youthful arrogance blocked me to see it. And too many who only damaged me, I held in my closest circle because of some absurd ideas about loyality. Without boasting I can say I am a thinker and not a too dense person. And yet, so many wasted years in spending time with people who only hindered and dragged my down, and sending away those who were rich sources of goodness and insight. And all because it takes time to read nuances.

Ponder this well.

The McDonaldization of Gaming

Somehow there must be a mysterious relation that the more money a company has for it’s game, the less creative and innovative it will be and the more mediocre and streamlined the result will get. Or at leas that was my thought after the recent revelation of Bioware, that despite their 150 million dollar record budget, they did not find a way to integrate aliens as playable races. Or as the entire rest of SWTOR is a manifesto of mediocre game design.

Those of us who remember gaming back from the 80ies and 90ies know that back then the game landscape was very different from today. There was a plethora of small and medium sized studios, each with it’s own brands and unique sort of creativity. Origin with it’s Ultima and Wing Commander, Westwood with Command & Conquer and Lands of Lore, Bullfrog with Populous and Dungeon Keeper. There was a long list of smaller studios with high creativity in those days. Back then, all those games were vastly different and unique. And somehow it was as if the limited budget and graphics was calling for a compensation via creativity and thoughtful design. Anyone who has played those games when they were new knows what I am talking about. The visual details of games like Ultima V or VI was relatively small, but in stark contrast was the great imagination, the extraordinary level of freedom those games had. Or RPGs like the Wizardry series with it’s 20 races and 30 classes. The freedom, the sheer amount of choices and possibilities were almost endless. And every studio and franchise had its own, distinct choice. It were games like big menus from a noble restaurant. They weren’t wolfed down fast, they were celebrated. You played those games for months. You really sunk your teeth into their meat and savoured each nook and edge.

The culprit

I won’t point at any particular crook to be the sole responsible culprit. But then things changed. When the games got more and more visually detailed and ever greater budget, I like many gamers had high hopes and great dreams for the gaming future. We imagined the diversity and creativity from the games we knew with the visual possibilities of what would come, and the future looked great to us. If there is one highly responsible company, it is without doubt Electronic Arts. Like no one else, EA swallowed one small studio after another, and the story was always the same.

The events around Origin, one of the leading RPG designers and inventors of the legendary Ultima series stands for many. Before EA, Origin created worlds. So was their motto, and they lived up to it. They made games to remember. But the moment they went into EA flock, things went downhill fast. First the action oriented, simplified Ultima 8 disaster, the NGE of that time, and then the final death with Ultima 9 and the LaraCroftization of Ultima. Then Origin was killed as studio. The story was the same for every single studio EA had swallowed. It’s like from that quote “The death of one wife may be an accident, but the loss of three is bordering neglectance!” There is method in the accidents.

The system and the recipe for the success of McDonalds is one simple idea. You get the same burger in every of their restaurant. No matter where you are, you always know exactly what you get. It’s a medium, edible portion, nothing fancy just bread, meat salad. You get it fast, the number of things to order is very limited so to assure the mind is not overburdened with difficult choices, and the restaurant is always colourful and made like some event, some parade or carnival. There are “special days” for this and that and you can get a fancy paper crown. Ok that’s the competition, but you get the idea.

This is what happened to gaming, and especially MMORPG gaming. Ask any EQ1 veteran about the many races and classes, the many different areas. Ask any SWG veteran about the many things you could do in that game. Ask anyone who played UO back in the days about the possibility of really open gameplay! Go back and look how many things to chose from in terms of classes, races and whatnot games of the past had. Today we have THE UI, which is the UI of WOW. Virtually every MMO has just a skin of the WOW UI. Radar at top right, quickbar at the bottom, quest list at the right, group list on the left. You know the buttons for inventory or journal, even if you are entirely new to the next MMO. And so it goes with the rest.

Streamlining

There is the streamlining of classes. The number of MMOs which really made unique and odd classes you can count with one hand. The Vanguard Disciple is one thing that comes to my mind, a martial arts and healer crossover. But beyond that I have to think hard. What we get is the usual lot. Warrior as tank, Mage, Ranger, when we are lucky and it’s really fancy and daring a pet class like Summoner or Hunter, and that’s it. Where SWG has such exotic classes like Teras Kasi and Creature Handler, Dancer and Image Designer, now the 150 million dollar heavy SWTOR has Jedi, Sith, BH, Trooper. Nothing fancy, nothing unexpected, nothing out of the line, and one might wonder where the days have gone where people could order their special menu, when fancy and unusual classes were the spice to be added to a game. When what you made with your character was only limited by your own imagination.

The same goes with combat. How great were our dreams about the visual diversity and exciting possibilities of combat back in the 80ies, when we dreamed how gaming would be in the future. And now that the future is here, we find that almost no gaming company is really able to make something of it. Instead, we see the same “click ability to launch attack movie” in the high budget SWTOR as in the age old EQ1. One new skill every four level, and some very mediocre, barely functional attack animation. Nothing exotic.

Or races. Back in EQ or SWG or DaoC, there was a legion of different races. And every new game seemed to bring new, bizarre and fascinating races, down to walking crocodiles aka Sarnath in EQ2, walking cows aka Tauren in WOW, and the endless possibilities with games like City of Heroes and Champion Online, which both were an explosion of player creativity. When I played CoX and CO, I never stopped to marvel at the other players creativity. All the time new creatures, demons, furries, robots, aliens, monsters of every sort and kind, and most of them even with a cool backstory and some interesting roleplay. But now in the present, it all seems to be cut to what they call “iconic”. Some word we learned to fear with the ascend of the NGE. If there is one lesson game developers just never got, it is, you can not make a game successful against the warning voices of the fans. It has been repeated so often, and yet they never learn.

What does that mean? Well, if you followed the beta development of the MMOs of the past 5 years or so, you see a clear pattern. Game developers have a certain “vision”. Then everything is streamlined to support this “vision”. Usually such things don’t work, because bending other game systems towards one “vision” always ends up as a crooked game. The warning voices of the community are usually there, and mostly loud enough. But there is always this handful of diehard supporters, who follow every way whatever a company decides. And the companies decide to listen to those who praise them; which is partially understandable, but essentially leads to the doom. The result was always the same. Those who warned it would proof a failure were in the end always right. In every single game that failed to deliver. The reason is, simply said, Devs do not listen. Yes, I know, you say, that sounds simplistic. But the truth is, it IS that simple. They are so certain of themselves, so sure to know better, so fixated to their vision, that they get blind to what is going on in the perception of their potential player base. It’s like with the movie “Avatar the Last Airbender. The cartoon series had a huge fanbase, but Night M. Shyamalan thought his vision was better. In the making there were plenty of warning voices, but the director, backed by his many successes, thought he knew better. The result was a disastrous movie, which aggravated almost all the fans and was a huge wasted effort. The same happens to most of the MMOs released in the last couple of years. The reason is, by and large, the vision was directed towards a perceived standard gamer.

When you or me or anyone complains about MMO X and criticise some part of it in the making, what a Developer group does, is, they try to think of the standard gamer. And then they make a standard gamers game, thinking they are the paying masses and the rest is fed with vague promises what will be added later, eventually. See AoC, see WAR, see Champions, see STO, see Vanguard. It was every time the same. We got a McDonaldized standard player game, something mediocre, with little or no speciality, toned down to what big shareholders think is the mass taste, and the demanding gamers are lulled with the promise to wait for all the nice goodies they will add later. Eventually. Which in reality never happens.

McStarWars

Now with SWTOR from Bioware there is a sad new chapter in this saga. When we heard an estimated 150 million dollar budget, our dreams went high. But now reality has caught up, and little by little we come to see that SWTOR is just that: another McDonalds game. We got very mediocre standard visuals, which more seem to come from last decade. Everyone who played Far Cry with it’s stunning visuals will indeed cry looking at the rectangular characters and the dull environments. It is functional. Easy to swallow and for cheap computers to play on. Fast Food graphics. Then we have space on rails. Then we have those classes without anything odd or freakish. And now the announcement that we can essentially only play humans. Yes they will rename them, like Miraluka or Rattaki or whatever. But the reality is they are all humans. Now while Age of Conan can justify it with the lore, having an IP in a Galaxy of millions of species such a decision strikes the fan with surprise. And I personally wonder where the budget of 150 million is going to? Voiceover and story can’t be THAT expensive! But then for what is it used? And why is every single part of the game a write-up of what we can NOT do?

SWTOR is in the essence what McDonalds is to eating. Standardized, mediocre, cheap, easy to swallow portions. A bit colourful and fancy, making it look like some fun event when you go there, but in the end a narrow and streamlined product. Something you are going to play one time through like Champions Online or STO, and then move on. And as such it is, alas, the trend of our days, and I wonder if it is a coincidence than all started to go downhill when Bioware was sold to EA. There are some folks out there who will get insidiously rich from all this. Just like McDonalds is also a roaring success. But there is also something that dies: the creativity and diversity, the chance to make odd byways and freakish things. The other Star Wars game had the motto “This is the greatest story ever told: yours.” Apparently this was yesterday’s ideal.

Just shortly ago Mr Daniel Ericksen from Bioware had let the cat out of the bag. People are not going to be able to play aliens, because, as he claimed, gamers can’t identify with them, and it won’t fir their stories and romances.

See the entire post here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=4157987#edit4157987

This is what Mr. Erickson said:

“The first part was merely a repetition of something we’ve said before. Namely that lead characters in an RPG must be something the player can relate to. There has never been a movie or major Star Wars series with a complete freak job as the lead and that’s because dramatically it doesn’t work. We don’t understand what it means to be a giant lizard or a droid or a walking ball of jelly. We love the weird characters but they are always the sidekicks, not the emotional connection in the movie. To do an RPG that way every NPC you ran into would have to react to you depending on their own cultural bias and the entire “into the strange” adventure that is Star Wars would be lost as you would be the strangest thing in the room. People would constantly be asking you for information about your weird species and their emotional content that the vast majority of players simply wouldn’t have and their ability to really BE this character would be nil.

So whether it’s Dragon Age, Mass Effect or The Old Republic, PCs are near enough to humans for us to crawl into their skin. They have generally understandable facial expressions, they don’t look ludicrous speaking the basic language, they can interact with the rest of the galaxy without a constant “what the heck?” reaction from the NPCs. The freaks, the droids, the weird that we get to know and learn about–that’s where our companions come in.

It’s okay to turn to your companions and say “What are you supposed to be?” It’s not okay to look in the mirror and say that.

In the future I can see a day where we would do a Trandoshan or Wookiee type story but it would have to be just that. Not a simple graphic swap where now your smuggler is a giant lizard man and nobody notices but a full class story where you learn what it means to be this strange alien and deal with the rest of the galaxy and their reactions. For the present, however, our heroes are our projections of self, headed into a galaxy of wonders and adventures.

I know that this isn’t what some people want but I hope it helps them understand that game design isn’t simply throwing random features into a game because they seem cool. You have to have a goal, a final holistic ideal that you’re trying to hit. The Old Republic is, and always has been, about starring in your own version of a Star Wars movie. Not playing a background character from scene 5, not about living a humdrum day to day existence in the Star Wars worlds (there are no refreshers–sorry!) and not about pulling out the extended action figure line and getting to use it as virtual costume party. None of these are, by themselves, bad goals and could absolutely be fun in a very different sort of game. But in TOR they would work directly against what we were trying to achieve.”

This is my reply:

Thats the BIGGEST LOAD of BULLSHIT I have heard in years!

Human players can’t play aliens because they can’t identify enough? Well why did people play Bothans or Mon Calamari or Wookiee in SWG, why did people play Ratonga or Sarnath in Everquest 2, why do so many request to play Droid in SWTOR? I mean, heck even in kiddie game WOW people are playing walking COWS!

I mean WTF? This sort of explanation is just a big heap of horsedung! Sorry to be gross… but maybe THEIR imagination is so narrow. And ok, playing a blob or an intelligent ocean is difficult. But damnation, a Sci-Fi setting like STAR WARS has so many aliens which people would want to play, how in the 23 names of the devil can you get a huge, fantastic IP like STAR WARS and then produce such a frigging stream of crap! I am out of my mind in anger! Well, permaban me if you want, but I curse the day they ever allowed you to get your hands on Star Wars, because you turn it upside down! Ever thought that maybe not everyone wants to be the teenage mass market stereotype? You cut the freedom at EVERY possible corner, you set SPACE, the very empitome of freedom, on rails, and now this! Yes away with Wookiees and Lizards because in a Galaxy with millions of intelligent species it is so realistic that people would shudder over a Lizard face or anything not human. Well and thank you for declaring all your potential customers as small minded ignoramas in the sidenote.

I mean LOOK at what sort of characters people made when their imagination is free! Look at Champions Online or City of Heroes! People create ugly devils, robots, bizarre aliens, furries and whatnot! And they identify with it perfectly happy!!!

Dammit… THIS is it? We are getting HUMANS like in STAR TREK of 1960ies because you can write your ROMANCEs for everyone? I DON’T THE HELL BELIEVE IT.

I know, you all have it in your minds, you have your greandeur vision. But I tell you what Mr Smart: maybe some of your customers are not so small minded and so with lack of fantasy and dreams as you think. Maybe some can identify more with lizardmen or ratmen or catmen than with game developers!

Yes you will close it and ban me and you know I don’t care! I don’t care anymore! My hope has died slice by slice with every new limitation, with every new revelation of what we could NOT do. Back then, when you started to talk about story only, I jokingly said, maybe it’s because the rest is so abysmally mediocre. And lo and behold, IT IS. Beginnging from the WOW shoulderpads (WHERE IN STAR WARS DID ANYONE EVER EVER EVER WEAR SHOULDERPADS!), over the clone wars childish graphics, to the “iconic” very standard fare classes, the all too well known combat system – everything outside your wonderful story is mediocre and done hundreds of times before. And now THIS. Is ALL sacrificed on your alter of you oh so important STORY?

You are making a BIG mistake, Mr. I tell you. Yes I am just an angry nobody, some nameless forum poster whose saying he won’t buy your game you prolly will laugh about. But when a MMO has a $150 MILLION bucks to spent, I can only say: THIS IS IT? You have 150 million dollars and you are not able to make interesting alien races because of some “idea fixe” about some preset story railroad? Well what about OUR dreams? What about OUR stories? Where is the freedom to be some freak, as you call it? Well I be rather a freak and a blue skinned, four arm REPTILE than another dull humans-only club game where every little bit of freedom and extravaganza is sacrficed for your vision of telling some preset story!

I wish you are SO GOING TO SINK with that, so that the error you have done here is recited by the next TEN Generations of game developers as what NOT to do in game development!

Well I just got back from visiting the Gamescon at Cologne (Köln), and boy what a trip.

I started early in the morning at Friday from Berlin at 5 AM, having slept about 1 1/2 hour myself, alas, since just the day before my external harddisc had failed and I feared to suffer from MASSIVE data loss, so I was totally messed up. The 600 kilometer drive was awful. I was driving with a friend and her new boyfriend, and GOD I hate those fast drivers. 180-200 kilomter per hour is QUITE fast, since Germany is one of the very few countries without speed limit on the highway (Autobahn) you can drive as fast as you can/want most of the time. His small Opel corsa felt most of the time as it would rip apart any second, my hands were wet in fear, and my jaws were constantly shaking of the vibration of the car. Also his fast driving spent considerayble more gas than driving with 100-120 km/h, so the gas costs doubled almost, a fact I am yet furious about him. Anywhoo, after about 5 exhausting hour we finally reached Cologne and went to the fair.

And what a letdown. In Berlin we have some very big fairs like the IFA, but this. Mere four halls, and netto only half was really games the rest some absurd collection, like a case modding company or ASUS or whoever, which only was vaguely connected to gaming at all. So all in all 2 halls would have been games, if you would have let those non-game booths away.

Game-wise it wasn’t much better. Some companies placed computers to play test in the open, but others alas preferred to place them in rooms were you had to wait in a queue. So let me tell you of the highlights.

GUILD WARS 2

GW2 was the first game of interest I saw and tested, and I can say of all the games I had in mind to see at the Gamescon it left me with the best impression. Generally, you need to see and ideally play a game for yourself to really know how it looks. Even HD videos don’t really do a game justice. GW2 really looks great in real, and it also plays fun, at least in those short 10 minutes I had. The colours looks vibrant, you can see far in the distance, it runs smooth, animations look mostly good, and the detail of both the landscape and the gear is amazing. Sure nothing about longterm fun, but here is a real chance to finally see someone doing a real dent into WOW. My fav canditate of all the Gamescon games. It’s going to have a very cool combat system, like some caster sets an area aflame and then a ranger shoots arrows through the fire, who catch fire and do additional fire damage. Also GW2 is going to have much story and voiceover. Unlike GW1, GW2 is going to be open world.

RIFT – PLANES OF TELARA

Rift clearly has a #2 rank in what I saw and tested, coming close behind GW2. Rift looks almost as good as GW2, and the vids and screens really don’t do it justice, for it looks much better than most videos imply. Rift has a bit a more classic look, which I like. When I saw some rift open or some mysterious fire column, it really looks awesome and next gen. The combat looks a bit more classic and less revolutionary than GW2. But it was a low level char, so who is to say what better attacks come later on. Clearly a very beatiful game as well. The idea behind Rift is, there will be constantly some rifts opening to elementary planes, changing the landscape and mobs pouring in at changing and unexpected places, which sounds quite new and dynamic.

TERA

Tera was something I felt looked and played “meh”. It looked a lot like a mix of WOW meets Aion and both the characters and landscapes looks considerably less detailled than Rift and GW2. I was a bit unfortuante to catch a Priest as class to play, but that was not very inspired, and it felt a bit clumsy, so it wasn’t very cool or interesting to me.

THE OLD REPUBLIC

I know you SWTOR fans will not like to hear it, but TOR was clearly underwhelming at the booth. First, it was a very controlled session. There was a long queue, 15 min sessions, then 10 min to reset the area, so I didn’t wait the estimated 1+ hour to get my hands to play SWTOR. I found this strategy of Bioware/EA a huge letdown, when most other MMO booths had free access, and TOR was so controlled. It was some multiplayer area, and I saw how people met and grouped together. I must say, TOR looked in this example VERY boring. I watched an entire 15 min session over the shoulder. Relatively lots and LONG dialogue sessions, which really made me wonder how many will not skip the VO and just quickly read the text instead of listening to all the long-winded talk. Seeing the characters in real, I felt the considerably lacked soul/character. It’s not so much a matter of detail, stylized or not. The art of the character, when I saw them for real, just lacked soul. Their faces in combination with the clothing was a lot like those nauseated LOTRO characters. In the end, none looked like some character that invokes any feeling. Also the landscape, it was some dungeon at one table, and a small city area in the other, it was just the same. The areas looks bland, uninspired and lacking “soul”. There is no other way to describe it. It was all functional, but not a single vista which really looked cool or had any atmosphere or feeling of some kind. Maybe it was a bad choice of regions, but these two were totally a bore to see. Also combat was ok, nothing really next gen looking either. I must say it seemed to confirm my worst fears and has done nothing to raise my excitement about TOR.

DCU alas was not present at the fair, so unfortunately nothing to report form it.

Two games of interest for me where Arcania, the new Gothic game, which looked very good. It had much of the old Gothic RPGs, but a really new and cool look.

Civilization V, which I had greatly waited for however, looked a bit odd. The colours were a bit too grey/brownish, I don’t know, and the regions were LITTERED with stuff. It was often hard to make out all the tiny detailled things, but maybe when you play it longer you get used to it.

The best thing to say about the Gamescon was to see so many cute young men and boys! *drool* I found them much more interesting than most of the games, haha.

All in all I felt it had no revelations whatsoever and essentially was a waste of time and money. The hotel at least was great and the landscape was great. If you ever want to make a holiday in Germany, I can highly recommend going to the Rhine Valley and make a trip to Bonn (our former capital) and the area. Very scenic, but alas I lacked the time to see it for real. Maybe I go back some time, but then by train!

EDIT: Additional notes on “Star Wars The Old Republic”, concerning the graphics

“As seems to be common with the current generation, “realism” means the graphics look like I’m viewing them through a used coffee filter. What isn’t brown is grey, and what isn’t grey is too dark to make out.”
- Yahtzee, Zero Punctuation

One of the golden rules of both movie and game making is: do not describe with words what can be shown with pictures. Sure, a NPC can tell you his backstory in long dialogues. But take the nameless shootist from “The Good the Bad and the Ugly”, played by Clint Eastwood, or Sentezza played by Lee van Cleef. Those faces and their clothing radiate story without even having to say much. When you see Clint Eastwood in that film, you know what kind of character that is, by look, my mimic, by anything visual. You DON’T give long dialogues letting him SAY how much of a badass he is, you SHOW it. You look at him, and in one moment you have an impression what sort of guy that is. Same with Vader or Darth Maul. You can see what type of characters they are. And that is where the NPC faces fall short. They look all very much the same and IMVPO look bland and like “Redshirt” characters. Faces you forget the moment you move along.

Similar with landscapes. A landscape or region or dungeon is like a person. It has a backstory, a character, a setting inside the world. For once, most landscapes I have so far seen in vids was full of grey and brown, dominating the world. There was a lack of highlight vistas or anything eye catching. Maybe that is bad choice. And surely it is just a small part of the world, so yes it is not entirely fair to judge an entire game on a small portion of it. All I am saying is: if the rest of the world is not very, very different, TOR has got a problem.

Take the difference between Morrowind and Oblivion. In Morrowind, you could blindfold me and drop me ANYWHERE in the world, and I would have always known where I was. It was, because the world was crafted with unique vistas in mind, in the same way as for instance, LOTRO. Not so Oblivion. While sure it was more detailled than Morrowind, every place looked the same. I found myself opening the map every 2 minutes. Making landscapes with character is an art. It has not so much to do with detail than with setting and design. And so far what I saw looked like it could be anywhere, anyplace.

It’s just a sidenote: but what greatly added to the soulless feeling of the landscape was, how almost all NPCs/mobs seemed glued to the floor, even when in combat, they just stand there and shoot. They don’t try to stafe, seek cover or react in any way to the attack, other than just attack back, as in the good old days of EQ2. Which I think is not enough for a next gen MMO.

Cartoony CAN look cool, BUT: it’s way more difficult to make it look like having “soul”. Batman the Animated Series was relatively simplified, but it was a style that looked cool. In TOR all looks so like Playmobil or Lego colours. Even a cartoonish style should look “adult”. This has too much Free Realms or the Clone Wars tv series look. Take WOW vs. LOTRO. WOW was cartoonish and bright coloured, and I almost never had a feeling of soul or atmosphere. It looked ok, functional, but never felt like “oohh” or “ahhh” in any place. LOTRO on the other hand, while also no having many polygons and also being more on the colourful side, has MANY places which BREATH rich and deep atmopshere, just by looking at places. LOTRO is a virtual piece of art (speaking purely about the world). Not because it has so much photorealism or detail, but because of artistic placement and design. You CAN make a simplified visual, but it has to have the magical something, and so far in what I saw, TOR doesn’t have “it” in it’s visual.

This impression that TOR looks like WOW with lightsabres was excatly how I felt. In the end me and my friends all felt let down and a lack of atmosphere in that visuals and combat, even tho we all had been excited about TOR previously. I must say it seemed to confirm my worst fears and has done nothing to raise my excitement about TOR. Well I am a HUGE Star Wars geek, so I will try it out no matter what. And I guess I will be entertained until I played 1-2 class stories through. No doubt there.

In sum, my reasons for saying this is not to sour your afternoon or raise your blood pressure as some fiendish plot. It is to say that Bioware needs to rework something. Even if the game is delayed another year. Make better characters. Especially those faces are empty. Rework the landscapes, maybe more detailled textures will help. This is NOT the next gen graphics a new Star Wars MMO needs.

It sucks to be gay. And no pun intended. There. I said it. Shoot, just around these days I have the 22nd anniversary of my Coming Out, and by all means… it didn’t do me well. I recall my mother cried and my dad didn’t speak with me for several days. Ok, I worked out well in that department, my mom basically cried because she was afraid I would end unhappy because of that. (And BOY she was right.) I share an apartment with my Dad, so that went well too. I am quite proud of my old man, encouraging me not to give up finding a BF. But I disgress.

You know, back then I was 17 and I entered the gay scene. And trust me, I went through every stage and every sort of sub-scene gay scene like you find in a metropolis like Berlin. Meaning, everything. Generally, being gay in Berlin is a good thing. We have an open gay mayor and in our multicultural city more or less none cares what you are as long as you don’t make too loud noises after midnight. Germany has almost not real conservatives or religious rights the way America has. No US bashing, mind you, I am just saying that the setting seems to be ideal. And still. And still. Now yes you can go all the way saying, Elikal, if things didn’t work out, maybe you just fail. And prolly I did, but also the chances where never great, to be happy, or so I must realize.

Why am I writing this? I am getting 40 in a bit more than half a year, and I feel it is a time for resumees about a few things. Ya know, I always used to be loud and proud with being gay, and I would not change that for the world. I got my beat ups in school, and even though bruised I got back with the pink sticker the very next day, until they thought I was mad and left me alone.

I mean on Y-gallery, where I spent a significant part of my day on both looking and also contributing art, you’d see the endless depiction of young and happy gay couples and being gay must sound like the best thing that can happen to you, blah blah. I know how many straight or bi women feel that the ideal man is gay. And in truth… most gay people are just terribly rotten, and in a way I am no exception of it.

When I was younger and active in the gay scene, between roughly 17 and 30, I witnessed the same sort of circus you might know from series like “Queer as Folk”. Everyone whoring with everyone, the entire plethora of stereotypes. The boy slut, the undecided, the hyper disco type, the boring nerd (me), and all of them. It’s like a mad wheel of everyone struggles but no one ever gets anywhere. I would bet about 90% of all gay men never get the man they want and who fits to them. There are those 10% exceptions, and they tend to keep a BIG distance to the gay scene and reasonably so. The truth is, a lot of gay men are totally crippled personalities when it comes to relationships. I mean, they are not to blame, for we live in a straight dominated world with no gay relationship role models. The result is, either young gays force their “love live” by whoring around early, making no real groundwork whatsoever, or they have their first relationship 10 years later than straights do, and they cling their entire life to those lost 10 years, never finding peace, knowing there is a youth which was wasted. In both cases, the result is a sort of broken character, unable to form relationships, because in those forming years between 15 and 25 gays seldom have the same experimental phase like straights do.

The theory of one of my female friends is, that also genetics are against us. The strongly believes in biology and says women have this genetic desire to form a nest and bind a partner to keep their genetic line while men want to spread their seed among as many as possible. I know many gay people are slutty, but I know just as many gay people who long for a lasting relationship just as any straight person does, so I am not so sure if that is true. True is however, IMO the fact that gay men are WAY more demanding to perfection than straight women. I know it sounds odd, but it’s true. So many of my female friends have coupled with men because of his character or such and I often thought “NO WAY a gay man would have been that generous”. The gay scene is unbelievably merciless when it comes to looks. Now I am way too old to nurture this “I am an ugly duckling” feeling – save a few weak moments maybe – and I am well aware I am totally average looking. But in the gay world, average is not enough. Few gay men would even consider a relationship with another man for his character! It’s the line I have heard more often than I can count: “You are such an interesting person, BUT…” Interesting. Yeah, that’s what I always hear. I know about so many things, I can tell so wonderful stories, I am such a good conversationalist… blah blah. You know I really began to hate people for saying me how interesting is what I have to say, because it usually meant I wasn’t a goal for romantic interest AT ALL. It is this merciless trade market sense which dominates the gay scene. I guess it is a sort of compensation. As a gay man you carry this feeling of not having gotten as much as you’d deserve all your live. It’s a feeling you can never truly shake away. No matter how far society progresses, gay men never get the same level of attention as straight couples. It’s just a fact. So from this feeling of having had too less in life, gays get VERY demanding when it comes to the BF. The man/boy must compensate for all the evils society has in store. That is a trend all relationships today suffer from. The romantic ideal, and Hollywood sure has a responsibility in that, dominates our days, and people run around expecting their love to be like in the movies. Two beautiful people meeting when they are young and sticking together all their life, living happily ever after. And the loved one has to compensate for all the evils and disappointments of life… and no real person can be that great.

As straight you learn to cope with reality. A straight woman knows, men bald and get a little round with the years. Gay men just don’t cope with reality. There is no older generation to teach them, no role models of elder normal gay couples, and so they cling to the perfect boy. Emphasis on “boy”.

The alternatives of lifestyle are: either you live in a gaybourhood, connected to the gay scene or you don’t and both is equally perilous. Living in a scene usually invite the drama, envy, bickering and all the tiresome circus events which happen when in theory everyone can have everyone. (Unlike in a straight community, where only one half can have the other.) After spending 13 years or more in the community, I can say it was for me a complete waste of time. I didn’t find ANY BF inside of it, and the two BFs I had found outside of the scene, despite of it. It’s the fate of us “normal gays” who do not fit the model ideal and who are not outgoing and witty like gays in movies but who are quite average guys. The type of guy who usually is invisible among others. (I practiced the art of being invisible so far I could be the ideal assassin by now, I guess.) The alternative, staying away from the scene, is what I did the last 8-10 years, and it sucks just equally. It means your gay identity sort of vanishes. You become an “it”. It’s a curse. You can’t live with and you can’t live without, and I am sorta at my wit’s end with this. I am just tired to connect to people who have nothing else in common but being gay. But I am equally tired to be in an all-straight environment, where there is “no one like me”. It’s like a curse. And prolly being a minority it is unavoidable.

I tried to play my cards, but at this breaking point of life, where more days are behind me than ahead of me, I must say none of the cards worked, and I am kinda at wit’s end. Yes I know all they sayings, keep trying, but I have enough of hope and try and wait, for I hoped and tried and waited the last 22 years and it didn’t lead to heck. For 20 years I laid blame on it on myself, and I am done with that. I am not perfect, really, but gay people suck. And not in the funny way.