I was just reading this thread on boardgamegeek.com and couldn't help smiling.

Wow, a couple of thousand words and twenty-one footnotes just to say, "Risk suxxorz!"

He's probably just pissed off from losing all the time.

You're right though. I mean, this quote could have been take from the Forge or story-games,

QuoteIt is interesting that after nearly fifty years, Risk remains as widespread as it is. Its popularity should eventually wane as newer, better, board games are discovered and played in its stead.

Just change "fifty" to "thirty" and "Risk" to "D&D", and "board" to "roleplaying," and... Oh hello, Uncle Ronny! Here to dictate the Newest Model?

"According to my theory, this game cannot possibly be popular. Therefore, my theory is wrong. No, wait, change that! Therefore, once players have awakened to the genius of my theory, this game will stop being popular. Ah, that's much better. That way I get to keep my theory even while flying in the face of all evidence contradicting it, and feel superior, too! k3w1!"

The elitist tone of the original post is hilarious.  He doesn't even call it a review.  It's a "paper."

BGG has its share of swine-y types, but they don't seem as out of control there.  Maybe it's because people are allowed to call others on their shit there.  Much like here.

On story games, another fucking wussy geek who are the real burden on this hobby, said

QuoteTalk about the kind of language that keeps people out of gaming. From the outside, it certainly looks like a bunch of immature punk fowl-mouthed geeks getting worked up over something as trivial as a game. Why in the world would anyone want to get involved in gaming if this kind of language and pseudo-hatred -spewed just to develop a following - continues to be used on all the various RPG related sites?

Talk about an image problem.

You don't see knitters bitching about other knitters because they use a different type of stitch than what traditionally was used.

It blows my mind that people bother posting at the RPGSite. IMHO, it's just encouraging the type of behavior practiced by the site's leader. Is he for real or is he like John Swift? No offense intended to those who post there, I'm sure your reasons are noble -- even if beyond my comprehension.

to which I reply DICKHEAD! WUSSY DICKHEAD! DO YOU NEVER GO OUTSIDE YOU FUCKING TWELVE YEAR OLD! CHRIST YOU FUCKING IDIOT

QuoteTarasine, Jamis’ wife, sent us some excerpts from a thread at a knitting-related mailing list because, as she put it, “It reminded me so much of the comments about 37signals products.” Apparently, knitters have quite a few demands too. Below are Tarasine’s comments on the thread.

—

Over the past couple of days, I have been following a thread about sizing in knitting patterns. Apparently, plus-sized knitters feel that some knitting magazines are “ignoring” them by not providing instructions for making the items in larger sizes. One woman posts:

QuoteWell, then I bet you can see my problem with rack after rack of magazines that do not even admit to my size. I did not advocate for IK [Interweave Knits], Vogue, or any of the others to go over to utter plus sizes. I just ask that they size for us too. it won’t stop single-digit sizing, just add us.

Apparently, two magazines equals “rack after rack,” despite the fact that other posters have mentioned alternative magazines that do cater to larger sizes. She also ignores the fact that the magazines she mentioned do provide plus sizes for many of their patterns—just not all.

QuoteI am a size 20. Do you know how many knit patterns I can use with no alteration? I don’t mean piddly stuff, I mean serious changes- it’s one thing to go up a size or two, but if you are going up 3 or better, you need to really think what is going to happen to any textures/patterns (ie will it still fit in teh needed diameter? can you rebalance intarsia bits), what will happen over the sholders if I don’t utterly rewrite teh sleeve opening? Why should I do teh designer’s work? Why can’t teh designers do it themselves when they are working up teh item in teh first place?

This is my favorite. She’s basically saying, “Those alterations are A LOT OF WORK!!! I don’t want to do them! How hard could it possibly be for the designer to do them? Also, I DEMAND that every designer must cater to people of every possible size!”

Another list member responded with this great reply:

QuoteHonestly, I don’t think it is possible for one person or one pattern to make everyone in the world happy, and I don’t think anyone should even try to make everyone happy. Some designers are probably much more talented at making patterns for smaller people, others are probably more talented at making patterns for larger people.

The original poster also said:

QuoteI deserve pretty knits! And I will support any designer who can come up with teh goods!

Which was followed by this reply:

QuoteFine, do feel free to do so. As I in turn will support the designers who design the stuff that I like. Such is the beauty of a free market economy.

Another fascinating exchange arose from this same topic, where one list member e-mailed the editor of Interweave Knits to complain about the perceived lack of “fair” sizing that “excludes” larger people. Here is part of the editor’s reply:

QuoteThank you for your comments, and for taking the time to write us with your views. We strive to represent a variety of people in our magazine, and to be a reflection of our readers. Although not every pattern is suitable for every knitter, we hope to include in each issue something for everyone to knit and wear, and in an as extensive size range as possible.

One poster responded in this way:

QuoteI am not surprised by their response. I am baffled by companies that ask for your opinion or suggestions and then do everything to refute your statement.

She continued by citing an example of how a yarn company just “didn’t listen” to her concerns. She said:

QuoteI just went around a few times with a well known yarn company about their lack of a non-wool worsted weight yarn. Their respondent pointed out that they have a baby yarn, a novelty yarn and a home decor type cotton yarn that were all worsted weight and not wool. (Allergic to sheep, fingers burn when knitting with wool). The respondent missed the point. Honestly I had enough sense to look at all their yarns before I made the comment to them.

Um, who wasn’t listening here? They pointed out to her three yarns that did fit the criteria of being non-wool and worsted weight. The fact is, many non-wool worsted weight yarns do exist. Apparently, she believes that this particular company must act on her personal demand, though.

DICKHEAD!! OF COURSE THERE ARE FUCKING KNITTING WARS! MY DAD HAS CYCLING WARS(over, principally, how fast their club rides should go, and the roll of the club)! YOU WOULD KNOW THIS IF YOU EVER SET FOOD OUTSIDE YOUR FUCKING GEEK BUBBLE YOU WUSS!

That paper about risk blew me away.

QuoteIt is interesting that after nearly fifty years, Risk remains as widespread as it is. Its popularity should eventually wane as newer, better, board games are discovered and played in its stead.

He's totally right, Risk sucks!  I should totally campaign for its demise.  I mean, all those people who think they are having "fun" (whatever THAT means) playing Risk are simply deluding themselves.  In fact, people who really believe they enjoy Risk must be brain damaged.

So, now that my snark is over: Why do people feel the need to denigrate something they don't like?

For instance, I speak, read, and write Esperanto fluently.  I like the ideals it espouses, but I do NOT understand why people who are into the "Esperanto hobby" (as I call it) seriously believe it can take off as an international language.

It's the same line of thinking that makes Indie-gamer Jones think he can take on D&D and win.

So Erik, tell us how you really feel.

He calls that a paper? I dunno. I write papers all the damn time, and that one's pretty awful. Why? He pretty much talks about everything except if it's fun or not, which is pretty much the standard I'm gunning for when I'm talking about boardgames.

Quote from: Thanatos02He pretty much talks about everything except if it's fun or not, which is pretty much the standard I'm gunning for when I'm talking about boardgames.

But if he talked about that, then he'd have to admit that it's fun. Which would somewhat hurt his central thesis, which is that "Risk suxxorz!"

Either that, or he could decide that people who say they're having fun with Risk don't really know what fun is, because they're "literally brain-damaged" by their early experiences of bad boardgaming.

Which would be really funny. I'd love to see a boardgaming Uncle Ronny. That'd be awesome.

Edit: Erik, could you provide a link to that knitting flamewar? I'd like to keep it as evidence the next time some dickhead tries to tell me that gamers are unique in how they argue over trivia

Quote from: Serious PaulSo Erik, tell us how you really feel.

Well, some people really are just too thick to live.

You don't fancy popping over there to point out that, infact, surprisingly, people are people everywhere, and when it comes down to it this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9vP3AiyM2s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3MWhkWwjwg

is mainstream human activity.

and mention that he is a walking mound of worthless knobcheese while you are there do you?

All right, so really I just wanted to post those videos because they contain actual routs of units from mass combat. Which I think is good research for gaming.

I had an ephiphany this morning while reading the Jesus vs. Jeeeezus! thread

Fundamentalist evangelical Christians are the Christianity's Lawncrappers

OTOH some of the newer ideas (from Eurogames etc.) *are* good and have resulted in some great games in the last 15 years that play much faster, are easy to get into, and reward good play. So it's not quite the same as RPGs.

Risk is very random and has a lot of dice rolls and luck. All old hat for BGG hardcore and Risk also can take a loooong time to play. Thus not fun. Attack! was an attempt at an improvement on Risk but was too $$ and the advanced game was too advanced. And some people on BGG play and own a staggering amount of increasingly esoteric boardgames, though taking a look at that poster's list of favorites he's into some fairly mainstream / old games (Diplomacy, Puerto Rico).

Related post of mine on wargames.

I'll play Risk if someone offers and there's nothing else around but there are some good variants of Risk now and there's a *lot* of other games I'd have people at least try before starting a game of Risk myself.

This is entirely true.  I love Euros and many of the newer abstracts, myself, and they're the kinds of games that my girlfriend can really get into (she kicks my ass in any Gipf-series game!).  And wargaming has been going through a wondrous transformation the past few years, with CDGs being one of the more visible new concepts.

It's not a horrible thing to like the newer games (whether board or RPG) at all.  It's the elitist attitude that, for some, goes along with liking them that I object to.

Risk on the pc is fun if you set it so that it handles all dice and automatically goes until one side is destroyed.  Then each battle takes 1 second then 3 more seconds to decide how many armies to move in.  I used play a game in 10-15 minutes to get warmed up for working.

Quote from: Hastur T. FannonI had an ephiphany this morning while reading the Jesus vs. Jeeeezus! thread

Fundamentalist evangelical Christians are the Christianity's Lawncrappers

Amen.

As from the original title, well, yes, of course.  Anyone who thinks otherwise is largely delusional.  

A few days ago I got in an argument with some dillhole on Evil Avatar who, on the basis of not liking Morrowind, declared that all CRPGs were fundamentally flawed and needed to be divorced from "stats and die rolling", to focus on story and action.  

I told him he was a fucking idiot who clearly didn't understand the genre.

Frankly I have found myself thinking very similar things to the Pundit's Swine mentality regarding the Nintendo DS, with it's focus on gimmicky little minigames like Cooking Mama over more normal in-depth gameplay.  I'm well known on EA for rather mercilessly belittling the DS library, which has as a result left me rather unpopular, because like much of the vidgame media, EA's readership has a massively inflated sense of the DS' superiority in the console market.

As regards to Risk, the guy sort of starts to have a point, in that Risk is a rather simplistic game, and can be awfully random, but mostly he's just a pretentious prick.  It doesn't take a three-page essay to explain that.