VotD: Tropes are Tools . . .

. . . But are these the right ones for the job? If someone asked to you build a chicken coop, would you bring your monkey wrench and plumber's putty? No, you'd probably bring a hammer and saw or maybe a drill and screwdriver.

Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency has published another video on Tropes vs. Women, this time with even darker themes than simply Damsels in Distress. This one's just a bit longer than the last one:

Unfortunately, the controversy surrounding Part 2 is even more interesting than the video itself. Apparently the trolls are so threatened by Ms. Sarkeesian's videos that they abused the YouTube flag system in an attempt to silence her. Justifiably, both ratings and comments have been disabled for the video on YouTube; though I am sure the troglodytes are frothing elsewhere on the Web. Copperbird draws an apt parallel between the reaction to Ms. Sarkeesian's video series and the reaction to the Female Suffragist movement around the turn of the 20th Century. The antics of the opponents of Feminist Frequency only underscore the importance of her message. I saw some videos that raised reasonable counterpoints to Part 1 right around the time of its release. That is the way to have a debate about the tropes in video games and other storytelling media. By trying to silence someone you disagree with you are only showing that you have already lost the debate.

Beyond the Veil Take 42: You Know...That Guy!

I have been remiss yet again, but I'm getting better. Beyond the Veil Take 42 has been available since Monday. It's Wednesday. You can also subscribe through Holosuite Magazine's RSS feed or through iTunes.

You can also catch the live show Thursdays at about 7p.m. EDT(4p.m.PDT) on Holosuite Excess.

Once Again, the Glow

One problem with leveling every time you complete a STO mission is that the dialogue box is huge and can't be moved off the screen, not even a portion of it. So I've been missing my own Glow. Luckily for Sctrz, she turned in a mission while I was tooling around, and I managed to capture this shot of her Warbird, the Calamity, as her Rommy Commander, Kerina achieved level 8 (IIRC).

Returning to STO: The Romulan Way

I borrowed my post title from Diane Duane's classic TOS novel The Romulan Way.

Personal Log of Lieutenant D'Valon i-Harke tr'Soturi: The flight from the colony was harrowing. For the second time in my life, I have had to flee the destruction of my home—once again, alone. After settling on Virinat more than a decade ago, I thought my military days were long over. Amazing how battle reflexes never quite leave you. Now D'Tan and Temer have gotten me back into a uniform.

This old Warbird still has quite a few punches left. The Reman engineer we picked up on Crateris—Veril? So many new faces!—has worked wonders with the singularity drive. The other former colonists have taken to calling her "Gearbox." I certainly don't plan on returning to the stifling formalities of the Imperial Navy, so Gearbox it is.

The forward crew lounge is rather more subdued than the last Warbird I flew on. Many people lost loved ones in the Tal Shiar attacks. Their pain opens old wounds of my own. How I miss you, my precious Rhakas, and little D'Rohkea.

Luckily for us, old D'Vex maintained the hydroponics bay with plants from Romulus, as well as Virinat. Fresh fruits and vegetables will be a refreshing respite from replicated mush, not to mention a fond reminder of what was once our home.

Meanwhile, there is much to do for this commander and crew. Temer has us on a mission to various other colonies in the sector, trying to recruit them the new Romulan Republic. We're offering solidarity, and protection from the predations of Empress Sela and the Tal Shiar, so that what happened on Virinat and Crateris doesn't happen again.

I never thought I'd sit in the Big Chair, much less be fighting for the freedom of the Romulan people. It may not be much, but I will do everything in my power to avenge the good folk of Virinat, defeat the Tal Shiar, and restore the proud legacy of my people.

In the spirit of that restoration, Khev and I decided to re-dedicate this grand old vessel as RRW T'liss Rising, to represent our rise from the ashes of Virinat and Romulus to new glory.

Re-Dedication Plaque: The T'liss hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune's spite; revive from ashes and rise. ~adapted from Miguel de Cervantes, harking back to Rowan Starblanket's first ship. I substituted the word "T'liss" for "phoenix" in the original.


Valon's name is a callback to my SWTOR Jedi Knight, Valon Soturi, which is (butchered) Finnish for Warrior of Light. In that vein, his family—lost in the destruction of Romulus—also have names that have meaning in Finnish: Rakas means "beloved," and Rohkea means "brave." With that, I can establish Valon as being in his late 40s (by Earth years), having been a young Sublieutenant in the Romulan Military at the time of the Hobus supernova, unable to save his family from the destruction of Romulus. I'll fill in more backstory as it comes to me.

Rolling Rommy (yes, I'm trying to make that a thing ><) is mildly disappointing for me. I like my character well enough. but all the Romulans come across as pointy-eared humans. There is no real sense of the uniqueness of their culture. Not that I want them running around as portrayed in the various incarnations of the series either.

Once I get the basics of the new game systems down (e.g., Skills, Combat Maneuvers, etc.), I am very interested in revisiting my other captains. And as you can see, it's so easy to slip into a storytelling mode based on my adventures in the Star Trek universe. All in all, it's a good move for Cryptic, I think. Renewed interest in STO, exactly what they were after here. :D

Poll Results: Item Shops

So my poll didn't seem to go as well as I'd hoped. But I think there may have something wrong with the Blogger widgets I used. The total number of votes actually decreased after the initial surge last week, and I doubt people were retracting their votes. I think I'll use the Google Docs Poll tool next time, like I did for the Gamer Gender Issues Survey designed by Sctrz and me last August.

Anyway, people seemed enthusiastic for cosmetic items in cash shops, with less inclination to buy XP Boosts, "Gambling" Boxes, and other items. No one I saw respond wanted to buy high level gear, which is often viewed as Pay-to-Win. In fact, flipping the coin, most respondents would actually shy away from games that sell P2W items in the cash shop. with the same rough distribution of folks disinclined to buy the other items mentioned.

Happily for game developers, no one who took the survey outright refused to buy anything in the cash shop. Perhaps the proverbial freeloader is a bit of a myth. There's always something that will appeal to somebody in the item shop. The question is finding the right balance of items and pricing.