Jim Sterling / James "Stephanie" Sterling / James Stanton/Sexton & in memoriam TotalBiscuit (John Bain) - One Gaming Lolcow Thread

[BrunoMattei]

Overall, this review just took too long to say too little. Yet, it also isn't something I can disagree with the conclusions of. The only way to refute his review of this game is to play it. What he describes, as little as he does describe the game instead assuming everyone out there has played Dead by Daylight or is quite familiar with the game, points towards this being something that would've been better as Dead by Daylight DLC. He didn't need this long to say it though. I still don't agree that the market is oversaturated at all though, and that there isn't a reason to keep experimenting with asymmetrical multiplayer using horror licenses. I just agree that this isn't the path to take it. I don't even think the Dead by Daylight-clone needs to be stopped either, I am sure there's plenty that can still be done with the genre. This entry is certainly mediocre sounding however, and to me that is far worse than being bad. I just wish he actually explained the game more without leaving me needing to fill in so many blanks with my knowledge of other games.

Well done Jim, you made a review about a boring game about murderous space clowns end more boring... That's one hell of an achievement.

Dead by Daylight is it's own clown show. There's a reason why the game has a thread.

 

[AngryTreeRat]

Dead by Daylight is it's own clown show. There's a reason why the game has a thread.

I've always had enough self respect to just leave it in its own corner and not touch it or it's community with a 120' pool. It seems like something I'd play with friends when shit faced and under no other circumstances.

I am almost certain that Laura Kate Dale groomed Jim into trooning out.

I, for my sins, used to listen to the Jimquisition podcast sometimes, back in the day, before 'Stephanie' was a thing, and I used to hear the two of them talking and think, "Who's this fucking Laura woman? It's so weird how she seems to mimic Jim's intonation, cadence and way of speaking. They sound exactly the same."

Go back and listen to some of those old recordings and tell me I'm wrong. I don't know if it was a deliberate mirroring of Jim's idiosyncrasies, or just how two extremely online nerds of a certain age talk when in eachother's company, but I really did spend a lot of time thinking Laura sounded like a female version of Jim.

And then I found out that Laura was a troon, and Jim trooned out and became Stephanie and a lot of things started falling into place for me.

I originally was listening to each new episode when it came out on release. Though eventually I was kind of getting fed up with it and was finding I was considering more episodes and misses than hits, and I just never like LKD. She felt like she was some random nobody fake who had no love or interest for the art forms of either video games or writing and she was just clinging to Jim for clout. Then I learned she was a he and was a fake by virtue of being a troon. And over time she constantly started pushing more and more of the podquisition to being about negativity and her troonacy. You could tell Gavin was getting sick of their constant immaturity with sex and butt jokes as well as their constant negativity and associating with them and their fans was actively causing him to have contracts cancelled and job offers were being lost because of Jim.

It disproportionately annoys me that Jim is using the American spelling of 'traumatising'

I know in my work in the industry that I will be informed the moment they notice that I use Canadian spellings for certain words that I need to match either UK spelling or American spelling depending on the studio I hand. I don't even do a lot of writing for games, I've only ever written tutorial dialogue, but most games try to fully localize the spellings to a single dialect of English.

 

[Vect]

And atop of that, Jim's not very good at games so the seeming mechanical dumbing down of the gameplay is likely to be received positively by him.

I saw EFAP was saying that about him but historically Jim was for the accessibility of dumbing down (aka easy modes) not for it across the board, because it's essentially anti-gatekeeping, so I don't know if he's changed his position. I used to agree with him on that point, I've even defended him in this thread, but gatekeeping's looking like a mighty fine idea given the number of franchises and fanbases that have suffered brain drain from...immigrants.

If anything of actual Jim Sterling is there, he won't review Dragon Age because it's a conflict of interest. From what I've seen and heard about the game, if Laura "I have A Vagina" Kate wasn't working on it, I suspect he'd criticize it for the same reasons he gave Concord - that it was bland, pandering, safe and corporate, and the whole transgender aspect has no actual function within the game (insomuch as, it doesn't have any impact on you or other characters or the story). Also, I've never played Dragon Age before but I suspect the monsters didn't always look like generic WoW knockoffs?

Let me take you one layer deeper, because Jim stole his way of speaking from Ricky Gervais.

I don't really hear it. His patter and word choice sound like a pastiche of various British comedians and presenters, which he knows about because he's talked about British comedy and television in earlier videos. Across hundreds of his videos you can hear snatches of Chris Barrie, Alexi Sayle, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and of course Monty Python. But his Jimquistion persona, particularly in the Escapist era, had a lot of Rik Mayall about him, from the smug but insecure passive-aggressive self-deprecating tone, the mannerisms and in particular the physical comedy.

I'd appreciate if somebody could clip that section of the video because that silly performance was a thousand times more entertaining than literally everything he has ever filmed while 'wrestling'.

 

[Oliver Onions]

I don't really hear it. His patter and word choice sound like a pastiche of various British comedians and presenters, which he knows about because he's talked about British comedy and television in earlier videos.

I take your point, but I really think his personality on podcasts and in the dumb skits he does are extremely similar to Ricky. Maybe that's just my inexperience with podcasts though, because Cum Town also has a kind of similar format with Nick Mullen bullying the gay Jew while the fat Greek is only there to shut Nick down when he gets too based.

 

[Kuritan Deplorable]

I used to agree with him on that point, I've even defended him in this thread, but gatekeeping's looking like a mighty fine idea given the number of franchises and fanbases that have suffered brain drain from...immigrants.

Accessibility is a double edged sword, and when wielded by the ignorant, it only leads to them hurting what they're trying to protect. 'Good' accessibility is making the complexity or the difficulty of a gameplay system more understandable, particularly in the edge cases where there may be a mismatch between what the player thinks and what the game thinks of the rules, and providing information to bridge that gap. Example, the old Thief or Splinter Cell games providing a light meter for stealth, helping make it clear if the shadows are dark enough to hide you. The enemies in those games tend to be aware and alert and will easily spot you if you're out in the open, the game just provides a bit of concrete information about your current location to know if its safe or not. You still need to plan out your moves and pay attention to not get got.

'Bad' accessibility is when complexity or difficulty in a gameplay system is removed because some portion of players cannot get good enough to deal with it. Modern stealth games have replaced providing information about how visible you are and relative risk to intelligent AI with a simple indicator and fill bar. There's a bunch of visibility rules and conditions and such probably being run, but none of it matters because its all boiled down to "spotted bar fills up" and you never have to actually engage with stealth, you just have to know "If bar filling up, go somewhere else or don't do that".

This is were difficulty modes get maligned, as they usually err on the side of bad accessibility. Easy mode rarely provides more information to the player or reduces the complexity of encounters, it just hits the enemy with the nerf bat, and now they're blind and impotent and there's half as many of them. Hard mode rarely increases mechanical complexity or reduces information, it usually just makes the enemy a beefstack that soaks damage and hits harder. Rather than leading to mechanically distinct experiences where the mode selection varies how the gameplay is engaged with, it just shovels some numbers to decide how punishing the mechanics are, rather than how engaging they are. The difficulty levels in a Call of Duty game are a shining example of this, where enemies go from unable to shoot straight while firing .22's, to 360 noscoping you while killing you with one or two shots as you progress up the difficulty curve. There are no mechanical changes or systems, and the only real reason to turn up the difficulty is if you find the particular pace of a fight too boring without it.

A good example of good Difficulty and Accessibility in the modern era might be the Metro Ranger difficulty modes. In Metro, the ranger difficulty increases gunfire lethality across the board at the same time that it reduces the availability of resources and the hardcore version strips out the HUD and other non-diegetic UI elements entirely. This makes the existing diegetic mechanics for stealth and combat and environmental navigation much more important to engage with, while also rewarding smart stealth and combat play via increased lethality if you shoot well or get the drop on someone. This ultimately rewards the player for engaging with all the gameplay systems as designed and intended, without just allowing you to ignore some because its too much of a bother to learn the details for. Both forcing engagement and rewarding mastery is a hallmark of a good difficulty level, as one might see in a souls game.

Also, I've never played Dragon Age before but I suspect the monsters didn't always look like generic WoW knockoffs?

Depends on the monsters. The Veil demons and whatnot were always fairly generic, and the Darkspawn were more or less Uruks, but it worked in the grittier tone the early games had.

Nothing to write home about, but it worked back when Biowares strength was writing interesting narratives and worlds, the Darkspawn fit well into their place. Not so sure about the modern incarnations of this shit.

 

[femboy fart huffer]

Hey he actually uploaded something timely for once

 

[Computer Guardian]

Hey he actually uploaded something timely for once

From the thumbnail and title alone, you can tell that Jim is upset that absolutely nobody that isn't a jurno or the few people BioWare actually tried to appeal to actually likes this game.

 

[Oliver Onions]

Shit, I can't even remember if I had this on my bingo card. Oh well, I'm sure the video's shit either way.

 

[Moja Zemlja]

Veilguard is dogshit and might actually be the quintessential woke game with how the game is written, its not one you should be defending Jim even if it falls on your side of the ideological spectrum.

I would've thought Jim would be smart enough to defend Veilguard when the majority of criticism isn't because the non-binary character exists, its because the commonly posted scene is so horribly written and stilted that it sticks out. Veilguard as a whole is horribly written, its a terrible game that rightfully is getting a lot of criticism.

I recommend if anyone hasn't seen it and wants to learn how bad Veilguard is to watch Skill Up's review of it, its comprehensive and coined the well used "every interaction sounds like HR is in the room" phrase.

 

[Kuritan Deplorable]

I recommend if anyone hasn't seen it and wants to learn how bad Veilguard is to watch Skill Up's review of it, its comprehensive and coined the well used "every interaction sounds like HR is in the room" phrase

The more I see of both the woke and non-woke explicit elements of the game, the more I expand/adapt the HR line. Its more that every character is written like they're afraid of offending every other character with their words. Nobody in the party is passionate about their beliefs, or adamant about something, or self-arrogant. At best, they're snippy and 'I don't even have to deign that with a response' passive aggressive, and at worse they are morally right but will cry if someone calls them out. None of the characters really come across as strong people.

 

[Null]

Hey he actually uploaded something timely for once

this is actually kinda funny

edit: lol malding about I HAVE A VAGINA being offended

 

[Xev]

I doubt Jim even played the game. He spent 20 minutes sperging like a sarcastic asshole and defended the shitty writing and overabundance of queer shit. He even defended his troon friend who consulted on the game. Not once did he mention the gameplay loop, combat, puzzles, level design, story, retconning, etc which are all mid to garbage.

Also, I would play Bloke AF whatever that game would be.

 

[Bruno Powroznik]

Hey he actually uploaded something timely for once

2:14 there is a jumpscare. just so everyone knows. I had to stop watching the video because i felt sick

 

[BigPeanut]

Veilguard is dogshit and might actually be the quintessential woke game with how the game is written, its not one you should be defending Jim even if it falls on your side of the ideological spectrum.

I would've thought Jim would be smart enough to defend Veilguard when the majority of criticism isn't because the non-binary character exists, its because the commonly posted scene is so horribly written and stilted that it sticks out. Veilguard as a whole is horribly written, its a terrible game that rightfully is getting a lot of criticism.

I recommend if anyone hasn't seen it and wants to learn how bad Veilguard is to watch Skill Up's review of it, its comprehensive and coined the well used "every interaction sounds like HR is in the room" phrase.

Leftists have making Shilling for and defending cynical corporate slop their number 1 culture war strategy. It’s embarrassing how they do it’s every triple A slop game that comes out that every normal person hates.

 

[Hooked on phobics]

Hey he actually uploaded something timely for once

I feel bad for anyone who thinks flipping it and going "damn straight men in my games" is a legit gotcha.
Like have they ever asked themselves "but WHY would someone be against straights?""
Because I'm sure ANY average kiwi farmer or even just regular guy could assemble bullet points for why in 2 minutes.

 

[Luke gama]

Jim is the walking tranny stereotype, thinks that pretending he's a woman means that being 360lb man his constant sexualization and sexual jokes are suddenly totally cool.

If anyone of white male developers was making the same sexual suggestive at work or in twitter posts Jim would be outraged at the hostile workplace they creator.

Even in interviews he has to reference his titties.

I found Jim much later and binged his videos but even before the tranny stuff it became just so repetitive, it's YouTube Jim was always a cuck the idea that people left when he just proved how much of cuck he was.


Jim blames turning tranny when it was he just gave the minimum possible effort

 

[Oliver Onions]

its because the commonly posted scene is so horribly written and stilted that it sticks out

The one good thing to come out of Veilguard is we now have the perfect example to present when people ask you to define woke; the non-binary scene is everything wrong with modern writing consolidated into one excruciating interaction.

What I want to know is did they make it so explicit to push their message or because they are such bad writers they couldn't come up with a more setting-appropriate term for non-binary, like calling someone a halfling instead of mixed race. Hell, even two-spirit would have sounded better, although then they'd have the target audience on their backs for cultural appropriation.

 

[femboy fart huffer]

I think that this extension is a load of shit most of the time, I don't trust it to give accurate information one bit. However it's the first video in a long time that I've seen have a decent number of dislikes.

As of writing this the video has ~2500 comments in 20 hours. The last video has less than 1000 in a week which is roughly average. So clearly this video has left his normal audience somewhat. The main thing that I'm seeing is that despite what I could fairly say is 1000 extra people having a negative reaction he hasn't ticked over enough to see a sub change. The number of likes is also notably higher than average too. And yet the video is still looking like it will not break the 100k view mark, if it does then it won't be by much. I didn't look last night so I can't compare it to the average. Video is definitely above average view wise, currently sat on 85k after 20 hours but it seems like the 'extra' people are just from people on the veilguard hate train. It kinda seems like the comments are a bit retarded honestly, I mean one guy said "What ever happened to people being outraged about overpriced skins and pay to win mechanics? Can we go back to that? Ya know, shit that is an ACTUAL issue?" which is just fucking retarded to say on a Jim video. A lot of people just seem to have not watched anything he's made, there's also a lot of heccin frienderino het wyte folx showing their support for the poor trans enbys of colour too. I slept like absolute shit last night, maybe I should watch the video, on one hand it's a Jim video so it'll probably be boring enough to put me right back to sleep, then again it's a Jim video so the visuals will probably be scary enough to wake me right up along with the probably shrill audio. It's win win either way right? I will give him this though, he *only* wastes the first minute of the video before getting into the actual topic compared to the usual 2+ minutes he yaps on.

I checked his twitter and shit twitter just to see if he'd said anything about what I will tentatively call backlash to his video. He hasn't. However what the fuck is this?

Look I'll admit I have no interest in the game at all, I don't care about the series very much and I just don't have the time to care about it as a shitshow. But what the fuck is this? My guy that definitely doesn't look like it belongs in Zelda, I never played botw but I've seen enough content on it to say that it has much better design than this. I mean the game itself looks like skyrim somehow. Like you can't tell me this isn't a 10 year old skyrim screenshot of someone in modded glass armour and a dragon priest mask. I know that Jim has some bad tastes in everything but like this just doesn't look good. I'm surprised he isn't angry that the yellowish mask has slit eyes honestly, or is Jim one of the 'asians are just fancy white people' types of people?

 

[Xev]

The one good thing to come out of Veilguard is we now have the perfect example to present when people ask you to define woke; the non-binary scene is everything wrong with modern writing consolidated into one excruciating interaction.

What I want to know is did they make it so explicit to push their message or because they are such bad writers they couldn't come up with a more setting-appropriate term for non-binary, like calling someone a halfling instead of mixed race. Hell, even two-spirit would have sounded better, although then they'd have the target audience on their backs for cultural appropriation.

The worst part is the qunari apparently have a word for troon shit but the petulant troon child just had to be a special snowflake

 

[Oliver Onions]

The worst part is the qunari apparently have a word for troon shit but the petulant troon child just had to be a special snowflake

This again raises the question of did the writers not know this or did they not care because the only lore that matters is the lore they come up with.