Blue's News MailBag

Letters are edited for spelling errors only, and may contain profanity. Commentary by Jason "loonyboi" Bergman.

From: Rob Ellner
Subject: Q3

Q3 on the Mac first, eh? Heh.

I'm a PC owner looking forward to Q3 as much as the next obsessive gaming nut. But it is kinda funny ain't it. I nearly coughed up a lung when everyone started trying to download the Mac emulator. That is pure comedy. Nothing less.

People should chill out about this mac first deal. How can any PC owner claim foul when the last game to come out on the Mac first was Marathon. And welcome to it they were.

Didn't see the PC population crying over that.

HackMesser

I laughed my head off as well...I own ARDI, and I found it very hard to believe that software that emulates a 25 MHz 68040 could actually run software designed for a G3. It does, however run Marathon really well. :)

Deep thoughts.

From: Mr. Fix It
Subject: Andrew Smith can suck my boomstick

As you may have already guessed, this E-mail is a response to the pile of bull shit Andrew Smith sent in last week. Andrew Smith is a complete idiot!! Hey Andrew, if you have to put "I have no evidence to prove this, but it's true, and anyone who denies it is wrong." after everything you say, then what your saying is most likely false or an opinion. Keep your god damned misinformation to your dumbfuck self!

For the record:

1. I play violent computer games, which I know for a _FACT_ have not made me violent.

2. I watch violent films, which I know for a _FACT_ have not made me violent.

3. I have access to information about making bombs, which I know for a _FACT_ has not made me want to blow things up. I already wanted to blow things up before I had access to that crap.

4. I am in high school where I have not killed any of my classmates because I play violent video games and watch violent movies. (or for any other reason, for that mater.)

Some people may think that these _FACTS_ make me biased. Perhaps I am, but that doesn't make that Andrew Smith any smarter. People like him make me want to kill someone :-). But seriously, they drive me insane! Those irritating right-wing religious crackpots, moronic Republicans, and other idiots are always pushing shit like this at us. If you are a member of one of the aforementioned groups and you disagree with me, suck my boomstick!!!!

I'm sick and tired of flipping on the ol' boob toob and hearing video games, TV, and movies getting blamed for things like the tradgedy in Littleton. Jesus Christ people!!! I know this has been said before, but it was an excellent point: THE MEDIA IS NOT HERE TO BABYSIT THE YOUTH OF AMERICA!!!!!!!!! If you look at all of these absolutely horrible tradgedies, you will most likely see that the parents of killers either raised there kids in a terrible environment or they were hardly ever around. How the hell does a kid make multiple bombs without his parents noticing? His parents not paying any attention to anything he does, that's how!!! Parents are here to police their kids before they are able to police themselves. They sure make sure that their son or daughter understands that violence hurts and that what happens in most movies and video games isn't real. More and more of these tragedies will occur until the parents of America start doing their job: to raise there children up sane and with a healthy sense of reality. Man stuff like this pisses me off. Well, back to my homework . . .

-Mr. Fix It

P.S. Feel free to edit the swearing in my letter. I really want my feelings on this heard. Thanks.

From: Burt H.
Subject: Q3Test and Mac Emulation

Regarding and quoting from BluesNews...

An incorrect rumor on the net listed Executor as running Q3Test, the test-version of Quake 3 that was made available for the Macintosh before Linux and Windows. Our site has been swamped as people try to download our demo to test this. Q3Test requires a PowerPC, and Executor does not currently run any Mac applications that require a PowerPC.

I have to say, I'm not better than the next guy on this planet, but there are a few things I see, most of the time, from a more distant perspective. I'm certainly not going to do Carmack and injustice and compare him to Mr. Gate$, but have you noticed something amazing? Bill Gates has people flocking to OS's, Apps, and many other things, normally because it's 'easier', or someone doesn't know they have a choice. John Carmack on the other hand is so powerful that he can cause half of the internet community (those that that don't have MacOS) to flock to something they typically badmouth, just to try out his software.:)

You go boy!!

*grin*

LugNut
P.S. I think he should do donuts on Gate's lawn with that Sports car ;>)

They're all gonna laugh at you!

From: Jason Rushton
Subject: Major Minor Legislation

Non-Gamers just don't understand games. Especially, I have to say, older people (ie congressmen, reporters). So they think by not letting people under 18 buy games they'll solve the worlds problems. But what about demos? What about the ever-present warez copies? What about the store clerks that don't give a damn? Is it going to be like buying cigarettes, or alcohol? If you under 26 you have to have an id, can't sell it within 1000 yards of a school or church? If a parent buys it for thier kid...is that contributing to the delinquency of a minor?

Maybe a better idea would be to not let anyone under 18 watch the news! I've been a game since the DOOM days....and the images that show up on the news everyday still make me sick, shock me, and otherwise "gross me out".

People just don't understand...I think it was a quote on Blue's, or Loony's, but it said something to the effect of most gamers are too afraid to even go outside let alone open fire on a crowd of people. And that B.S. about them losing touch with reality.....didn't know they weren't playing a game. Every game out there has a teamplay mode where you aren't supposed to kill teammates... aren't all humans essentially teammates at the very least.

Well, that's enough of my late night ranting....if it sounds weird that's cuz it's 5 in the morning....But I'm sick and tired of people blaming everyone else for everything they do wrong.

No one will accept the blame anymore. If they really have to blame someone else for what kids are doing wrong then blame the parents, blame the education system, blame the pressures of society....just leave us gamers to our vegetating.

Jason "FoOeY" Rushton

You make a good point...most hard-core gamers are serious agoraphobiacs. The concept of sunlight scares them more than anything. :)

Still more on the Colorado incident...

From: James Hendrick
Subject: The Doomworld editorial

Dear Mailbag,

I'm not going to spend much in time or length at this, because nobody ever reads the long letters, and besides Frasier comes on in twenty minutes. But I've got to say something, to make some opposition, because the integrity of the gaming community is being defended by a prominent editorial that would better have served us had it never been written at all.

The editorial, by Dukrous of Doomworld.com, was made reference to by an article on CNN, as reported on Blue's today (the 28th). Suffice it to say that this editorial has not gone unnoticed. I was personally very curious to see what Doomworld had to say about the Columbine shootings, since the Doom community is under very close scrutiny right now for reasons that don't need to be reviewed. So I read this editorial and was severely disappointed.

Instead of an intelligent, mature, receptive response, the author has published a quasi-intellectual treatise that attempts to guild youthful conviction and self-importance in what was probably intended to be an impressive display of philosophical rigor and noble uprightness. It fails. Debunking his reasoning is busy work, labor not worth its me. What disappoints me so greatly in this editorial are not its oversights, gross generalizations, leaps of logic, and innumerable contradictions, but its outright ignorance: the absence of consideration in the author's commanding tone, the sense of smug triumph that he conveys with every ludicrous conclusion. He would be at fault for this regardless of the merit of his ideas. And he is definitely to be faulted for making the horror at Columbine into a platform on which to parade his intellect and character.

"Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding." What is needed is not increased regulation, vigilance, and inquisition. These are short-sighted answers. What we are lacking is understanding.

Sincerely,
James Hendrick
also an avid gamer, aka Mr. White and Mr. Wizard

From: Robert J. Denchy
Subject: Shootings and "experts" with no clue

Blue / Loonyboi,

I happened to turn on the TV last night and catch a part of an interview last night. I think it was on 20/20. I only watched about two minutes of it before I turned off the TV.

They had some military "expert" talking about the shooting of the kids as they were coming out of a bible study. (Not the most recent shooting.) He was explaining how it was obvious that the games the kid played gave him the skills to kill his classmates.

This expert obviously looked for ways to prove his points rather than looking at the situation objectively. Otherwise, he would have seen that his points actually prove the game did NOT provide the "skills" used.

His Point: It was amazing that the kid scored 5 out of 8 shots. This shows an incredible aptitude above that of experts that are trained to shoot. For example, in a recent shooting, four trained policemen were in a shoot-out and only 19 of 43 shots were good. Although there were multiple people in the classroom it was a large room.

My Point: Apples and Oranges. It's too bad that most people will take this at face value. Shooting at unarmed people that are not hiding under behind cover is a completely different situation than when someone is shooting back at you. Shooting at one or two people is not the same as shooting at 40 people. I don't care how big the room was, the kids were grouped together in a contained area. And shooting at one person still meant that others were likely to be hit if the shot missed the intended target. The expert may argue this but then he is probably the type of fool that would try to take out an armed terrorist surrounded by 30 hostages. In the real world the good guys won't shoot because the chance of hitting someone other than the person they are aiming at is too high.

His Point: He shot once at each target which is the way the games teach people to shoot. Shoot one target and quickly move on to the next. This goes against what a trained person would do; trained people shoot until the target goes down.

My Point: The kid was not trained! He did exactly what makes sense for someone attempting to create as much damage to as many people as possible. He didn't care if he killed his target or not. People that are trained are trained to take out their target who is a danger to them. These "targets" were NOT a threat. Finally, one of the most common death match rules is to STAY ON TARGET. Why? Because, your targets are threats to you. If you divide your fire between multiple targets you are likely to kill none of them. This in turn means there is more fire being directed at you. Further more, for all we know, he WAS shooting at the same target. He could have missed with ever shot and only managed to hit the people around his intended target(s).

His Point: He shot at the head because the games award head shots.

My Point: Gee, which game is that? Some games award more points or more damage for head shots but not games like Doom, Quake, Quake II, etc. In fact, it is only the most recent crop of games that award points for head shots. In general, the games actually teach the same thing that a defense course would teach, shoot at the point where you are most likely to hit...center of mass.

Anyway, the point is that this "expert" is nothing of the sort. He has made poor arguments that, when looked at logically, actually prove that the games did not train this kid... He has made assumption and taken them as facts and then tried to make the circumstances match those "facts".

This kid acted contrary to the best tactics for FPS games. This kid did what makes sense for someone who is looking to harm as many people as possible.

As a side note, the government and people with no clue are once again trying to use these shootings as a way to increase gun control. Why do we need more gun control when the current laws are not being enforced. After all, it is illegal for a minor (under 18) to purchase a weapon. It is illegal for anyone under 21 to purchase a handgun. It is illegal to have guns on school property (Believe the law states something like guns are not allowed within 500 yards of a school).

-Palandar.
rjdenchy@flash.net

From: Alex Brown
Subject: Jocks vs Geeks?

Dear Blue's News,

I know that a lot of folks who write in to you are termed "geeks" and they all seem to express a deep resentment of their more "popular" peers. I want to let everyone know that there are other shades of grey. In high school I was a Jock. However I wasnt the greatest one in the world. Guess what else I did? Surf the Internet, play games like Doom, and yes, I did well in school. So what we have here is someone - mainly myself, who was a geek and a jock hybrid. I was more popular than people who were just normal kids who didnt belong to clubs, yet I was not as popular as some of the more exceptional athletes and their click. I am aghast to see that there are so many people who are on the far ends of the spectrum.

Is that the reality? Or is that the only group who is being allowed to have their voices heard because of the resentment of the "popular" in the computer community? Is there no middle ground? Are any of these opposing sides taking steps to understand each other? I believe that there needs to be more effort between people to understand each other. It seems like we have a social "race war" going on, and just like society needed/needs to come to terms with ethnic and race differences, we need to come to terms with social ones.

I agree completely with you, but there's a problem here...you and I are both out of high school. When I was in high school (shudder) I thought of things in those same strange terms...there were "jocks" and "geeks" and well, then there was me. :)

My point is this: we can talk rationally about this now because it's behind us. But for kids who are still in high school, it's a different story entirely. And it's not something easily solved, either.

Now here's some logic I agree with...

From: Jim Beasley
Subject: Whats really behind the Littleton Tragedy...

I'm sick of hearing that computer games were somehow responsible for the terrible tragedy in Littleton.

These kids ate bread, right?

And they killed, right?

So eating bread must make you a killer. Oh wait, scratch that. Everyone eats bread. Not everyone plays doom. So playing doom must make you a killer. Yeah, they'll buy that.

Just as there are those who eat bread and choose not to kill, there are those who play games and choose not to kill. Games are not to blame, movies are not to blame. Its about time the parents stepped up and took a little responsibility for the actions of their kids. What is sad here is that this incident has been twisted into a witch hunt by the media. Instead of focusing on what is really important--the parents' failure to instill basic values and a sense of responsibility in their children (not to mention monitor their gun collecting habits and bomb-building hobbies), we are told that violence in games and movies is the real culprit. Are we to believe that no matter how emotionally unstable a child is, as long as we shelter a child from violence he or she will be just like us? Are we to believe that a normal kid can be turned into a killer by playing a few games of doom? Its a pity we can't think for ourselves, its a shame that we rely on the media to make sense out of a senseless act.

Jim "Diabolik" Beasley