Can We Stop Demonising Men Please?

Over the past couple of years we've seen the media, and especially Social Media, develop a fascination with women's issues. Gender equality and feminism are obviously two issues that we want to be endorsing, but most of the outcries that we're exposed to are neither of these things. Back when I was first writing this blog post there was a sudden influx of activity surrounding this due to the murder of an Australian woman by the name of Stephanie Scott. After seeing utter crap like the post below, I was motivated to make a rant about this new trend of demonising men.  

This isn't really worth discussing directly, it's just a moron making a stupid post on the internet, that's not the problem. It's probably just a case of stereotyping and generalising a gender because of a few bad experiences in her life from people within that gender, The problem that needs to be raised is how it's socially acceptable because it's a woman posting about men. If it was the other way around, a man saying negative thing about women there would be outrage over such a horrendous, and sexist thing to say. If you want a better real world example I'm sure you've heard the saying  "Women are better than men at multi tasking." Whilst it's obviously just a fabricated urban myth, it's a perfectly socially acceptable thing to say. Try saying the same thing from a different gender perspective, "Men are better at focusing on a single task, since women get distracted easily." I can assure you there won't be a very pleasant response. Why isn't it taboo to openly degrade, generalise and slander men when it clearly is for women, race or religion? A lot of it is due to conditioning by the corporate media, 

This is nothing more than hate propaganda.

Let's take a look at this Stephanie Scott example which is currently very relevant. Constantly have we been hearing about the "Bride to be savagely murdered days before her wedding." The amount of media coverage is entirely because of the circumstances and demographic of the victim. The victimisation of young, attractive white women is a constant in the world of corporate media. Why does no one give a shit when something tragic happens to a man (or black woman for that matter) but the moment something happens to a (white) woman all of a sudden it's a massive media and social media uproar? To make a stupid internet point, I went and had a quick look at the ABC News for Murder and Manslaughter, the first page is basically covering everything in the past week.

I found over 10 articles about men being murdered by another men, an article about a woman murdering her own mother, an article about a woman murdering her own son and then finally at the top, this one about a woman being murdered by a man, for some reason this one devastated and caused an outcry. But why did people feel this way? It's because the media manipulated them to do so. They want to hook you on the story because that's how they make their money, it's as simple as that. They can spin off a much stronger and more emotionally engaging hook with headlines about a "Young Australian Woman Bride to be" murdered in her own workplace days before her wedding. It's essentially scare tactics to make a woman feel unsafe, and intimidate her into watching the report to find out the details. The corporate media preys on peoples insecurities to emotionally extort them for advertising revenue. In the same way when you see a news headlines about something potential being harmful for children, it's emotionally obligating parents to watch.

Breaking News: Corporations are evil and only care about your ad revenue.

Why is the death of one woman any more tragic than the death of a man? Why is the death of a woman more tragic than the death of 10 men? The media is trying to build this image of the streets being completely unsafe for women, and social media has rallied behind it. Can we stop being so easily manipulated and start treating people as equal human beings, instead of being suckered in and embracing this dogmatic antagonistic crap which preaches unhealthy attitudes and hate whilst sabotaging the equality that we’re supposed to be aiming for. How about we stop demonising men and start demonising bad people.  

According to FBI Crime records:

“A total of 215,273 homicides were studied, 77% of which involved male victims and 23% female victims. Although the overall risk of homicide for women was substantially lower than that of men (rate ratio [RR] = 0.27), their risk of being killed by a spouse or intimate acquaintance was higher (RR = 1.23). In contrast to men, the killing of a woman by a stranger was rare (RR = 0.18).More than twice as many women were shot and killed by their husband or intimate acquaintance than were murdered by strangers using guns, knives, or any other means.” 

Source:

Apparently, according to FBI statistics and not Rupert Murdoch’s corporate media or ignorant bigots, It's objectively more unsafe to be a man. Either way I'm pretty sure if some crazy person came at me with a knife I'd be 100% just as fucked as you are. Obviously that's some selective statistics, and I'm sure you could poke plenty of holes in them, such as all the unreported cases of domestic and sexual violence. But at the end of the day, I'm not trying to wage some gender war here.

Don't worry, This person carrying a knife at a busy intersection is not a male

The point is, yes there's a lot of bad people out there, but please try to develop some critical thinking and stop demonising men because it's definitely not cool and really isn't helping. We're not being constructive and exploring actual, real issues of inequality. Here's one rather relevant to all this; the representation of women in the media. Why are they only ever portrayed as victims, sexual figures or mothers instead of leaders, thinkers or activists? Why aren't more women concerned about these types of problems instead of seeking social justice in vilifying and spreading hate towards men?

Please don't judge my gender by the actions of a few. You might find us males are actually not all that terrible and malevolent. (Pun intended)

Customers get away with far too much

I work at an electronic retail store and it can be rather frustrating the attitudes customers have towards us and how much they can get away because "The customer is always right." This will be the tale of a ridiculous example. One day I had a lady come into my store, and I just knew she had the face of an angry stupid person. I'm not exactly sure what it was, but I'm sure those of you who work in retail can understand when you see someone and you just know that you’re about to have a bad time.

Not to disappoint she started telling me her situation. For the sake of this story her name will be Vicky.Vicky had dropped off her ASUS laptop to our store with a “faulty” screen to be fixed under warranty so it was sent off to service several weeks ago. This morning she received a call from the ASUS repair centre saying that they would not be able to fix her laptop under warranty because the screen had been physically damaged thus voiding the warranty. In order to replace the screen they would have to charge her for the labour and the replacement screen which would cost her about $250. So they were asking her if she wanted to proceed or not with the screen replacement.

Outraged by the proposition she went into the store to dispute it. And that’s where we were, she coming into the store to dispute the fact that her laptop had a broken screen due to physical damage. When a monitor or screen is physically damaged, it’s really damn obvious. There’s huge ugly colours and artefacts all over the screen. Anyone would be able to tell, let alone a Computer technician. It wasn't the fact that her screen was physically damaged that she was unconvinced and unhappy about, it was something else. The laptop she purchased was an ex display unit, so we have it up on display on our Laptop benches so people can see and touch them. Typically we only sell display units if it’s an old laptop that’s at its end of life and is being cleared out and replaced by a newer model. Due to it being a clearance, the price is reduced a fair bit so what you’re paying for the hardware you get on them is generally quite good. We then also take off a further discount for it being a display unit. So it means you get a really good deal, in exchange for buying a display unit and regardless you still get the 1 year warranty from the date of purchase with the Laptop.

She purchased her laptop as an ex display in the same fashion. She was insisting that she couldn't have possibly damaged her laptop screen. “It’s only me and my 22 year old son at home, no Children and no pets. I haven’t dropped it, I asked my son and he didn't say he had either. There’s definitely no way we damaged it ourselves so I'm not going to pay $250 to fix something that’s not my fault and that I didn't cause.” Naturally my response was what you would expect, a response that absolutely makes sense. I asked her how if she didn't damage her screen, then how might the screen have been damaged? The absolute definite and obvious conclusion that she came to was that It was damaged whilst it was on display, when it was on the store it must have had some over curious customers play around with the screen, touch it too much and damage the screen. I asked her that as unlikely as that was, if the screen was damaged in store then surely she would have noticed in when it was up on display and that she wouldn't have bought if it were the case. Her response was that there wasn't signs of the damage when she bought the Laptop, so it must have been damaged in store during display but then gradually taken time for the signs of the physical damage to actually appear, because she is absolutely certain that she definitely did not damage it herself, nor did her son because he said so.

I explained to her how ridiculously unlikely that was, that due to the nature of how screens work if the screen is damaged it will show the signs immediately. It generally worsens over time, but once the screen is damaged you will straight away see the cracks on the glass, the huge blocks of colours or complete lack of making certain sections of the screen unreadable. She was still rather disgruntled at this stage and in a rude snobbish tone she answered “Not likely, but definitely still possibly wouldn't you agree? It would have to be that, So you’re going to have to pay for the repair fee because we definitely did not damage it ourselves.”

To her I said “We’re not going to be able to pay to fix your laptop was that was broken due to physical damage. Yes it was on display but if it was fine when you  bought it then I really don’t see how it could take time to show up as then having a broken screen ”

And because raising your voice and getting pissy and people who are trying to be reasonable and just doing their job always helps, in a rather loud tone she said “Yes but it’s still possible isn't it?”

Callum: “Erm, not really?”

Vicky: “But it’s possible! It must have been damaged in store.”

Trying not to be too patronising I said “Well… maybe if you didn't notice the signs when you first got it, and then over the next couple of days it became much more noticeable. But even then it should always be pretty obvious when a screen is damaged. Was it gradually getting worse and worse over time or did it suddenly happen one day?”

Vicky: “Well I was using it one night, but then I went to bed so I closed the lid and put it down on the desk. And then the next morning when I went to use to it just came up with all these weird colours.

Callum: “Okay, and you’re sure that when you put it away it wasn't dropped or anything. Or after you went to bed your son didn't use it after you?”

Vicky: “I asked him if he knew what happened and he said he didn't know.”

Callum: “Right. Okay…”

Not sure of how to handle the awkward circular conversation, I told her I’d call up the ASUS repair centre and confirm the situation. I talked to a technician and he confirmed that the screen was indeed physically damaged, and you can pretty much see two pressure points where it’s originating from. I explained to him the situation I was in with the customer disputing it, so I asked him if it’s at all possible that if a laptop had its screen damaged that it might take a while for it to show, he basically laughed a bit and said of course not. If the screen is broken, the screen is broken and you’ll know straight away. He then told me about how he would often get stuck in a similar situation where people would break their screen and they would just refuse to accept the fact that it’s physical damage and voiding the warranty when it’s very obviously so.

Replacing a screen is expensive

At this stage I was confused as to why the Laptop was even sent to service in the first place. In our store the first month for an item is referred to as the “Early life failure period” so if a customer has a faulty unit in the first month from the date of purchase we can replace or refund the item, instead of repairing it. Where generally the warranty for electronic items needs to be repaired. Bear in mind the manufacturer sets the warranty for the item, not the retailer. We’re just the middle man when it comes to warranties. As a result I asked her when she purchased the Laptop from us.

Still frustrated, her response was that “She doesn't know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I can’t remember when I bought it, why does it matter it’s still in warranty.”

So I went and checked our warranty system to find her service repair log, because that would say the date of purchase. Before I proceed bear in mind this happened in April. I looked it up and saw the date of purchase. 26^th of October. FREAKIN OCTOBER. She bought the laptop 6 months ago, and the service repair was booked in just two weeks earlier. So she had bought the laptop and had it at her house, being used by her son and herself for over 5 months. So that she was claiming she bought a display unit that was damaged in store, but yet it took 5 months for the signs of physical damage to finally show on her screen. I went back to her,  dreading the conversation about to take place. Firstly I said that I checked the date of purchase and it was bought all the way back in October. Unsurprised she said “Yeah, and?”

I said that there’s just no way that a display unit that was damaged in store would take that long to show it’s signs of physical damage. The very notion of the screen not showing as damaged when the screen is physically damaged is just so unlikely in the first place, let alone over a 5 month period.

Sticking to her favourite line she again responded with “YES, unlikely but definitely still possible.”

Show us how it's done Picard

This was an interesting situation to be in because normally dealing with unhappy customers you have to be very empathetic and appreciative of their situation, but try and calm them down and reason with them “Yeah I can understand it definitely would be a bit frustrating having your TV start to fault just after the one month replacement period. But unfortunately that means I'm not able to give you a refund. However when it gets sent to service they’ll can fix the issue and make sure your TV is all working 100%” If the customer is very persistent and obnoxious you can sometimes make an exception and just give them the refund for the sake of getting it over and dealt with because all it’s doing is stressing you out and wasting your time whilst there’s other people waiting to be served and other things to be doing around the store. As much as it’s frustrating to have obnoxious abusive people being rewarded for bullying and intimidating you and your co-workers despite just doing your job and trying to help. That’s still just a case of their interpretation of store policies or business practises and thinking that they deserve better because they are special and entitled.

But going back to the situation where she insisted that her physically damaged screen was damaged in store 6 months ago, but didn't show up until now and to the question of “Unlikely, but it’s still possible isn't it?”  There was no way I could be empathetic and understanding with her, try and be polite and reason with something so ridiculous. And I could do was be blunt and tell it how it was, which felt odd.  “No, that’s not how screens work...” Without her really saying anything I continued. “When a screen is damaged you will know, I don’t see how it’s possibly for it to not only be damaged in store which is already very unlikely. But then for the next 5 months have a working absolutely fine and then all of a sudden one day have the screen come up as being broken. That’s just not possible.”

She was very agitated and unhappy at the response. “Well what can you do for me then? I’m not going to pay $250 to fix something I know I didn't do. As I said my son is 22 and it’s not like we have any kids or pets. Are you sure you guys can’t pay for the repair? I really think you should given that it was a display. And I tell you this is the last time I ever buy a display unit.”

Callum: “No we definitely can’t pay for the repair.”

Vicky: “I'm sorry but that’s just not good enough.”

Callum: “Well that’s the situation. Your screen is physically damaged after you having the laptop for over 5 months. It is unreasonable to expect us to pay for the repair.”

Vicky: “No I get it, but I just can’t accept that. I know I didn't break it, and that’s not good enough so what you’re going to have to do, you’re going to have me get me in contact with your area manager because I’d like to take this further.

Callum: “Um, okay. But he’s just going to say the same thing I did, given the situation.”

Vicky: “Well as a customer I have certain rights so we’ll have to see what he can do for me. I would like his contact number.”

Callum. “Okay… well I can’t just give you his contact number. I’ll give him a call now for you, I’ll explain the situation and see what he has to say. 

So I called him and explained the whole situation, that she wanted us to pay for the repair of the Laptop that she clearly broke herself over the 5 month period that she had the laptop. Where she insists that the blatant physical damage on her screen was caused when it was on display 5 months ago, but didn't show up until now. He said that he would confer with his regional manager and give her a call back. Which surprised me, that he didn't just out right say no like the reasonable thing would to do.

Next time I spoke to my area manager.  Asked him how it went with the lady and he said he’ll be coming into the store to buy a new Laptop. WHAT? “WHY!?”

Area Manager: “I Spoke to the regional manager and he said that if we don’t get this sorted it’ll just come back to us so we might as well just keep her happy.”

Callum: “But she broke her laptop, she had it for over 5 months it was clearly broken due to physical damage and she’s getting a new one?”

Area Manager: “Yeah but sometimes it’s just easier to keep them happy rather than having it drag on and escalate.”

Callum. “Right.”

About a week later Vicky came back into the store with a $499 gift card that was sent to her, to the value of the laptop she bought. So instead of telling her too bad, she broke her laptop due to physical damage. Or instead of paying to get her laptop fixed... She got bought a brand new laptop. And that pissed me off, for the principle of it. That even though how absolutely in the wrong she was, she still got what she wanted because of her kicking up a fuss and complaining, being persistent and obnoxious when it was entirely her fault that she or her son broke her own laptop.

It was also made much worse by the way she was rude and ungrateful when she came back into the store. There was an awkward unspoken "Har har, you were wrong and I won.". I was frustrated me because there I was holding my ground and doing the right thing,  despite the pressure and the stress of the situation, which then was entirely negated by the area manager just caving in and giving her a new laptop, makes me seem like I was in error and she was acting all smug like it. I had to help her find a replacement Laptop and she kept making comments about what a pain in the arse it’s gonna be now having to reinstall all of her programs, and recover all of her files. She seemed to completely oblivious to the fact that she’s getting handed a free laptop to her for no reason other than upper management being scared of hurting stupid persons feelings.

So the moral of the story is Customers can get away with lots of stupid stuff if they are persistent and obnoxious enough, and it's damn ridiculous. Whether or not there is bullying, harassment and disrespect to the staff. Upper management will cave and give them what they want even if they are being entirely unreasonable. That’s retail life.

Not long after we received her old laptop back from the ASUS repair centre unfixed. After looking at it's absolutely blatant how obvious the recent physical damage was. I'm actually very surprised it got sent off to service at all to begin with. This is the end result. You can see the two pressure points where the screen must have been closed or carried by.

Unemployment Lasagne

So once upon a time, Callum was an unemployed Juvie. And this was back when I had pretty much just moved out of home, so I was rather tight for cash and on a very strict budget. One weekend I had a friend over called Brendan. A strapping young lad he was, Brendan however was also an unemployed Juvie. Jolly times were had, until reaching the hour of dinner. Brendan and I thought it be appropriate that we venture onwards to the local IGA to pick up ourselves some keen tucker. Moments later we were walking past the frozen food section we were keeping our eyes out for a nice, fulfilling and wholesome meal to quench our ever growing hunger. Not long after, something caught our attention… Lasagne! 

“Boy oh boy I could go for some Lasagne!” we expressed in rejoice. That was some nice looking, delightful “McCains Frozen Family Lasagne” Convinced on our decision, we looked at the price to our dismay… $11.50. “Oh balls” we said. And how appropriate it was. For this adversary was quite deadly to us in our moneyless state. But alas we were not done, as hope crept its way into that fateful place:

 “What’s this? A lasagne for $6.00? Heavens to betsy! That sounds more like us.”

The Rabbi was pleased.

“I dunno man, it’s a Black & Gold lasagne…”

“So? Black & Gold aren’t THAT bad. And it’s only $6.00”

“Well yeah, but c’mon dude it does look rather dodgy doesn’t it.”

“Yeah I know… but what choice do we have? We’re unemployed. If only that were not the case. We might be able to treat ourselves to this grand and divine looking Lasagne.”

“Alright, I guess for now we’ll have to settle with dodgy looking Black & Gold…. Unemployment Lasagne.”

And so it was decided. We made our way home, and to no delay we began preparing our meal. Upon completion we began splitting our meal with anticipation and excitement. To no delay, we began to mung down. Until… 

“Ewwwww, this is awful!”

“It tastes like… it tastes like unemployment.” 

It was amazingly bad. It was as if this IGA’s Black & Gold Lasagne was some master crafted recipe engineered from the ground up to punish the unemployed.  We managed to soldier on our way through 1 slice each, but that’s pretty much just because we spent our $6 on it and we were hungry. We gave the rest to the dog and proceed to cry and wail.

“It tasted like death…

“If only we got that nice looking McCain’s lasagne... But we’re too poor.”

How glorious

“Yep, we really need to get a job so next time we don’t have to get the unemployment Lasagne.

We did our best to put it behind us and move on. Consequently or not, we both eventually ended up getting jobs, giving up our unemployed status. A long while after, my dear friend Brendan came over to my humble abode once again. However this time in all our mighty employed status we went back to that IGA for round #2. Sparing no thought we went for gold, grabbed the most expensive Lasagne we could find and proceeded to mung down on that bad boy. And boy did It felt good. Eating that non unemployment Lasagne felt prestigious, as if we were some kind of upper-class citizen.

Generals 2 Sub-Faction Design.

With the recent article about the progress of Command and Conquer Generals 2, Victory Games have stated their intentions to release new Sub-factions (Generals) over time. This has the option to turn out either really good or really bad. The thing that concerns me about this is not so much the balance, as with free to play game it's in the best interests for everyone involved to properly balance out all their content for a long-term success. Victory Games seem like top blokes and have given us no reason to suggest they have any intentions of making paid content stronger or unbalanced. Balance issues are inevitably going to happen, but balance is a temporary and fixable issue. Design however is not.

That is what my concern is; how well the sub-factions are actually designed, integrated and implemented. It is my opinion that the vast majority of sub-factions from Both C&C Zero Hour and Kane's Wrath are poorly designed, shallow and dull. The issue I have with the design process that I'd imagine they'd have used in existing titles, is that it would look something like this:

1. Get an idea for a faction. We'll use Air Force General as the example.
2.  Buff some units/abilities that coincide with the theme of the faction. (King Raptors, Stealth Commanches, Point Laser Defense, Combat Chinooks)
3.  How do we to balance it out? Which other parts of the faction do we weaken or remove to compensate? (Tanks)

This results on the sub-faction actually having less than the vanilla faction. Certain aspects of the faction are not being modified in an interesting way, but are being completely strengthened whilst other parts are being removed to compensate. Let's take a look at King Raptors. Does it change the functionality and interaction compared to regular Raptors? Nope. They still do the exact same thing and in the exact same way, they just do it better. They are strong against tanks, buildings and air units whilst are weak against anti air units such as Quads, Gattlings and Avengers. The King Raptor doesn't actually change the unit functionality and interaction from the regular Raptor.

And in exchange for stronger aircraft, USA Air Force General loses the ability to build Tanks. Part of the base faction is being removed, limiting the variety and strategies that the player can do. I'm going to talk about to the opening build orders, but not in regards to the balance or viability. What's important is design. The USA Player now has less options. A Vanilla USA player with their full arsenal had the possibility to experiment with different builds and openings. For example they could do the standard USA opening with a fast Barracks and War Factory to get an early Rocket Humvee and then from there start spamming Rockvees. That's prettymuch regarded as the strongest way to open as USA. There are also other options they could do such as dual-Factory Paladin spam, or perhaps a 1 War Factory with Tanks followed by an Air Field. USA Air Force General doesn't get Tanks though, so these options are of not at all possible. The same situation occurs with Super Weapon General where they have but 1 choice how to open... Rockvee spam!

Even if that wasn't the case, the point is that it's lowering the amount of possible variations and strategy. Another example is GLA Stealth; they still get quite a few options for openings such as Tech RPG, Tech Terror, defensive oil grab and so on. GLA Stealth also can not build talks so they lose some of their possible openings such as a dual-War Factory Scorp/Maurader/Quad spam. Again, I'm not trying to talk about balance or actual feasibility, just the principle of design. And that's absolutely terrible, these sub-factions are actually subtracting from the game. They're limiting what a player is able to do, and shrinking down the possibilities and dynamics of the game.

Look familiar?

Let's talk about good unit design now. I've already mentioned how I don't like the Air Force's signature unit, the King Raptor. That's because it doesn't change the way the unit interacts and function. Those are probably going to be my two favourite words of this blog. Interaction and functionality. This is what I regard as the best designed unit, likewise from the best designed faction as a whole. (I'll get the that later) The Nuke Battlemaster from China Nuke General! I absolutely love this unit  because it has both strengths and weaknesses in itself without directly having to offset a huge weakness on something else to compensate. It moves faster, does more damage and fires out radiation that can damage infantry. In this respect it's obviously a lot better than a regular Battlemaster, but where it gets interesting is the powerful explosion that it causes when it is destroyed. It damages both friendlies and enemies, so it can potentially be very rewarding with careful control and micro. On the other hand it can be a huge consequence to the player if neglected and lets the explosion damage his own units, especially when it causes a big chain reaction of other Nuke Battlemasters. The faster movement speed also then makes them good for crushing infantry So why do I like the design of the Nuke Battlemaster so much? What does this actually change? It changes the interaction, how players interact with it.

Not only does this change the interaction for the Nuke General, but it's especially good because it changes the interaction for the other player as well. For example, if there is a weak Nuke Battlemaster that's about to die, the Nuke General would want to split it up from the rest of his own units to avoid damaging them and even perhaps sending it towards the enemy tanks to damage them instead. To mitigate this, the other player would have to split his own units to minimise the damage or he might even choose to ignore it so he doesn't harm his own units at all. It can also dictate which unit he would choose to focus. Destroying a Nuke Battlemaster nearby weak units such as infantry would be more important than focusing a Nuke Battlemaster nearby high health units such Overlord tanks. The Nuke Battlemaster clearly has altered interaction, it requires delicate control and tactics and in a fun yet very skilful way. But does it modify the functionality?

Woops

Regular Battlemasters do the same thing as all the other Main Battle Tanks right? They're strong against vehicles, other tanks and buildings, but are weak against rocket troops and aircraft. For the most part Nuke Battlemasters are the same, the radiation shells and their movement speed make them stronger against infantry but they still get countered rather hard by rocket troops. What their movement speed increase means though, is that Nuke Battlemasters have gone from being one of the slowest units in the game to one of the fastest. Regularly Battlemasters are only only good defensively or as part of a main army. However due to their new speed, and especially in conjunction with their explosive death they are now a very good aggressive and harassment unit for things such as workers, trucks and dozers. Compare all this to China Tank General's Battlemasters who have nothing different over vanilla Battlemasters other then just being stronger overall. I could go on all day about why I think Nuke General is an awesomely designed faction, but I'll try and be brief.

The other signature Nuke General unit is the Nuke Mig; it is able to deliver very powerful tactical Nuke shells but must be researched from the Nuke silo first. This makes it a very late game and rare thing to see. The Nuke Mig however, does lose the firestorm ability and the Black Napalm upgrades. Therefore it's sacrificing mid-game potency for late-game strength, changing its strategic value through a self-imposed weakness as opposed to being a simple buff at the expensive of something else. The other thing I absolutely love is the isotope stability ability upgrade. The upgrade removes their death explosion completely which gives you the interesting decision of whether or not you want to keep using the Nuke Battlemasters for their offensive death explosion or if you want to use them as the strong main army battle tank that they are without having to worry their death explosion wiping out your own upgrade. This is a good example of cool ways that add in more variety, depth and strategy.

Why can't you all be more like this guy

Nuke General still does have partial nerfs to other areas of their arsenal in the form of a price increase to infantry and aircraft. However these nerfs aren't a problem because it's not actually removing any content and the units are all still perfectly viable, therefore not lowering the variety and options of possible strategies at your disposal. A sub-faction should be an expansion of an existing faction, with it's own strength and weaknesses that not only balance each other out, but also blend to make their own interesting and unique dynamic. A sub-faction definitely should not be making one half of the faction stronger, and the other half removed or weakened. This can be a very bad thing to do, because it then eliminates possible variations or strategies. If one faction doesn't get tanks, and the opponents faction doesn't get aircraft than that match up is going to be very predictable, repetitive and one-sided isn't it. This is why self-imposed weaknesses are so important, because then the rest of the faction doesn't have to be particularly weakened or rebalanced to compensate so consequently everything else is still viable and is an option for players to employ. 

I'll make one last comparison and wrap this up. This time another unit that I think is well designed, but not from Zero Hour. None other then the the Black Hand Purifier from C&C Kane's Wrath! The Purifier is a modification of the Nod Avatar War-Mech. It comes with the same weapon and  health, except it also comes with a bad-arse shoulder mounted flame thrower that melts away infantry, buildings, clears garrisons as well as it can even be pretty strong against vehicles with the Purifying Flame upgrade. Sounds cool right, what's the catch? It has a huge price increase of $3000 from $2200, and a build time increase of 30 seconds from 22. The Purifier, like the others that I mentioned have modified interaction and functionality. Players can now use the Purifier to melt through infantry, buildings and garrisons whilst still being a powerful anti-vehicle unit. However the self imposed weakness of the large price and build time increase no longer make it cost-effective against tanks. Cool, that makes it different. If you want cost efficient anti-tank Avatars, don't play Black Hand. This is variety, fantastic.

Though the Purifier still has a long
way to go in terms of bad-arse

On the flip side to a similar unit, but what I think is a boring and dull design is the Reaper-17 Reaper Tripod. It's an upgraded version of the Annihilator Tripod but unlike the Purifier it doesn't really change anything, it's just a stronger version of the Annihilator Tripod with no weaknesses at all in comparison. The addition of the Reaper Tripod doesn't really add in anything new to the game. They do the same thing as Annihilator Tripods and playing against them is no different from playing against Annihilator Tripods. It's just a little bit stronger and looks different. At least the Consume Tiberium ability requires a bit of interaction, but in a rather uninteresting and dull way. When you think about it, what does adding in Reaper Tripods from Annihilator Tripods actually add to the game? Not much at all does it. Playing with or playing against Reaper Tripods isn't really any different from Annihilator Tripods. Whereas Purifiers change the way players interact with the Avatar, but also due do the change of function it'll effect the army compositions. Substituting Avatars for Purifiers means the player wouldn't need as much anti-infantry but more anti-tank. It'll also change the way the opponent will deal with it in terms of micro and army composition too. The Purifier is shaking up and changing the match-up by expanding the game and adding in more variety and depth. This is good, this is what we want in a RTS.

In conclusion I'll recap the points I've raised here.

• Sub-faction design is very critical because unlike balance it can't be easily fixed. 
• Poorly designing and integrating sub-faction involves making some parts stronger, and offsetting a weakness onto something else to compensate or removing it entirely.
• This causes the sub-faction to have less depth, strategy and variation than the original faction, causing it to be predictable, repetitive, less interesting and less skilful. By adding in a sub-faction like this, it's effectively subtracting from the game.
• Good sub-faction design is adding in content with a modified interaction and functionality instead of just being an absolute upgrade. This changes the flow of the game which adds more variety and depth to the game
• New content in a sub-faction should contain a self-imposed or relevant weakness. As a result other parts of the existing faction do not have to be as weak, rebalanced or removed to compensate, so the existing dynamics and strategies are still viable and explorable.

Whilst I have a lot of faith in the developers of Generals 2, my biggest concern is that they might neglect a high standard of sub-faction design in favour of appealing to a casual audience who don't care, and just want to see lots of awesome looking aircraft blow stuff up. Whilst sub-factions and other content can be perfectly balanced, they still hold the ability to damage and stagnate the game. So let's sure hope they get it right, but only time will tell. It sure as hell looks awesome though.

Starcraft II gets too much attention

What I don't understand, or rather what I don't agree with is why Starcraft II is so popular in comparison to other solid RTS titles. It's unquestionably the most polished and balanced, as well as the challenging and most skillful. Yes, everyone knows that. But does that really make it the most enjoyable, interesting and exciting? What I've noticed as a recurring theme when Starcraft II players defend their most cherished game, is when I draw comparisons to other RTS games they tend to reply with something along the lines of these two things. On one side you've got:

• There is so much more skill to Starcraft. 
• Those games are easy in comparison.  
• The community is enormous. 
• The balance in perfect.

But then on the other side you actually start to get interest things like "There is so much more strategic depth and deep level analysis to do with gauging responses and reactions out of elements such as scouting, unit composition, timings etc." I agree, and the second one actually being a pretty solid argument. But ultimately I think this is the downside of Starcraft compared to other top RTS games. In Starcraft the strategic elements is essentially just a very, very in depth case of "He's doing that, so I'll do this." My two favourites are Command and Conquer Generals and Company of Heroes. In these, instead the focus is more of tactical depth with the mentality such as "How can I get the best possible outcome out of this situation, utilising what I currently have at my disposal?"

Typically Micro management in Starcraft is to do with the more technical micro, the actions per minute (APM) one can employ in engagements such as multitasking and managing different units. For example in a Terran verse Zerg encounter this will typically involve Marine splitting and kiting to minimise the area of effect of the Banelings or Fungal Growth, whilst Siege Tank manually targetting the more potent banelings, whilst ensuring the Medivacs are healing the damaged marines, whilst trying to land an EMP on the Infestors to neutralise their energy.

Show us how it's done.

That's the exciting and intense part. The bit where everyone gets out of their seat in suspense of "Who's going to win this engagement? Holy s**t his micro was epic! Wow did you see that marine split?" But in Starcraft, this is actually a small part of the game, such insignificance compared to its more fundamental elements. Managing and growing an economy, constant production of the combat troops, workers, production buildings, upgrades, population cap. All of your micro and APM is futile if your outplayed in this aspect. But wouldn't it make more sense for an RTS game to have more focus on these fun epic engagements and micro of the players instead of economy and base management. No one sits there getting giddy over how intense it is that the Korean dude has an extra base and two more barracks than the other Korean.

The other RTS game I'm going to talk here about is Generals; it's actually quite similar in nature to Starcraft. Build buildings, harvest resources from fixed resource nodes, build military, fight over resource nodes and map control to win. Yes yes, all that stuff. But where the two games differ is from the focus of macro over to the engagements themselves. Building your army and expanding your economy in Generals is simple, from a strategic perspective as well as a technical perspective. Where the depth lies, is the units and engagements themselves. All the quirky unit traits, abilities, tactics and synergies that you have to utilise for success.

Earlier before I mentioned that the micro in Starcraft is always rather technical and requiring a high APM to execute. It can often be the same in Generals, but typically it comes down to a more tactical and creative approach. A classic example of micro in Generals is abusing the really slow turn rate of the Overlord Tank's Gatling Cannon. This can be achieved by sending in an air unit or calling in a spy drone from the rear to be automatically targeted by it, just as the rocket troops are about to get within range from the front. By the time the Gatling cannon retargets them, the rocket troops have already dealt a significant amount of damage and perhaps even destroying it. Normally the Gatling cannon would just gun down all the infantry in seconds. Not particularly hard to do, but requires a bit of creativity and quick thinking. 

Unit Blocking.

Another example is by flying an unarmed Chinook helicopter directly next to a wounded Helix Attack Helicopter so that the splash damage from its rockets cause friendly fire on itself, finishing it off and destroying it. Though whilst Starcraft II, despite having no where near as many as Generals, still does have some of these type of quirky micro tricks such as running a Zergling up to a Siege tank to cause the friendly fire. However this style of micro is typically so futile that it is actually a waste of time and APM compared to just simply macroing better so you can A+click and kill the siege tank with 20 Zerglings instead. This is because of the pace of economy.

Generals is a much more gated economy, meaning the economy is regulated at a much shorter amount of time. For comparison, in Starcraft it takes about 8 minutes to build enough workers to optimally harvest a resource node compared to the 30 seconds of Generals. The impact this has is that Micromanagement is only rewarding, and only beneficial, when units are expensive relative to the income rate of the game. So provided the gameplay elements themselves are designed to have all have various quirky tricks and characteristics that can be done with them (or to them), then you actually need small armies in order for those tricks to have meaning and to be rewarding. The quality of micromanagement is directly proportional to the size of the army you are controlling, and the size of armies in Generals is naturally regulated by the gated economy. The economy in Generals is far more consistent, losing 3 Battlemaster Tanks for nothing would have a significant impact at any stage of the game. In Starcraft being down 10 Marines at 5 minutes in will likely result in a swift defeat, compared to losing 10 Marines at 20 minutes being of very little concern.

China will grow larger!

The impact this actually has in terms of the gameplay means that all unit engagements and encounters hold more meaning. The constant tension of combat because the outcome is going to cause a bigger result, delicate control to maximize the damage of a unit and the measures and effort one might go to in order to desperately try and keep a single unit alive. With Starcraft, the majority of the time you don't even get to see sick micro because the players are too occupied with their economy and production. Interacting and controlling units is much more stimulating than managing a base.

The pace of Generals is also much faster, and it's a much more active and less passive play style compared to Starcraft. Typically in the beginning of the game there is a long build up until players actually start interacting with each other. Depending on the matchup, you tend to get your natural expansion at around 3:00 minutes. Also about the same time you send a worker to scout the enemies, but it's not so much actually scouting and reacting as it is just checking to make sure your opponent isn't going to all in you, and when you check that he isn't you then proceed to keep doing the exact same opening you've been doing the past 20 times in the matchup. After your natural expansion you start building a combination between more workers, production structures, troops, population cap structures and begin upgrades until more or less at the 10:00 minute mark the armies will meet for either a big skirmish that is determined in a matter of seconds or after scouting the enemies force deciding to disengage. If any form of major engagements happen before 5:00 it is typically regarded as "Cheese" and frowned upon for being some sort of all-in gamble strategy that inhibits the player too much if it fails.

I'm not sure who would honestly say they actively enjoy watching a Zerg do nothing but build drones for the first 8 minutes of every game.

Whereas with Generals if both players open with a barracks they can and often do start engaging in as early as the 1 minute mark in order to contest map control for a foothold, map awareness and eventual resource nodes. Additionally in a similar time frame the GLA workers, one of the factions builder and harvester is open to harassment and hindrance by being ran over by the other teams builder or supply truck. By the 2 minute mark both players have optimal saturation of their natural supply nodes and will be sending some form of vehicle to the enemies base. At the 3 minute mark both players more often than not have a fast mobile unit attempting to harass the enemies economy, units, building or delaying expansions.

The bottom line is, I think Starcraft II is over rated and gets way too much attention. I feel this is mainly the result of Blizzard's reputation. People buy and play Blizzard games just because they're Blizzard games, they're always top notch quality. I sure never doubted myself frantically picking up my copy of Starcraft II the day it came out. Then as a result of the huge community, people stick with it. At least that's the only reason I got so into Starcraft II despite not enjoying it as much, because it was the only RTS game people cared about both on a local and international level. There was a smaller response and prestige from "Guys guys, I just hit top 50 in the world in C&C Red Alert 3!" then there is to hitting Masters League, one of the many thousands around the world. Starcraft II is popular because it's popular. I think it's quite unfair, that even if Starcraft II was actually a completely terrible game it still would have sold more copies then Generals or Company of Heroes did just because it was the sequel to Starcraft 1, and made by Blizzard.

Or perhaps this is why.

The other side of the coin though, as to Starcraft 1 and 2's success is because of the enormous and unmatched skill requirements and how demanding the game is. I can understand why that makes it so popular amongst the pro gamers who make their living out of playing and competing. But I don't think that's any reason for us mere mortals to get so into an E-sport. For all those people who say they prefer Starcraft for it's insane skill requirements and it being the most challenging, my response is if you really want the most skilful and demanding RTS game possible, which requires a remarkable amount of APM and talent from the player... Then go play Warcraft 1 with it's lack of mechanics, using a ball mouse and reducing the monitors brightness to 15%. You're missing the point. It's Real Time Strategy, not Real Time Execution.

Why People Buy Apple products

It's a question that's always confused and frustrated me. A lot of the time, people who buy a Macbook or a iPad don't even know why they are. They're buying it 'cos they want one. Fair enough, but what annoys me is the thought process they go through when they are making their decision. I work at an electronics retail store, so I deal with this everyday. I'm gonna be quoting a lot of actual conversations I've had with customers. For example, all the time people come into my humble Dick Smith store and ask me to help them and give them advice on picking a tablet. Sure, from here I then proceed to show them both the iPad and the Samsung Galaxy Tab2. I then start to rant about how much the Galaxy poops all over the iPad, listing all the advantages such as.

• Cheaper
• Expandable Memory. That's the big one
• Thinner and Lighter
• Larger Display
• A more customizable interface and navigation
• Supports Flash
• Doesn't need to run through iTunes.

 As opposed to the iPad.

•  Higher resolution display, which you'll only really notice if you're watching HD movies or pictures that support the higher resolution. Which you can't really do, because there's no slot for an SD card so unless you spend over $600  you can't fit more then One or two.
• The interface is very dumbed down and user friendly. Which is a good thing, but then that ends up leaving little room for customisation.

Then their response to my biased rant to them is "Yeah... but... my son has the iPad and he says it's really good." So then I ask them more personal questions, about what they want to use it for and then explain how the Galaxy would be good to suit their needs.

"Yeah nah, I think I might just grab the iPad."
"Oh okay, can I ask why?"
"Yeah I dunno, I just... Well, I already have an iPhone?"


And that there is the thing that annoys me. Not because they wanted to buy the iPad. Not because I'm hurt that they didn't take my advice. It frustrates me because of the reason, or rather the lack of reason which determined their decision. If you have reasons and arguements why you would prefer an iPad or a Macbook then by all means, go nuts. But they rarely do. The customer didn't know why he preferred the iPad. They chose it for no reason other then because it's Apple. Because it's what everyone has, because it's the mainstreme thing to do, because it's cool to have Apple stuff, they want it just for the sake of it.

Same with a Macintosh Computer. People come into work all the time and ask me if we sell Macbooks. So then I explain to them, no we don't. We have plenty of brands of Windows PC's, we actually have 20% off Toshiba Laptops at the moment. Is there a reason you want a Macbook?

"Um. I dunno. Just, cos they're better?"
"No, not really. Why do you think they're better?"
"aah, I dunno. They're cooler?"

This sums it up

Again, when people don't actually know why they want to buy a Mac, they want one just for the sake of it. Or when people justify their preference with arguments that are completely wrong such as.

"You pay more for a Macbook, but that's 'cos they're more reliable."
"Wrong, despite paying hundreds of dollars more for a competitor with the same specs, Macbooks only managed to place the fourth most reliable, after Toshiba, Asus and Sony."
http://www.squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/SquareTrade_laptop_reliability_1109.pdf

We actually have a 20% off Sale on Toshiba Laptops at the moment.

"Yeah but the Mac OSX is way more secure, you can't get viruses on a Mac."
"No, see that's absolutely incorrect. The reason why people commonly mistake them for being secure and immune to viruses is because there is simply too small of a market share for anyone to give a shit. It actually has way more security holes then Windows and Linux"

Here is an article about some hacker who managed to break into a fully patched Mac running a fully patched Safari in 10 seconds.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9129978/Researcher_cracks_Mac_in_10_seconds_at_PWN2OWN_wins_5k

Can't say I didn't warn you.

And yet after all that and more, aswell as a price comparison they still reply with "Yeah but they're cooler" and ask me do I know if anyone nearby sells Macbooks. At the end of the day, dummies are only going to hear what they want to here. And that is why I hate Apple, because their selling point is peoples ignorance.

The Bean Story

Now us McColes, we're all a bunch of tight arses… to put it bluntly. One day, around about a year ago, my local IGA had Heinz Baked Beans for half price at 99 cents, down from two dollars. So I saw this and I thought to myself "Alright! Fantastic." As a result I proceeded to buy 10 cans of said Baked Beans, stocking up and future proofing myself. Later that afternoon my dad called in for a visit for whatever reason it was. He noticed I had recently acquired a large range of Heinz Baked Beans and said to me “Woah Callum why do you have so many baked beans?”

“Well Dad, I’m glad you asked! Guess what, they were half price. 99 cents. So I thought I’d stock up.” I watched my Dad’s face lighten up.
“WHAAAAAT 99 CENTS! THAT’S HELL GOOD. WHY DIDN’T YOU BUY HEAPS!?”
“Well… I kinna did?”
“No you didn’t. Look… if I gave you TWENTY bucks would you go down there and by me 20 cans of baked beans.”
Obediently and towards a common goal I replied “Yeah okay, sure.”
After several seconds of noticing my Dad rummage around his wallet, he paused and looked at me. “Ah oh, I only have a fifty.”
Not a problem. I reached down into my pocket and grabbed my wallet out. “That’s okay, I’ve got some change.”
His face shifted, stern and proud. “No.”
Confused I asked. “No?”
And with but a doubt in his voice, he looked me dead in the eyes and said “No Callum. If I gave you FIFTY bucks would you go down to IGA and buy me fifty cans of baked beans.”
Unsure whether or not to take him seriously, I replied “Aaaah. I guess?”

Not long after I made my journey down to the local IGA. This was back before I had my license, so I had no choice but to walk. I knew what had to be done, I was there for a reason, I was on a mission… To the Baked Bean Isle I went! As I arrived, I noticed several people walk past and think to themselves “Ooh, oh look. Those baked beans are on sale half price for 99 cents. That’s great! Better grab me some.” And then place three or four into their trolley.

Pathetic. Pitiful. Weak. Get out of my way. I parked myself there on the ground, loading all of my carry bags and baskets into a practical yet comfortable position. Without a moment’s hesitation I began, claiming them all as mine. 5 flavours, 10 of each, I loaded them into my bags and making sure I had the correct amount.


50. No more, no less.
50 Shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be, 50.


My work here was done. Excited with what I had achieved I propelled myself back onto my feet, only to release a rather well-mannered grunt as I failed to calculate how much 50 cans of baked beans would weigh. Struggling to carry my cargo, I waddled my way to the checkout. They stopped and looked at me. Confused, shocked and full of disbelief when they thought “But how could one be such a tight arse?”

The Alpha Jew.

One by one, I loaded every single can of baked beans onto the till. The 14 year old bimbo looked at me, unsure of what to think. If only she knew how to respond, they didn’t teach her this in her Year 9 ‘Caring for Kids’ or ‘Fun with Fabrics.’ I looked her dead in the eyes. “Just the Baked Beans for today thanks.” Slowly but surely she made her way through them all. “That’s $49.50 thank you.”

Damn. If only I had bought 100, I would have gotten one for free.

After the rigorous process of dragging them home. I loaded them all into our cupboard. All 50, plus the 10 I had before. Not long after, my Uncle on my Dad's side came home. He's one of us, a fellow McCole and with him came several bags of  shopping. “Hey Callum, the best thing happened! I was in the IGA and I stumbled across Heinz baked beans, half price for 99 cents! I bought a whole bunch of them, but unfortunately there wasn’t enough of the good flavours left because some wanker took them all. I had to buy mainly the crappy salt reduced ones because that arsehole must have come in and taken all the good ones.” He placed them on the ground about to load them into the cupboard. He opened the doors and there he saw them.  He turned and looked at me, appearing as if he had never been so proud of someone in his entire life. “So that’s where they all went.” Male bonding.

As a result of his contribution we had almost 100 cans of Heinz Baked Beans. Definitely more than your average amount of baked beans. Months and months have since passed, and yet to this day there are still probably some of those crappy salt reduced ones left. Lest we forget.

The end result.