Joystiq

Halo 4 gets tough on sexist players

Mike Schramm — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 20:00:00 EST

343 Industries wants to make it clear: It will brook no further discrimination of any kind in Halo 4. Executive producer Kiki Wolfkill and studio head Bonnie Ross say that sexist discrimination of any kind will be met with a lifetime ban from both the game and the Xbox Live network.

Ross says that "most people look at a franchise like Halo, and automatically assume it's run by a guy," but this particular franchise is run by a few ladies, and they're not having any discriminatory nonsense in their latest sequel.

We agree with the sentiment, and hope that the harsh penalties make sure that the losers who make sexist and other offensive comments get shown the door for good. The ideal should be to make sure all forms of this offensive discrimination are squashed as far and wide as possible, no matter who's running the show.

Halo 4 gets tough on sexist players originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 01 Nov 2012 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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2K Marin: Console wars 'drown out creative discourse'

Mike Schramm — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 04:00:00 EST

The initially Xbox 360-exclusive BioShock was one of the major salvos in the ongoing console wars, waged on message boards and comment sections everywhere (including right here on this very site). Speaking with Destructoid, BioShock 2 producer Jordan Thomas expressed hope that the multi-platform sequel -- which launches today -- doesn't play a similarly divisive role. According to Thomas, "platform partisanship" is just silly and it "seems to flood the critical channels and drown out other creative discourse."

Which sounds about right -- whenever a piece of news comes up that swings even close to the differences between the various consoles, the discussion usually degenerates into the same old arguments, and new and more interesting issues get drowned out like Andrew Ryan's old city. 2K Marin didn't ask in so many words, but we will: Would you kindly all just get along?

2K Marin: Console wars 'drown out creative discourse' originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 09 Feb 2010 04:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Use your AOL or AIM screen name to leave comments

Joystiq Staff — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST

Have you noticed? We've upgraded our comments system to make it just a little bit easier for you. There are now three tabs for you to choose from: New Readers, Returning and a fancy new AOL button. Returning readers will be able to use their existing log-in information as usual. However, there's a bonus for those of you that have been too confused by our comments system in the past.

If you use AOL or AIM, you can use your existing screenname and password to leave comments on the Joystiq network. The first time you use your AOL/AIM name, you'll get an e-mail sent to your account with a temporary password. This will let you change your avatar and info on our sites. To access your account, simply click on your avatar on your previous comments. We really hope that this new system will make it easier for you to participate in our community -- especially if you haven't left a comment before!

If you're new to the comments section, why not give it a try? You'll be surprised at how easy it is!

Use your AOL or AIM screen name to leave comments originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Use your AOL or AIM screen name to leave comments

Joystiq Staff — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST

Filed under: Community

Use your AOL or AIM screen name to leave comments originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hooray for a new comment system!

Richard Mitchell — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:30:00 EST

Filed under: News

Many of you have already noticed, but we figured it's probably protocol to announce that we have a new comment system. Those of you that hang out on Joystiq should already have a pretty good idea of how it works, but here's a quick rundown.

Your comments will now feature your avatar image. If you haven't already set up an avatar, you can do so by clicking your user name in any of your comments. This will take you to a profile page where you can log in with your password (which can be found in comment confirmation emails if you don't already have one). Here you can edit some personal info and upload an avatar.
Comments can now be voted up or down. Positively rated comments will become more visible, while negatively rated comments will become less visible. See a thoughtful, well-written comment? Vote it up! Do you see a hateful, irrelevant piece of garbage that should be expunged from all the internets? Vote that sucker down! You can also report comments that may be inappropriate.
Finally, you can now reply directly to individual comments, which will make conversations (and flame wars) flow much more naturally.

There you have it folks, a comment system with personality, flair, and usability. Enjoy. Oh, and feel free to ask questions about the new system (or just try it out) on this post.

Hooray for a new comment system! originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The truth about Catz and Dogz, as told by EBGames commenters

JC Fletcher — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 16:50:00 EST

Filed under: News

The issue of which pet-care game is the best is much too divisive to solve here. Even splitting them up into categories: horse, cat, hamster, etc. (as well as the non-pet care games involving human babies) is just much too controversial for us to make our own call.

GamesRadar's staff, hoping to put this issue to rest, turned to the EBGames user comments for each game to determine which was the best. Using this resource, they were able to get expert reviews, like this one for Nintendogs: "this is wat i said to my mom when it came out! " o.m.g i really need to get this game." she said ok."

To be fair, a lot of the commenters, especially for these games, are children, and probably don't need to be made fun of. But some of the comments run a little psychotic: "I had my nintendo ds for a while now and i have been ready for this moment," a commenter said about Imagine Babyz. What rituals must one go through to prepare for Imagine Babyz?

The truth about Catz and Dogz, as told by EBGames commenters originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 18 Oct 2007 16:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Japanese hardware sales, May 21 - May 27: Step by Step edition

Jason Wishnov — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 21:10:00 EST

Filed under: News, Features

Some of our readers wonder exactly what they're supposed to do with the Japanese hardware sales every week. To promote enlightenment and worldwide harmony, we've taken the liberty of creating a step-by-step walkthrough of a proper response to the weekly figures. Adhere to these rules whenever possible, and if you must deviate, remember to at least properly remove all semblance of standard English grammar from your comments.

1. Look for any obvious outliers in the sales data, such as the Nintendo DS falling out of first place. This will never occur; advance to step 2.

2. Statistical variation causes slight fluctuations every week. Immediately look for numbers that come close to dividing evenly into one another; this enables comments such as, "lol, wii sold 5x of PS3s this week, pwnage."

3. Should any Nintendo systems suffer a decrease in sales, come up with reasons as to why they dropped. The usually accurate "supply is unable to currently meet demand" excuse is no longer sufficient in most cases. Come up with creative replies like, "redirected shipments of software caused a temporary instability in the retail market," or "lol ghost of kutaragi put a curse on teh DS kekekekeke."

4. There will invariably be a Sony or Microsoft troll, defending his or her own system while attacking your own. Henceforth, we'll be posting IP addresses and relevant contact information*; please take it upon yourselves to attack and/or maim the aforementioned troll, preferably with some kind of mace that grants +7 strength while fighting trolls.

*Really.**

- DS Lite: 127,461 16,248 (14.61%)
- Wii: 58,644 6,451 (12.36%)
- PSP: 26,097 1,408 (5.12%)
- PS2: 11,311 430 (3.95%)
- PS3: 9,627 968 (11.18%)
- Xbox 360: 2,044 18 (0.89%)
- Game Boy Micro: 407 21 (4.91%)
- GBA SP: 288 42 (12.73%)
- Gamecube: 256 20 (7.25%)
- DS Phat: 81 55 (211.54%)
- GBA: 17 16 (48.48%)

[Source: Media Create]

**Not really.

Japanese hardware sales, May 21 - May 27: Step by Step edition originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 01 Jun 2007 21:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Japanese hardware sales, May 21 - May 27: Step by Step edition

Jason Wishnov — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 21:10:00 EST

Filed under: News, Features

Japanese hardware sales, May 21 - May 27: Step by Step edition originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 01 Jun 2007 21:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A Joystiq firmware update: new comment logins and site search

Christopher Grant — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 15:37:00 EST

Filed under: Meta (about Joystiq)

After countless firmware posts, it's always nice to bring you news of a Joystiq firmware update. We're calling this one the "Winter Update" and it includes not one, but two new features that have long been requested. First: comment logins. We know, our comment activation emails have long promised the ability to plug in a password to magically bypass the onerous activation system. Now, you can take that password and plug it into our new and improved comment field, bypassing onerous email activations forever! This password works on all Weblogs, Inc. sites including Joystiq's seven daughter sites and even our buddies over at Engadget.

Second: we've also improved the stiq's long suffering search functionality. Multi-word search? No worries! We've got all your "wii injuries" right here. In fact, we're liking it so much, we recommend rolling your very own Joystiq Firefox Quick Search. We'll be fine tuning things based on user feedback (no, you can't change your password; yes, we're working on it), so be sure to let us know how everything works in the comments.

[Big ups to our devs!]

A Joystiq firmware update: new comment logins and site search originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 25 Jan 2007 15:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Japanese hardware sales, 11 Dec - 17 Dec: ARG edition [update 2]

Jason Wishnov — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 23:00:00 EST

Filed under: News, Fan stuff

Update 2: Congratulations to Kurifurisan, Mr. Scolex, Oro, and Jennifer for successfully completing the ARG! The clues are explained below.

Clue 1: As you can see below, the word Wii and the numbers 10 and 29 are highlighted in bold. This obviously refers to the Wii Fanboy blog in particular, on the date October 29th. Only one article was published on this date: Toys R' Us nonsense.

Clue 2: In this post, we can immediately see that the post picture has been altered. It features four DS games: Spyro: A New Beginning, Contact, and Nintendogs (presumably the newer Dalmatian Edition). These games were all released on the same week, and thus, should have led you to the DS Fanboy post DS Releases for the Week of October 16th.

Clue 3: This post had an extra final line added: "4 leaves take 5 4 good, 6 feet under. A shame, really." Silly numbers games aside, the death and departure of four leaves refers to the untimely dissolution of Clover Studios, makers of such fine games as Viewtiful Joe and Okami. This should have referred you to the final destination post, Clover Studios Goes Six Feet Under on Nintendo Wii Fanboy. If you found the cross-linked post on DS Fanboy, there was a message saying you had the wrong blog.

We hope you enjoyed the game, and if you failed to complete it, you'll have some chances next year to prove your mettle. If you gain any, that is. Hah!

For the uninformed, ARG stands for "Alternate Reality Gaming". That's really just a silly hype-word, we think, but here we go. Your task: follow the sequence of clues to various past posts in both Nintendo Wii Fanboy and DS Fanboy. Should you manage to defeat our ingenious riddles, post a comment on the final post to declare your victory to the world. Heck, we'll even go back and give you a star for doing it, too ... the feature is temporarily out of service, but our tech guys should have it back up and running soon.

Below are the sales figures for this week, and contained therein, the first clue.

- DS Lite: 319,708 10,078 (3.25%)
- Wii: 108,237 22,798 (26.68%)
- PS3: 70,942 20,771 (41.40%)
- PSP: 48,962 20,032 (69.24%)
- PS2: 37,730 7,270 (23.87%)
- Xbox 360: 17,168 18,175 (51.42%)
- GBA SP: 1,867 29 (1.53%)
- Game Boy Micro: 1,491 64 (4.12%)
- Gamecube: 1,152 583 (102.46%)
- DS Phat: 158 9 (5.39%)
- GBA: 42 25 (147.06%)
- Xbox: 3 3 (50.00%)

[Source: Media Create]

Japanese hardware sales, 11 Dec - 17 Dec: ARG edition [update 2] originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 22 Dec 2006 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Joystiq readers are environmentally friendly

Conrad Quilty-Harper — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 14:55:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, Sony PlayStation 2, Microsoft Xbox 360

Claims that the majority of Joystiq readers are harmful to the planet's health have been disproved, as the results from our do you leave your console on standby? poll proves. Out of the 8,500+ respondents that took part in the poll, 53% make a conscious effort to turn off their consoles once they're finished with another 10% occasionally forgetting to do so. We can only assume that the remaining 36% who leave their consoles on standby all the time are part of the North American SUV drivers for simultaneous use of air conditioning and heating lobby group. The comments thread provided some excellent commentary on the responsibility we have to conserve our energy so we've highlighted some of the most interesting ones after the jump.

Continue reading Joystiq readers are environmentally friendly

Joystiq readers are environmentally friendly originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 02 Jun 2006 14:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Joystiq: How the star system works

David Hinkle — Thu, 18 May 2006 10:53:00 EST

Have you been a long-time poster at Joystiq or one of its awesome network-affiliated sites, only to see others have stars placed next to their name (or negatives) and wonder what exactly dictates that rewarding or stripping of star(s)? Well, Joystiq's Vlad Cole has broken down the star system to show you exactly how it works. These guidelines apply to all the Joystiq network sites:

Value: Does the comment enhance the topic at hand and add new perspective to the discussion? Is it a good question or interesting insight?
Impartiality: This is hard, especially for Fanboy sites such as this, but as much as we loudly proclaim this system to be the superior, it detracts from the discussion at hand. It's OK to be touched with Fanboyitis, however try to curb it as best as you can as to not damage the topic at hand whilst commenting.
Civility: This is just common sense. We all have opinions and want to share them, however as human beings we have the ability to exercise civility, even during the most heated debate.
Other: Humor, wit, and bribes of cold, fresh chocolate milk. We like chocolate milk.

As such, these are the guidelines followed when hiring Bloggers for the network (you have no idea how much chocolate milk it took for me to get the job), so keep that in mind should you one day wish to kill me and take my place. Vlad is answering as many questions as he can over at Joystiq, but if you post any questions here, we'll try as best we can to answer.

Joystiq: How the star system works originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 18 May 2006 10:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Joystiq: How the star system works.

David Hinkle — Thu, 18 May 2006 10:29:00 EST

Value: Does the comment enhance the topic at hand and add new perspective to the discussion? Is it a good question or interesting insight?
Impartiality: This is hard, especially for Fanboy sites such as this, but as much as we loudly proclaim this system to be the superior, it detracts from the discussion at hand. It's OK to be touched with Fanboyitis, however try to curb it as best as you can as to not damage the topic at hand whilst commenting.
Civility: This is just common sense. We all have opinions and want to share them, however as human beings we have the ability to exercise civility, even during the most heated debate.
Other: Humor, wit, and bribes of cold, fresh chocolate milk. We like chocolate milk.

Joystiq: How the star system works. originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 18 May 2006 10:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Overheard after E3: Childbirth

Jennie Lees — Sat, 13 May 2006 14:30:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, E3

With E3 over, Jen from Wonderland and NCsoft had this to say about her experiences:

"E3 is like childbirth. You can't possibly imagine what it's like until you've done it."

Hours to days of unending pain? Pass the sedatives.

Overheard after E3: Childbirth originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 13 May 2006 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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