Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Better Than I

Julie Whitefeather is my hero. Earnest Cavalli can now consider himself owned, not by some non-factor blogger like myself, but by a peer within his own field. It is painfully obvious that Mr. Cavalli wants nothing to do with my criticism of his work, but that is where Julie Whitefeather steps in. I will quote her response:
"... If a writer who gets paid to play and evaluate MMO games sees such striking similarities between a promotional video and a prior title, don't you think the average gamer might have trouble differentiating?" - Earnest Cavalli

I wasn't going to respond until I read the sentence above - so while Mr. Cavalli is busy tooting his own horn, perhaps I should give a small toot on my own. Back in undergraduate school - before BOTH master's degrees and before I GOT PAID FOR WRITING (albeit in another field) who would have pointed out the following.

The arts, of any sort, be they video games, a painting on a wall or a movie in a theater is not done for a professional reviewer. They ARE done for the "common man" (a figure of speach I use only to make a point for there is nothing common about each of us).

Having to resort to the phrase "..if a writer who gets paid..." is nothing short of the same response a politician gives when he or she says "I don't think you understand all the issues involved." I see this all the time in MY PROFESSIONAL field. Phrases of that sort are used for one reason and one reason only and that is a cheap last ditch defense that is tantamount to a journalist who, lacking any other sufficient arguement, stands in his own virtual back yard and yells...

"Nyah, nyah, nyah - and so's your mother..."

And while Mr. Cavelli is busy responding to Heartless with "Thank you Heartless for providing an excellent example of why deigning to respond to criticism is generally such a terrible idea" I will respond in kind...

Thank you Mr. Cavelli for such a trite and meaningless response and "deigning" to respond to us all here - you didn't hurt yourself when you climbed down off your pedestal did you? I might also thank you for a response that proves to US the lack of originality in the article you wrote - surely a journalist who deigns to responds to us poor downtrodden masses is worthy of more originality in his work.

I will end with a phrase my dear departed grandmother was wont to use...

Mr. Cavelli, if you can't take the heat - get out of the kitchen

And yes, I will see you on line...

again, and again and again.

p.s. the hours spent on the figurines were for the grandchild of a board member.
While he passes it off as an opinion piece, the truth is that Mr. Cavalli posted an article that has no journalistic integrity! His article shows obvious signs that he paid no attention to the disclaimers given within the video he criticized and more than once he directly contradicts what he is stating. That folks, is not journalism.

I'm glad that my angry rant can be so easily backed up by people that Mr. Cavalli might consider "worthwhile". Respect +1 for Julie Whitefeather.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous4:50 AM

    The thing that leaves me quite surprised after reading both original article and your response is: do you really think it's worth it? One mediocre video released for reasons unknown? Endless bashing and rants? Me, I don't think so. I think you all should just have a break.

    As for me... I can't care less about the scripting, it's ok for such videos. As a seasoned Warhammer player, I know where Warcraft comes from perfectly well, so no copy-cat accusation from me. Blizzard copied GW in each and every manner possible.

    What I see from this video, as well as numerous others, is extremely poor graphics. It's WoW level (released in 2004) in Y2008. It's Lineage level. It's a disaster. As shots are taken right from the game and not polished like they usually do for the promo videos, I can see perfectly well that the game is hideous. That's the problem. I will have hard time playing the game that's that ugly, despite my love for Warhammer universe.

    So I think you just see it at a wrong angle. Scripting's ok, overall visual experience isn't.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Alrick, I am trying to get the point across that the Game|Life article criticizes the video for being something it is not. The author clearly contradicts himself with his opening sentence. All the arguments he raised are either clearly stated in the video by Paul Barnett, or are later contradicted by his own estimations. For example, criticizing it for looking like WoW then turning around to admit that WoW was derived from Warhammer. And my favorite, admitting that without some "youtube like" changes, the video didn't look like WoW.

    Then, the other bloggers I pointed out seemed to have tagged on to the Game|Life article's title only, without even watching the video. They have their rights to say it sucks, but their responses read in a way that made me seriously wonder if they actually watched the video. Hence my original "you are wrong" approach.

    I will post my view of the video today hopefully.

    ReplyDelete

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