So you get home from work late, feeling more than a little fried, and you know that the only thing that will cheer you up is some imaginary gladiator managing. So you get ready to fire up Domina, your favorite gladiator management simulation. But first you take a look at the patch notes for the beta version’s most recent update.
“Huh,” you say to yourself, “they finally fixed that thing where the charioteer stopped whipping his horse in the second race. And they’ve optimized the dust rendering! But wait, what’s this strange anti-mask rant right here in the middle of the patch notes?”
TAKE OFF THE FCKN MASKS – Next time you’re at the grocery store, try showing a woman your face. Be confident, unafraid of the LIES — you might get a girlfriend. Women like confidence. Women don’t like dudes who cover their faces in fear. What are you afraid of? Getting laid? Grow up.
Thankfully, the developer did not continue on to offer his favorite grocery store pickup lines. (After all, nothing will ever beat the classic “excuse me, how can I tell if these melons are fresh?”)
But the mask thing isn’t just strange but it’s also a teensy bit ironic, given that GLADIATORS MORE MASKS. Not all of them, but a lot of them. Theirs were made of metal, not cloth, and designed to keep opponents from stabbing them in the face instead of keeping out the spittle of strangers, but they were still masks.
It turns out that this isn’t the first time this dude decided to treat game players to a rant in the patch notes. In an update from last year (which someone on the internet dug up after people started talking about the latest rant) the distinctly Red Pilled dev railed against “weak men.”
there’s no accounting for weak men. weak men lack character. strong moral fibre is hard to come by. it’s earned through hard work and sacrifice and it cannot be had via onlyfans or pornhub. no, those fuckin’ things are demonic posessions waiting to show you a succubus tiddy in the hopes you’ll waste a load on her instead of spending that energy studying how to weld or grow a potato or learning a new language or how to program a computer.
I’ve got to give him a point for the succubus reference; maybe he’s been reading old Mammoth posts.
listen, kids … get off them porntubes and do something with your life becuase no one is gonna give you a goddamned thing and this whole mess we call civilization is only getting harder. we need solutions and we need smart men who can work hard and implement those solutions. masturbating to egirls isn’t gonna solve the energy crisis is it? get to work.
Then he relented a little.
.. or play video games and have a relax and then get to work, fresh, tomorrow. i can’t possibly know whats best for you in your individual situation.
really… don’t let strangers on the internet tell you how to live your life. if you want to be told how to live your life, read the new testament. the internet will only give you lies.)
These rants were so unexpected and off-putting that an angry internet mob rose up as one to cry foul — mostly by giving the game more than a thousand bad reviews on Steam. (Right wingers don’t really have any grounds to complain about this, though, as it is what they themselves do every time a game or a movie they think is too “woke” comes out.)
If you were hoping that the developer would come forward with an apology, nope! Instead he took to Twitter to continue his little culture war.
I thought the right wing #GamerGate types wanted to keep politics out of games — that’s what they kept telling us, anyway. Could it be that they were lying?
Anyway, here are some more gladiators with masks, just because
Ok, that last one was an American Gladiator. And that’s not really a full mask. But you get the idea.
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It’s true, “succubus tiddy” is my default search term.
Huh, if he’s so into masculinity, why does his game have a lady’s name?
Domina means ‘mistress’. As in head of a household. Like the distaff paterfamilias.
Source: O Level Latin (Grade C)
Off-topic, but one of my favorite wrestlers, Scott Hall, has just passed away.
@Alan: I was wondering that too! Why isn’t it “Dominus”, along with all his other manly man views? Is he suggesting all the players of the game are taking the role of women? Or that women could own all those manly businesses in ancient Rome?*
If I see a man not wearing a mask in the store, it’s an instant cue that he’s not worth getting near because he obviously doesn’t care about other people enough to keep from exposing them to a possibly fatal disease.
And if the menz are playing his little game, they aren’t growing potatoes or learning a new language, are they? Heck, the cam girls might teach them a few words in another language.
Also: Cool story, bro.
*Source: 2 years high school Latin. Grade A-
@ gss ex-noob
I also have A Level RE (also Grade C) so I think technically I could be Pope.
Oddly enough, I do agree with him about watching less porn. Might be me just being a prudish catholic but I really do think porn hurts sex lives. It gives unreasonable standards and if you consume to much of it, then there could be only extreme or very certain things that gets someone sexually excited. I don’t think that’s good for trying to form relationships.
Plus, you know. Depending on what sites you are on, you never really know if the porn is consensual or not.
Does the guy in the third picture with the crested helmet have some sort of prosthetic hand? His right arm seems to end in some sort of two-pronged attachment.
[block quote]
masturbating to egirls isn’t gonna solve the energy crisis is it? get to work.
[/block quote]
Get to work and solve the energy crisis with video games? (Not that I think video games or any other art is not worth doing or anything, but in the grand scheme of things, cracking fusion or something would be of far more benefit to the whole planet than any particular game.)
@Full Metal Ox:
That’s a cestus, a sort of weaponized boxing glove. Gladiatorial combat was about spectacle, after all, and part of the spectacle in the Arena was new and fun ways to murder each other.
The Romans thought of a lot of imaginative ways to cause bodily harm.
Dolphin Barn has got to be a single person team. There’s just no way that even one other person thinks that’s good PR.
Well, ok, maybe I can see why they think that, I’m having to try and contact Patrick Stewart and various famous YouTubers to get them on side after Scopely ignored actual doxxing in a Star Trek game and 60 people reported it, so, you know, devs and corporations not known to have a high opinion of women.
This reeks of someone who is used to being ignored. So as soon as he has a captive audience, he thinks “I can preach from this soapbox!”. He seems to think he’s projecting strength, but in fact the opposite is true.
Hello.
Ah, yes, Allandrel had post something about that on the former post, but as i am at work, i can not access it. Will read it at home.
Of course they lie !
With the ongoing war, there have been some russian (and east european, like polish) devs who had use Steam to publish messages against the war and their support to Ukraina. And as sure as the sun set, GGaters come and whine about “No politics on Steam !” like comments, some asking for refund (because of course), to which some devs quickly answered they would be happy to refund the game, as they did not want such persons playing their game (for those who use Steam, looks for the last Gremlins announcement, where i see that happened).
Funny thing, there have been (and still are, alas) a bunch of shovelwares putting Trump or Puttin as main characters in “glorious” situations, and strangely, this crowd never called them political. Pure coincidence, certainly.
Have a nice day.
If I see some asshole without a mask, I’m going to assume he’s a piece of shit who doesn’t take a motherfucking PANDEMIC seriously and is part of the reason we’re in year fucking three of this nonsense. (Apologies to those who are vaccinated and just sick of masks, but it’s hard to tell.) Luckily, I’m continuing my hermitage and staying inside 98% of the time, away from you conspiracy-mongering plague zombies.
Stop wasting your time complaining about masks and whining about porn and go weld a potato or something.
All hail Pope Alan!
@Elaine
Probably the catholic talking, but you have a point to some degree. I think of porn/sex like food. There is good, healthy food, there’s junk food, and then there’s stuff in between. (Also, rotten, expired food that nobody should ever eat; probably don’t have to explain what that is.) A lot of guys like eating junk food and a lot of guys like shitty porn where slabs of muscle jackhammer away on the latest Playboy Barbie type, and yes, too much of that can be unhealthy. But some junk food here and there mixed with healthier snacks isn’t going to hurt anybody. Or lots of junk food, but reasonably spaced out, and then not complaining that they don’t serve Cheetos dipped in Mountain Dew at a fancy restaurant.
Now, off to find some sweet succubus tiddies and incubus dongles.
Another little boy crowing about what a manly man he is. It sure gets tiring to listen to.
@Moggie:
I prefer Doc Bronner’s rants on the soap labels. At least they were surreally interesting.
It’s a recurring theme. Wanting to “keep politics out” of things often means something very specific that doesn’t follow from the usual meaning of “politics”.
To wit, there are two sexes: male and “political”.
And there are two races: white and “political”.
And there are two religions: evangelical Christianity and “political”
And two sexual orientations: straight and “political”.
And two genders: the one they put on your birth certificate and “political”.
And so on.
In short, there are two perspectives: the claimant’s view and “political”.
Which makes anything that reinforces the claimant’s view inherently “not political” even if it involves creating and enforcing oppressive laws, whereas other people who don’t fit into their narrow worldview are unacceptably “political” just by existing.
The response where he brags about being “balls deep” in his GF. I’ve seen this weird argument, that I am right because I was having sex and you never do, enough to think there has to be a fun logical fallacy name for this. I just don’t know enough Latin to come up with a clever one.
Also, ranting about masks now is weird. A lot of places are dropping their mask mandates. Here in Chicago they are mostly gone except for certain places like the CTA. So he is ranting against something that is mostly going away (for now).
@ qoth
Yey! I think it’s the perfect job for me; I like wine and art galleries.
As we’ve had two John-Pauls my Papal name will be George-Ringo.
Yeah, the game definitely struck me as subtly signaling rather conservative attitudes, so seeing those patch notes didn’t shock me—glad to see the pushback, though, considering how wildly unprofessional and whingy the insertion was.
Just gonna put out here, I love that third + fourth fresco at the bottom. Dude in the robe is just like: “oh… hims pectorals… I swoon.” Or at least it looks like that’s what’s happening, IDK, last time I read anything Latin was 15 years ago.
Re: the OP. It continues to amaze me how many men insist that the things most women hate about them are actually the things most women love. Also maybe learn the difference between being confident and being arrogant, JFC!
And the Twitterer he’s lecturing “seethe, or learn” is literally, literally a woman. And that is so damn typical. Straight men are always up to explain what we’re attracted to, and almost never to listen; and when they do occasionally hear what we really like, they claim we’re lying/don’t know what we want/etc. Fuck off dude, I’m not going to fall in love with you instantly just because you’re a smug jerk. Go take a swim with some box jellyfish.
@Mothkiller – Ah yes, the old “I am correct because I have sex” argument. That one’s a variation on the tu quoque fallacy, so maybe “tu cock?” Or “Chad hominem”?
Thanks, but we won’t be taking courage suggestions from someone who’s afraid to wear a piece of cloth.
@Cyborgette:
And the Twitterer he’s lecturing “seethe, or learn” is literally, literally a woman. And that is so damn typical. Straight men are always up to explain what we’re attracted to, and almost never to listen; and when they do occasionally hear what we really like, they claim we’re lying/don’t know what we want/etc.
Thank you for providing me a cue to share this account of Montreal Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough Mayor Sue Montgomery’s combination fidget hobby and visual aid: https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/montreal-city-councillor-is-knitting-to-prove-men-speak-too-much-at-meetings
@Elaine
Nah you’re not being a prude, that POV is backed by a lot of science. I really wish though that feminist criticism of the porn industry weren’t so tied up with racism, transphobia, and contempt for sex workers; it’s just it’s as badly needed today as when Gloria Steinem went undercover as a Playboy Bunny.
@Queen of the Harpies
TBQH my chronically ill, immunocompromised self would prefer if everyone kept masking in public, vaccinated or otherwise. Even the full three doses of Pfizer or Moderna doesn’t fully prevent infection with Omicron, let alone transmission. And it makes me so exhausted to see abled folks getting complacent and repeating the cycle for a third summer in a row. We should all know by now that this will give us yet another repeat with yet another immune escape variant next winter… Please y’all, just wear the mask. It’s not hard. People like you will have other summers; people like me have only one life.
Edit: not annoyed with you just to be clear, it’s just a thing I’ve been seeing from some (mostly abled/white/cisgender/middle class) friends. And damned if it’s not tiring me out.
@Full Metal Ox
I love it. Not all heroes wear capes, some wear scarves!
Also ultimately kind-hearted. (Chuck Tingle is the 21st century, bawdier Emmanuel Bronner. Prove me wrong.)