“We actively discourage gamers from being the kind of mysogynistic jackwagons seen in the Reddit post, and such behavior should not be tolerated. Frankly, we don’t like that kind of player either. So far as this event goes, it is an special event designed specifically for male gamers. Further, it is meant as a getaway designed to help said male contingent become better men both for themselves and for those who love us.”

At first, I didn’t think so much about it because it isn’t uncommon for a LAN to be male-only even without the explicit exclusion of females. I didn’t care that females were excluded for whatever reason. But when I read the comments they clearly highlight an issue which is far larger than a single sex LAN. One user commented with a video of ‘TheAmazingAthiest’ ranting about comments made by some women on TV who were laughing about a woman castrating her husband because he wanted a divorce:

It’s sad that Sharon Osborne was one of the ring leaders in making light of the situation as she has been viewed as an icon and role model for strong females. It is distasteful to laugh at the mutilation of any human being. This guy basically just points out the obvious that her remarks were disgusting, but it does remind us that sexism is still rife and comments like Sharon’s is like fighting fire with fire. Despite being from the same species, can males and females ever be truly equal? This hypersensitive topic is something which I’m confronted with more often than I’d like, mainly due to being part of a minority in normally boisterous FPS games.

Click here to see the original clip of the women talking about the castration.

Before I start, I would like to make it clear that it is impossible for me to withhold bias from this subject since I have experienced not only discrimination but also special treatment because of gender. Females have been seen as second-class citizens throughout human history, so feminist movements have gained momentum throughout the decades. Therefore it is understandable that many females feel very strongly about equal rights when encountering discrimination. I find myself in a constant conflict between my own ambitions and my view of the role of women in society. Sometimes I wonder “what’s the point” since it’s a constant uphill battle to gain impartial recognition for any achievement. [Most likely though, it's the drivel from internet trolls that has vastly contributed to my jaded view].

But it isn’t inaccurate to say that men and women are unequal even in the most liberal societies. It is difficult to often hear “you don’t need to be good at anything except sucking dick”, “it’s bullshit you’ve got what you have had in life, it’s just because you’re a girl” and so on. Many say just not to listen, but that is far easier said than done. After all, repetition is one of the most effective ways to learn. So instead of burrowing into the myriad of studies on the debate of gender inequality, it is better for me to speak about my personal experiences with misogynists since it’s impossible for me to check my bias at the door. Perhaps insight into such experiences can help contribute to understanding the plight that women face in male-dominated areas, such as gaming.

“Tits + Vag FTW”

I’ve been extremely lucky. With the gaming house, sponsorships and a spot on a CGS franchise; I’ve had a cushy career from gaming. While I may not agree with the segregation of gaming tournaments by gender, if the opportunity is presented of course I will take it. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt when I hear people who I consider my friends tell me that all the sponsorships I have received have been just because of gender, nothing else. Not only is that inaccurate, but one would expect their friends to be happy for their success. Recently a friend of mine said “You only got all that shit because you’re a fucking girl, you know” and seemed genuinely surprised when I tried to tell him how much work I actually had to do to get such things. He spent the next few minutes getting aggressive due to not being born a girl. Why so bitter? The time and effort that I’ve devoted to my passion seems to be irrelevant.

Almost every time I accomplish something I’m proud of, people immediately write it off that the only reason I was able to achieve anything is because of my gender. Mentioning looks is also often correlated with sexist comments. With the recent announcement of the 2011 Alienware Challenge, people remembered last years and these are some things that were said:

“The eventual winner was terrible [...]”

“[...] community voting should not have been as influential in the outcome because obviously a bunch of nerds are going to pick a marginally cute girl over you [...]”

“She won because she has tits who cares [...]“

…And so on. Never mind that I actually came 3rd in the community voting and it was because I won the majority of the Alienware vote that I won overall. Never mind that I travelled the furthest, spanning two continents. Never mind that I spent painstaking hours editing all the videos for the challenges, trying to portray the trip and atmosphere as much as possible. Never mind that I barely have tits! Forget all of that – it is automatically negated by my gender. Something which I should feel proud of suddenly became bittersweet. I started to question myself: if people really thought I was so terrible, then maybe I am.

I could sit and write all night about all the crap I get, but I think you pretty much get the picture.

You don’t need to tell me to just ignore those folk, if I couldn’t do that I would have bowed out of the gaming scene long ago. I think the bigger issue is that this is being said in the first place. I don’t believe that forums should be censored, but the amount of people that freely and continually say things like this (and worse) shows that gender prejudices are still very much alive. Perhaps such comments only reinforce misogynistic attitudes. As online and offline worlds are no longer dichotomous, one has to wonder if these people behave the same way offline.

Many guys I’ve spoken to believe that sexism is non-existent in most liberal societies. “Come on, it’s not like we’re in the Arab world” is a pretty common response when the topic is approached. Most also just pass it off as a joke. Sometimes it is, sometimes there’s a sharp grain of truth behind it. Either way, this is the kind of community one needs to prepare herself for. Not all girls look like actresses and supermodels, and most guys on gaming forums do not want to accept this. I guess to the majority, girls are only present on the internet as decorations at the self-service station.

People who want to develop non-misogynistic games could look into getting an online bachelor degree in video game design.

Also since it’s summer holidays now, I’m trying not to let my brain fall asleep. Therefore, it’s my goal for the next month to post and comment on various areas of interest: including new gadgets, some stuff about gaming and of course science. Since this website won’t be strictly gaming any more, it probably doesn’t need an RSS feed on eSports Press but hopefully most of my readers will continue to enjoy the type of content i’ll be posting in the future.

Speaking of gaming, the last trip which I took was to DreamHack Summer in Jönköping a few weeks ago. It was fantastic to see all the old Quakers from over the years, as well as new friends too! Above you can see Videl (g0d’s latest addition) and I a little upset over the drinks situation at the LAN. We were just having a bit of fun ^^. It was a really nice idea that Telia had, where you could create your own “fan sign” for your favourite player at DreamHack.

QuakeCon is just around the corner and I wish I could go there also but sponsorship in Quake is pretty scarce right now, where even top players like Strenx and Spart1e have to seek out sponsorship (In case you missed it, they left fnatic). Thus, Quake is pretty dead in the sponsor department so I can’t make it to QuakeCon but certainly I’ll be watching and cheering from home, especially for the TDM players!

The images of the damage are pretty intense and I am so happy to read everyone in NZs updates on facebook about how they are all gathering together and doing their part to help; donating blood, water, food, clothes, money etc… I’m also so happy to see that AirNZ is offering cheap flights for immediate family of victims or victims themselves.

I know that many of my readers are probably thinking “WTF why is she writing about this, it’s not about gaming”. But I grew up in New Zealand and it is really where i’m “from”… so to see the country in a state of national emergency, I really want to try and do *SOMETHING*, even if it’s just making a post on a blog, encouraging people to donate.

Donations can be made to the Red Cross online or via the GrabOne website or fundraiseonline.co.nz, as the Red Cross site has been crashing. Here is another official site set up by the government in the global appeal for help: http://www.christchurchearthquakeappeal.govt.nz/

You can also help by going to NZ for holidays!

If you’re in NZ, here are some other ways you can help! (although i’m pretty sure that you already know these things <3)

The holidays were filled with a lot of sleeping and eating. In the picture, i’m eating an amandel ring, it’s only sold at Christmas time here and it’s pastry filled with crushed almond. I’ve eaten 3 these holidays

December in the Netherlands is really awesome. We had a lot of snow that month and I was getting ready to go ice skating! Unfortunately, it didn’t stay cold long enough and everything melted before the ice was ready to skate on. They have something called Sinterklaas which led to eating a shitload of chocolate letter “L”s (and M’s too, but don’t tell Mike! heheh) and other yummy sweeties. I really wanted to celebrate it but I heard it’s mainly for children. Sad.

Because i’m becoming a fat bitch, this year I’ve started something new: hip hop dance class! Larissa and I go there once a week and we are totally lame right now. But it is a lot of fun and hopefully by the time I graduate, i’ll actually be able to bust a move. As far as gaming goes, I don’t really have the time for it. I’ll come on to play a little bit of Quake Live here and there, but I can’t maintain any kind of “skill”. I played Fallout New Vegas at the end of last year and it was really awesome, but it also took too much time and I never finished it.

The best thing about this year? Diablo 3 is coming!! I was just whining about not having enough time for gaming but dammit, i’m gonna make sure i’ve got time for this one. If I have to sit in the library every day to finish all my reading and homework, I will!! I LOVE YOU DIABLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO……..

As far as new years resolutions go, i’ve only got one: to actually take pictures of the stuff that I do (and to pull weird faces in them). That’s it. Happy 2011 everyone, I hope this year is amazing for you!!

What are your new years resolutions? Comment below or tweet them to @HelloLiefje

It’s been a long and exciting journey and after seven weeks of travelling, blogging and crossing Europe we have reached the conclusion of the Alienware Backpacking Challenge. The time has come to announce the winner. Who will walk away with $5,000 and an Alienware M11x?

MEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

I’m so fucking happy!

But to get to the real reason i’m posting this blog, it’s not to post news that I won (since most of you probably saw the spam on facebook anyway) but because I have been reading the comments on the other websites about it. People don’t seem to be very happy for me.

Just to let you all know, I actually came THIRD in the public poll. So to everyone who says that people just voted for me because i’m a girl (followed by “I don’t understand why because she’s so ugly anyway”), they actually didn’t vote as much as you think.

While people were all saying that I had an unfair advantage to start with (by being female) I actually felt like I was at a disadvantage. People were rooting against me to start off with BECAUSE I was female. I only had the support of my close friends in the beginning and I feel like I had to work TWICE as hard to win over the general public just to show that I am capable of being more than just… a female face.

I am happy that I still won even if I did come third in the final poll because it shows that Alienware was happy with my performance. This means that there was some kind of judgement and moderation of all the work done over the past 8 weeks and I was found to be the best. That’s the bottom line!

Alienware Challenge website

I travelled a total of around 12,000+km! I also visited 2 continents as I went over to the Asia side of Turkey. Darn, I should have taken the boat from Sicily to Tunisia (Africa) and made it 3!

My route map involved travelling from Rotterdam -> Antwerp -> Paris -> London -> Rotterdam -> Amsterdam -> Sicily -> Bologna -> Rotterdam -> Istanbul.

Thank you all so much for following my journey with the Alienware Backpacking Challenge. Now my site can return to normal

A few days ago he launched his own blog, CyrusMalekani.com, where you can read all about his adventures in Japan, where he is currently studying.

From the website:

PRO GAMER and GENTLEMAN EXTRAORDINAIRE at your service!

Cyrus ‘proZaC’ Malekani is now on the path of mastering his way and perfecting his quake.
Always moving forward with a never-say die attitude he approaches all his challenges with a calm samurai-like state of mind.

Follow him on his crazy adventures and you just might learn something

OSU!

Click here to check out the new site, or click here to follow proZaC on twitter.

Johan ‘tox’ or ‘toxjq’ Quick is one of the most revered Quake players of all time. He was kind enough to share some insight concerning Quake Live and his potential future as a competitive player. He also spoke of his feelings on being such a dominant champion of Quake 4, and what he must do if he is to continue to perform at such a high level.

nomadic: First, could you catch us up to speed on what you’ve been up to? Are you still into your fitness? Working / Studying? Do you still participate in Horse Race Betting?
tox: Gopher and I work for my father’s smaller business as sheet metal and ventilation technicians. And I still try to keep the fitness going, but nowadays I usually keep it to twice a week. On Saturday’s I do enjoy the major horse races that take place every Saturday in Sweden.

nomadic: Will we be seeing you come back and train Quake Live as hard as you did for Quake 4?
tox: I don’t think I will play as active as I did during Quake 4, since I was then sponsored and had more time for practicing and traveling. But things can change in the future with more events and so forth. I have vacation atm, so I have been playing some the last couple of weeks. Fazz came and asked me to participate against France in the TDM cup because Fox had holiday in Greece. I knew that they really wanted to go to the LAN finals, so I felt obligated to take part with them. I only practiced a bit before that game, and then I have just kept on playing for now.

nomadic: Speaking of TDM – It has become much more active in 2010. Do you or your brother have any interest in reviving a certain TDM clan?
tox: Gopher has been talking about starting to play a bit for fun, but he doesn’t have a proper monitor for Quake atm, so I think he might start to play some more for fun if he finally goes and buys a new monitor. But I don’t think we will play TDM for online purposes, it could happen that we would make a team again if there would be TDM lans as it were back in Quake 3 OSP. I rather prefer if there were more 2v2 events, maybe together with 1v1 so you had two types of a game at the same event. In my opinion it’s too much hassle to gather 4 people, and much easier to practice 2v2 then 4v4.

nomadic: But don’t you think 4v4 TDM is more fun than 2v2, both as a player and spectator?
tox: I would say that 4v4 is more fun when you travel to an event together with your team and play the serious matches with a lot of pressure. But in my opinion, 2v2 is more fun to play for practice purposes and also to watch online.

nomadic: In your September’09 Fragster interview you said, “I would like to decrease the hitboxes a lot”. How do you feel about the hitboxes now?
tox: I think they have been improved since they made the changes, but if you play an opponent that has a higher ping than you, there are many shots that go right through. It seems like it depends on what situation you’re in on the map, you really have to think about what height you are firing your shots from. But that’s probably more something that comes with experience.

nomadic: So for LAN play – do you think the hitboxes are perfect, or would you like to see further tweaking?
tox: I have yet to play Quake Live on lan, so I don’t know how the hitboxes work there, but most likely they will work better if both opponents have the same ping. I’m also interested to find out if there is the same amount of firing delay for the weapons on LAN. This is mostly what I feel could be corrected. If you look at plasma gun, for an example, it has a lot of delay while playing online. You cannot use the plasma gun in the same way as you used it in OSP and CPMA; like a close range weapon. It’s mostly for spamming corridors and just annoying your opponent now. In my opinion its way to risky to use plasma vs lightning gun in close range atm. So I would like to see some changes with plasma, so you had 1 more weapon you could use in the game.

nomadic: Would you favor plasma or shotgun at close range in Quake Live as it stands now?
tox: Online I would definitely prefer to have a shotgun instead of plasma atm. But it might work perfect on LAN, I really can’t have an opinion about that since I haven’t tried Quake Live on LAN.

nomadic: We haven’t really seen you play T7 or T9, what are your thoughts on those maps?
tox: I have been playing more and more of these new maps lately, and I think T7 is a balanced map so far. You can play the map very different if u want, both super aggressive and also very slow and safe as well. T9 I haven’t been playing as much as T7, but it feels like there can be so many spawn frags on that map. In my opinion, that’s a weakness, as I think luck should be involved as little as possible.

nomadic: Do you favor any maps over others?
tox: I would say that ztn, dm13, and T7 are good maps for competitive play. Dm6 doesn’t work as well in Quake Live than in Quake 3. As for T9, I can’t say there is much you can do on that map. You are kinda forced to play a certain way and it’s hard to find out a different way to play that map. Then again I haven’t been playing it as much as the others have. But I’d rather not see any Quake 3 maps in Quake Live map pools. I think we’ve had enough of that already, and it should only be new maps for competitive play.

nomadic: Would you be opposed to the addition of Hub?
tox: Yes, even dm6, phrantic, ztn, t4, hub, edge etc. I believe there has to be changes to get some new blood into the competitive scene, and since Quake Live is a new game, they should not use maps that have been played for years and years. There isn’t much to explore and it’s hard to come up with a new way of playing each map.

nomadic: Understandable, so in this way you favor T9 to be included in tournament map pools?
tox: Yeah so far I would. As long as they make new maps, it is important they are tested thoroughly. But you can’t announce new maps 1 week before an event like Quakecon, that’s really bad of them and unprofessional. There has to be some kind of organization that decides a map pool, and that map pool should be used for all the events of that year. If people wanna change maps, or add maps, it should be announced at least 6 months ahead of the tournament.

nomadic: What about other changes or additions you would like to see in Quake Live?
tox: I would like to see what happens if machine gun makes 6dmg instead of 5dmg. Its way too hard to defend yourself with machine gun atm, but then again I think 7dmg is way too much. And as I said earlier, I would like to see some changes with the plasma gun. Maybe it should fire a bit faster or the bullets should be a bit larger, because the hitboxes are smaller atm.

nomadic: I think it was obvious to everyone that Quake 4 suited your play style best. Do you feel your game can be adapted to suit Quake Live like it did in Quake 4?
tox: I think the key is to always find a new way of playing, and it’s all about making your opponent unable to play as he is used to, or how he has been practicing to. It doesn’t really matter if you play aggressive or defensive, just if you make your opponent off his game style and his “plan” he brought to the game.

Quake Live is mostly about timing and controlling the items like RA, MEGA, YA. But if you look at Quake 4, it was just as important to control the weapons of your opponent as it was to take armors and megas. Since the weapon respawn is 5 seconds in Quake Live, it’s impossible to keep your opponent from getting the weapons he wants after a period of time. You can be successful for a while, but in Quake 4 it could be better to give your opponent an RA if you could take the lightning gun or rail or rocket. Because then you would win the next fight without any trouble at all. But in Quake Live you are pretty much forced to take all the fights at all armors and megas. And since Quake Live doesn’t have as much dodging involved as Quake 4 did, you almost have to get more armor and health than your opponent if you wanna win the next fight. Sure you can win certain battles if you position yourself a bit better, but in general you pretty much have to be equal or have more to win a fight in Quake Live.

It’s just another way of playing a game, and you do what you have to do to get better at the game you are playing. But that’s kinda the guideline for Quake Live, only control armor and health and get the best position you can for the next fight.

nomadic: Does this guideline favor or hinder you?
tox: In the beginning it most likely would not suit me. I like when I have more options I can choose from, but I do miss that there isn’t as much weapon controlling with the fast respawn of the weapons. That way if you play someone with a strong rail, it could be better to control rail as opposed to taking all the YA’s on the map when you already are 200-200, but its just 2 different types of play.

nomadic: Let’s go back a few years to WSVG finals vs. Fatal1ty.
After you won, and silenced the “99% Bias Against Toxic” room, you said you felt like you had something to prove; that you were the best Quake 4 player. Do you still feel like you have anything to prove?
tox: No, I mean you can always look back on players as they’re talked about on the shoutcast, “Do you think this guy would beat this guy etc.” It’s just speculation and ultimately a waste of time. Everyone who wins tournament after tournament is already the best at that moment, and I guess these players have the potential to be one of the greatest.

But you cannot take a player from 10 years ago and compare him with someone today. I’m sure that player would have been as good as all the rest if he had his prime today. For myself, I already won a lot in Quake 3 TDM, and I think I placed 5th in almost all major Quake 3 events I attended. In Quake 4 I won a lot of 1v1 tournaments and the Quakecon Quad tournament as well as every 2v2 tournament with whomever I teamed with.

I think the difference between me and the other players is that I don’t talk about winning as much as they do. I don’t feel like its any surprise for me, and I’m always aware of every good player at a top level. It’s important never to feel like, “Yes I made it,” because that should be just an average day for you if you want to stay at the top for a long time.

nomadic: When you were dominating Quake 4, everyone was very curious about how you practiced. You said you didn’t like to train with other top players, but that you instead preferred players that were of a “mid tier” range of skill.
Can you tell us the advantages of this type of training regiment as opposed to training with your peers?
tox: I felt that I already knew how to play the map and opponent when I was attending a tournament, so I already knew how I was suppose to play my best game at that point. If you play someone that’s equal in skill as you are and make 1 mistake, you usually end up losing the game, or not getting any items or weapons for a long period of time during the game. In my opinion, you don’t get to practice all the situations as much then. If you play a medium skilled player, you can always get back control much easier then if you’re playing a top player.

So my thoughts were – if I play vs a medium skilled player I get to practice all the situations over and over, many more times during a game then I could if I played a top player. Of course now and then you can also play someone of your level, to improve your tactical game and also see if these things even work against someone at the same level as yourself.

nomadic: Is this your preference for Quake 4 alone, or would you apply it to Quake Live also?
tox: I definitely would use this in Quake Live also, but probably a bit more games vs equal skilled players to first find out how to play a serious game. When you get that right, you can go off and find out different ways to play a certain map or different ways to attack or play defensive etc.

nomadic: Are you planning to attend Quakecon or any other events in 2010?
tox: I’m not going to attend Quakecon this year, but I have been practicing with Stermy and Cypher before this event to help them get in shape. Cypher and I made a deal – if I helped him to improve his game and found out his weaknesses, and if I gave my view of his game to help him, he would give me advice and help me improve on ztn for an example. So Cypher and I have been playing a lot this past week. We had our warm up session; talking about positioning and some things I know about the opponents he is going to play and so on. Stermy and I have also done the same.

I don’t know if I’m going to attend any events in the future, I hope I will but I don’t know when it will happen. Atm I’m trying to get a feeling for the game, and I will see what tournaments come up. But I want to be sure of knowing all the maps before I attend a tournament.

nomadic: That’s a nice trade off, have you found anything on them yet?
tox: Yes, I think we both have learned from doing this. Maybe he got another view of things he hadn’t previously considered, and I have seen things that I hadn’t thought so deep about either. Anyway, since I’m good friends with both Stermy and Cypher, and if I’m not participating in a tournament, I’d like to see them go as far as possible.

nomadic: Last time I spoke with you, you were planning to buy an apartment. Where are you living now?
tox: I’m still living in the same city that I grew up in. There hasn’t been a good time for this kind of market since the crash.

nomadic: Is there a significant other in the life of The Toxinator or is he looking to acquire a target?
tox: Nope, not at this moment.

nomadic: Thank you very much, I really appreciate you taking the time. The final words are yours.
tox: You are welcome, it will be interesting to see if there are new maps being played at Quakecon and let’s cheer for Stermy and Cypher.

Thanks to Nomadic for the much-needed interview from one of the all-time Quake legends.

Disclaimer: All thoughts expressed are the opinions of the individuals and were said without reference to id software/Quake. The talk of maps which are not currently available are simply just speculation.

The funniest part about this is that it started with the roommate of Videl, who isn’t a gamer, but follows what Videl does. When we were walking home she all of a sudden said “lets play Quake” and started strafing down the street.

Vote here!

So just to write something a little more personal since I haven’t in a while, i’ll just tell you a little bit about moving. Everyone basically wonders why we moved since we were working very hard at a company in Germany which was in the eSports industry. Unfortunately the company and us decided to go in separate directions and while we both loved Germany Köln, it was too difficult to get work without being fluent in German. So we went to the Netherlands for me to study and PURRI to work.

Moving was a lot of work as usual but now PURRI and I feel comfortable in our new home. We had a lot of help from a local Quake player (drk), it’s really nice how through gaming we’ve been able to get to know people from all over the world. Our flat is almost complete now, we had to do a lot of work like installing new floors, sterilization of the bathroom and painting over the imaginary shotgun stains (just joking).

It’s perfect timing just before the world cup. Things look really festive with orange flags everywhere. It’s a little bit of an assault on the eyes as soon as you enter any supermarket I always like to remind PURRI that NZ are qualified but not Sweden, hehe. But of course we must cheer for Holland. With all the promotions going on, it’s almost impossible that you don’t have a little bit of orange somewhere from something

So far it’s been a lot of fun and I look forward to spending the summer here! This is a dog sniping from a 3rd floor window: