Article: "Elite’s Distant Worlds 2 expedition proves the game is wildly unbalanced, and that’s OK"

[Stigbob]

That's patently untrue. Reviewing anything is inevitably going to come with a matter of inherent opinion, but that opinion doesn't need to include judgement of the audience that thing is for, political opinion, or ideological filters through which the review is constructed. I am actually a journalist, and I went to university to get a proper degree for the job, a BA in communications majoring in journalism and PR, and a proper Masters in journalism as well. While I was studying, I learned how NOT to insert my politics into things like movie reviews, and how NOT to base my movie reviews through ideological lenses. Now, it appears to be the rule rather than the exception, and people like yourself are lead to the unfortunate belief that this is 'normal'. It's not. And there are quite a few outlets doing it right. The problem is, they aren't popular, because they don't pander to a political point of view, so they don't pass anyone's political purity test.

Where I worked we only cared about hard facts and practicalities.

The way it works is this.

You as a journalist write an article influenced by your own bias/preference/point of view. Emphasis is put on things you think are important, things you don't want known are played down this doesn't need to be a conscious decision. You tailor the article to fit the publication you are writing for or they reject it.

You submit it and your editor adds his own slant, whilst applying whatever bias he/she has learned to habitually apply whilst working for that publication.

The head honcho has a look and then adds his.

Multiple bias filters to get the article published then the readers apply their own when choosing publications.

For a very recent example look at the daily mails (terrible paper) recent change of editor which has slanted the reporting to be far less rabidly pro-Brexit but still very right of center.

Could you recommend an unbiased news source as I've never found one.

 

[voidwalker]

Where I worked we only cared about hard facts and practicalities.

The way it works is this.

You as a journalist write an article influenced by your own bias/preference/point of view. Emphasis is put on things you think are important, things you don't want known are played down this doesn't need to be a conscious decision. You tailor the article to fit the publication you are writing for or they reject it.

You submit it and your editor adds his own slant, whilst applying whatever bias he/she has learned to habitually apply whilst working for that publication.

The head honcho has a look and then adds his.

Multiple bias filters to get the article published then the readers apply their own when choosing publications.

For a very recent example look at the daily mails (terrible paper) recent change of editor which has slanted the reporting to be far less rabidly pro-Brexit but still very right of center.

Could you recommend an unbiased news source as I've never found one.

When I write as a journalist, I don't add any bias. There are methods that all journalists are trained in to avoid bias, like how scientists are trained in the scientific method in order to avoid bias there as well. A journalist adding their own bias to an article is not a journalist, they're an activist.

Part of my editor's job was a bias check, kinda like a peer review, but most of their job is word count and spell checking. An editor adding bias to an article is not an editor, they're an activist.

Now I was quite specific about the kind of bias I was referring to - ideological and partisan. Everyone has a bias. The trick when reporting is to leave it out, and save it for the opinion piece you'll follow up with later on.

ABC Australia is quite free of ideological and political bias. That's just one example of quite a few. That you've never found one tells me you haven't looked hard enough, or perhaps, haven't learned to put your own partisan perspective aside. It is usually the partisans who cannot accept that non-biased news exists, because to them, non-biased news looks like the other side. That's usually how I can tell what is and isn't biased, I pay attention to the bias that readers attribute to it. If both sides of politics are attributing the other side, it's probably not biased at all.

Again, the biggest problem with news isn't the journalists and their bias, it's the readers generating a demand for bias. It's people like you and me, who read an article that doesn't align with our ideology, so we slam it as 'the other side' before even thinking about how factual it is. That's the general cognitive dissonance of the public. I actually wrote my thesis on it for my masters degree, and scored top grades. Most real journalists can report without bias and have no trouble putting their own views aside. It's the untrained public that cannot.

As a result of that, a few journalists decide they'd rather cash in on that demand and provide the supply, and once they've demonstrated how profitable such pandering can be, other journalists begin to do the same. And that's how you get Polygon.

 

[metatheurgist]

Hmm, apparently the gankers are pointing out how broken the game is? You mean the hundreds thousands of people calling out how crap C+P is for years were just blowing smoke? [haha]

 

[daman]

When I write as a journalist, I don't add any bias. There are methods that all journalists are trained in to avoid bias, like how scientists are trained in the scientific method in order to avoid bias there as well. A journalist adding their own bias to an article is not a journalist, they're an activist.

Part of my editor's job was a bias check, kinda like a peer review, but most of their job is word count and spell checking. An editor adding bias to an article is not an editor, they're an activist.

Now I was quite specific about the kind of bias I was referring to - ideological and partisan. Everyone has a bias. The trick when reporting is to leave it out, and save it for the opinion piece you'll follow up with later on.

ABC Australia is quite free of ideological and political bias. That's just one example of quite a few. That you've never found one tells me you haven't looked hard enough, or perhaps, haven't learned to put your own partisan perspective aside. It is usually the partisans who cannot accept that non-biased news exists, because to them, non-biased news looks like the other side. That's usually how I can tell what is and isn't biased, I pay attention to the bias that readers attribute to it. If both sides of politics are attributing the other side, it's probably not biased at all.

Again, the biggest problem with news isn't the journalists and their bias, it's the readers generating a demand for bias. It's people like you and me, who read an article that doesn't align with our ideology, so we slam it as 'the other side' before even thinking about how factual it is. That's the general cognitive dissonance of the public. I actually wrote my thesis on it for my masters degree, and scored top grades. Most real journalists can report without bias and have no trouble putting their own views aside. It's the untrained public that cannot.

As a result of that, a few journalists decide they'd rather cash in on that demand and provide the supply, and once they've demonstrated how profitable such pandering can be, other journalists begin to do the same. And that's how you get Polygon.

When I write as a journalist, I don't add any bias. There are methods that all journalists are trained in to avoid bias, like how scientists are trained in the scientific method in order to avoid bias there as well. A journalist adding their own bias to an article is not a journalist, they're an activist.

Part of my editor's job was a bias check, kinda like a peer review. An editor adding bias to an article is not an editor, they're an activist.

Now I was quite specific about the kind of bias I was referring to - ideological and partisan. Everyone has a bias. The trick when reporting is to leave it out, and save it for the opinion piece you'll follow up with later on.

ABC Australia is quite free of ideological and political bias. That's just one example of quite a few. That you've never found one tells me you haven't looked hard enough, or perhaps, haven't learned to put your own partisan perspective aside. It is usually the partisans who cannot accept that non-biased news exists, because to them, non-biased news looks like the other side. That's usually how I can tell what is and isn't biased, I pay attention to the bias that readers attribute to it. If both sides of politics are attributing the other side, it's probably not biased at all.

Again, the biggest problem with news isn't the journalists and their bias, it's the readers generating a demand for bias. It's people like you and me, who read an article that doesn't align with our ideology, so we slam it as 'the other side' before even thinking about how factual it is. That's the general cognitive dissonance of the public. I actually wrote my thesis on it for my masters degree, and scored top grades. Most real journalists can report without bias and have no trouble putting their own views aside. It's the untrained public that cannot.

As a result of that, a few journalists decide they'd rather cash in on that demand and provide the supply, and once they've demonstrated how profitable such pandering can be, other journalists begin to do the same. And that's how you get Polygon.

Its not simply about facts.

Its about which facts to report, what is important and what isn't. Here a bias is applied.

As an example - look at the difference in amount of coverage of the problem of anti-Semitism in Labour in the UK, and anti-Muslim sentiment ("Islamophobia") in the Conservative party. Coverage in both would purport to be "factual" - but the extent of coverage is dissimilar - so the bias is not in the facts, but which facts.

The idea that the BBC is a neutral news provider without bias is at least in my opinion very debatable. In many places its recognised as the colonial propaganda of the (now fallen) Empire, which dresses itself up in the claim of neutrality.

All this is aside from the actual point of the thread, but was interested in your views as a trained journalist. (I know other trained journalists who would vigorously disagree with those same views and recognise how the industry works differently)

 

[Stigbob]

When I write as a journalist, I don't add any bias. There are methods that all journalists are trained in to avoid bias, like how scientists are trained in the scientific method in order to avoid bias there as well. A journalist adding their own bias to an article is not a journalist, they're an activist.

Part of my editor's job was a bias check, kinda like a peer review, but most of their job is word count and spell checking. An editor adding bias to an article is not an editor, they're an activist.

Now I was quite specific about the kind of bias I was referring to - ideological and partisan. Everyone has a bias. The trick when reporting is to leave it out, and save it for the opinion piece you'll follow up with later on.

ABC Australia is quite free of ideological and political bias. That's just one example of quite a few. That you've never found one tells me you haven't looked hard enough, or perhaps, haven't learned to put your own partisan perspective aside. It is usually the partisans who cannot accept that non-biased news exists, because to them, non-biased news looks like the other side. That's usually how I can tell what is and isn't biased, I pay attention to the bias that readers attribute to it. If both sides of politics are attributing the other side, it's probably not biased at all.

Again, the biggest problem with news isn't the journalists and their bias, it's the readers generating a demand for bias. It's people like you and me, who read an article that doesn't align with our ideology, so we slam it as 'the other side' before even thinking about how factual it is. That's the general cognitive dissonance of the public. I actually wrote my thesis on it for my masters degree, and scored top grades. Most real journalists can report without bias and have no trouble putting their own views aside. It's the untrained public that cannot.

As a result of that, a few journalists decide they'd rather cash in on that demand and provide the supply, and once they've demonstrated how profitable such pandering can be, other journalists begin to do the same. And that's how you get Polygon.

Yep currently don't be biased is the thing to say, like when the cops claim they don't do corruption anymore or the health service saying they are now nice to whistleblowers. Here in the UK they've added press regulations that dictate that debate has to show both sides, which has the unforeseen consequence of presenting mad ideas like climate change denial on an equal footing to proper science.

Your own bias against polygon is pretty obvious, but this is a video game forum so who cares its all about opinion.

There are no middle ground publications in the UK that I know of, its all hugely skewed to one side or the other. We were supposed to get our own version of Le Monde a few years ago which is widely regarded as unbiased but they decided against it in the end. Possibly no large market in the UK for unbiased publications.

 

[voidwalker]

Yep currently don't be biased is the thing to say, like when the cops claim they don't do corruption anymore or the health service saying they are now nice to whistleblowers. Here in the UK they've added press regulations that dictate that debate has to show both sides, which has the unforeseen consequence of presenting mad ideas like climate change denial on an equal footing to proper science.

Your own bias against polygon is pretty obvious, but this is a video game forum so who cares its all about opinion.

There are no middle ground publications in the UK that I know of, its all hugely skewed to one side or the other. We were supposed to get our own version of Le Monde a few years ago which is widely regarded as unbiased but they decided against it in the end. Possibly no large market in the UK for unbiased publications.

That entire post exemplifies what I was talking about just now. You view unbiased publications as biased as the result of your own partisanship.

'The cops' is a very general statement that lumps the vast majority of good police into the same basket as a few bad eggs. You only need look at the statistics to prove your very first statement is indicative of your bias but at this point, we're getting too political for this forum, and someone's about to get warned by the moderators not to do that, probably you and me both, so it's time to back down and move on.

You're right though. I have a bias against biased journalism, especially of the partisan ideological varieties, like that on display more often than not at Polygon. I don't know why you're taking that so personally. Not all bias is bad, and I've been very specific about the kind of bias I'm critical of.

 

[Weps]

Wasn't able to read that whole thing. What a load of drivel.

I stopped at the part where he said he went board flipping while talking about suspension of disbelief. Really? "Tuning the game off and on again" is now suspension of disbelief? How about not being forced to do so in the first place? No, this is just bad game design.

Just from that first paragraph it seems to me that this guy had a list of all the bad stuff this game exhibits and wanted to write a real article about it, and then had to sweeten it up somehow, as not to upset the guys that give us stuff.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Meh... I'd still argue it is imbalanced.

I reckon you should be able to choose between a fast, lightweight build that's fragile, but jumps far and should be able to outrun almost anything (but can't fight to save its life....)
Or you can build a ship stacked with weapons, shields, reinforcement packages, shield boosters, shield-cell-boosters that can give and take a pounding (but should be heavier and less agile)

Or a compromise build somewhere in between.

As it stands, you can effectively build a 'tank'-like ship with no compromise on firepower or shields/hull, that's retains enough agility and speed to outrun and destroy most lightweight explorer craft builds. That makes no sense to me, from a balancing (tanks are rarely fast or agile) or realism perspective.

Good point.

I actually suggested that power requirements for shields and weapons gets increased, and armour mass gets increased.

With some fine balancing (in several hundred patches time), it should reach a point where you can't fit Uber shields and Uber weapons at the same time, and stacking on armour is going to bog your speed down considerably.

Currently, my Anaconda has ridiculously strong shields (be it without an SCB), and even stronger armour, and is surprisingly manoeuvrable for its size, and fast for an Anaconda, and loaded with weapons.
Admittedly those weapons are all overcharged multicannons, so their draw is quite low + packhounds. But it's still lethal.

 

[Stigbob]

That entire post exemplifies what I was talking about just now. You view unbiased publications as biased as the result of your own partisanship.

'The cops' is a very general statement that lumps the vast majority of good police into the same basket as a few bad eggs. You only need look at the statistics to prove your very first statement is indicative of your bias but at this point, we're getting too political for this forum, and someone's about to get warned by the moderators not to do that, probably you and me both, so it's time to back down and move on.

This began with you dismissing an entire publication and everyone who works for it as biased. So you'll understand I find your current terminology based pearl clutching funny.

 

[voidwalker]

Its not simply about facts.

Its about which facts to report, what is important and what isn't. Here a bias is applied.

As an example - look at the difference in amount of coverage of the problem of anti-Semitism in Labour in the UK, and anti-Muslim sentiment ("Islamophobia") in the Conservative party. Coverage in both would purport to be "factual" - but the extent of coverage is dissimilar - so the bias is not in the facts, but which facts.

The idea that the BBC is a neutral news provider without bias is at least in my opinion very debatable. In many places its recognised as the colonial propaganda of the (now fallen) Empire, which dresses itself up in the claim of neutrality.

All this is aside from the actual point of the thread, but was interested in your views as a trained journalist. (I know other trained journalists who would vigorously disagree with those same views and recognise how the industry works differently)

This is for you and Stigbob.

https://fullfact.org/

A very impartial British news source. Enjoy.

 

[Bigmaec]

Like, I know it's a Gunship because it's you.

But...

Deep down...

I want it to be the Battleuga Galactica.

You could multicrew with Goose and dish out sick memes while you murder.

I totally want to multicrew into that third seat. Sounds like fun

 

[Aashenfox]

That is such a ridiculous remark.

I have played countless games in the 54 years of my life and I never encountered a PERFECT game... ever.
I don't think I encountered a PERFECT anything... ever.

You obviously never met my wife.

 

[TheSynopticVision]

Honest question: people are bashing Polygon for what exactly? Bias? Bias how?

 

[Bigmaec]

You obviously never met my wife.

Can I haz your... ah nevermind, you'd propably won't give her away

 

[krylite]

Polygon guy seems well-meaning and it was great he reported on the disruptive and non-rp'ing ganking and DG2. He seems to be still a newb in various aspects of ED. Like I'm sure he meant instance resetting by logoff to menu rather than mission "board flipping". Also disagree with his calling the game "broken"; game is pioneering and unprecedented with all that pushing the boundaries of gamesims entails.

 

[Morbad]

The second comment in the article sums describes things nicely:

"No bully wants to be called out for their bullying. Doesn’t make them any less the bullies."

Any time I've been a bully, I owned up to it, and kept right on doing it, because it got me what I wanted and that was the whole point. I consider violence, or the credible threat of violence, indispensable tools in my pursuit of survival and happiness, without which I myself would be far more vulnerable to various forms of bullying and coercion.

Of course, I don't play a bully in ED because such behavior doesn't serve any purpose for my CMDR. There are no real mechanisms to facilitate such interactions anyway. No CMDR can be forced to do anything. Oh, I'd love it if some proactive violence could keep threats at bay, but the game just doesn't work this way.

Stuart. In the next month steamcharts will show an average player of maybe 4000. In the interval of less than a month Elite would have bleed the largest player number evarrr. Because ganks and server issues. This article has been written at least four weeks too late. But that's OK.

The idea that ganking could be responsible for a significant hit to the number of active players seems exceedingly far fetched to me.

More likely the bulk of those that came back for 3.3 and to try out the initial stages of DW2 got their fix of new content and the game is simply returning to more usual levels of participation.

The irony of Spector making that comment in relation to Invisible War, one of the most disappointing sequels in the history of gaming, strikes me every time I read it. He'd have done better to state 'Every time you're thinking of dumbing down your epoch-defining PC game to shoehorn it onto a console, don't do it'. *


* Note - that's in relation to consoles at the time that game was in development (turn of the millennium) not today. Before any of you start.

The problem with his statement is that fun is subjective, making the choice not between "reality and fun", but between "reality and what I think might be better".

The only time I see polygons is when I'm modeling in Max.

Uhh, if you play ED you see polygons all the time!

How about not being forced to do so in the first place?

I've never felt forced to board-flip, not even close.

Like I'm sure he meant instance resetting by logoff to menu rather than mission "board flipping".

Fundamentally the same thing.

 

[voidwalker]

This began with you dismissing an entire publication and everyone who works for it as biased. So you'll understand I find your current terminology based pearl clutching funny.

I dismiss a lot of entire publications, and anyone that works for them, based on their bias, left or right. Polygon is one. CNN is another. Breitbart too, on the right, as does anyone with an eye for habitual bias. See, it's not just one or two biased articles that Polygon put out, it's their abuse of their audience. I don't know if you remember that, from back in 2014-16, but it was a big deal at the time. They said we'd never bring down Gawker, but look at it now.

At the end of the day, though, if you're mad at me for dismissing Polygon, that seems to me like it's a personal problem. YOUR personal problem.

Which is a problem I don't have to care about one little bit. Good day.

 

[Stigbob]

I dismiss a lot of entire publications, and anyone that works for them, based on their bias, left or right. Polygon is one. CNN is another. Breitbart too, on the right, as does anyone with an eye for habitual bias. See, it's not just one or two biased articles that Polygon put out, it's their abuse of their audience. I don't know if you remember that, from back in 2014-16, but it was a big deal at the time. They said we'd never bring down Gawker, but look at it now.

At the end of the day, though, if you're mad at me for dismissing Polygon, that seems to me like it's a personal problem. YOUR personal problem.

Which is a problem I don't have to care about one little bit. Good day.

I still stand by my original point, which was that I judge all articles individually recommend reading multiple articles about the same issue (whilst regarding the industry itself as being largely unreliable) and don't have any specific bias for or against either publications or individuals.

There's no reason for me to be mad that you "dissed" polygon as I'm ambivalent about it. I simply find your claims about the importance of being impartial pretty comical on the back of all the bias you'll happily show.

I've no idea what gawker is/was or why you think its remotely relevant to me.

 

[Kaocraft]

Honest question: people are bashing Polygon for what exactly? Bias? Bias how?

They have a well documented history of combining general ignorance and incuriousity about a topic with willful misrepresentation of the facts to push a political agenda. You can probably research the specifics on your own. I don't think anyone is accusing this particular article of serious bias, it's just that everything coming from Polygon is automatically suspect because (A) they don't try very hard to report accurately, and (B) they are sometimes dumb on purpose.

 

[Sooden]

ugh, had to read that toilet-paper as i wanted to comment...
projecting was through the roof on: 'some of the angriest players are the ones heavily invested in player-versus-player combat'

Not what i saw from live streams. Some of the angerest players had no PvP knowlage. The gankers seem quite happy. So the writer had assumed the emotion of the ganker, base on thier understanding of, why they may kill another player... and not understand the ganker...

In fact, they are quite clear why they do it.. salt! and its the victims that where 'some of the angriest players'

maybe i got it all wrong... and some of 'IRIDIUM WING' where 'some of the angriest players' as i hear some of them are 'heavily invested in player-versus-player combat'

still i'm in agreement that some gankers are ''angry'' (just not the angriest ), but DW2 removed that anger and they here having a blast! Don't need Polygon to explain that to you, i already did an article on that.
Yoga pants and griefing. <<(explains this subject: ''It’s more like a hybrid of an MMO and an open-world sandbox. And that makes some players angry'')