objective
Latest
The Soapbox: Game "journalism" is not journalism (yet)
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. Hey folks, welcome back to the Soapbox. Before I get started, let me add a personal disclaimer onto the Massively disclaimer you just read: I don't hate game devs. On the contrary, I hold a couple of them in pretty high esteem. What does annoy me is the way that most of them get a free pass when it comes to tough questions. Another thing that sticks in my craw is the way readers sometimes confuse journalism with game journalism. The two aren't often the same thing, and in fact the latter term is a complete misnomer. So, when you throw together my disdain for PR-soaked reporting and my facepalming at any mention of the phrase "game journalism," you end up with this week's Soapbox. In it, I'd like to take a crack at educating the folks who erroneously refer to both me and other game bloggers as "journalists." To do so, I'll spend some time examining "game journalism," and I'll start by defining journalism itself. Then we can look at how applicable the term is to the current landscape of MMO-centric media (and really, game media in general). Merriam-Webster defines journalism as "the collection and editing of news for presentation through the media." So far, so good, right? Well, look deeper. A more thoughtful, thorough, and instructional definition is provided by the folks at Journalism.org. Rather than quote the entire nine-point synopsis here on my front page, I'll highlight what I consider to be the second most important principle of journalism (the first obviously being truth). Not coincidentally, this principle is one that game "journalism" utterly fails to uphold on a daily basis: "[Journalism's] practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover."
Patch 3.3 PTR: Patch notes updated
New patch notes have been release for the patch 3.3 PTR. The changes present in this iteration of the notes will be active when the PTR comes up this evening after the latest patch is applied to your client. While there are a handful of changes to a few classes, there are two major areas which everyone will be talking about for a few days. First, you no longer have to clear Naxxramas to get to Sapphiron's lair. Tha means that raids will now be able to go directly to Sapphiron, and (presumably) subsequently Kel'Thuzad. Secondly, quest objective tracking is now present in this PTR build. This was originally present in the initial patch 3.2 builds, but was taken out by Blizzard after issues crept up with it. We'll have more on this new feature later this evening or tomorrow. The entire list of patch notes changes after the break.
Mac rumors are boring
I don't mean Apple rumors are conceptually boring -- I enjoy the Mac and iPod rumor mill as much as the next Apple geek -- they're just boring to read. Daring Fireball's John Gruber hit the nail on the head last month when he wrote about his dislike for Mac rumor site Think Secret. At the time he was talking about a rumor suggesting that Aperture was about to bite the dust. Of course, we all know it didn't, as we covered later on, but the inherent poor aim of rumor sites isn't the topic of this post.What the Mac web really needs, ok, wants, is a rumor site that merges the style of Crazy Apple Rumors with that of Think Secret and AppleInsider. Like Gruber says, the "objective" style of TS and AI apes that of the Associated Press (read: dull) when it should be taking a page out of the much loved, but now-defunct, Mac the Knife column. That fundamental element of gossip, the "we know that you know that this isn't important, but we also know that you know that this is fun" tone is completely missing from sites like Think Secret, AppleInsider and even rumor aggregation site Mac Rumors. We can understand why these sites pretend to be objective. It certainly *sounds* more legitimate if you write like the NYTimes (coincidentally this style makes it easier for us to pick apart the rumors, as you saw last week). However, this isn't the NYTimes. It's just a bit of gossip about our favorite computer company. Nothing more, nothing less.[Image credit]
