I’m not actually sure if this comic is funny or not. Sorry if it isn’t. (Edit: after much thought, yes this comic fucking sucks – Lothar)

Apparently someone didn’t take kindly to my news post on Half-Life 2 on Tuesday. Basically, he came on the forums, copy and pasted (or so he claims) a post on Halo 2 that was just plain annoying, and also implied I lack intelligence (fair comment really). I banned him cos I’m not having idiots on the forums (I own the franchise damnit). Emails were exchanged as were insults. But the basic idea of his post was that he says that diversity of opinions is a good thing. HOWEVER, because I swore and didn’t play more than a third of Half-Life 2, I should not have voiced my opinion.

Hang on…

Sorry people, that’s not how it works. I found the game dull, unoriginal, and the features that have been celebrated elsewhere, such as the physics engine and Gravity Gun, did not impress me. I also had no will to play the game pass the section I did, and you know what. I am going to say that because I have a right too. And yes people, you have these rights too! So go on, hate *insert game X here*, you’re allowed to, just like I am allowed to like it. And we are both allowed to have arguments over it. But under no circumstances is someone going to tell me I can’t voice my opinion because I didn’t meet their criteria for having one about a computer game.

As for the swearing thing, I’ve sworn worse than that in other rants about other subjects yet I had yet to receive an email from this person until I swore in a rant concerning one of his favourite games. Odd how that works.

And before anyone asks me that if I think arguments and different opinions are fine, why did I ban him from the forums? Here’s why:

1) Arguments and opinions are fine, but registering solely for the reason to piss me off isn’t.
2) Acting like a twat in general isn’t tolerated.
3) While a good chunk of the world is a democracy where people can say whatever the fuck they want and have it protected under free speech laws (unless it’s under the Terrorism Act of course, where you can be bunged in jail for years for no good reason. Thank you for that “brilliant” idea Bush and Blair) , forums are not. They are ruled by cruel and merciless creatures who will delete your posts if you act like a complete and utter twonk or post stupid shit like “I hate asian/black/white/etc people”. If you are one of the people who do the latter, please fuck off and die.

I was going to talk about my experience in the City of Heroes European Beta this week, but I’m fucking knackered so I’ll save that for Tuesday. Later.