Recently the Massively Overpowered website incredulously awarded 2023 MMORPG of the Year to Standing Stone Games’ Lord of the Rings Online. If you had any doubt that the intelligentsia of MOP is woke, corrupt, and out of touch with most MMORPG players, now you know for sure.
The Lord of the Rings Online exists because of Tolkien and his millions of worldwide fans. Tolkien’s lore is sacrosanct. The fundamental value proposition and raison d’être for this MMORPG’s existence is the production and stewardship of a faithful representation of Middle-earth which includes most of the applicable places, people, and events of Tolkien’s masterful fantasy trilogy.
According to their article, 7 out of 10 MOP staffers voted for LOTRO for MMORPG of the Year and not one of them bothered to mention the controversial race swapping that Standing Stone Games engaged in in 2023. Even if the staffers were for this disrespectful act of cultural hooliganism, it was obvious that they had been told by someone in charge not to mention it. You’ll find out who I believe is behind this later on.
The staff at Massively OP seem completely oblivious to the fact that Standing Stone Games which is owned by Daybreak Games recently vandalized J.R.R. Tolkien’s lore by introducing incongruous African and Asian player characters to Middle-earth. Not only did SSG disrespect Tolkien, the community manager Jerry Snooks AKA Cordovan went on a jihad and banned, and suspended many players who spoke out about this travesty.
For years, Turbine and Standing Stone Games were vigilant stewards of Tolkien’s lore. But since the unfortunate death of George Floyd, the color revolution of the destructive BLM/ANTIFA riots, and the introduction of corporate DEI policies, they no longer care about maintaining the authenticity of Tolkien’s Middle-earth. Instead, they believe that identity politics is a much more important goal than delivering a the very best immersive play experience to their customers who expect fidelity to Tolkien’s universe.
We all thought that Middle-earth was the one intellectual property that would be respected. We were so wrong. If these cultural terrorists can disembowel Tolkien’s masterpiece with impunity, then no other lore is safe from their depraved pogrom.
The creation of African and Asian avatars cost precious time and money. These resources could have been better spent improving the antiquated user interface that makes it impossible for people with sight issues and large monitors to play and appreciate the majestic beauty of the zones. Instead of trying to virtue signal and pander to imaginary Blacks and Asians that will never play this fantasy virtual world, money spent on wokeness should have been spent on this which would have benefited everyone and improved the accessibility of Lord of the Rings Online.
Fantasy virtual worlds should be places of escape that are ideologically untethered to the politics of the real world. This lack of business practicality and absence of rationale, suggest that what we are dealing with is a religious cult both in the creation of this woke monstrosity and the failure to report on it. Both parties are joined at the hip to promote the narrative.
What is the underlying narrative of DEI? At its heart, it’s a repurposed Marxist oppressor versus victim narrative that systemically discriminates against white, Christian, heterosexual males. It is diabolical and evil and represents an existential threat to Western civilization.
The introduction of African and Asian avatars outraged many stalwart Tolkien players in the LOTRO community but Justin Olivetti and Massively OP failed to cover this story and the subsequent protests by their loyal players. This failure to report on this is inexcusable and concrete evidence that they have abandoned any pretense of practicing real journalism. If they are lying by omission, what else are they lying about and failing to report?
There can only be two reasons why they did this: 1) they agree with what Standing Stone Games did and 2) they do not want to criticize Standing Stone Games (owned by Daybreak Games which is owned by Enad Global 7) because they do not want to bite the hand the feeds them continued access to exclusive stories and press junkets. I suspect it’s a combination of both. Either way, there is no excuse for this.
To this day, SSG has never given an adequate explanation for what they did. Outraged players who voiced their legitimate concerns on the forums have been banned, suspended, and censored. This strongly suggests that the decision to do this came from their woke overlords at Daybreak Games and/or Enad Global 7.
Daybreak Games who owns Standing Stone Games, has a long history of contempt for their loyal players by hiring tyrannical community managers who routinely ban, suspend, and censor the voices of their players. I am getting many reports that the official EverQuest forums are currently being moderated by an ego-tripping harridan named Angelinia. Apparently, Daybreak fired white male community managers Accendo, Dzarn, and Truenoth. A few years ago I quit EverQuest in disgust and wrote an article on the dysfunction of their ever-shrinking community.
Conclusion
Just 5 years ago, it would be unthinkable that you could eviscerate J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendarium and replace it with the usurpation of representation and diversity politics and get away with it. But today, this is commonplace as many properties have similarly shoehorned African and Asian characters into Middle-earth all in the name of diversity, representation, and inclusion. Sadly, they have done this with the explicit consent and complicity of Middle-earth Enterprises which is located in the People’s Soviet Socialist Republic of Berkeley California, and Embracer Group which is located in Sweden.
Where are journalists in all of this who are supposed to report on this? Why have they not given equal time to the various fandoms who rightfully oppose this treachery?
They are nowhere to be found. Their willful negligence is shameful.
Much like mainstream traditional journalism in print and media, video game journalism has become emaciated over the years to the point that it is pretty much intellectually dead. It has been replaced with the banality of advocacy and press release journalism. The neo-Marxist Kotaku represents the former, while sites like Massively Overpowered represent the latter.
MOP is mostly the manifestation of aggregating the latest “news” from MMO studios. In essence, they are unpaid stenographers for the industry as they regurgitate and recycle press releases and non-newsworthy news. The community over at Massively OP that puts up with this nonsense is not much better but occasionally they find the bravery to take the staff to task. MOP isn’t a total wash, as there are some diamonds in the rough writers at Massively OP who manage to contribute some worthwhile columns.
As the video game industry has become more popular, the video game industry has been under assault by the invasion of social justice parasites and the woke agenda they bring with them. The desecration of Tolkien’s lore by Standing Stone Games is huge news but so-called news sites like MOP refuse to cover it. I believe it is because what these vandals are doing aligns with their values. So they excuse it and even silently cheer it on.
The main culprit at Massively Overpowered is of course editor-in-chief Bree Royce. She is a wokester who loves to scold and browbeat her readers who dare to challenge the dominant diversity, equity, and inclusion ideology that has sabotaged the industry. She often uses MOP to advance her cultural agenda but does not tolerate any opposing views. Viewpoint diversity is the only diversity that is not promoted at Massively Overpowered.
The world is under the yoke of tyranny and censorship where the voice of the people is being suppressed and replaced by globalist narratives from on high. Even our small corner of the world — video game journalism — has been under assault since the 201 Gamergate scandal that exposed the collusion of game journalists.
People have the inalienable right to make their voices heard and dissent against the powerful few who control the world. We deserve to have a free press that seeks out the truth and is not beholden to any particular agenda. People should be offered the chance to hear different viewpoints and given the freedom to make up their minds. Instead, they are force-fed a diet of propaganda and simultaneously intellectually starved by censorship.
We the people and we the Tolkien enthusiasts are fighting an ongoing culture war against the forces of darkness in the realms of both reality and fantasy. The world has had enough of this tyranny and thanks to Elon Musk — who has liberated the digital town square by purchasing Twitter and changing it to X — we are seeing the tide turning.
–Wolfshead
Digging for the pearls through all that irrelevant or woke trash isn’t for me, haven’t read them in a while.
Marxism, Socialism, Communism, Wokeism, BLM, Genderism, Intersectionalism, Post-Colonial Studies, Antifa, so many names for the same agenda, all linked together in their Crusade of Evil.
Claudine Gay supported terrorists out of principle, no matter what they did, showed a lack of moral and a lack of competence and qualification to be president of Harvard. That was all made irrelevant by her being a black female wokester, no other candidate could match that.
Europe is waking up, but replacement and mass migration might have already reached critical mass, terrible times are ahead.
The evil of this generation is so blatant and audacious that a reasonable person can no longer ignore it. DEI is about to die because it’s no longer a theory, we see it in practice everywhere and killing our civilization.
The Harvard fiasco has woken a lot of people up, especially powerful Jews who supported it and looked the other way. They were fine when white Christians were attacked and marginalized but now that it’s coming after them, they understand the Frankenstein monster they created is coming for them too. Action and inaction have consequences. The Hamas-Israel conflict has opened a lot of eyes to the madness of unbridled neo-Marxism.
I think the people on that website take great pride (pride is a sin) in promoting their communist woke propaganda. I think they feel like some kind of pioneers of progress – daily celebrating the decadence of humanity and the moral rot they are spreading thinking they are “spreading love, inclusivity and positive vibes”.
It feels to me in a way, that the people on the website, both the owners/writers and the commenters, each time they give praise to some woke degeneracy, it feels to them like they are giving themselves their daily enema of woke content inserted straight in the rectum and then nicely fills the rest of their body.
Ironically, recently I read about something called “Paradox of Tolerance”, which essentially means if you want to be tolerant of group A, you will eventually have to stop tolerating group B, because group B is intolerant of group A, so the whole concept of tolerance and inclusivity collapses, because you can’t really be tolerant and inclusive to everyone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
In the case of the woke echo chambers, they are being intolerant of anyone who does not share their beliefs, even going as far as attacking them, mocking them, harassing them, essentially doing the thing they say they are fighting against only because believe they are on a morally superior crusade, failing to see their own folly.
Back to the members of this website. I used to visit it for a few years (in April 2023 making the decision to not even visit the website so they don’t get clicks from me and therefore make money from me, I advise everyone else to start doing the same) and this is when the update about women with beards and men with girly hairs released and I shared my dissatisfaction, disappointment and disgust with it. What happened was literally 100% of their regular posters started attacking me, mocking me, calling me names, especially their favorite word “bigot” was used a lot and a few more, I did not feel insulted, it actually made me happy that it triggered so many putos maricones.
I’m surprised they did not delete my comment, maybe they left it to teach other evildoers such as myself to not try to mess with them or they will get cancelled. I don’t remember if they banned me or I just left on my own. I think I had several accounts on their website and some were made unable to post comments, probably because my views differed from the woke narrative there a lot and I would argue with several of their regular putos maricones and they didn’t like that for long.
One time I had the misfortune of reading the comments of some transvestite from Brazil who had his mother help him try on female clothes and then hugged each other and cried together. And everyone in the comments, especially the owners of the website praised his “bravery”.
The hypocricy of everyone on the website is immeasurable. The website is a cesspit. Their articles are just them talking bad against whatever they don’t like (not objective journalism) and then praising and deifying everything they like. They used to have a lot more users years ago, but most left or got banned, only 20% of them remain and they are just an echo chamber of arrogant, hypocritical and opinionated putos maricones. The other big website about MMO news – mmorpg dot company is in a similar situation – 80% of the commenters left or got banned and you can see some regular posters with over 10,000 comments under their belt, if you say something against the woke narrative or criticize some of their favorite games, like LOTRO, ESO, SWTOR, FF14, Lost Ark and a few more, you get the woke brigade sent after you, but that website is more futuristic and advanced, because it has some reactions like Agree, LOL, WTF and Insightful so they can manipulate comments they like and they dislike.
Thanks for the insightful post and deep dive into what’s going on at MOP. I’ve seen Royce act like a pompous bully in their discussion forums. I’ve noticed that have a few forum activists who circle the wagons and behave like white knights from time to time.
As I reported a while back many gaming sites have the same tendency to hire woke mods. Wowhead is captured by wokesters as well.
For some reason the video game industry attracts “marginalized” and alphabet people who are waiting to be offended at the slightest hint of opposition to their agenda.
The moral of the story is that if you don’t gatekeep your community, woke activists will infiltrate it and take over, then they gatekeep it.
I never had the chance to be part of Wowhead or MMO-Champion, for that matter so I have no take on what goes on in there. On some occasions I’ve browser old articles and discussions and noticed a lot of deleted accounts. To my understanding when people get bored with a website, they just leave it and their account is intact, but for it to be deleted, they must have been banned, a.k.a. kicked out for something.
That’s what I’ve noticed about websites hosted and ran in Western Europe or North America – everyone is very sensitive and thin-skinned, you have to watch what you say, because if they don’t like where you put your apostrophes or commas, you are gonna get it.
Mentally unstable fanatics seem to end up taking over gaming forums and communities. Transgender gamers are the absolute worst. They are the ultimate drama queens who bitch about everything and anything. They have even infiltrated the FOH forums.
There are not too many places that afford their users freedom of speech anymore. I’m trying to keep the comments open here but I get tons of spam and some occasional hate mail.
I miss the gaming forums of 20 years ago. They had their share of asshats and trolls back then but at least there were some pretty intelligent people there as well.
Fanboyism has taken over most places. It’s cult-like because no criticism is tolerated or you get a target on your back and your posts get reported by mean-spirited people.
Absolutely spot on. These transgender people seem like they’ve made it their identity and life goal to make it known to mankind that they exist and must be taken into consideration with everything.
I’m OK with them creating games for themselves which they play and enjoy, even to host them on Steam or other platforms, it doesn’t bother me, but when I found out pretty much every game I was potentially interested in (Pax Dei, Baldur’s Gate 3, Solasta: Crown of the Magister, Hogwarts Legacy and others) don’t even have genders and have things like pronouns, it starts to affect me, because it means I just won’t play the game.
And then there are games that start normal like WoW, SWTOR, LOTRO, but then they make them woke by either removing genders and replacing them with body type 1/2 (like WoW) or adding facial hair options for female characters (SWTOR, LOTRO).
That’s where it crosses the line. Until this agenda crashes and burns, things won’t begin improving and from the looks of it, it only seems to be getting worse and worse. The next couple of years will be a disaster.
Their fail to report on the avatar controversy is not even the worst of it because, as far as the current community with “some standards” is concerned (as opposed to those who will basically buy into anything SSG releases as long as it has new quests), the Umbar launch was an unprecedented disaster. Zero repeatables at launch, crafting update fail, bugs as usual, but also some game-breaking ones to do with water that still aren’t fixed because they couldn’t bother to implement shader updates of Umbar only on brand new water types in their library… Instead, they added it globally but tested/accommodated just for Umbar so the rest of 99% of the game world water surfaces was affected and broken as a result… Some members of the community called these awkwardly affected sights an “improvement” so it’s possible devs will just largely ignore it going forward, a new low. After all, it’s a good excuse and they never have the time, right? LOL. Worldbuilding may be mostly great but they make the game that actually has potential feel and look worse and worse, with a hole here and a hole there, which is exactly why my friend has recently made fun of LOTRO when showing its graphics/videos to their other friend, even though they are a player.
There was this general enthusiasm about landscape being great or “the best” in the Umbar expansion but that’s always good and even there, you could read certain parts of the story as too contrived and there was also a big distaste regarding “Corsairs of Umbar” not having Umbar in 60+% of its content and instead it was Gondor re-done plus some more Gondor before you even saw Umbar. Almost a meme. Probably because the devs have free rains on everything (currently there is not even a Producer since the last one jumped the ship, and it’s almost like they gave up on finding one), so just because they fancy a specific in-depth story or revisited place, they’ll do it, even if common sense of hype/player excitement/promotional potential all speak against it.
Oh, that being said, bugged as hell was true of the avatar update as well. It was bugged, untested, broken. So really, LOTRO is in a strange boat right now, yet the wokeness isn’t really the worst of it. Like, it’s creeping in, in a way, but it’s not major in any case and most of the problems has to do with devs loosing their grip on what made the game great either due to lack of good coordination or some of their own “erosion” as lotro devs and senior devs with retro tastes, perhaps? Sometimes you need fresh perspective on things and react to good feedback from players who aren’t just bootlickers on old hardware with medium graphics, otherwise you’re stuck in a potentially self-destructive rut. Wokeness can contribute to that, but I would say in SSG’s case, at least so far, the worst of it has less to do with wokeness getting the priority in an ideological sense and more with literally everything else, so just missing the point most of the time and what could have been good is just… eh. Since they have Beornings playable and running around in Shire, even the avatar update with Asian and black skins could have been fairly decent, if they only played their cards well. This would still be largely needless, overglorified “woke” addition that doesn’t really improve the game in a substantial way, but… at least wouldn’t feel as wrong/fake if they added some new origin options so your new character can legit come from Harad, Rhun, East of the East (as in China) etc. and these locations do belong to canon, so at least it could have been cool to click a button and say “hey, I’m an escapee slave from Harad or explorer from Far Far East who wants to meet the elves!” It would take a few text boxes, that’s literally it, but even such simple, industry-standard additions are beyond the scope of SSG, who probably thought it wasn’t worth the effort.
Anyway, the gist of it (and why Massively Overpowered award was so surprising) is that I grew tired of the game (with a heavy heart), and that’s true of many others, due to completely different reasons first and foremost rather than wokeness creeping in. Because it hasn’t really spread too far yet, other than the avatar update. The otherworld settlements and NPCs remain ethnically correct, largely. Gondor, which does have a large population of blacks in it, has always been that way many years back since it’s conception (Harad used to be part of Gondor in lore, so at least there is some logic for it). Granted, from what I’ve seen of it (but haven’t purchased due to all of these other issues) Umbar does have a suspiciously large population of blacks rather than adequately mixed population of Arabic white/tanned/African black… so it’s possible they’ve overdone in a woke manner… but I haven’t been too often in there, so not 100 percent sure on this one.
MOP just published a story about a white upper management at Activision-Blizzard was fired for being “too old and too white” during a “restructuring” and has filed a discrimination lawsuit:
https://massivelyop.com/2024/01/08/former-activision-blizzard-exec-files-lawsuit-that-alleges-the-studio-fired-him-for-being-old-and-white/
The posters in the comment section are ridiculing the person who lodged the lawsuit with all kinds of falsehoods and derogatory accusations. They even mentioned the Cosby Suite.
Notice not one peep out of Bree Royce or any of the other moderators.
The MOP community is completely woke. This is the result of years of banning people who don’t agree with your woke agenda.
The same thing is happening in the comments section of the Polygon article (which is a much better article!):
https://www.polygon.com/24029908/activision-blizzard-old-white-age-discrimiantion-lawsuit