Virginia Tech shootings--32 dead, 20+ wounded

[elfshadow]

How scary, Mith. What an awful thing to have so many connections to this event.

Except for the sounds of sobbing, of course, and the persistant ringing of cell phones in the pockets of those dead kids, as their parents tried desperately to reach them.

This is the most chilling image I have of the tragedy so far. My god, I cannot even imagine.

[Primula Baggins]

That's haunted me, too, Elsha. I am so often calling my kids to find out where they are. . . .

[Inanna]

omigod.... i missed that one sentence the last time round.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Leave it to Anthy to capture this whole terrible tragedy in one searing image.

[PrinceAlarming]

Weeks after the incident it still amazes and saddens me...

I think that 18 or 19 is too young for college. I'm glad I waited. I found direction before dedicating myself and $100,000 to an educational endevour that might have ended up being useless. Knowing what I know now, I would have ended up hurting myself on a large college campus where you can get away with sleeping until 2:00 pm and staying up until 4:00 am.

There's so much pressure to be successful and popular. There is so much pressure to drink, do drugs, and have bouts of meaningless sex. You take a child out of the womb of parental guidance and into the dorm room. That is a stark contrast. No supervision, a mob mentality... And they go wild.

Atleast once a year several MIT students put themselves in the hospital or die from alcohol consumption... You have to drink a lot of rum to expire. Let them grow and mature and learn their limits and responsibility... Let them find direction...

I pray still for the victims, their families and for the family of the shooter.

May they all find peace.

[Túrin Turambar]

It hasn't taken as long as I'd thought.

Someone has made a game based on the Virginia Tech shooting and has published it on the internet. They promise to take it down if given $2,000, and will apologise for a further $1,000.

link

[yovargas]

I'll punch them in the face for $4,000 or best offer.

[Túrin Turambar]

The creator of Super Columbine Massacre has commented on V-Tech Rampage. He is critical of it, most notably the demand for money and the closeness of the game release to the event.

[Inanna]

How SICK. Yov, would you please punch him on the face for free?

[Alatar]

I had the same reaction, then stopped to think about it.

How different is this to playing Call of Duty? Or Battlefield 2? The fact that the game is based on actual events is hardly new territory. The fact that its a violent game based on a violent event is hardly new territory. He's looking for money? All those games were made to make money. So what's the difference? The fact that its more recent? Seriously. Aside from the visceral gut reaction, what's the difference?

[yovargas]

Aside from the visceral gut reaction, what's the difference?

They promise to take it down if given $2,000, and will apologise for a further $1,000.

That's the difference. They're explicitly doing it to piss people off in hopes it'll get them some cash. That's disgusting. [/quote]

[Primula Baggins]

That's what puts it over the line for me. That's essentially aimed at the people who were hurt by the shootings: "If this makes you feel bad, give me money and I'll stop. Sucker."

[Alatar]

That may be the case, but its doesn't look that way at first glance. It appears he created the game for fun and then followed up with the ransom idea when people made such an issue about it.

The game first came to light after it was uploaded to a site called newgrounds.com which hosts a large number of basic, mainly home made , computer games. Game makers upload their creations on to the site much in the same way as people upload videos to YouTube.
:
<snip>
:
Lambourn, who grew up in the US, said his friends suggested putting up the ransom demand which he thought was "a hilarious idea".

He posted the demand on his website saying: "Attention angry people: I will take this game down from newgrounds [the games website] if the donation amount reaches $1000 US. I'll take it down from here [his website] if it reaches $2000 US, and i will apologise if it reaches $3000 US."

He described the exercise as "a joke". "They were so adamant about me taking my game down ... I gave them a way," he said.

[truehobbit]

I'm with Alatar on that one. I don't see the difference between playing total war games and other games which are also aimed at killing random people, and playing at running amok at a school.
I agree that the offer to apologise for money is tasteless in the extreme, but, then, so are all games that make a game of people's suffering, IMO.

[Primula Baggins]

This is a specific and recent tragedy, and the request for "ransom" is distasteful even if it was not the plan from the start.

Imagine a similar situation with a game based on a recent tragedy closer to your own home. Yes, the principle is the same for many games, but tying it to an event for which families are still in deep mourning is tacky in the extreme.

[Alatar]

The issue is not one of geography.

My point is that aside from the visceral gut reaction, there's very little difference between this and other war games. More to the point, I find this a lot less disturbing than the game Manhunt which is commercially avialable.

Players must survive the Director's planned carnage by performing "executions" on gang members. When the player targets an enemy to initiate an execution, the cross-hairs around the gang member will initially be white (representing a mild kill); after a waiting period of three seconds, the cross-hairs will eventually transition to yellow (a more violent kill) and finally red (the most brutal kills). Executions are shown via a cut scene from the perspective of the Director's security cameras. Each weapon has its own set of executions. The player can choose to kill an enemy anytime he is targeted, but more grotesque executions will net a better rating upon the level's completion. As a result, players must risk being sighted by enemies for getting closer and performing more violent executions.

Because of the sheer number of enemies the player is pitted against, stealth plays an important factor in the game. Executions must be carefully performed by sneaking up behind an enemy and keeping him targeted until the desired level of gore for the execution is reached. If a player is spotted, or heard, all nearby enemies will pursue Cash and attack him; because of Cash's poor skills at hand to hand combat and non-stealth weapon attacks, Cash can easily be killed if he is discovered by anyone. The game's HUD displays a silhouette of Cash that shows if he is hidden in shadows or not to aid the player.

Over the course of the game, Cash will use a variety of weapons ranging from blunt items (baseball bats, hammers etc) to bladed weapons (sickles, machetes etc) and ranged weapons (nail guns, pistols, shotguns etc). Each melee weapon has its own unique set of stealth kills. Also, items (bottle, can, brick, severed head) can be thrown to either stun hunters, or to make noise to distract them.

[yovargas]

1) Games like Manhunt (which I do not support, btw) don't go after real, specific humans. They're fake, cartoons.

2) If Manhunt's makers said they'd apologize if they got paid enough money, I'd wanna hit them too.

[MithLuin]

If that makes you mad....

consider the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church.

If you are unfamiliar with this group, check out Wikipedia. It is a family calling itself a church, but more accurately labeled a hate-group.

They love media attention to spread their message (basically, we're all going to hell), and have taken to protesting the funerals of the soldiers killed in Iraq just because they can. They are anti-American, anti-gay, anti-...well, just about anti-everything, to be honest. And belligerent about it.

They have discovered that really any tragedy that makes national media is a good forum, so they also made plans to show up at the funerals of the Amish girls killed in the school shooting last fall
...and the VT students' funerals.

They didn't, though. Why not? The same sort of bribery on this website. "Give us what we want, and we won't make the victims' funerals a hellish experience for the families."

Insane picketers cancel funeral protest

In exchange for airtime, they cancelled their protests. That is just...so, so low. Statement from the radio show allowing them airtime

When WBC announced their plans to show up at VT, they included their spokesman's cell phone number in the open letter to the VT community. So, my brother called up Shirley Phelps-Roper and talked to her. He thought it would be a secretary or answering machine, not the leader of the organization saying "hang on, I'm in an airport, I'll call you back." He remained polite, and called her "ma'am" and made a few jokes. ("Do you know Noah?" she asked him, and he replied, "Not personally....") She insisted on telling him he was ignorant and damned, and if he read the Bible he would know better.

So, I was proud of him for not losing his cool, but I did a bit of research on the group to let him know who he was talking to. It helps to know it's just one bunch of kooks, and not a national organization or something. But still...really, really depressing.


Like any hate speech, their message is couched in very offensive terms. So, I've tried not to link to too much of what they actually say. But it wouldn't be hard to find their website, or find quotes that the ADL has put together by them.

These people make my blood boil. They are just...ugh!

So, if you need a laugh after wading through this: Check out YouTube

[Inanna]

I agree that the offer to apologise for money is tasteless in the extreme, but, then, so are all games that make a game of people's suffering, IMO.

Agreed. But as Yov said, Manhunt is not making a game of the suffering of specific individuals. This game is. Even if he put up the money as a "joke", its still sick.

[MithLuin]

The creator of Super Columbine Massacre has commented on V-Tech Rampage. He is critical of it, most notably the demand for money and the closeness of the game release to the event.

Thank you for the link. If you scroll through the comments, there's an e-mail dialogue between the two. Warning for offensive language.

Basically, the creator of SCM comes across as very...pompous? superior? Polite but full of himself. The creator of VT Rampage is, well...extremely immature and rude.

Neither of them come across in a good light. I just don't think a shoot-em-up video game really counts as "commentary" on the event.