Certainly I would agree that objects and concepts being used to fruitfully fulfil their functions is no measure of quality. Only aesthetics can being quality.

We all know this, both from Critique of Pure Reason and from the Forge.

Or perhaps I wasn’t saying that, but was suggesting that games like Tremulus and UW are good games, and that the snideness to them from parts of the community isn’t actually about quality of design, but about quality of meeting community standards being mistaken for quality of design.

Because, and let me be clear here that I am being an elitist asshole here, I don’t play and keep playing bad games.

So if I am playing a game ongoing, I think its a good game. If you disagree you’re welcome to your stance, especially when couched subjectively, or even objectively according to your own criteria.

But if you’re going to suggest that the game is objectively bad for me, or others you have no experience playing with or context for analysis of, as based on your own aesthetics of assumed design instead of some hard target analysis of how the game actually functions in play, then chances are good that you are wrong and are mistaking your own theory of design for actual analysis of structure.

::sips coffee, side-eyes Adam D​​​::