[opendomain]

This is a fantastic article - I wish I had known this guide when I was young. I liked it so much, I sent a link to my teenage son. However, if you would not mind, could this be edited so my teeanage daughter would also enjoy it? Unless, of course, she wants to be a "ladies magnet" - I support her life choices. But if we want more women entrepreneurs, we should encourage them to follow a path like this without the possible sexism.

[seizethecheese]

While I think that you're heart is in the right place, an expectation that personal advice be written in a gender-neutral environment is excessive. Oliver is a man (I presume) writing a guide based on his experience.

[ehALoginName]

As soon as I saw the picture of the sample players, and the "ladies magnet" bit I thought of..

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-th...

Hidden handicaps can hinder some level progression (like jobs, social acceptance) may really frustrate some players. No mention of the luckless that spawn in unfortunate terrain/hostile environments.

Compared to similar players I feel like I need to level grind more than those that spent the same amount of time on it. And that's how I discovered the game is not balanced, which is sometimes rather depressing.

[seizethecheese]

*your

[oliveremberton]

Thanks. I did agonise over that part at the time I wrote it. I couldn't think of a more inclusive alternative, and chose something a little comedic on purpose ('ladies man') in the hope it wouldn't be taken too seriously.

Open to suggestions.

[roel_v]

Suggestion: ignore whiners like this who petition for 'manhole covers' to be renamed 'personhole covers'.

[thezoid]

Or you know... just name them to something generic like "sewer access point covers"

[dubfan]

Not all "access point covers" go to sewers. Some go to communication conduits. Sewerist.

[NickPollard]

I thought it was a great article, but I think it would be better if the image of the 'random character's at the start showed racial variation - saying that your character is totally random and then having a picture of 6 white people was a bit incongruent to me. Otherwise excellent.

[edent]

I thought it was fun. But the protagonist in every screen shot appears to be a straight white male.

Depending on how you're counting, that's about 15% of the world population.

Why not make it interactive, and let the user choose who they are? Or add more variation to the images? Or talk about getting on with people who "aren't like me"?

Good fun piece though.

[Breefield]

Sorry, you're on the frontpage, it's going to be taken too seriously.

I don't think anyone is actually going to catch the joke that generally speaking, entrepreneurs and ladies magnets are not actually "something bigger" at all.