Shallow

I don't really know the law about this at all, not where I live and certainly not where you live, but, provided the person complained to the authorities, wouldn't the dog biting her be cause for the the authorities forcing the dog to be put down? If that be the case you can't really allow your dog to bite back. In any event, the way I see it, letting a person kick your dog without defending it or reacting is sort of betraying your dogs trust in you as its owner, when you own a pet it is sorta your duty to ensure it gets food, water, protection from predators, and excercise, whilst yelling at the person severely enough might convey the same effect, I still do believe this is a valid argument for why limited violence would be an acceptably appropriate response, this line of thought still doesn't rationalize the standard human emotions regarding some animals, but it does rationalize an owner responding like Malc did.

As far as I'm concerned someone who goes off kicking a random dog on the street for no real reason deserves to get hit or bitten, someone who goes off killing a random dog on the street for no real reason deserve to get their teeth punched in. Obviously my opinion on this is 100% emotion based, and lacks real rationality and consistency with my general opinion on harming other living beings, but it just somehow feels so much worse being mean to some domesticated animal who trusts you to some extent and isn't trying to fight you nor flee from you than shooting some deer that's either trying to run off or just not aware of your presence, but that attempt at rationalizing things again goes against my emotions as I'd feel just as much rage about someone killing a scared stray cat as I would with a dog or a friendlier cat.

Again, my issue isn't with there being bisexual characters around, it's with characters who were intended to be straight being morphed into bisexuals, or characters intended to be male being morphed into women (or the other way around). I don't mind there being 3 bisexual characters in Torment, I mind there being three badly altered characters who practically shout "omg I'm bisexual isn't it awesome how [gamestudio that made me] is all inclusive and ****" , I'm sure they could've made proper bisexual characters, they were talented people, but when just randomly adding the bisexual element to a character, it will end up as described above. There is a difference between fantasy-steampunk diversity and rainbowland harmony inclusitivity, and hell, I don't mind inclusitivity, as long as it is done tastefully, and as long as every character who is into the pc isn't bisexual purely for the sake of allowing the pc to be either gender, when the story was built with a pc of one gender in mind. Technically Annah wasn't even a human, however, with Anita crying "Fallout New Vegas sexist I can kill hookers without anyone caring" right before the entire area would go into a nonsensical rage instead of just taking the "Not my problem, hell if I'm going to get killed for this" stance most people there probably should take, and with Anita having significant media influence, the people crying sexism without presenting a clear picture can have significant sway amongst the ones who do not check facts.

Yeah Alaminium, got the same feel from FFG, however there are like half a million things that imply you're supposed to be into her, Ravel never really morphed into anything that wasn't female for the duration of the game. I'll be blunt here, I strongly disapprove of just making people bisexual for the sake of the player getting to have boobs without being locked out of content, it feels incredibly fake and forced, it's pissing all over whatever idea the designer might have, diversity for the sake of diversity just comes out trashy, you'd now get people crying about there being no male love interests or whatever for the female TNO, you'd have people crying that there are no male love interests for male TNO, and if there is any forcefully inserted diversity into the game as the intended male character you'd be detracting from the game for everyone who doesn't want to play diversity rainbowland. Of course, with all that said, if you added a TNO with boobs, made it clear the gameplay wouldn't be altered and would just be identical as the gameplay playing a male, I couldn't give a ****, of course it'd still at the end of the day probably result in more complaints like "Black Isle believes all women are bisexuals/lesbians and stuff! Straight women oppressed for sexualization of women!", but if the devs are okay with that, so am I.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying, if you're saying that all new RPGs shouldn't pursue whatever storylines they please, damned be the things it means they can't include, then I strongly disagree, if you're saying that games that have no real content identifying the gender of your character, where you're already allowed to design your own character, might as well spend a bit of money on adding a seperate body with boobs (don't get why saying the t word that means boobs is any worse than saying boobs according to the forum censorship machine) then I don't see why not. I've never played AC, didn't really seem like my kinda thing, so excuse my ignorance, but isn't the initial concept supposed to be based on hashassin or something? If so it would seem sorta odd having female assassins, but again, I don't know enough to really comment, so I probably shouldn't have.

Those things are pretty cool.

Adding slurs and insults isn't meant to indicate intelligence or make you seem empathetical, it's generally a release of frustration, in this case pretty valid frustration over your debating style. The fact that someone can lose doesn't mean they can win, it doesn't have to some great personal moral victory for us that your side is pretty hypocritical, it just means your nonharassing regulars lose the ability to have a proper moral high ground around the whole harassment thing against our nonharassing regulars. Also, whilst only addressing the whole titleish "No one gives a flying pig about equality" thing you're essentially taking it out of context, you gotta address the actual statement he made, not just the title he gave it, if you want to seriously have a discussion with someone. Telling him to learn to debate like an adult is saying the exact same thing as he said, only difference is instead of writing it in a frustrated and annoyed style you're writing it in a smug and condescending one.

So we obviously have a disagreement of what inclusivity means, appealing to the fanbase is about inclusivity where you can play as a male or female. So we may be debating the same point? Also female characters in a game mustn't be objectified. This does not mean now the games will become "watered down gray tasteless mass" But if a large AAA gaming studio like Ubisoft doesn't offer fans the chance to play as a female then this is a problem that they need to address. This objective is relevant in most cases and of course there are exceptions If a game has a set protagonist, with a plot based on that protagonist, with a lot of thought put into that protagonist, why should there be an arbritrary version of that protagonist with or without boobs to make people who are strongly attached to their gender happy at the cost of any gameplay related to gender? Let's look at Pplanescape Torment, if it had added an arbitrary Nameless One w boobs Ravel, Falls From Grace, and Annah need to be stripped off all flavor, something else will have to replace Ravels main motivation for helping you out and later not being happy about you leaving, something else with have to replace Annahs reason for following you as well. Now, our new Planescape Torment could keep the content for males and make a barebone senseless Ravel for females, not give Annah any reason for hanging around you, but it'd mean extra work that a decent portion of the playerbase (men play chicks too) will never see, and anyone playing a female char would complain that the game massively lacks flavor. You gotta either remove all gender references from the game, build new just as good gender references for females, or just scrap the idea of a nameless one with boobs. Some games are built with multiple potential genders in mind, some with multiple possible protagonists in mind, some aren't, and it is good that some aren't, because those games are capable of adding much more gender specific flavor. I'm naturally biased here as I'm a guy, like most protagonists, and as I have extremely little internal gender association, if I woke up a woman, besides being very freaked out I wouldn't really care one way or another, but despite such bias I still feel it is a very valid argument that the more you try to push for everyone being able to fullfill their deepest desires in one game, the more bland that game becomes, or the more work has to go into that game for the same content per gameplay.

Generally inclusivity means stripping the game of anything gender specific allowing you to play as either a male or a female with 0 difference. Making games that "appeal to the whole fanbase" generally means a watered down gray tasteless mass that everyone can swallow even though no one will really be that into it. Individual games shouldn't be cattering to everyone, games should be specialized, the market is big, the market is growing, the market has always been branching, stop trying to tie all the branches together, all it does is create more bland "enjoyable for everyone!" content that sorta sucks.

Isn't the level cap at 12? Wouldn't every 4 or even 3 levels thus be more sensible?

To be fair, whilst the status quo in Iraq and Libya aren't that amazing it's not like Saddam or Gaddafi were saints either, Saddam was involved in some genocide, and Gaddafi had the whole ex-terrorist thing going.

Not really, or at least not significantly. It's the so- and laughably- called 'moderate sunni states'* (plus Turkey) currently partaking in the bombing that did by far the most training and arming of rebels, and who actively encouraged their own wacky bands of religious nutbars by preferentially arming them. Ironically, they're still fighting proxy wars in Libya against each other even as they 'cooperate' in bombing Syria, but they're the last people- even behind Israel and the US- who should be intervening anywhere in the middle east if you want anything approaching a progressive, inclusive end result. The oil can't run out fast enough so they can be cut loose and go back to being medieval totalitarian irrelevancies. Wonder how long it will take for Saudi tanks to roll into Yemen. They've already bombed shia rebels previous, having them running Sana'a won't be tolerated long given their response in Manama. *Bahrain, a sunni emirate ruling majority shia via oppression and having 6000 Saudi troops on call for any required liquidations; Saudi Arabia, largest exporter and financier of terrorism anywhere, run by Salafi/ Wahhabi extremists (same as ISIS, Al-Q, they just went off reservation and don't recognise KSA's obvious superiority) intent on exporting their medieval philosophy everywhere possible, plus the UAE and Qatar, who along with KSA primarily funded and trained ISIS as well as fighting each other by proxy in Libya. The only moderate state in that group is Jordan, and they've always been compliant in recognition of the Brits establishing the current Hashemite monarchy during the Sykes-Picot years, without that they'd be an irrelevant province in some other country. Yeah, meant to quote a post from Bruce claiming the US had 0 responsibility in the conflict in Syria dragging on, didn't mean to imply the US was solely responsible, or even close to solely responsible, obviously the various nonsecular Sunni states have had a massive effect down there. I fully agree that encouraging other outsider middleeasterners to participate in dealing with middleeastern internal problems isn't a good idea.

The US is responsible for a prolonged Syrian conflict because they trained ISIS and the other rebels. And as for Iraq, let's see here, removed a dictator who had strong control over his country because we didn't like his oil policies... then we didn't partition Iraq in the logical way, split it into a Sunni north, a Shia south, and a tiny portion of Kurdistan northeast, get everyone a second amendment so civilians have a chance at defending themselves from random idiots and the government if it decides to go all Saddam Hussainy on some minorities, then finally ensure all those states are properly decentralized. This would give the army reason to not just abandon their post, the civilians reason to resist, but it'd also mean the people bribing the US government would have to make deals with the locals, who would feel the effects of such deals, and it'd mean we'd have stable states, and we'd have less influence as our constant support wouldn't be needed. Libya is such a great example of a thing that worked, there isn't missing weaponry that probably didn't at all spill into other conflicts, there isn't a dead US ambassador, things aren't going to **** and decending back into chaos, Libya went great! The lower portion of your post presents why America style foreign policy is so terrible and needs to end. Just because the "greater evil" is Communism doesn't mean it's okay to act the way we did, the ends don't justify the means, at least not when the means are far worse than how they may have improved the end is good, all our funding of dictators and physchos resulted in was dead civilians, screwed over countries, and people in areas like South America, who'd probably benifit from communism being badly exploited, the only good thing we did during the timeframe was join the Korean war, everything else is pretty disgusting. Generally the Arab Spring was a failure, the only places that have improved were places that kept their initial leaders in power, gave out some liberties, and then outlasted the protests. Egypt, the best result besides that, exchanged a moderate dictator forcing people to coexist, with islamic extremists democratically elected, with a new more powermad dictator who doesn't care much about protecting minorities, or any kind of freedom that he feels could threaten him.

Despite all the brutality the civilians in ISIS lands still vastly outnumber the militants, the people there have the tools they need for the most basic defense, can't blame them for not wanting to risk life and limb over Iraqs government which alianates them, or Syrias other civil war factions who are gonna bring just as much violence, but in the end, civilians need to realize they have what they need to fight, and that it is their own damn responsibility to fight. If you're not willing to die for your freedom, why should other people be? If Iraq wasn't such a badly managed failure of a state the Iraqi civilians in the north would maybe prefer them over ISIS enough to fight, if the south didn't essentially have the army consist 100% of Shia southerners the army might've given a **** and not just walked away as they'd be protecting their home and not just a region their country doesn't want to stop oppressing and exploiting. Whether you like it or not it is however still ultimately your own responsibility to do something about it when someone wants to take away parts of your freedom or your life that you aren't willing to part with. The fault of this whole thing spilling into Iraq is on many people, ISIS for being ISIS, Iraq for being a failed state, the US for everything they've ever done in Iraq and Syria in recent history, but ultimately the blame lands on the civilians for understandably not giving that much of a **** and then demanding refugee status in Europe or for someone else to intervene.

The main reason ISIS has been succesfull is that they've stuck to Syria, which is in a massive civil war as is, and Iraq, which is one of the most incompetent nations in the middleeast, and badly needs to be split in three. The secondary reason is that they operate like a nonguerrilla army and not like a terrorist orgazation, which means that they'll need to bottoms up restructure their organization the second someone competent bothers coming after them. Then finally there is the fact that the civilians either prefer them to their current leadership, or are little entitled brats waiting for someone else to come in and save them, or demanding refugee status in Europe.

You're a bit hypocritical seeing as you'll flip out if people disapprove of journalists ****talking all gamers, claiming gamer only means some gamers for reasons. Feminists generally only give a **** about the female side of gender equality, whilst in the more civilized portions of the world men are generally getting just as screwed by lack of equality as women. A massive portion of people considering themselves feminists who aren't 100% casual about it aren't all about equality, they're all about benifits for women. If you pick a word as naturally biased as feminism, which is also used by groups who aren't for what you believe in, and whose structure naturally implies it belongs to those groups and not yours, don't complain when people don't agree with you regarding what it means.

What? You mean it's not fair comparing the absolute worst of one group with those who are considered the "best" of the other group? That's not really fair, moderate can be many things depending on who you ask and in what context, people who call themselves moderate aren't necesarrily moderate, and the more secular muslims who don't give that much of a damn wouldn't bother showing up to one of these things.

That has got to be the most idiotic article I've partially read in a long time...

Luhansk & Donetsk also asked Russia for aid, seeing as the coup wasn't democratic, and in the election prorussian candidates were beaten down, Luhansk & Donetsk are at least as legitimate as western Ukraine. And how is Ukraine a threat to Russia? US setting up bases there due to potential NATO membership, various chaos due to a civil war on your border (even if Russia hadn't aided the rebels in any way odds are you'd still see blood spilt in the east), and many other less significant things, Russian people would probably also get unruly if action wasn't taken against Ukraine when events there were considered particularly bad to the Russian people living there.

Ukraine is at Russias borders, the same way Mexico is at the USs borders, thus the situation in Ukraine effects Russia a lot more than it does the US, and Russia has some right to insure **** from Ukraine doesn't spill over into Russia, and some right to insure people with hostile intent aren't allowed to set up camp right next to them, you can't say Russia doesn't have some valid claim to not wanting NATO setting up camp in Ukraine right next to the Russian border. Secondly, and just as importantly, back when Gorbachov agreed to back off East Germany, an agreement was made that NATO would never be extended east, unlike Russia, the US promised to mind its own damn buisness. US is funding the Ukrainian army, is helping with training the Ukrainian army, is trying to dominate Ukrainian politics, no doubt was encouraging the whole IMF telling Ukraine to go kill some rebels and take back the east or they wouldn't get their money check, and likely helped instigate the coup. the US isn't exactly innocent in all this, not that Russia is either. I will however concede that generally speaking, the world would be much better off if ***holes from the various great powers weren't actively destablizing every other nation in an attempt to get their richies more profitable deals there.

Shouldn't political freedom in your own country be a bit more important than pleasing ***holes to the west of your country? I hope you're joking, because otherwise all critisicm you could possibly make against Russia being undemocratic falls flat on its face, the whole idea that the west has to the right to poop all over everywhere is stupid anyhow, Russia sure has a better claim for having some say in what goes in Ukraine than the US does, if the west had upheld their deal with Gorbachov and not sought to force the East into its sphere of influence we wouldn't even be having these problems.

I honestly don't get what Nipson is complaining about either, granted I disapprove of how it is being done, S&Ms system still does allow for a larger variation of builds by making resolve and perception worthwhile having, that larger variation makes minmaxing less favorable as it doesn't allow you to dump resolve and perception without feeling it in the slightest way.

There are far better ways to fix the banking system than nationalization, governments are just to bought out by bankers to do them. A. Inform the people that fractional reserve banking is badly broken, and that banks rely on more money being put in them than will ever be withdrawn at one point, they only have to be capable of providing a tiny sum of that money, after the initial fallout of all banks going bankrupt people will probably try out less prone to blowing up forms of banking. B. When a bank goes bankrupt, anyone earning more than a very minor percentage of the companies money, should be stripped of a very significant portion of that money to compensate the people who had money in the bank, this way we won't have banks declaring bankruptcy with everyone running them still being rich. C. Don't bail out banks, buy them out, if a company gets the government money check, they have no right to cry about big government oppressing them, if we absolutely have to give banks money for the sake of our countries not blowing up in our faces (personally I believe the companies can go to hell even if it means we all starve to death), we should force them to adopt whatever policies we want. The end goal should also be either slowly destroying the bank in a safe and proper manner as responsibly as possible, or earning back what we lost and then letting it go.

Well, from playing Badminton, I know that if you're in a 1-on-1 game and starting to get exhausted, and the opponent gets the upper hand and delivers powerful shot after shot that you can just barely defend against & recover from, it can take some determination to keep blocking them no matter what it takes until he makes a mistake that allows you to turn things around. (Rather than, having a moment of weakness and deciding to "give up & let him have the point".) Now I've never been in a sword fight (let alone a sword fight to the death ), but I can imagine conceptually similar situations arising there... So, I don't think Resolve increasing Deflection is problematic. I know this rationalization does not realistically explain why Resolve is the only attribute that increases Deflection (i.e. failure of the attribute system to represent things like physical strength or dexterity contributing to evading blows), but note that: It's no worse than tying weapons + spell damage to the single attribute Might (i.e., failure to represent things like physical strength affecting one type of damage but not the other). If we're honest, it's also no worse than some of the D&D rules in the Infinity Engine games -- we're just more used to those. E.g. how melee Thac0 was only affected by STR (i.e. failure to represent things like dexterity/speed/perception affecting to-hit chances). The attribute system is only part of defining your character's abilities -- even with +1 Deflection bonus per point of Resolve, the biggest factor for determining your character's Deflection will still be your choice of class (e.g. "25 + bonus" as fighter vs "5 + bonus" as barbarian). I actually complained about the lack of "realism/intuitiveness" of parts of the attribute system myself in earlier threads, but I've since made peace with it. It's meant to be that way. (In line with Josh's "gamism over simulationism" design principle, which Sensuki and Matt are also supporters of.) As long as they make sure the end result is fun and allows interesting choices, I can live with some impure rationalizations... A very valid and fair response, insane amounts of intuitiveness isn't a musthave for me either, although it is nice. I still don't see why there's any need to go down that whole road in the first place though, resolve can be just fine without deflection tied to it, heck concentration could be thrown out the window and replaced with something else, but tying two things to one attribute when one of those things could be about just as useful for nearly all classes seems a bit irrational.

I never claimed you said that, you did however say that the statement wasn't insulting at all, which it was.