Calax

Heh, I didn't realize that the Belial fight was what they were copying. I knew they were copying SOMETHING from D3 with that, just not exactly what. And yeah, they did a pretty serious retcon on both the Zerg origins, and Kerrigans relationship with Raynor. I was willing to let the Kerrigan/Raynor thing go in WoL because it seemed more like one of those "Character has a crush so he embarks on a crusade to save the crush". But in HotS they make it into pretty much "these two were passionate lovers prior to her infestation".

Eh, I had problems with them declaring that the Hero's Journey is somehow the be-all end-all of every story arc. I've been very vocal about my enjoyment of Suikoden V specifically because of it's complete disregard for several of the Journey's tenants. Your main character isn't some average joe that's given special powers, the war isn't some "bigger thing" that he's drawn into, he doesn't just outright reject his quest etc. And yet they didn't even really acknowledge the idea that you don't have to follow the Hero's Journey to have a good story line. In fact they seemed to run opposite of that idea (You'll take your stale story design, and you'll LIKE IT DAMN IT!)

Admittedly I didn't really get into 40k's lore prior to being a Starcraft fan, but it felt like in the manual the Zerg weren't "steal dna and evolve it right there and then to deal with specific environmental challenges" like the Tyranids are known for. Instead it was more "this piece of wildlife has pretty cool blades! *yoink*" with stolen genetic code being used on a more generalized basis. And the pace that it happens is straight Tyranid. Also they added a reference to the concept of a digestion pool.

Also probably because initially, the Zerg were more divergant from the tyranids. With SC2 they've moved MUUUUCH closer (for example, many missions include "harvest local genetic info so we can adapt to local environment")

I do feel like they pulled to much from the Tyranids (with Abathur's "I'm gonna keep making the swarm more perfect through GENES!" and the constant references to Biomass). Also, I feel like they put to much effort into characters that don't really go anywhere, and the one or two characters we should have had more time with, we didn't.

Yes, some of us are pretentious, but the thing is that, I don't know, it comes off less insanely "I'm up here and talking down to you about what we're talking about" and if people become to pretentious they're called on it and torn apart. I mean this http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/aesthetics-of-play Screams at me just how big a disconnect there is between them and the real world. They just parrot the paper that they reference at the beginning as their own, and completely ignore the fact that game mechanics, in and of themselves, are what set the video game genre's apart from Movies (which they use to say "THIS is what genres SHOULD BE in games!" at the start). I mean, just consider games in terms of movie genres. Action movies are about stuff blowing up, people hitting other people, and guns right? Well, you get that in everything from Sleeping Dogs to Call of Duty to GTA to Jak and Daxter 2, as CORE parts of the game. But they're all wildly different in genre because of how they play, and the fundamental designs. That's why I don't like them, points of their arguments just don't pass a basic test of "is this correct?" or end up being hypocritical. Another reason is that they don't even know who they're trying to talk to. In several of their episodes they keep saying "we, as designers should..." but then they also talk about several subjects from the players perspective, or try to discuss things as how the developers and gamers don't see the same things. And yet, they also are doing things from different perspectives to convey their personal viewpoint. In the second part of their religions in games discussion, they go on and on and on about Faith never being really seen (in terms of "a priest having to reconsile his belief in god with the fact that God isn't in the world" or "A scientist wrestling with the question of if their discoveries invalidate their faith") while ignoring the fact that religion can also be formed around people, and it's often seen in games, with characters loosing faith in their personal heroes, or feeling betrayed with the person they stored so much faith in is actually a dirty bastard. Similarly, they state that science is, at it's core, based on faith... which is ludicrous on so many levels I can't help but smash my head into my desk and desire to smack one of them (probably Mr. Portnow).

Also, you can get individual health care for you and your family not through work. It's just prohibitively expensive, so people get ti through their companies and are not even the primary client of their insurance.

What improvements have taken place are despite the efforts of our glorious, all-wise Barry, not because of him. So many people have completely dropped out of the job market that if they were back and actively looking for work, our current unemployment rate would be over 14% as a national average. Just wait until the implementation of ObongoCare truly kicks in and you'll see that scythe of his start to have a significant negative effect upon the economy. Except that the unemplyoment rate would be in double digits realistically for about 5-6 years no (since the 08 crash). In fact the reason unemplyoment jumped a few months ago was because the economy recovered enough that people were re-entering the workforce. One thing that seems to be ignored is that the work force won't increase if you don't make it attractive to work. At McD's we've been having a lot of overnight turn over because people don't like to work that shift and it's been getting a lot rougher due to increased traffic. While economic indicators for wallstreet may be low, for my McD's and franchise, it seems pretty good. 6% increase in sales for the year to date, and our store does 3 million in business so *shrugs*. As to the AF stuff? I don't think this would effect the GI bill, as that's separately allocated money from a different bill, so it'd only be touched if it was specifically mentioned in the legislation. The non-GI bill stuff would be hurt, that's certain. Although they could probably just cancel a few "projects" and come out fine without that, or sell surplus. And Tsu, stop using stupid names. Even those who are on your side for the most part, at least respect Obama (and from the flip side, Bush previously) enough to use his proper name without resorting to being a 10 year old twit.

Except that people aren't preaching. Even in the political threads, we don't have people talking about "the word" of a political stance, or taking their rhetoric to the level of pretentiousness that seems to crop up in Extra Credits. Nobody says I am flat wrong for liking the things I do, which these three (four?) do sometimes.

They don't report. They're not really reporters, more an editorial group. I think the issue mainly comes from the fact that basically all the "opinions" are ultimately written by their Dev, then the art is done, and the "speaker" is just assembling the final product. These are the videos that spawned EC. It seems like it's overall less preachy because it was a school project so he was discussing the industry with people who weren't part of the industry. Also the fact that he wrote it himself rather than James, while using James to provide a few quotes.

It's basically postulating that SpecOps is attempting some level of "interpretive" storytelling through leveraging the medium (i.e. game mechanics) rather than pure escapism of most games. Their SpecOps review basically pushed me to try the game and it was one of my favourites from last year. Well, they kept coming back to the "because you wanted to be a hero" and saying "everything after this point is the devs talking to the players". The view they gave was pretty grim overall. I don't like when somebody preaches to me about how things "should" be, and they are preaching about how stories should be told and development should happen. I don't want my entertainment to be an afterschool special... at least not obviously, which seems like something they're advocating some times.

I stopped watching them because, while they make a few good points, it feels like they're getting wound up in their own pretentiousness about various topics. They end up sounding like they're reaching to far with "this is how the industry should move" and "this is how players should be". The way they laid out SpecOps in their article actually kinda pushed me away because it sounded like they were trying to play a game that's narrative actively HATED the player for playing video games. Also, they seem to draw to much out of thin air. Amnesia is one thing, but IIRC they ended up talking about "story" in missile command, and trying to say that because the developer designed it with three specific cities in mind, we should all think about those three cities as the ones we're defending.

Orogun you are coming from a flawed premise here. We have anti-trust laws here (Sherman Act, Clayton Anti-Trust Act, Robinson-Patman just to name a few and hundeds of state laws), that you are not taking into account that would prevent exactly what you theorize would happen. I'd even take it one step further than suggest legislative action that borrows a page from the Glass-Stengal act that would prevent insurance companies from owning hospitals and Medical facilities and vice versa. That would fix your concern too Wals.I have serious suspicions that anti-trust laws are either laxly applied or a complete sham. I can think of too many examples of what Orogun says and not one of good ols Standard Oil style cutting up... AT&T and Microsoft are the two recent examples of Anti-Trust being put into effect. However the issue is that companies are going more and more multi-national so you'd end up in a Debeers situation, the monopoly is outside the company, and they use that to manipulate their profits in the US by being able to make and break jewelers.

Eh, I enjoyed WoL, but find that the campaign for HotS is... a bit lacking. I like the actual missions better (less "Oh noes! X is happenening so you have an artificial time limit!), but the between mission cutscenes and mechanics were... sparse. There was no jukebox, no News crew that kept you up to date on how your enemies were doing, no real between mission things to do beyond sorting out upgrades, and the odd evolution mission. I realize that they couldn't do some of that with Kerrigan, given you're a Zerg. However I would expect them to find ways to do certain things, like allowing you to see how your enemies react to you. Although, that doesn't work as much here due to the fact that there's no singular overarching enemy that you're fighting. There's a few other nitpicks that I'd throw out but that ventures to much into SPOILERTTTHHHHHSSSSS territory.

If your place of employment adheres to an "At Will" policy, you may quit without giving notice and be fired for any reason or no reason at all. This is quite common in right-to-work states and even in closed-shop states outside of the confines of union employment. A job is not a right; rather, it is a privilege and you need to remember this as you make your way in the world. However much you might want to tell off your boss, co-worker, or customer, however much they might richly deserve to be forcefully corrected for their piss poor behavior or attitude, doing so can cost you your job. So goes life. Yeah, no. Sorry but this is patently incorrect. Otherwise why are there wrongful termination lawsuits? At my store, they won't fire anyone without a HUUUUGE paper trail to show that person as being either incompetent or a toxic worker. Part of this is also unemployment benefits which come out of the employers pocket rather than the governments, but part of it is they don't want to leave themselves vulnerable to a wrongful termination suit. The stores I worked at in California were much the same (It's also a "right to work" state), they wouldn't/couldn't terminate you, and instead would not give you hours or suspend you for a short time. Yeah, and you know what? Rampant military spending isn't gonna help matters. The social programs you want to cut, aren't anywhere near the 515 billion dollar budget of the DoD. But I don't see anyone wanting to chop that down (it's bigger than the next 8 countries spending combined, including NK and China). And the social programs that would be chopped would be far less money than would be needed to yank us out of the debt. Yes, people want us out of debt, but when you start asking about the social spending that is the highest cost, nobody wants to touch it because it benefits them. And the loopholes that could be closed (tax wise) are mortgage deductions and charity deductions, Capital Gains loophole, and exclusion of employer health insurance/pensions (which ads up to about 500 billion dollars) aren't going to be touched because "it would wreck the economy". And welfare spending? Do you realize what programs those are? Here, I'll show you: Family Planning  Consolidated Health Centers  Transitional Cash and Medical Services for Refugees  State Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)  Voluntary Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit—Low-Income Subsidy  Medicaid  Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program  Breast/Cervical Cancer Early Detection  Maternal and Child Health Block Grant  Indian Health Service  Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) (cash aid)  Supplemental Security Income  Additional Child Tax Credit  Earned Income Tax Credit (refundable component)  Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)  School Breakfast Program (free/reduced price components)  National School Lunch Program (free/reduced price components)  Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC)  Child and Adult Care Food Program (lower income components)  Summer Food Service Program  Commodity Supplemental  Food Program Nutrition Assistance for Puerto Rico  The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP)  Nutrition Program for the Elderly  Indian Education  Adult Basic Education Grants to States  Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant  Education for the Disadvantaged— Grants to Local Educational Agencies (Title I-A)  Title I Migrant Education Program  Higher Education—Institutional Aid and Developing Institutions  Federal Work-Study  Federal TRIO Programs  Federal Pell Grants  Education for Homeless Children and Youth  21st Century Community Learning Centers  Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEARUP) Bolded the most important over all. I don't think you can say that most of those programs are going to the "undeserving". And one common misconseption is that unemplyoment and welfare goes to people who do nothing but sit around in their house watching tv and pumping out kids without working. Guess what? The minimum wage isn't enough to survive on anymore. And that doesn't even involve the upkeep of the interstate system and bridges etc. which would be partly cared for by the states (with federal help). The thing, however, is that the "advocation" involves being deliberately manipulative to make it appear that what they want is the public will. Aka usurping the public will and replacing it with their own. And to magically declare now that it's not a power vested in the government (to advance a social agenda), when you've got legislatures that force women to get trans-vaginal ultrasounds, the federal government stepping in to force the south to de-segregate, the "new deal" by FDR, and the 18th and 19th amendment on the books, is rather stupid. Oh, and on the Dave Crockett BS? http://radicalreference.info/NotYoursToGive

So, everyone should just the man the **** up? Quit being an ass. And quit trying to put words in my mouth. then it was never there in the first place. Exactly. Thats why I'm saying it's over diagnosed. Ultimately i'd say that ADD can't really be diagnosed until the person is an adult, as the "ADD" that's pervasive in High Schools isn't really ADD, at least not most of it. There are legit cases, but mostly it's just them getting used to their new identity and psychology.

The adults still have ADD, it's just that many of the teens who get diagnosed with ADD won't have it in 4-6 years time. Basically they just "grow out of it".

And they're sorting it out and giving away a free game to those who lived with the debacles.

To be fair, a LOT of children show the symptoms of having ADD, but when they finish maturing it goes away. If you're an adult, legitamate ADD is far worse than the stuff in your youth.

If they're not entitled to due process, then why is treason a legit crime? And if they're an american citizen, they get due process under the law. It's in the constitution, and you can't expect that you'll get magical protections for your 2nd amendment if you won't afford the same protections for the other amendments. And Tsuga, the "quote" I posted wasn't an actual quote. It was a point about the hypocrisy of the entire article. It's ok to re-define social norms if you've got the money to promote advertising (Mothers Day/Fathers Day) which make it a social no-no to ignore whatever stupid consumer "holiday" is being promoted, but it's entirely a-moral and snobbish to attempt to do that through law making. You're saying that the ruling class are in it because they desire the power. And that I, personally, am a member of that ruling class for supporting the politicians who are more closely aligned with my views than those of you or GD. The thing is, I don't want "Power", I don't want to "govern" I don't want any of that bull crap. What I do want is to prevent myself and those around me from being at the mercy of some extremist nutball, or a sociopathic nutball who sees me only as a resource. Without "Big government" I could be fired simply because I looked at a customer wrong. Without "Big Government" the south would still be "Separate but equal". The fact of the matter is, the same person who wrote your article, probably also wrote a similar one talking about how businesses should do their best to provide a moral, upstanding, christian marketplace. GD: I'd say no. The government needs to provide a shield for it's citizens both in terms of foreign disputes, and in the marketplace. Currently the government has the ability to do that because of it's size, and the scope of it's power. This is waning due to SuperPAC's etc. To a business, you, me, tsuga and every other person is just a customer. We are numbers, we are information to be bought and sold and traded for marketing research. Hell, without the Feds, your genetic code could be patented and sold by a company, and (in theory) your kids would be owned by that company in a strange stupid way. I don't want to go back to the days when "small government" was in place, and I could wind up working 80 hour weeks with no compensation and no medical care. Why is the insurance mandate good? Because it means that if I get sick and hospitalized right now, I don't need to have a "don't try to revive me" sticker on my breast because it'd cost to much to stay alive. My aunt spent about 2 weeks in a hospital in december because her heart was hemmoraging blood and she was having lung issues. She and my uncle are retired and don't have enough money for insurance. That one trip, by itself, cost her $200,000, meaning that she and her husband have to go back to work just to be able to pay for their food. Like I said, they're retired so the mandate didn't kick in for them... but what if that happens to one of my co-workers? I'm the only person in the entire franchise (6 stores) at my level (Swing manager) who has proper medical insurance. If any of my co-workers gets badly sick, they are SCREWED! And for the record, my insurance is about 1/5th of my paycheck.

Eh, yeah. Games in general and online gaming in particular gives that level of anonymity that allows people to come out of their shells more. You wouldn't see a 12 year old go on a racist rant about arabic nationals who may or may not be in bed with his opponents mother (who is now black) face to face. By the same token, text can be a lot easier to communicate through because people don't like to just talk right over each others lines, and text organizes it. As to ADD being caused by games? Hell if I know, they're asking if there's any form of connection, which I say there probably is. But I also say that not everyone diagnosed with ADD has legit ADD. I'm pretty sure I'm ADD because I'm the guy who has to get smacked because I enter a 1000 yard stare at the drop of a hat.

It's more "I'm a man and you have no business in my house" if you want to play semantics. Besides, the Capitol Building is far more important as a symbol of government than the White House. It's just that we see the White house more because the guy who lives and works there is rather important.

I'd say that games are more attractive to people with ADHD. And the socially awkward (provides a good "shield" if you screw up socially). Also, I'd suggest that not everyone who has those symptoms has ADHD. I mean that's probably the most over diagnosed mental disorder in america (with most kids between 12-18 being diagnosed at some point).

The article you linked is certainly........ backwards. Or at least circular. "You don't have to have money to be a part of the ruling class, and not everyone with money is part of that ruling class, because the ruling classes are trying to legislate how you spend your money and give it to themselves, while those who are rich but not part of the ruling class, are just trying to get your money the old fashioned way, with psycologically manipulative marketing"

Then wouldn't YOU be part of the "ruling class" as you share more views with "titans of industry" and those in power than I.