alanschu

Sorry Walsingham, what is good or evil isn't a fact that describes the physical universe. Good or evil are defined by their subjective interpretation. The interesting thing is you actually acknowledge this in one post here, only to later state that evil is absolute. You state that the racism of the 1940s isn't "right," because that's way our society's beliefs have evolved. If you lived in the 1940s, you likely wouldn't feel that your racist beliefs were evil, because otherwise you wouldn't believe in them.

It's not strawman. You mentioned that it's easy to imagine how things would have gone had the results of past events gone differently. I contend that it's impossible to imagine how things would have gone with any accuracy. Given ideas of some things being objectively good or evil, coupled with your notion (and support for a diety) because "things have gone well," my commentary directly relates to the topic since my point is that the only reason why things "have gone well" is because it is in line with your current socialization. However, since you did just state that there certainly is some ways you'd still be the same, would you care to elaborate on which ways you'd still be the same? Conservatism extends beyond fiscal policy, and fascists are typically regarded as right wing for their socially conservative beliefs.

Look up "strawman argument". Perhaps you should, because it's not a strawman argument. What you consider to be good or evil very much depends on how you are socialized. If you were a young person growing up in Nazi Germany, and a part of Hitler Youth, you wouldn't be the same person that you are today right now. This directly relates to the discussion in this thread, particularly relating to your commentary about how things are flowing in the right way, as well as Walsingham's following quote: "I would have thought it was fairly logical to observe that rather than history moving inexorably towards your notion of right it was more probable that your concept of right had been shaped by the direction history already took?" I'm not saying that you're some monster or anything. I'm saying that if you grew up in Nazi Germany, you'd have been socialized differently and would have different views of what is right/good and wrong/evil. The same goes pretty much for any culture. Heck, you can see it easily on this very forum. Not surprisingly the people that tend to be the most right-wing (which isn't a bad thing), tend to be American. Those that feel unchecked capitalism is bad are from Europe, and especially the Scandinavian countries. I'm Canadian, and not surprisingly I'm pretty pragmatic about everything. It's easy to say that things are flowing in the right way, when you are living in, and socialized by, a nation that was on the winning side of the conflicts you gave as examples. Then I'll adamantly argue against you. I tend to be a believer in moral relativism. Neither of your examples are good ones. Hitler wasn't called a demagogue for nothing. It's only after the fact that he gets regarded as evil, but he was hero worshipped at the time. He doesn't enact his policies if he doesn't have the unwavering support of his people. He still gets hero worshipped by some today, though it's definitely not socially acceptable to do so in any mainstream society, so it's on a much smaller scale. Mother Theresa faced criticism from people because her beliefs about suffering being a road to salvation meant that she wouldn't actively prevent people from suffering, because she felt that through suffering people would grow closer to Jesus. According to David Scott, Mother Theresa's efforts were devoted to keeping people alive, but not actually addressing poverty. Whether or not you agree with Mr. Scott, he's not alone in feeling this way, and IMO counters any idea that Mother Theresa is considered universally good.

So what you're saying if the nazis had won, I'd be a nazi. Well how come I wasn't a communist when the communists won? There's such a thing as objective good and evil. This post is baffling. I'm unaware of any time that the United States of America was subjugated and/or defeated by Communist forces. If you're referring to the Communists being the ones that got to Berlin first, then no one is going to argue that. But the democratic nations of the Allied forces were most definitely "winners" in WW2 as well. Last I checked, you are living in the country of one of it's key contributors. Futhermore, he wasn't saying that if the Nazi's had won, you'd be a Nazi (I'm skeptical that Hitler would have concerned himself with the United States if the United States hadn't bothered to get into the war). However, if you think that you'd still be in any way the same person you are today, if you had grown up with compulsory Hitler Youth participation, I'd say you are sorely mistaken.

It's pretty clear he's referring to Wrath of Dagon, not you. Having said that, if a society was able to flourish that encouraged raping people to death, that society probably wouldn't consider raping people to death an evil thing. The thing is, social memes are somewhat organic themselves. A society that encourages and supports raping people to death is likely going to experience some social Darwinism because those traits don't seem to be ones that are very good at ensuring a society's survival. What's good and evil is very much dependent on subjective beliefs and interpretations. That (as far as I know) no society would consider the mass raping and murdering anything but evil is not proof that it's an objective evil. It's just a demonstration that no society that exists today places positive societal value on those actions.

Here is a wikipedia link to the people that died the first winter in Plymouth. My original reading had me reading at this page. This link shows a timeline of the Plymouth plantation. The wikipedia link states that March 16, 1621 was when the first formal contact with the natives was made. The most recent link states that March 22 was when a peace treaty was signed. However.... My "according to wikipedia" comment specifically was about how the Church is still involved in Thanksgiving in the United Kingdom. According to this page, says it is referred to as Harvest Festival, and originated "in churches in the year 1843." The link also states "The celebrations continue till date in the rural communities. Children sing hymns, and gift fruits and vegetables." (Note, it says "The celebrations continue till date" which doesn't make much sense to me. I interpret this as being "to date," but perhaps some of our favorite Brits could enlighten us of any potential bizarro slang they may have )

I don't think the debug commands would help you in this situation. Boxed DVD version, regular, which gave Shale for free. The most likely explanation was that the downloaded DLC was faulty, which is why I redownloaded; maybe clash with mods, so I got rid of all mods and overrides; now I'm stumped. do you know if Dragon Age keeps a cache somewhere? If I can clear that I can try and re-load the Shale Nightmare area... If you have a DVD version, this shouldn't be an issue (it seemed to be more of an issue with digital downloads, but here is some possible workarounds: http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/58/index/294757 You have probably already seen this one, but just in case: http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/58/index/81613 Sorry that you're having problems The only cache area I could think of is that some stuff might be saved in your "My Documents/BioWare" folder. Outside of that, the only other area I can think of would be the main folder the game gets installed to.

I am certainly not in that group.

That rape myth is appalling

I hate that argument. It might have carried some weight if the game were based on a licensed property, but this is an original IP that Bioware had full control over. They wrote the lore to support their efforts to make a fun game. If the lore is screwing up game elements and making it less fun for the players, you don't just shrug your shoulders and point at the lore, as if Moses brought it down from the Mountain. You change the freakin' lore! I completely disagree with any notion that the game is otherwise NOT fun with any class other than the mage. I also cannot say for certain that the people that enjoy the lore the way that it is (and hence, have more fun with experiencing the story) are outnumbered by the people that find this issue to be significant enough that their enjoyment of the game is significantly curtailed (and hence, have less fun with game). There are genuine issues with the game that hit a large amount of people, but I don't consider this issue to be a significant one, compounded by the fact that (as you mentioned) it's a single player game balanced for a 4 member party. And quite frankly, I like the mages the way that they are. The fact that they have a 4 person party member, completely with two joinable mages in the game, the foundation for complaints starts to become compromised. The game was also NOT balanced for solo play, so the fact that one class finds it easier to solo the game is a side point. No time at all was spent ensuring that that type of balance existed. Will some arrangements of party members be more powerful than others? Sure. This is common across any party based game that I have ever played, original IP or not. Wasn't BioWare's claims of a low magic universe from a long time ago. It seems more to me that, over the course of it's 7+ years of development, aspects of it changed. It'd be absurd to hold the game to claims from that early in the development since a game that takes 7 years undoubtedly takes that long because there are speed bumps along the way.

And a boondoggle on our part. I am curious though, are you playing with a digital version or the boxed version?

From a story/lore standpoint, Mages should be pretty powerful. If they balance the game, I hope it's more because there is a multiplayer component. I definitely agree that non magic users should be balanced, but I'm a bit torn about the mages. Ultimately I guess if they feel the gameplay concession is better, then that is the way to go.

The only advantage strength had for me was utilizing bigger weapons. I found I did more damage in combat with two later game mainhand weapons, but even then my strength only peaked at like 25 or something (with a +2 boost). The vast majority of my points went into Cunning.

Unemployment rate should actively count people that are not employed and looking for work. Counting this can be tricky, because someone that hits the phones and goes to interviews etc. but doesn't get counted due to not being on unemployment or having access through other means. It seems like reported numbers are at best a lower bound.

Volourn makes an interesting point. People point out the useless spells, but it's very important to remember that whether or not a spell is "useless" often depends on how people play the game. When I've taken feedback for various skills reported as useless, it's not uncommon for the discussion to report on people that have found various spells very useful (and not even just in a niche place either). The same goes for the class discussion. I should note though, from a talent perspective, there are talents that have generally been regarded as less than useful, so feedback in that regard certainly isn't pointless.

That's true but that's not necessarily a debunking.

Yes I happen to enjoy the game a lot hahaha.

Remind me: General Relativity is pretty much "just" Special Relativity with gravity taken into consideration, right? All I remember at the moment is General Relativity was much harder to understand than Special Relativity

Will be an update coming soon. I just got distracted by the magnificently well done Company of Heroes >.>

I'm certainly not a Christian (or even religious), so it has nothing to do with my "xian god." Thanksgiving in North America certainly has religious roots though, and it evolved into a more secular holiday. According to Wikipedia, the British church is still actively involved in the holiday, with it being both a religious festival as well as a secular holiday. They also acknowledge that its roots are the harvest festival, which were also celebrated by pagans in the area. Yes I know, I never said otherwise. But we're discussing the United States history of Thanksgiving, are we not? Of course, all I had to do is add in one little three letter word and you get your panties in a bunch, and get confused to the issue being discussed. The history of Thanksgiving in the United States, and in particular the early colonists definitely has its roots in the religion of the settlers. It's not a bad thing, many people were religious at the time, so they thanked God for it. If they were like me, they'd just be thankful for the good harvest for being a good harvest, without the need to thank anyone in particular (except perhaps nature). Just because I don't believe in God doesn't mean I'll refuse to acknowledge the historical facts regarding the European settler's thanksgiving (or harvest festival, if you will) practices of the time. The first thanksgiving wasn't about the natives saving the colonists during the harsh first winter. In fact, formal contact with the natives didn't occur until spring the following year, after the first winter kicked their ass. Of course you already knew this, since you're all up on doing us all a favor and keeping us informed about our history for our greater good and all that...

An icewind style game would have to be more difficult IMO.

@Tigranes It probably has a lot to do with you knowing how to play the game now. Combined with any mods (such as respec) that you may be using, you're going to be able to cater the characters specifically to optimize the synergy with your party, which the game certainly wasn't balanced for (not that it was balanced in nightmare, but the difficulty ultimately is only bonuses/maluses to enemies/you in combat, respectively).

Since it sounds like the game is about a "Dirty Dozen" type story, I suspect every joinable NPC is going to have a bit of a screw loose.

It's probably more because I sold what I didn't need. My first open world plot I did have issue with inventory, until I realized that the necessity for keeping everything "just in case" like I often do in RPGs isn't required. Even during Redcliffe the only frustrating thing about it was that I had to destroy items to pick up stuff. But truth is the value of those items was a couple of silver, and I was never going to use them anyway. I didn't craft outside of a few inventory potions, and don't really care for the crafting system in the game (I think it's pretty meh in this game, and not particularly fun). I suspect that will cause a bigger issue (I sold all my frost rock for example), but even then the big caveat with my inventory space was almost always equipment (which don't stack like the other items, and take up an inventory slot for each one). Playing through the game the second time, inventory isn't much a problem (I still buy the backpacks), except this time I'm much richer earlier in the game because I liberally sell stuff.