SilentScope001

sorry, doublepost.

My belief is that you DO have the right to self-determination. So you don't have to listen to the Consitution. The Consitution says, "don't seccede". Fine. Then excerise your right of self-determation and fight against the Consitution, since the Consitution is meaningless unless you personally back that social contract. Do what Aram did, create Awesomeland. Or find an old oil rig and stay there, creating a brand new "Sealand". Nothing is stopping you. If you want to have international recognition and larger territories though, what you really need however is some military force. You need to basically create a military unit and FIGHT against the government. Obivously, the government will ban all attempts to fight it. And, in the long term, are you willing to fight against the government? I may hate the two-party system, I may hate having my land being taken away by the evil government, but am I willing to go and kill people because of that? Besides, it is totally democratic. The majority of people are against secession. Therefore, secession is illegal. There we go. Democracy does not have to mean "indivudal freedom", it just mean "rule by the people", even if said "people" decide to oppress the minority.

"Congrats! You Won! What took the American rebels 10-15 years of rebellion, you are now able to pull it off in a simple post! Awesomeland is now an indepedent nation, now able to form its own military and stay aloff against evil American imperialism! You are now the founder of a micronation, a nation that is not recognized by anyone, but still is a nation, by virtue of self-determination! You did it! Be proud of your hertiage, oh President of Awesomeland! For the people of Awesomeland will forever remember the great struggle you have made for indepedence! All I hope for is that you will be able to have a good economic and diplomatic policy to deal with other micronations, and that Awesomeland will one day succed in its goal of creating a new awesomer union."[/joke]

It has to be predominatly "Fluff our ego". I want to rule the world. I want to have chicks. I want to win. Honestly, you can have a mechnically sound design to have events unfold at the player's desired pace, but have it not be Mary Sueish, by having all the events go against the Player and end up ruining the Player. You don't want the game to be "anti-Sue", but you do want the character to have real faults, to have some people really do hate him, and maybe even a half-baked victory scene, where in the end, you question if it is really victory. You can have the player have REAL weaknesses, that can never be fixed. In this hypotethical CRPG, the Player can basically activate "Switch A" to progress to the next part of the story that will continue to humble them forever. But, we never see that being done by major CRPGs. The levelling system allows for powergamers and twinkers to ensure that you can be powerful at everything. And in KOTOR I and TSL, you do indeed get powerful, just due to the easiness of those two games. You have no real faults, in gameplay matters, and in negogiatons. Fact is, game devs don't want to waste time creating such things, because then the players will be offended that their favorite character (their main character) suffers. Players play a game to have fun. Getting kicked and beaten the snot out of makes for good reading, but not for good gameplay. Ego-stroking works. True, but that all depends on the writing skills of the persons both playing the game and writing the game. I already written arguments against the dev's side, but on the player side, it's a bit hard to justify spending too much creativty being spent to make a brand new unique character that only YOU will be able to enjoy (since it is only you that play the game in a certain way). Better to indulge your fanasty by playing as a Mary Sue in video games, and when creating other forms of media, make characters that aren't Mary Sues at all. (Unless you are creating a 'serious video game', like say, "Peacemaker". Then you will need good writers to create serious, non-Mary Sue characters.)

The idea that Chris had of not playing the game for the first two months is BRILLIANT. You can come up with a brand new story, and then modify the events after K1 to jury-rig your new story idea in there. No sequelitis. Altough I should leave before the lynch mobs come and tear me apart for defending Obisidan.

I may be interested in some sort of "Double Agent" clone. Say, you are a terrorist who hates the evil American Devil. So you, on orders from the leader of your revolutionary movement, joined up with the CIA and acted as a double-agent, secretly undermining the USA while pubically working for them. Finally, though, you have to make the choice: Reveal your true idenity as a "defender of Good" (aka, the Revolutionary Movement), or defect to the "Bad Guys" (America). Hey, a new prespective on world events sounds like something that should be explored.

Just taking a long time, you know. The consitution, as it is, is very pro-military, so it will be rejected by western nations and the pro-democracy activists even if it was completed. Mynmanr claims that the polls were basically fraud, and there were mass irregulatries. Hence, the polls be annulled. A note: I guess I really don't want to either condmen or support Mynmanr. I don't like being motivated towards hate to any nation. It just feel wrong to me to scream and vent. So I'm just relating whatever is the offical Mynmanr position is, and you can just dismiss it or laugh at it however you so desire.

Well, China DID pressure them. Pubilcally, they called for peace in Mynmanr, for all factions to come to the negogiating table and that they expressed "concern" about the current crisis. That's the strongest stance they have taking on Mynmnar. Privately, it was due to Chinese pressure that the protests has lasted even this long, before the military snapped and attacked back (the military claimed that they were being provoked by the monks, who were attacked them first). But China is worried mostly about instablity. Bascially, what would happen if the government of Mynmnar falls? You got insurgencies in the North after all. And experiments of democracy in third-world countries usually end in failure, corruption charges, and human right abuses. It is rumored that China would be okay if the government of Mynmanr gets replaced, but it would not like that, due to the instablity of a democracy and the fact that it would end up causing for their oil supply to be threatened. (I did some research on Chinese positions becuase I am representing them in the Model UN this Saturday. Hopefully, they won't talk about Mynmanr though, it's a major embarrsment, and I think it's just going to cause deadlock.) Also note that all of Mynmar's allies, even the offical newspaper of Mynmar itself, calls for democractic reform. The Mynmanr government is trying to draft a consitution for democracy. However, many of the democratic proponents call it a sham, and that it's only there to "legalize" the military control.

Uh. Isn't Gold NECESSARY to purchase items to begin with? Though, now that I think about it, selling Gold can easily cause for hyperinflation, as since gold miners are spending more time "creating" the gold, they can flood the economy. Thereby increasing the gold prices of items overall, forcing people to actually buy gold since they have to spend more time grinding for the gold.

In defense of RMT: ...Is "grinding" really that important to experience gameplay? Killing the same rats and monsters over and over? If someone wants to go and not do that, why not? In fact, by having a price tag on items, it just showcase that the time you spent grinding is WORTH something. ("Hah, moron. The guy spent $600 for a Maxed out Character, and I got it for free after spending 1 month! That means that 1 month=$600.") Not to mention that those who engage in Gold Mining usually just re-register their accounts and go back to WoW to mine. It has been speculated that the banning of gold miners only spur them to buy new software...which may very well be a subtle "tax" on the RMT indursty.

How absurd... ...because the going rate for powerful WoW Characters are about $600, tops. Guy got ripped off bad. Hey, listen, Mr. Idiot. Get over it and buy another character. WoW will never know the difference.

Is that a bad thing though? I know many SW fans hate TSL. A new series "reboot" may bring those people back into the KOTOR series once more. Sure, tough questions are forgotten, but then again, I sincerecly believe that the True Sith will be destroyed at the end of K3, so why bother asking? A new storyline may in fact be much more interesting to read and see. The reason the KOTOR game worked was because it focused on something TOTALLY different from the PT/OT era, allowing it to go into new places. By focusing on a different story, you return back to the main advantage of setting games in the KOTOR series (write any story you want without fear of having to follow some canonical structure).

I always considered both Revan and Exile to be Mary Sues. Think about it, you play as Revan/Exile, you can decide what you want them to do, you are uber-powerful, everyone falls in love with you, you are so rich and famous, etc. Mary Sues aren't bad, per se, as long as you are enjoying your own Mary Sue, but please DON'T let other people see them.

Yeah, but for both the former and the latter, I still say they are are special. For example, in All Quiet on the Western Front, some random nobody becomes a military trooper who is out killing the other side and suffering ethical problems and disappointment due to the endless War. I consider that guy a very important person, due to the fact the story is about him, and that he is "special" due to him seeing the light about how stupid the war is. They could be artifaclly made special due to the fact they are the main character, but still, it is this specialness that don't make them regular at all. But if this is what you are aiming for, then sign me up to your newsletter! For I am a fan of exploring the human condition and philosphy and would love to see that fisherman story. I guess I'd rather aim for exploring it through some philospher just dictating to me what to believe in though rather than have a person subtly encourage me to believe in something. There is however a problem in that are you really writing a sci-fi story: Sci-Fi has been defined as exploring not people, but technology, and how people react to technology (this means Star Wars is not sci-fi, it's fanasty.) Using this definition, how does a regular guy fishing have anything to do with technology. How can fishing showcase man's delimma with technology and how would technology affect that man?

Once upon a time, there was a craze about Deus Ex because you don't have to kill anyone to beat the game. At the time, I didn't really care for it...why limit your arsenal? But hey, it may be fun. But it comes to another point: I need to do it for a game that, well, I can beat already, so that I can use that information to prepare to beat the game without killing anyone. So, here I go. Boot up Super Mario Brothers (alleged to be a very violent video game, about 25 violent acts per minute displayed on TV), and will now attempt to beat the whole game without murdering a single indivudal, roleplaying as Mario, the Kantain Plumber and Peacenix Militant. I got through 1-1 easy, but 1-2 was hard because I was being ambushed by 2 Koopa Troopers on the left and a Goobma on the right side. However, I stayed up in a small enclave, and wait for the Koopa Troopers to walk back while the Goobma walks away before getting past. However, I lost all my lives in 1-3, so the game ended for me. So, anyone tried this challenge before? If so, are there any tips? I'm not so certain about gaining up Health Points (Mushrooms and Fire Flowers) to ensure that if I do get attacked, I get a few seconds to run and therefore, surivie without needing to murder anyone. It does seem to defeat the point of the challenge. I also see that the game changed from being a game where you defeat enemies to a pure Platforming game, as you leap from area to area, making sure that none of the enemies can see you and attack you. It's an interesting thing seeing the entire game changed when one rule.

The Onion is a satrical newspaper, meaning that it's hard to tell what they really do believe. It's supposed to be funny, making fun of trends, but humor is subjective. I think what The Onion really meant when writing that point/counterpoint is that the human race really do like killing for killing's sake, and they want to ridicule that by protraying that as a "legit" argument, even though it's not really... But explaining jokes takes away from the humor.

Er... like I say, The Onion is very funny. My favourite point-counterpoint: Point: Blowing wheelchair bound old men up with helicopter launched missiles is OK as long as they're terrorists. Counterpoint: Blowing wheelchair bound old men up with helicopter launched missiles is awesome. I wasn't shouting to you as much as I was talking to Sand about the off-topicness. My View: It's dark. The Onion's humor strays into dark territory and I enjoy it, but this one was just a bit TOO dark for my taste. Just because it almost sounded like a reasonable policy to do.

Uh. Greenspan Backtracks On Iraq War Oil Claim

Uh, I know this is the off-topic forum, but er... Can everyone please talk about Iraq in the "Bash Greenspan" thread? I'd like to focus more on the discussion of The Onion's article actually.

http://tinyurl.com/2ppusg

The game itself was quite fun, much more fun than Fable, and I really did enjoy playing it. I don't think they sell it anymore, but I'm sure you could attempt to find some SNES ROM downloads of Terranigma. Maybe check on ebay?

There was an old SNES game I played (an action RPG) with something that might be good. Terranigma.

My definiton of meaningful evil: Anything Evil that can be mistaken for "good". For example, take a dictatorship that forms right after the end of an apoc. Say this dictatorship calls for a great utopia, in order to protect it from the end of the world. The people must unite together against this threat of the outside, and they must stay united. Spies are everywhere, working for the enemy, and we have to stand together, work as a team! Collective unity! We are indeed free, but we also must stay vigliant, for they will wish to take away our freedom! You can speak out against the government, but don't speak out too much, or the enemy, the bad guy, lurks, waiting to smash us. Make the properganda convicining enough, make sure the player realize that the enemy is in fact a threat and not some stupid excuse for the government to stay in power (if the government is in fact staying in power, it must be doing so for another reason devoted to fighting a deeper, darker threat...in other words, basically, the same as above, only a added layer of conspiracy on top), have the government do somewhat questionable police brutality pratices, and convince at least some players that this is a great form of government (or at least, the least bad form of government), and volia, meaningful evil. The evil has meaning, you are doing all this to save your city...but well, at least according to many people's cultural biases, it is evil. Have it too that the other side works in exactly the same way as the first side, and you got ourselves a nice 1984-sque world. Actually, now that I think about it, The Grand Inquisitor is a perfect example of Meaningful Evil.

What makes you think Revan and Exile are Uber Force Users? All we know about Revan's skills is that he's a "great" general. I don't believe it, most people do, fine. Revan is a great general. That's it. All the Exile can do is defeat some Jedi Council members and resist Nihilus' drain. Exile has a special talent of Force Bonds, but it is foolish to believe that special talent suddenly makes him a very powerful Jedi. Revan and Exile can both be defeated, and probraly can be defeated by the original Jedi Masters...as long as biases in favor of Exile and Revan (really just biases in favor of the player's egos) are discarded. Neither Revan and Exile are uberpowerful, and I doubt the third KOTOR PC would be 'uber' as well, considering the fact that both Players are only 'powerful' in term of gameplay, and that is being done because the developers want to make the game easy for us to play.

Tale is referring to "Mary Sue". http://firefox.org/news/articles/6/1/Mary-...-You/Page1.html Here's a quiz to help evaulate if any character is a Mary Sue. Most people in Star Wars are likely to be Mary Sues, even Kreia. I can write up a story about an average person, but I don't know why. I mean, aren't we already average? I mean, if you really want to read a story about a bounty hunter who goes fishing, don't you go fishing, and then describe the whole scene "hi-tech"? It just sounds like a great way to write a "bad fic". Still, I might be interested in seeing it.