Bartimaeus

Yeah...there's more criteria than just "attractive" here, especially if you're applying it to non-human characters that you have little to no capability of being attracted to. Banjo-Kazooie, for example, I think the characters are well-designed and appealing...but I'm certainly not attracted to them. Yooka-Laylee, in comparison, I don't like the designs as much - I don't think a lizard and a bulbous-looking bat are quite as appealing as a goofy bear and breegull. I want characters' designs to be appealing in some manner, not necessarily attractive: sometimes, it means NOT attractive in the traditional sense, and sometimes it does. Depends on the type of character and their personality and such.

Even so, the players did literally vote for the current CBA back in 2011. So while the union may not have been that great at negotiating (looking back at the changes that it enacted, they actually did have some decent progress for what they wanted at the time...but some of them then became self-inflicted wounds to a degree, such as the extremely limited practice time and the rookie wage scale), players did collectively agree to it. The funny thing is, I am pretty sure the commissioner's broad power wasn't even that big of a deal to them at the time - I don't think they expected it to be wielded like it has been, especially when they had their minds on other concerns such as pay and injuries. Now it'll be a big thing that they have to fight to limit next time, which means they'll likely have to concede even more ground to reverse something they probably could've easily nipped in the bud in 2011...

I don't disagree that the union totally failed...but the union only goes as far as its members (the players) want it to, and they collectively decided they'd rather take money now than fight for a better CBA. In other words, the players and their union are the same thing, and so they failed themselves by agreeing to the CBA. If that's the point you're trying to make, well, okay then. Like for most everything else that's wrong with the sport, though, I generally prefer to blame the NFL.

I mean...the NFLPA caved because the players caved. It's not like the NFLPA is some nebulous organization that has its own mind: it's a players' union. It was either cave or shorten/cancel the season...and no surprise, the NFL can suffer not having a season much better than players who only have an average career length of about 3 and a half years can. The NFLPA will never gain much power until the players get serious about actually holding out, which isn't likely to occur (especially given a strong majority appear to have awful financial skills). Sadly, this isn't baseball where players can play for forever and so could afford to lose seasons: the NFL knows this and exploits it to its full capacity. It's not right, but what can they do?

Well, unless the NFL wants to violate court orders that specifically disallow them from suspending Ezekiel Elliot for the duration of the lawsuit as a result of the case, I wouldn't bet on it. Maybe if they felt comfortable taking a gamble on the courts not interpreting the commissioner's exempt list as being a sort of suspension, but I doubt they'll do that.

While this particular judge seems to favor Elliot's side, from what I understand this case isn't that fundamentally different from the Brady case: the NFL makes unforced procedural errors in the trial (or appeal, in this case), and the lower level judge takes issue with it and sides with the player...and then it's appealed to a higher court, who realizes that while the procedural errors were stupid and arguably unfair by the NFL, they ultimately made no material difference in the NFL handing down the suspension, which they have extremely broad authority to give. I would expect EE to play the entirety of this year, but don't be surprised when the NFL ultimately wins this one next season.

I mean, it was obvious there was at least a decent chance when the judge specifically called out the NFL.

I'm hoping the massive problems this will cause down the line will eventually help move us away from using SSNs in the absolutely pants-on-head way we currently do...but realistically, I'm expecting it to just be swept under the rug like every other major security breach.

That's definitely on the more extreme (and non-negotiable) end of the issue, if that's the case.

This doesn't quite fit the thread, but a word of warning to everyone in the U.S.: Equifax, the second biggest credit reporting agency in the U.S., was hacked recently, and exposed private security information and the social security numbers of virtually every credit-owning person in the U.S., so beware of fraudulent charges and identity theft attempts. What can you do to preemptively protect yourself? Not much, because our country is retarded and uses a number we're all given at birth that cannot change and that is handed out like candy between different agencies as well as for job and banking purposes to confirm identification at the "highest" level.

There are varying degrees: for example, some people see the -isms as being a fatal character flaw - the person is irredeemable and not worth interacting with anymore. Alternatively, you could possibly see it as a sad reflection on some of the current problems/differences in and between different parts of society and possibly its (sub)cultures. Instead of immediately cutting that person out of your life and/or treating them like trash because of their views, you could provide a different perspective while backing it up with some sort of reason that appeals to them...so that you might influence their own viewpoint - and if it doesn't do anything, well, you tried. There are also definitely varying "reasons" behind -isms: some fall into the "I have no applicable reasons for my beliefs, and nothing you say is going to change my mind", but a lot of others are more of the "I think there are legitimate issues here with (x)" that a lot of us could probably agree are definitely problems...while making very different conclusions about them, their causes, and the ways to resolve them. You'll probably have an easier time appealing to the latter group with reason than the former, right? Meanwhile, if you yourself remain reasonable, they'll probably have an easier time of being able to bridge the gap in differences of beliefs and respect your viewpoint even when it's contrary to theirs. It's pretty rare that ideologues of any kind are any good at providing a decent discussion - regardless of whether one side is reasonable in their initial assumptions or not. ...I have no idea if any of this is applicable to the thread, because as mentioned before, it is indeed a dumpster fire and I have no wish to go back in. Furthermore, I'm not really one of the "reasonable" types on the internet, but that's mainly because it almost always feels like a total waste of time...but that's more about my own lack of patience and virtue than anything else. I am a little better in real life with these sorts of things, and I'm sure the same probably goes for most people when dealing with people we personally know.

Uh, wow. ...Glad I took Kareem Hunt late in my fantasy league?

Um...hmm. I don't ever visit the game-specific subforums: are they generally a flaming dumpster, or is it just that thread?

Me, I guess, because I can't figure out what this word is supposed to be...

The [.url] code is for making non-URL text link somewhere, like this. The [.img] code is what you were looking for, which just directly displays an image.

Well, technically, it's not necessarily video game-specific, but it's also not P&P-specific.

fixd

I have even more limited knowledge of the style than you (i.e. my opinion here is baseless), but it wasn't quite what I expecting for "ragtime", either. I decided to consult the YouTube comments to see if anyone had any similar thoughts. My only conclusion from opening up all of the comments and quickly scanning (and then searching for "rag") is that YouTube shouldn't have comments on videos that are more than anything besides mildly popular. No pearls of wisdom there, sadly.

Hm, what RPGs allow you to make a 10-year-old twerp as the main character?

Racist! (e: actually, real talk, he doesn't look thaaaaaat much like Mr. Fishburne - then again, I'm not sure if I've ever seen him when he was younger)

1. Developers really need to get a good handle on the player's intentions before locking them into something as important as a multiple game-long romance. BioWare, specifically, has shown no ability in being able to do this, and they're obviously not the only ones that have struggled with it (...even Obsidian have had their problems). @Valmy and 2. Yeah, it was pretty darned limited. The Mass Effects improved in this regard, at least.

Well, that was certainly a weird meshing of styles.

BioWare games are pretty horribly guilty of the second offense, going all the way back to Baldur's Gate 2. In Baldur's Gate 2, most characters of the opposite sex will literally not talk to you outside of a few pre-scripted one-liners (interjections) sprinkled throughout the game unless you commit to a romance with them...and if you try to demur, welp, that's the end of all of their conversations.

I don't feel that "[they] can't exist or will ruin the game" inherently, though: just that industry writing standards and constraints* are bad enough that there's a pretty darn good chance of making it worse. Characters usually make or break story-driven games for me: Undertale, for example, is highly character-driven, and the vast majority of the characters are well-written (although somewhat limited and not that fleshed out, Undertale being a pretty short RPG) and I like them (...there's one notable exception, but that's O.K.: just like in real life where you don't like every person, it's pretty normal to not like every character). Romances are a little different from normal character relationships, I think, though: simple friendships don't necessarily take that much to establish, but meaningful romances (i.e. not just a random hookup) do...or at least should, I reckon. I shouldn't be left confused by a game when I somehow entered not just one romance, but apparently two romances when all I did was just make some pretty normal small talk (Mass Effect). *Character writing problems may very well not be due to the writer themselves, but resource allocation on the overall project making it difficult for the writers to do things properly.

The two things are for pretty different purposes is why they're held to different standards, I think. Characters being unrealistically and conveniently located at taverns is clearly to service the gameplay, allowing you the opportunity to bolster your party and perhaps move the game forward if you were struggling. The "realistic"-ness of this design varies according to the skill of the game writers. Take Korgan in Baldur's Gate 2, for example: a crazed and headstrong berserker warrior is betrayed by his comrades, losing out on his favorite thing - money - and his response is to...uh, sit in a tavern and do nothing until you, an adventuring party, pay him money to hear his story and give him the opportunity for revenge? That doesn't make any sense: he should be out there bashing skulls already, especially seeing as he was clearly the strongest of his former group. Never mind that there's no reason that you, potential mercenaries for him, should have to pay him money for the opportunity to help him (...unless you roll high enough on your NPC reaction, anyways). Khalid and Jaheria, in comparison, have a pretty sound explanation for being at the Friendly Arm Inn: that was the rendezvous point they and Gorion set at a prior date, which works well enough as it seems Gorion had a plan and wanted to leave Candlekeep on a very specific night. What's the purpose behind writing character relationships and romances, then? In contrast to above, it very often isn't about servicing the gameplay at all, and instead presumably is meant to entertain the player in of itself, and sometimes to also move a part of a (sub-)plot forward depending on the specific game and relationship in question. Personally, I'm not being entertained if it all seems contrived, forced, and/or otherwise utterly farcical: its inclusion in the game has lost its purpose...or in cases like Mass Effect and Metro: Last Light where you have little to no input on the matter, it's actually made the experience worse than if it hadn't been there at all. Cringey nonsense in your game is a big net loss for me: it literally makes me not want to play anymore in some cases (particularly cases where the writing of the game is supposed to be a big draw like Mass Effect)...and so that's why I'd advocate for better writing and character/relationship development. I'm not going to read a book or watch a movie or TV series that I'm not enjoying - it doesn't even matter why, as long as I'm not - and it's the same for video games. And if some of your writing is so dreadful that it makes me not want to play your game anymore, I think that's a pretty serious problem worth consideration. It also, of course, goes without saying that some people are more forgiving of things they don't care much for: I'm not one of those people. Things that annoy me have the tendency to annoy me a lot. That should be obvious to most people by now in regards to both video games and a few particular members here.