random n00b

Wow, people openly admitting that DRM is just a useless moneysink? And thinking of ways to encourage people to pay for stuff without stepping on their toes? And Wing Commander is mentioned in the same article?! I'm sold.

"Out of sight, out of mind" is the operating principle of the penal system. Not "Justice". Sad but true. Which is probably a critical flaw. There are mental health specialists popping out all the time when something like this happens, saying that some individuals are simply beyond rehabilitation - they will never be normal, harmless members of the community. That's the force letting serial rapists loose on the streets after conviction, and it obviously doesn't work. This is what you get when you have lawmakers specialized at lawmaking instead of the matters those laws are supposed to regulate.

It's just rude to win the thread at post #2, m'kay?

It does, actually, but they are (unsurprisingly) going for a decaf solution regarding that.

To be honest, I haven't done it myself. From what I've gathered, it involves making a hell of a lot of noise (LAMs?) so that the guard outside will rush in and open the door in the process. Either that, or gassing Navarre so that she'll open it herself. Then you get the duck out of fodge. Not intentional, as you can see. Heh. Another victim of the deadlines. A shame, that option sounds like fun - joining the bad guys in a setting where they are actually bad as opposed to just goofy. There is/was a mod exploring that possibility, even. Don't know how much original content it uses, though.

Hahaha, this kind of dev talk is just WIN! That's why I registered here to begin with. Keep it coming.

You're kidding, right? Yes, I am kidding, you got me. Aww, no need to be bitter. Here. Ten years jail? Lol priorities.

Yes, we take our right to be rabid quite seriously, you see.

You're kidding, right?

Lobotomies for everyone!

You are also unable to distinguish between psychosis and psychopathy, apparently.

So does this mean that all Australians are officially underage?

Technically, you can complete the game without killing anyone, but not by design. Doing so involves metagaming, too. And in all three cases (Navarre, Hermann and Simons) it involves exploiting the AI to some degree. With Hermann and Simons, the script doesn't make explicit references if you don't kill them (IIRC) but with Navarre, she is officially dead even if you run away. Spector himself said he was disappointed with this aspect of the game... I didn't like that. It seemed too lazy a way to have the story progress by presenting an illusion of choice that was all too easily dispelled.

Considering that not even DX could be completed without killing *anyone*, I'd say it's not likely.

I'd say it's because mods restoring proper names are dead easy to make and pretty quick to appear anyway, so it's not worth the expense licensing them...

Yeah, it looks like the really good stuff (Gifted, Small Frame...) is gone. We're probably stuck with some 100 unremarkable traits that aren't a big deal. Forget about Sniper and Slayer, and welcome to the world of inconsequential choice where differences are purely cosmetic. Quantity over quality, obviously. But don't despair, there's beards! Bah. EDIT: Also, is it just me, or are they making it incredibly easy for a mod that allows you to shoot kids to be made? EDIT2: And there's a level 20 cap because...?

"Sparse" what? It seems that in the Fallout setting, the only ones without access to hi-tech gimmicks were the tribals and townspeoples of the first areas the player explores. BoS, the Shi, CoC, Hubologists, the Enclave... not to mention all the places like Sierra Army Depot. And man, that's just on the West Coast. But yeah, the Prez got whacked with the oil derrick, and that should have put the Enclave out of comission. I'd rather they didn't recycle baddies instead of making up new ones. The Chinese?

Yeah, that may pose a bit of a problem. Has it been made known which timeframe does the game take place in?

I lol'ed. Probably wouldn't be too impressed to find it running around in-game though. Yeah. The Enclave in FO2 was already more than capable of doing this, and in fact, it was supposed to happen if you fooled around with the computer in the nuclear reactor. The vertibird appearing proper was cut out, though.

Yeah, Common Law systems suck. Oh well. Nah. The fundamental pillars of the system are protected well enough against cojunctural action. Changing the statute in a significant manner takes more than just the will to do so. Unless it's done as a last resort measure, it IS an excess and the state is poking its nose where it don't belong. Just ask any mother. But yeah, you have made clear your willingness to bow to The Man previously, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that you fail to realize why this is tragic. Yeah, because birthing children and raising them is the same as getting some tax exemption. Great analogy, right there. Parents are generally not infertile, which renders this point moot. Parents ARE NOT required to pass any kind of screening to get the thumbs up from the govt to have children. And that's a good thing too. Also, why does the ability to biologically process food give you the right to take a crap? It's a basic physiological function, bud. The govt doesn't need to authorise it. If you didn't mean social equality, why all the business about kids having a right to nice parents and all? That has nothing to do with legal egalitarianism. I already addressed this.

Meh. Clear-cut cases are boring.

So, what you're saying is that individual rights should mean nothing if the state believes there's some random good reason to step on them. Woohoo! I like the way you think. The difference between all those and this particular case is that the parents were potentially raising a future nazi, but no action had been taken that affected OTHER people YET. That's where the state stops working towards egalitarianism and becomes Thinkpol. Your willingness to have your criterion replaced by whatever society deems "correct" at any given time isn't shared by everyone, fortunately. Wrong. It's based upon two idealistic dogmas, both closely related. First, the idea that the state can do whatever it sees fit to pursue a policy of absolute "equality", which in turn, is only possible if the Rule of Law stops applying to it - this potentially renders every other single individual freedom meaningless. That's why we have a system, you know? To avoid individual (and collective) excesses. The second idea is that the state must do whatever it takes to ensure social equality, for everyone, at any cost. That simply doesn't work, it's Utopia. If a balance between welfare and individual freedoms is to be had, inequalities will always exist. Yes, it's a shame that some children will have to grow up under terrible but law-abiding parents, but no system is perfect and it ultimately comes down to the proverbial lesser of two evils. THAT is rational, refusing to accept the shortcomings of an imperfect system and aim for the unattainable is NOT. That's all good however since all attempts to apply those ideas to the real world have been met with outstanding success, right?

The Constitution is the only one that has any enforceability value locally. National Sovereignty. By that rationale, you can also lose your right to live, since cops can gun you down. Flimsy. The fact that a right isn't a fundamental human right does not give the state carte blanche to violate it arbitrarily, which is the concept that you don't seem to grasp. Keep the emotionally-charged blather out of this, please. There's a reason why the state must circumscribe its actions to what is prescribed by law. No amount of appeals to emotion justify an exception to this rule. "Being terrible parents" isn't a crime by itself.

Hahaha. Are you familiar with the concept of "Rule of Law"? The state can't act in excess of legislation in any case. The right to breathe isn't mentioned specifically in the Constitution, either. That means **** and has zero to do with this. Should parents be made to submit to adoption screenings and in the case of failure, have their children taken away?

And yet, correlation does not imply causation.