pmp10

Since I took a shot at that 'immortality tomorrow' article it seems only fair to link this for anyone curious about real science behind aging.

So, umm, yeah. I'm going to be one of those few people that thinks they should just go the full Shepard for combat. Obviously isometric, IE-style full party control combat ain't gonna happen, as much as most of us would like that. If they go all the way third-person actiony combat and have your companions act like squad-mates in ME, I think that would actually work. I'm totally ok with this if they can manage to pull it off. I really enjoy Mass Effect combat. I don't know if ranged cover based combat will translate well into hack and slash, but I'm all for a good action combat and not a mish mash. The problem being that party combat doesn't work well in single player hack&slash. But if they can pull it off just give me the option to skip all the stupid messing about with story and NPCs and I'm in.

I wasn't implying that this is always the case but I can't see why teens would be a special case if adults are willing. In fact confusion of puberty would seem like the perfect time to suggest gender reassignment due to better post-transition results. And in any event there is quite a lot of hypocrisy regarding various body perception disorders in modern society. People desiring amputations are seen as psychologically or neurologically ill and will never be told that they were born into the wrong body.

It's not that simple. It's true that some people are surprising socially malleable and could adapt to any gender role but majority has their egos strongly tied to the way they are perceived. Tolerance won't change anything here. It's also true that people with gender dysmorphia tend to be depressed and suicidal albeit that may be chicken and egg problem. But I do agree that in modern world gender reassignment is abused by people looking for perceived social advantages or fulfilling sexual fetishes.

That's just people who never mature. 99% of modern aging research is about selling BS products to hopefuls. The only known ways to significantly lengthen your life-span are castration and starvation.

The problem is not the option to jump but that gamer may be messing up when it's use is required. You can't trust your audience to do any trial and error or logical thinking. It would break down that cinematic feeling and could even produce frustration.

Oh no. Sooner or later the majority will notice that their ability to effect politics has dropped to near zero. They will just have to find a convenient scapegoat before patting themselves on the back and carrying on.

Apathy already ruled when the whole thing was blown-open. It's in the future that people will ask themselves 'how did things got this far?'.

I think I might still be in shock over that trailer. How is it even possible to turn Thief into people-power?

Hotline Miami 2 sparks controversy over a rape scene. IIRC the original had the player slaughter a entire police station. Funny that we still pretend to care about being the 'good guy'.

For starters you could just move-in while Ramadan was celebrated and use tear gas. Or surround the place and deny water. Or use nasty chemicals like you yourself suggested. Or not let them assemble in those numbers in the first place. In the end it doesn't matter because this situation is greatly beneficial to the military. All the international condemnation won't came even close to the benefit of this 'shock and awe'.

If the military wanted to solve this bloodlessly they would have. This was a deliberate show of strength on part of the new regime. In all likelihood this means they are hoping for some insurgency or even a uprising to happen just so they could crush it. If their position is really that strong they are under no danger of losing to MB. That means that the only question left is who will be the new Mubarak.

Was bound to happen with the Muslim Brotherhood sit-in going unresolved. Now we will see if military keeps a lid on things or if a insurgency develops. I doubt a full-scale civil-war is in the cards this soon.

They didn't just killed far fewer but essentially after one trial banned the practice all-together while the rest of the Europe was just getting started on burnings and executions. And that was Spanish Inquisition - as in loyal to Spanish Crown and not the Papacy. The whole institution has been absurdly mis-represented in pop-culture as evidenced in this thread.

That sounds about right. They can have a computer gathering as much data as they want, but you still need a real person to sit down and look at it to make any sense of it. I'm not sure I understand. Why would NSA need people for preliminary analysis and monitoring? Those things are easily handled by computers.

But that's a very big difference. Few hundreds years of colonization are ways apart from ethnic cleansing. I don't see a future one state working without one side subjugating the other. You could also make the argument that hundred years of colonization is worse that recent ethnic cleansing. I'm sure there has occured something similar to that at some point in SA history as well. Only about 100 years ago, Jews, Christians and Muslims lived side by side in Jerusalem. Is it that naïve to believe they can do so again? Neither Judaism, Christianity or Islam has changed since then. Eventually old grievances are forgotten, it's a pity people can't forget them quicker and get on with what should be their economic priorities. I'm not sure if I'd call this naive so much as 'wishful thinking'. Not only have all religions in question changed but almost entire middle-east has as well. Jews are no-longer the fringe minority they once were and Ottoman power is long gone from the region. The only reason you can say there was peace in those lands is because its inhabitants were a monotonous group religiously and ethnically. And that would actually justify ethnic cleansing as the permanent 'peaceful' solution to the conflict.

But that's a very big difference. Few hundreds years of colonization are ways apart from ethnic cleansing. I don't see a future one state working without one side subjugating the other.

You don't need to look to Dresden to find cases of selective memory. Any game about RAF is almost guaranteed to ignore the bombing of France. And even if we accept that bombing cities was murder then the list of targets is far longer then just Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And something a little more relevant to the topic: The (pre)history of Thief.

Company of Heroes 2 recalled from stores in Russia. Normally I'd say that's a stupid overreaction but if Relic is sticking to the 'historically accurate' line...

The same argument could be made for giving players the option to play female character and I'm sure those voice-overs cost a lot as well. Those decisions are more about maintaining standards and fulfilling expectations. It's just that expectations of old-school RPG players are no longer very important.

And here is where I disagree.Not only were casual fans always important but with wide-spreading of freemium models they are actually affecting the bottom line more than ever. Losing them due to behavior of minority of players is slowly becoming unacceptable to the publisher/developer. The best example is the tribunal system in LoL which is most likely the first serious attempt to police a f2p community. I didn't say they were unimportant. I just think it's pointless to try and create an online community for them. They're casual players, they don't have time to invest in discussion on a forum, by definition of being casual. But they do have money to spend.If they want to catch-up to more hardcore players by spending extra $ it matters to developers. If that was the case they would auto-ban people that spent the most and leave those without purchases be.

And here is where I disagree.Not only were casual fans always important but with wide-spreading of freemium models they are actually affecting the bottom line more than ever. Losing them due to behavior of minority of players is slowly becoming unacceptable to the publisher/developer. The best example is the tribunal system in LoL which is most likely the first serious attempt to police a f2p community.

If your players are 'passionate' this way about a game so to threated developer with death then you can only imagine the way they commonly treat each-other. You can leave it to fester but then normal players will be pushed out and the community will start to give you a bad name. And the whole Fish nonsense just proves how immature gaming community really is. Apparently devs and journalists included.

Who cares indeed? Remember when they tried to take down demonoid and those filesharing sites?

It has begun a long time ago. This is more of a small jab at ISPs to prepare for assuming control in the future. Once serious money gets their hands on those ISPs logs they will shape prediction algorithms and that will be that. Enjoy your freedom while you can.