BruceVC

I think its terrible that Alan isn't active anymore, I miss his insights But I don't think his absence has that much to do with the timing of the release of DA:I

Valid point, not all Dinosaurs have the same popularity

Gorgon I don't think you understand the appeal of these series These are the movies with Dinosaurs in them....you underestimate the allure of Dinosaurs

This is good news and will be a "must watch in 3D " for me

Not sure I understand what you mean, links to explain? So, Nintendo is putting out this silly Tomagotchi Life game for 3DS. I haven't played it, but it looks all types of weird. Apparently you couldn't do same sex marriages in the game, so the LGBT Nazi Mafia got the outrage machine going. Nintendo was all, look, it's just a game, we weren't even thinking about it, we weren't trying to make a social statement. but by that time the LGBT Nazi Mafia was already throwing rocks at Nintendo and setting their buildings on fire, so Nintendo had Mario and Link french kiss or have butsechs or something. Note: I may have exaggerated a tad, but that's the gist of the story. That's an interesting story, thanks for explaining

Not sure I understand what you mean, links to explain?

Good point, I did Romance her in the original and she said she loved me at the end. So even the thought of Romancing her again would feel weird

I guess that clears that up (hopefully). Squeakymeister the reality around this safe zone is it is a place where only lady gamers can be active. So yes in that respect its "unequal". But I think most people understand this is due to the circumstances and have no issue with that

I guess that clears that up (hopefully). But don't you need a safe place? Someone could get down on you for being too squeaky. Just because Squeakymeister doesn't feel the need for a safe place as a lady gamer this doesn't make the objective of providing one for lady gamers, if required, less relevant

Nonek I'm surprised you think this topic is a joke. For me and many others we take it very seriously I'm going to be posting a much more detailed post asking you a few questions, this is to continue our previous discussion where you said that white, heterosexual sexual males are equally discriminated against compared to other minority groups

Okay I understand your concern now. Its around the logistics and trying to manage such a global project, I agree that does seem like a challenge. But as far as I know all the previous AC games were developed around the world as well ?

Bruce saying historically that white males have not been discriminated against is extremely foolish, I know that you feel the need to parrot the latest popular slogans but please think about what you're saying. Ceaser's invasion of Gaul for instance, with casualties and those enslaved in the millions all commited by Mediterraneans against Germanic folk, hardly a comfortable and easy life being slaughtered or condemned to a living death in the slave mines of Syria. The young Englishman and Americans starved, beaten, worked to death or beheaded during the far eastern operations of World War 2. The vast multitudes who died in agony when the Bubonic Plague swept into Europe. The working classes who slaved away in the factories of the early Industrial Revolution for a pittance, and died in their thousands, but were an acceptable statistic. I could go on to cite hundreds of examples, and many of them would be present day problems amongst white heterosexual men, indeed there are millions of unemployed and unemployable men in England who must rely on foodbanks to support their families. A shameful situation in one of the richest countries on Earth. If one is rich, gainfully employed and fits within societies roles then one may indeed have an easy life, that is the benefit of having our forefathers work hard, sacrifice and die for their childrens betterment. That sacrifice should not be forgotten or looked upon as a bad thing, they gave greatly to help their countries, and were not rewarded for it. But still there are endemic problems in western society and they affect white men just as much as any minority, to say otherwise is the blinkered rhetoric of spoiled idiots with no experience of the real world. There is a problem with a privileged elite ruling society in England at least, and the current state of politics ensures that whomever is voted for they will still rule, but that is a seperate matter for discussion. Saying that white men face no problems is silly, they are discriminated against in their own country, which their forefathers fought and died for. Just the same as a poor African in a shanty town is discriminated against by his own people, that is the broken nature of society. The sensible thing is to raise everybody not cry guilt and privilege, and to see a safe, orderly and respected existence as the basic right of everybody. Equality not segregation as you argue for. No Nonek, I am surprised that you have misunderstood my posts. I thought I was unequivocal I have used words like "generally and " equally " meaning of course there are examples of discrimination against white males but not to the same degree as minority groups. I live in a country where Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) is legislated and enforced and arguably this is a form of discrimination as the color of your skin determines if you can get a job in many cases . This is done to address historical economic injustices But once again the overall discrimination is worse and more prevalent towards minority groups

I'm not sure what you mean by mess? The AC games are very stable and have a huge following. For example I have played every AC game except for Black Flag

No Monte despite what you think and how you see yourself when I raise issues of social justice its not about me at all. I am a white, heterosexual male. My life is great and I generally don't get discriminated against

Not sure I get your point, I think Jews are a minority group that also gets discriminated against because they are Jewish. Not because they are white males I'm not surprised, Bruce. You seldom get the point because the more open-minded you try to be, the more it closes. Intellectual curiosity is seldom a feature of the liberal Left, it tends to get in the way of prefabricated ideological certainties. My point is that there are more metrics to 'diversity' than gender. Or race. Or religion. Or sexuality. You say 'white men' are traditionally not discriminated against. What if that white man happens to possess another metric that opens him up to discrimination? Of course, this leads to a politically-correct game of top trumps where we can all compare our diversity scores (You're Jewish! Yay! Gay too? thats FIVE POINTS! I'm white. Shame, take away four points). I've seen otherwise sensible, well-educated people wander off down the blind alley of gender and identity politics far too often. We can all be discriminated against, and that discrimination can be for trivial things with profound circumstances. I remember once losing out an amazing career opportunity because a female colleague was a die-hard fan of the same soccer team as the boss. They went to games together and spoke of little else. I got on fine with them both but found soccer dull. My female colleague was nowhere near as experienced as me, nor suited for the assignment she was given. She still jumped on the opportunity like Tom on Jerry, totally oblivious to the obvious nepotism at play. It wasn't sexist or racist or soccer-ist. It was Life. I manned-up (see what I did there?) and got on with it. This is your First World dilemma, wandering around in circles crying about boob-plate and Anita whatever she's called. Meanwhile bastards kidnap girls and sell them into slavery due to their gender and religion and you still wander around in circles crying about boob-plate and Anita whatever she's called. There are millions of women who would love to have nothing more urgent to worry about that their depiction in video games that cost six months salary in their countries. * sigh * I'm sorry you have had such a tough life Monte and been the victim of discrimination, because it was unfair how you lost out on that job and I would be very annoyed if it happened to me. But maybe thats why you can't empathize with the issues I raise, you are jaded and refuse to identify with them. But this doesn't make them any less relevant Also nice Strawman with the insinuation that I don't care about "real world" issues like the Boko Haram kidnapping. You have no idea what I have done in my personal capacity to raise awareness around this appalling development. I did create the thread in the Off Topic section to stimulate debate but thats only what I have done on these forums and not what I have done outside of these forums

Got a b-day dinner tonight at a really popular and funky restaurant called Licorish Bistro. Check out the menu, I am definetely going to order something with Bone Marrow http://www.licorish.co.za/

Thats not a bad post of one definition of an RPG but I want to add to it. An RPG must allow you do adopt a certain playing style of your choice. How could you Role Play if the game doesn't allow this? You can call them that even when playing a preset role. You always have limitations imposed on who your character is and what they would do. Especially in older RPGs that didn't allow for major character alteration and offered no meaningful choices. Okay good points. But many of the older RPG always didn't allow meaningful choices as you said so what is the more accurate definition of an RPG?

Thats not a bad post of one definition of an RPG but I want to add to it. An RPG must allow you do adopt a certain playing style of your choice. How could you Role Play if the game doesn't allow this? Also Romance must be included to be a real RPG ( Thats a joke )

I finished Deus Ex : HR last night. Its a good game, A solid 68/100 on the much respected " BruceVC gaming rating barometer" Its a good story and I liked the various augmentations. I particularly enjoyed hacking and turning the various robots against enemies. I bought Spec Ops : The Line this week so I start on that today

Not sure I get your point, I think Jews are a minority group that also gets discriminated against because they are Jewish. Not because they are white males

y'know, that is one o' the real tragedies concerning shockley. the guy was freaking brilliant, and his initial research had value. african-american kids did indeed have iq scores that were averaging 15 points lower than caucasian counterparts. coulda' gone a dozen different directions form that start point. unfortunate, America called shockley a bigot, and shockley seemed to almost revel in being cast in the role of Villain. what a waste. HA! Good Fun! Thats an interesting research statistic, what was the main reason given for the difference in IQ scores?

Well your original argument wasn't clear. In any regard, I will grant you that most white people do not face any real harmful behavior because of their whiteness. But males? They get a boatload of it. Men are subjected to a ton of real, actual abuse on a daily basis. In fact, it makes more sense to say that the abuse they receive is precisely because they are men. The problem with modern narratives regarding sexism is that people look at the top and see men. And it is true, there are more men at the top of everything: more men in positions of power, more men in government, more men CEOs, and more men as managers or professors or what have you. But what many people fail to do after looking up is to look down. And in the bottom rungs of society you will find far more men than women. More men in prison, more men die on the job, more men die from treatable illnesses, more men die in combat, etc. The list goes on. It is my belief that a lot of these trends are dictated by our biology and the way we have evolved, since human males evolved to engage in aggressive, risk-taking behavior (thanks, testosterone!). I tend to view our position in society (however great or poor it may be) as an expression of our innate qualities as males, which are determined by hundreds of thousands of years of evolutionary pressure. It is not so easy, then, to just throw that stuff away to conform to the demands of society. Always remember that it is only possible to have these kinds of conversations because the civilizations that allow them were built with the blood of reckless, risk-taking men, most of whom died horribly on the field of battle (or in prison, or were murdered by their governments, etc). And in some sense, they only persist because that same class of male -- the reckless, risk-taking kind -- has been socially coerced into behaving himself by the promise of regular sex (marriage) and a share of the wealth (economic opportunity). Strip that away, and I have a feeling that we would all of us very quickly begin to resemble our wild-west ancestors, settling fights with bloodshed and taking whatever we can grab. In other words, I subscribe to the Robert E. Howard School of Anthropology: Civilization is nothing more than a thin veneer that barely covers humanity's animal traits. Take that veneer away, and we'll be splitting skulls like the our Cimmerian forefathers. Decardo I still don't think you are trying hard enough to not insult the intelligence of people who follow and study the causes and facts around discrimination and bigotry, so thats a D - for lack of effort But lets focus on the topic at hand, are you suggesting that nowadays and historically white, heterosexual males have been equally discriminated against compared to other minority groups? Now in the interests of clarity minority groups include non-whites, women, gays and all other groups that are typically the victim of discrimination ?

Technically though, there are still Christians out there who do take the "God created the earth in six days and rested the 7th" literally. They exist on the fringe, certainly, in the direction of the sort of Christianity where people hide their television because they don't want the neighbours to know they have one. But they still do exist. To be fair if there was an all powerful creator and that creator created time, the Big Bang through life on earth could have taken 6 days AND also lasted millennium since the natural flow/evaluation of time would mean nothing to an entity who could create it and thus manipulate it at will. If time means nothing, constructing infinite complexity would also mean nothing. At least I think so. Easy come, easy go, right. So to an omnipotent creator what would mean something? If I had to guess I would say " the importance of Romance in RPG"....but I may be wrong?

Volo I know you enjoy getting reactions from people with absurd comments but don't you ever get tired by the complete ridiculousness of what you say? By your logic then almost every game is an RPG, because in almost every game you have some kind of protagonist and take a role in the game? Is that really your definition of what an RPG is " a game where you play a role" So is Battlefield an RPG, because in that game I have a role as a soldier/?

I could never align myself mentally with the Orcs, I always had an issue with the fact they kept fellow humans in slavery and treated humans with utter disdain. But I did enjoy working for both sides in Gothic 3 to gain XP until I started killing the various Orc leaders