BruceVC

I don't know if you read my post earlier, I finished Metro last night and its excellent

Yeah, that was one of my biggest gripes about both Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. If you're stumbling through a wasteland of abandoned buildings and you're looking for supplies, which one would you set your sights on: the boarded up, untouched building or the building with welcoming, open doors? It was annoying that I couldn't break into the closed-up buildings since, according to my logic, those would have a greater chance of still containing something useful. I dunno, Fallout 3 had enough explorable buildings for me, I just think it needed more (questy) reasons to go inside them. New Vegas was quite frustrating on the first play through, I'd go running towards something and eventually reach a boarded up building or an empty shack...a shack with it's own map marker ffs. I got over it when I realised the game compensates with crazy levels of plot and gameplay choice but NVInteriors fills in the blanks really nicely. I get what you're saying about easily accessible ruins full of pre-war loot, it'd be pretty cool if future games had sealed buildings you needed tools and skills to enter, as well as ruins that had been picked clean and re-purposed by raiders and suchlike. Is there an NVInteriors equivalent for Skyrim?

You've raised a good point, how do we know what civil liberties to tackle? And the answer is more obvious than you realize, I'll tell you as I follow these types of events actively. So no need to worry about that one, I have it covered

It's a pleasure Ma'am. We work hard to keep it so. Dirty, dispiriting work, but good for the soul. They'll be back, but we'll be waiting. You make me laugh, I have this image of you as some sort of sheriff and the promancers (me included ) being chased out of town....it really made me laugh

This is a nice place. I'd like to see it stay that way. But Squeaky darling don't you think there is always room for improvement in life, I never settle for the status quo. I believe in constantly aspiring to great heights and looking at ways to improve my temperament. Nice is fine but we need to aim for inspiration

Kaine you making a lot of assumptions in that post and we trying to debate from a perspective of facts

You needn't say that—drawing parallels between a series of current events and events past that everyone knows about is subtly but surely laying out a slippery slope. You said: But it actually works both ways. A group takes power and decides that trait "X" is abhorrent and needs to be eradicated "for the betterment of society", though the excuses vary wildly. This trait can be religious beliefs, ethnic ties, economic status, affinity with certain political ideas, and yes, even sexual orientation; it can be pretty much anything. Backed by the majority and riding atop a self-reinforcing sense of moral righteousness, laws are passed to suppress the expression of this trait, damning the members of society targeted by these measures to an existence outside of mainstream society, as pariahs—using the power of the state to persecute people based on what they are. Once this is justified for "X", it can be justified for anything based on precedent. At this point a tyranny has effectively been enabled, and all bets are off. CAR, South Sudan, Iraq... it's old news brah. News pieces are consumption articles and nobody likes stale bread. It sounds like you are agreeing with me, Uganda is a tyranny at the moment

Interesting, so the enigma is solved. A pity you have to kill them but I understand your concerns. But do all rats have disease, isn't it the fleas on the rats that spread disease? Don't rats live in some communities peacefully. I don't know the answer to these questions? Well in theory the plague was carried by fleas (assuming its true it was the Bubonic Plague), the fleas transferring to humans as the rats died. That said even without plague, rats could damage the house, and their excrement could also create health hazards in the home. Okay good points, I guess they have to die

Arizona's barely registering on the outrage meter here, it might though. Russia was helped by the Olympics in that regard, lots of bleating on about gays an gay rights then with ads, calls for officials to boycott it and people being snarky over it. The outrage is more half-assed and temporary than picking on certain countries, I feel. Internet activism for you. I disagree, Arizona has been all over our news. Its been represented by certain prominent radio presenters as "has the world gone mad? Look what's happening in Russia, Uganda and Arizona" That's why I'm glad Jan Brewer has vetoed the bill. Its was leading to bigots in South Africa trying to justify the situation in Uganda by comments like " the Americans are using passing anti-gay laws..so why can't the Ugandans". Of course the degree of homophobia wasn't nearly on the level in the USA compared to Uganda but I'm still glad the Arizona legislation wasn't approved

I just picked up Assassins Creed 3 for $8 at my local gaming shop, that's a good price so that's the next game I'll be playing. I know there are some mixed views on this game but I'm going into it with an open mind so hopefully I'll enjoy it

I'll wait until it's on sale. Same as me, I'll only buy it when its on sale

Yeah, and that is the exact opposite to the slippery slope that "first you legalize hate" and then BAM! Treblinka. Given the subjective properties of language, hate speech laws are either extremely difficult to enforce, or an excuse to implement ideological tyranny. If you are indeed in a situation in which the particular audiences that can be convinced of whatever it is you want to suppress are large enough that their actions cannot be controlled, hate speech laws aren't going to do much good anyway. And if they are not large enough, the state already has broad powers to keep order. Hate speech laws are measures aimed at superficial symptoms of much deeper problems at best, or concealed attempts at social engineering at worst. To use your own example, the Third Wave experiment would not have infringed on any hate speech laws; it still took off no problem. I also contend that at a fundamental level, you cannot simultaneously sustain the paternalist stance that the existence of some ideas is inherently "dangerous" or "unacceptable" to society (and therefore manifesting them is in breach of the law) and also the postulate upon which democracy is based that a society can produce sensible, responsible adult individuals free to form their own opinions and exercise their political rights accordingly. Conveniently, it's always going to be those unaffected by free speech limitations that believe that it's the "others" that need their dangerous thoughts reined in, by virtue of how groupthink works in societies at large. <insert comparison in accordance to Godwin's law> I want to clarify something and I'm not sure if its relevant to your post. No one has said once you have hate speech you have a Nazi style genocide. This whole spurious assessment of what I said is actually a strawman. I explained the sequence of events that allows a country to legalize hate\dislike\animosity (whatever word you feel is applicable) towards a minority group. In order to make the point easier to understand I used an historical example, the Nazis and the treatment of the Jews. I never once said Uganda is going to end up the same as Nazi Germany. People selectively chose to put those words in my mouth. If I felt there was going to be a genocide in Uganda of all gay people I would have said " mark my words, Uganda is going to end up like Nazi Germany"

yeah that is weird

Yes, he's clearly out for you blood. Call the cops. Helz he is just joking, no need to take it seriously

kthxbye Monte I know you joking but we shouldn't want any prospective fan of PoE to want to leave, especially over a misunderstanding. We want every single person who likes RPG to be financially supportive of this new franchise. Surly you can see the advantages of this?

Well, the thing about any point of view is that if carefully crafted and presented to a particular audience, you can persuade them to agree to your perspective. Kind of like The Third Wave experiment where a high school teacher was able to rather rapidly impose some fascist tendencies onto his class which spurred some controversy due to it spreading beyond the school classes itself (there's an entertaining after school special about it ). I mean, it's not like any persecuted minority were innately born hated by their oppressors. I think there can also be an impact in codifying those actions in law, similar to how there are groups of people that don't do drugs simply because they were taught that they were illegal and therefore bad. Whether or not you consider this impact a good or bad thing is up to the person I suppose. I am really glad you have got involved in this debate. I consider you an intellectual and logical juggernaut when it comes to your views on certain topics. You have a way of making the same point I want to make but I seem at times to fail miserably in articulating it. I find you make a point that is almost impossible to dispute. For example "it's not like any persecuted minority were innately born hated by their oppressors"...so true. So where does bigotry come from if not from the influences of others. And in this case the Ugandan government and there homophobic propaganda.

Interesting, so the enigma is solved. A pity you have to kill them but I understand your concerns. But do all rats have disease, isn't it the fleas on the rats that spread disease? Don't rats live in some communities peacefully. I don't know the answer to these questions?

I like to see some positivity about any game, its makes me more likely to purchase it

LadyC have you seen that new movie "Catzilla", it is basically about this giant cat that runs amok in New York and sheds huge fur-balls that seriously impact traffic and drinks all the milk from all the diaries in the state. I think you'll enjoy it

Lephys I want to add I really enjoy your perspective on topics. I'm not saying this because at times you "like" my posts or agree sometimes with the promancer sentiment. Your posts are generally interesting, logical and you make good points by leaving emotion out if it. I have seen how you debate on several topics and its impressive. I'm glad I haven't been on the opposing side of your view because you make a formidable debating opponent

The eating the poopoo videos were comical if anything, they certainly didn't galvanize hate. You're grasping at straws with that one. You missing my point, the Ugandan president has been in power for nearly 30 years. He wants another 5 years. A good strategy to gain political support in a country where the ruling party isn't delivering economic reform and uplifting there people is to divert attention away from the obvious issues by creating some fictitious enemy that people can get angry at. But before you do that you need to make people dislike that enemy, so you create a propaganda machine that does exactly that. I don't know if the videos are real but I do know that there is popular support now in Uganda against all gay people. And when you listen to the reasons around how the Uganda authorities have positioned this bigotry its absolutely ignorant and includes reasons like gay people are destroying our family values gay people are responsible for HIV gay people engage in sexual acts that are absolutely disgusting and inhuman and don't deserve to part of Ugandan society So even though you may find the video absurd and comical don't think for a second that there aren't uneducated people in Uganda who believe it. So the result is you get popular support for this legislation and the Uganda president as he is seen as the champion of this crusade against the "evil of Western gayness that is destroying our society"

Thanks Manifested, that's really all I want to achieve. Awareness of this situation and some people keep wanting to hijack the thread by nitpicking on certain things I say

est Guys I need to make a very important point and the only reason I'm making this point is because I don't want people to not want to support PoE because of the fact there won't be Romance or rather because of the reasons given by Obsidian. Gideon raises a valid point that certain people share when he feels that if Obsidian doesn't have the resources to implement Romance properly "how can they get other types of party interaction immersive and interesting". So in a way he is questioning the whole PoE experience and I get that But there is another possible dynamic here. What if Obsidian genuinely feels that Romance in RPG is childish and below there level of creativity. But of course they can't say this to people who pledged to support the game who like Romance. It would insulting and offensive and illicit a deluge of negative responses along the lines " oh so now I'm childish but my money is good enough" or something similar So what's the easiest way to get attention off the implementation of Romance? You say you can't implement it properly or don't have the resources. What promancer is now going to still insist on a subpar Romance integration? Its a good way to explain why you can't do something in a game without offending people. But there is a risk where people like Gideon now question the validity of the whole game and can other components be done properly if they can't do Romance So my advice is lets respect the fact that Obsidian won't have Romance and lets support the game financially, as the franchise expands we may get Romance in the future. But lets not assume that the reasons given for not including Romance are really the reasons they state. And it doesn't necessarily mean they can't create a very entertaining RPG that's is immersive and interesting around party interaction because we all know Obsidian is more than capable

Hate per se? No. Expression (vocal or written) of that hate against specific groups or individuals is prohibited by numerous countries. Trashman had already stated that in the post Bruce replied to, so Bruce was obviously referring to hate, the emotion, as opposed to hate speech. My point was obviously that you need specific laws to make things illegal (hence no law legalising having a nose or eating noodles) and he wouldn't find many if any making hate, the emotion, illegal. Basically Bruce's disingenuousness managed to elicit a response, though probably not the one he was aiming for. Since you seem to know so much about how I think, what was the response I was hoping for?

The reality is that yes in many countries in Africa homosexuality is illegal, but these are old colonial laws and gay people aren't prosecuted and persecuted. In Uganda this is a new law that is being enforced and there is a witch-hunt to find and discriminate against gay people. Also as you see from the videos posted by meshugger there justification for this legislation is abhorrent and does nothing but galvanize hate.