BruceVC

That's good to know, I also have never felt that. But of course we both are white, heterosexual males who have never really been on the receiving end of the type of discrimination I am talking about that can and does impact the dignity of person.

I agree, also in Bethesda games they truly embrace the concept of a sandbox game set in a large open-world RPG where you can basically travel anywhere you see. You can't expect Bethesda to have every part of the world populated with something to do

IMO they are coming from a place like RPGCodex where "trolling" has its own definition and meme where it is both acceptable and encouraged, and they got butt hurt that outside "trolls" are seen as horrible people or according to this study psychopathic sadist. It like arguing about what is "cool", you will always upset several niche communities. RPGCodex, hah, softy noveaux trollites who can't stand the heat and need to get out of the kitchen whenever there is some real discuss!on that isn't scaled to their level. Usenet, bro, where trolls were trolls and moderation wasn't in the dictionary. Well, except in moderated groups, of course. (Yeah, some trolls are horrible people. Some people are horrible people. It's sheer inevitability) They should make me a Moderator of RPGCodex, half the members would be immediately banned and most of the other members would be on there last warning. " I'll bring order and respect to that cesspool of Internet forum social injustice" Why do you hate free speech so much? I don't hate free speech, I welcome and encourage free speech. I am opposed to speech that is synonymous with discrimination or bigotry. In the South African constitution we allow free speech but not if it infringes on the dignity of the person. Its not an unreasonable expectation

Ukraine doesn't want to be independent, they want to align with either the EU or the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. This is there choice because they believe it will give them greater economic prosperity. And I agree it would as opposed to them operating independently in these troubled economic times

You know the rules Walsie, we never agree with Zor under any circumstances..ever You've raised a good point but I would argue that almost no Western government would have such a total disregard for there citizens wishes or be happy to unleash the level of violence we have seen to stop protests In the UK I remember that story during the student protests where the police pushed that guy, he fell on the floor and he died of a heart attack. There was a massive investigation and inquiry and if I'm not mistaken some police officers were charged

Let it not be said that forums don't help us to solve complicated ruminations

I love the logic of some of your comments and insight, its irrefutable. Certain people must hate debating with you I'm still hung up on how many L's are in his name. I see two. Sometimes one. C'mon, which is it. its 3 isn't it ?

IMO they are coming from a place like RPGCodex where "trolling" has its own definition and meme where it is both acceptable and encouraged, and they got butt hurt that outside "trolls" are seen as horrible people or according to this study psychopathic sadist. It like arguing about what is "cool", you will always upset several niche communities. RPGCodex, hah, softy noveaux trollites who can't stand the heat and need to get out of the kitchen whenever there is some real discuss!on that isn't scaled to their level. Usenet, bro, where trolls were trolls and moderation wasn't in the dictionary. Well, except in moderated groups, of course. (Yeah, some trolls are horrible people. Some people are horrible people. It's sheer inevitability) They should make me a Moderator of RPGCodex, half the members would be immediately banned and most of the other members would be on there last warning. " I'll bring order and respect to that cesspool of Internet forum social injustice"

I love the logic of some of your comments and insight, its irrefutable. Certain people must hate debating with you

Nude mods is first, then romances will follow. You guys are right, Mods can add some exciting enhancements to Romance options so those are good suggestions. I never understand this aversion to adult mods in RPG. So its okay to kill children, use magic, slaughter hundreds of humanoid creatures and other humans, summon demons and basically commit gratuitous acts of violence with your party but the thought of your characters in a party experiencing nudity or sex is somehow considered profane and perverse Yeah right.....

I've got 5 cats, one is a Norwegian forest cat and the rest are just domestic shorthaired cats, some with lynx-like tufts on their ears. I don't have any particular breed preference or something, I do like the white cats we used to have here though, but they're gone now do to castrations and sterilizations. I love cats, I wanted to see what a Norwegian forest cat looked like so I googled it. They are adorable I briefly rented a room from an old lady who bred them and pretty much always had kittens around. It was extremely therapeutic to come home to a cornucopia of kittens to play with to de-stress after work. Aaaahhhhh that is cute I can't think of anything more relaxing than coming home and having a whole lot of kittens to play with...its like having your living breathing stress-ball

I'm hoping they stick with the pirate motif, but if this picture is anything to go by, then it looks like we may be going back to a more medieval-ish theme I didn't mind the pirate theme. What I didn't like were the smallish islands and that meant less fun exploration. Agreed, one or two much larger islands would have been much better. With that said, Piranha Bytes managed to cram an amazingly high amount of stuff to find and do into each of those little islands. I was about to say that, for me what Piranha Bytes always does well is that "over the hill and far away" type of RPG. What I mean by that is they are brilliant at creating open-world RPG that you get excited exploring. The excitement at wanting to explore an RPG world is one of the fundamental tenets that make a RPG great. So yay for Risen 3, I'm very excited

Hi Walsie You are another regular who has been conspicuous by your absence. Good to have you back

Fair enough. But I've seen people end up with nothing and I can understand how they don't want to sacrifice for the "greater good". I hear you, you saying that sometimes a social change isn't worth what people can lose. And that does make sense in some cases

Interesting post, I learnt something

mmmm..the Chinese and they have done it before. What is my present for answering the question?

That's easy to say when your personal life isn't affected by reform. That's not quite true, I lived through the end of Apartheid and I experience social changes in our fledgling Democracy regularly.

That is an excellent point and I doubt anyone will challenge its logic

That's not an option and its a silly suggestion From what I understand this isn't a widepsread uprising, so why isn't that an option ? Then again, even if he does win, there'll just be claims of corruption and vote tampering. Okay my comment was inaccurate, I apologize. He may win but its unlikely based on how he has handled these protests like Fighter mentioned

And if Janukovitj was once again democratically elected? That's not an option and its a silly suggestion

All we can see this as an important lesson for any leader who wants to align with Russia when there citizens clearly don't ? I see an emergency election date is being set, that should hopefully settle the debate around " what do the citizens of Ukraine want?

"The socialist experiment has failed"? On whose account? Let's take a look at the figures: "During the past decade under Chavez, the income poverty rate in Venezuela dropped by more than half, from 54% of households below poverty level in the first half of 2003, down to 26% at the end of 2008. "Extreme poverty" fell even more - by 72%. Further, "these poverty rates measure only cash income, and doesn't take into account increased access to health care or education." "Datos reports real income grew by 137% between 2003 and Q1 2006." "Venezuela's infant mortality rate fell by 18.2% between 1998 and 2006" "Spending on education as a percentage of GDP (which grew dramatically since 1998) stood at 5.1% in 2006, as opposed to 3.4% in the last year of the Caldera government. Spending on health increased from 1.6% of GDP in 2000 to 7.71% in 2006" "In June 2010 Mark Weisbrot wrote that jobs were much less scarce then than when Chávez took office, with unemployment at 8% in 2009 compared with 15% in 1999. He also stated that the number of front-line doctors had increased tenfold in the public sector and that enrolment in higher education had doubled, noting that these statistics were backed up by the UN and the World Bank." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Hugo_Ch%C3%A1vez_government That hardly looks like a failure to me. Venezuela is a command economy and one that is absolutely reliant on oil exports. As a result, it's seriously unbalanced. But a failure? And as for the thing that the CIA has nothing to do with what's going on over there, I don't know. http://www.voltairenet.org/article30032.html Disregard the actual connections between Sharp and the CIA, I'm not necessarily buying that either—still, the media attacks and instigation of popular revolts on the streets as a tool to overthrow governments under the guise of morally acceptable "non-violence" is something to think about. Especially under the current public opinion climate where an overt use of force seems to be politically untenable. [1] [2] You make some valid points about where Venezuela has done well and I'm not disputing that. But there are also several things that under Chavez got progressively worse. Things like the persecution of the free press and a very high inflation, 52 % or so means there are currency shortages and basic food items missing from shelves. There economy is taking major strain. I quoted some of what I said from this CNN article, I also posted a Reuters article that highlights the social and financial challengers that confront Venezuela . The biggest problem IMO that Maduro faces is that he isn't the demagogue that Chavez was so I question if rhetoric will keep protesters happy, they need to make structural reforms which he seems incapable of doing http://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/14/world/americas/venezuela-protests/index.html http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/14/us-venezuela-protests-idUSBREA1D19J20140214 But lets not derail this Ukraine discussion, I would welcome a discussion on the reasons for the Venezuela protests but you should create a new thread

I'll gladly read it but I'll be brutally honest as you are in your views

That's true! His slider from satire, via irony, into almost serious, and then dead serious, is "one helluva ride", as Dan put it in is his KS thank you when KC:D ended so fantastically well. For that alone, you got to love him! It was an interesting read btw. He even had had a hard time finding a PR agency working with his Kickstarter project. You are good read of character In the interests of transparency I generally don't make long posts or engage in debates if I'm joking about a topic and sometimes I do make a point through humour but the point is still suppose to be serious. So for example the whole "dog companion" comment was aimed at people who said its unrealistic to have women in a Medieval game, I was echoing what they said to highlight what it sounds like but my choice of the dog topic was a joke as animal representation in a game shouldn't even really be a debate IMO (I hope this makes sense )

That pretty much always the economy, but if you expect die hard Russians who cry WEST to understand that your bound to be disappointed. Many of them will tell you stories about great Soviet union that has fallen ONLY because bla bla west, bla bla west, our politician sold/betrayed us out. For those who can only point the finger out and cry west, better recite this: Good points raised, but I was talking about the protests in Venezuela ...Shady brought it up in this thread. Sorry for the confusion