BruceVC

What she said was: when in rome do as romans do. 95% of Russian support what she said because they share the same opinion. She knows this, which is why she was comfortable saying it. They don't want rainbow flags, parading of various sexual fetishes etc. If engaging in positive propaganda for homosexuality (the sort that equates it with heterosexuality) is forbidden in Russia the shut the **** up and get on with the program. The athletes are there to engage in sports and win medals not to draw attention to their sexual preferences or political leanings. Or is this the first gay olympics? Seriously people, you need to get a grip on the concept that other countries with democratically chosen leaders can make up their own rules on what's okay, and what isn't okay. Nah I reject what you are saying. So you are fine with a Democratically elected government that would implement a system like Apartheid where the colour of your skin would determine your status or how about a government that decides to perpetuate genocide against a minority group? We live in a global world and you clearly don't understand how political decisions and consequences work if you think "just because a government is elected they can do what they want" Sorry Drowsy but I have to be harsh to get you to understand how wrong you are.

What game are you going to play first?

Can't wait for this, thanks for the heads up. Weird but I find myself actually agreeing with you on this topic I loved the first Amnesia games, they were indubitably the scariest games I have ever played. I am going to smoke some weed, turn the lights off and use my headphones to play this one. Its doesn't get more atmospheric than that

There are certainly cases as you describe. I've seen them on Kickstarter and in other places. What I try to be sensible about is the dogpiling in the first place. If someone, like Hepler, has made something you don't like, it's enough to tell them so, then the criticism can be devoid of bullying and threats and all that. Just tell the person that it sucks and why, and leave it at that. P.S. I hate DA2 and ME3, just to get that out of the way. Indira !!! I'm shocked, I can't believe you used the hate word. I didn't think you even knew that word. This doesn't sound you You are always so polite, informative and friendly. Don't become jaded. I like your normal posting style Also I reject this view that because its the Internet we can't do anything about rude or bigoted comments. That's just an excuse for people to do nothing as sometimes its easier to be non-confrontational. It starts with you as a person and we need to make a conscious decision to challenge any comments that are offensive. So if someone says something that is unacceptable, you need to say something. Be polite, there is no need to degrade yourself to there level but be firm and make it obvious you don't like it or find it funny

I also thought they looked much older than 17/18 year olds who had just finished school?

http://www.gamespot.com/features/why-grand-theft-auto-online-is-crazy-enough-to-work-6412714/ Guys I posted this on Random Video Game News and the response was a big fat "meh" This is really exciting and has huge potential Come on, say something !!!

Well it's not like Witcher DLCs are the same scale. The new missions were much shorter than Legacy or Mark of the Assassin in DA2. But Bioware/EA DLC have ridiculous prices. I can't even recall how much I spent on DLC for DA2, ME2, and ME3. I'm sorry to say this Rhamnetin but I have decided to forbid you from playing the Witcher 3 when it is released. You have been far too negative about the genre and I feel I need to make an example. I know this may sound harsh but if I see a concerted effort from you to be more positive about the game I quite possibly may change my mind. But until then no Witcher 3 for you !!!!

Interesting, as I don't think I'm trying to troll. You mentioned these anti-Bioware people here being a nuisance of sorts, so you're not ignoring them. Getting a rise does not mean that you post some long diatribe against them in a thread, after all. And Bruce, there is no meaningful debate here. Malc that's the thing, there are many debates that are stimulating on these forums

I don't think you've seen too many rises out of me over the years (a few, I admit) so you're not as successful at trollin as you think you are To be honest I don't understand how you guys know someone is trolling? If someone says something unless it is really silly I have to assume they want to engage in meaningful debate

Your point makes no sense. And yes I have several gay friends, some of them are conservative around there sexual orientation and some of them are flamboyant. I have no issue with either mannerism as I believe people should be who they are. Its the same when I go out with my gay friends that I don't pretend to be gay. Why should a gay person not be who he is? But once again I am confused by what you are saying. Do you really think that optional gay Romance in Bioware games is "stuffing it down your throat" or "drowning me in there way of life". I assume you have played Bioware games so you know that any Romance is not mandatory. You must know this yet you still feel they are somehow forcing you to be part of something that you don't have to be part of. And you have an issue with it just because Bioware is choosing to be inclusive of there fan base And you still say " you have no issue with gay people". Really, because from where I'm sitting that's not what it looks like? Yeah, you do have a point, can't deny that. Let's just say I have experience with a person, who pretty much is to gay culture what a suicide bomber is to islam. I'll try to keep the less than pleasant feelings just a thought of that guy conjures up in me out from these forums for now on. Okay well I appreciate your honesty and I agree lets not derail this discussion with something we can discuss another time

Wouldn't it be nice to live in a world where we didn't notice that development companies offered options for straight and gay players? It would just be as normal as choosing to play male or female. That's the level of progression I want all companies and people to get to, a level where we don't comment at all about this topic as its so common. That sounds nice amd all, but demonizing people who don't like a character as homophobes is in bad taste. Especially a character widely considered to be a whiny idiot. It wasn't meant to sound nice, it is reality I like would like to live in when your sexual orientation doesn't make a difference for the optional character relationships offered to you in a game. I also never mentioned I have any problem with someone disliking any character, I have an issue with someone disliking a character just because they are gay. Its not hard to understand? You missed the point. There isn't a problem with having gay PCs. There is a problem when you start blaming criticism on homophobia, as the (fake) Gaider post did. There wasn't any reason to bring up that "a small minority hated bisexual Anders" in that post. Wouldn't it be nice to live in a world where we didn't notice that development companies offered options for straight and gay players? It would just be as normal as choosing to play male or female. That's the level of progression I want all companies and people to get to, a level where we don't comment at all about this topic as its so common. That sounds nice amd all, but demonizing people who don't like a character as homophobes is in bad taste. Especially a character widely considered to be a whiny idiot. It wasn't meant to sound nice, it is reality I like would like to live in when your sexual orientation doesn't make a difference for the optional character relationships offered to you in a game. I also never mentioned I have any problem with someone disliking any character, I have an issue with someone disliking a character just because they are gay. Its not hard to understand? You missed the point. There isn't a problem with having gay PCs. There is a problem when you start blaming criticism on homophobia, as the (fake) Gaider post did. There wasn't any reason to bring up that "a small minority hated bisexual Anders" in that post. Okay, I did misunderstand

Your point makes no sense. And yes I have several gay friends, some of them are conservative around there sexual orientation and some of them are flamboyant. I have no issue with either mannerism as I believe people should be who they are. Its the same when I go out with my gay friends that I don't pretend to be gay. Why should a gay person not be who he is? But once again I am confused by what you are saying. Do you really think that optional gay Romance in Bioware games is "stuffing it down your throat" or "drowning me in there way of life". I assume you have played Bioware games so you know that any Romance is not mandatory. You must know this yet you still feel they are somehow forcing you to be part of something that you don't have to be part of. And you have an issue with it just because Bioware is choosing to be inclusive of there fan base And you still say " you have no issue with gay people". Really, because from where I'm sitting that's not what it looks like?

This, however, seems much more like Poe's Law! Poe's law? I don't think it's that hard to believe someone gay, and it REALLY would explain a lot of things. I'm interested in what you think it would explain. You can't be suggesting that due to the fact Gaider is gay Bioware games have optional gay relationships? So I'm missing the connection with him being gay and what it explains?

Really? That would be sad, the assumption around this would mean a gay writer can't be objective and offer a balanced view of basic human emotional interaction Is this an official policy caused by negative feedback from past experiences or just something you suspect? The point sailed well over your head Padawan. It was a parody of the notion that a gay writer writing gay characters is reflective of it being some sort of agenda, and that there'd be more credibility if it was a heterosexual writer writing the gay characters. Y'know... Drowsy's post. I did miss that one

Really? That would be sad, the assumption around this would mean a gay writer can't be objective and offer a balanced view of basic human emotional interaction Is this an official policy caused by negative feedback from past experiences or just something you suspect?

Sure, just very little compared to many other RPGs. Although like I said, the result of most choices is immediate and doesn't affect anything later in the game. It's just disgusting to see people praise The Witcher games as some of the best RPGs ever made, especially on Obsidian forums lol. But thankfully it's more rare here. No need to feel disgusted, this is our opinion that millions of fans of the series share. This is merely a difference of view

Your point is silly and doesn't make sense. How is Bioware being dishonest? Should a gay person complain about the fact the straight writer of an RPG only includes heterosexual relationships in games and then claim they are doing this only because they are straight and are catering for a certain segment of the fan base. The types of relationships in games are the decision of the development company and the decision for Bioware was to be inclusive. This has nothing to do with the fact that Gaider is gay

Wouldn't it be nice to live in a world where we didn't notice that development companies offered options for straight and gay players? It would just be as normal as choosing to play male or female. That's the level of progression I want all companies and people to get to, a level where we don't comment at all about this topic as its so common. That sounds nice amd all, but demonizing people who don't like a character as homophobes is in bad taste. Especially a character widely considered to be a whiny idiot. It wasn't meant to sound nice, it is reality I like would like to live in when your sexual orientation doesn't make a difference for the optional character relationships offered to you in a game. I also never mentioned I have any problem with someone disliking any character, I have an issue with someone disliking a character just because they are gay. Its not hard to understand? Wouldn't it be nice to live in a world where we didn't notice that development companies offered options for straight and gay players? It would just be as normal as choosing to play male or female. That's the level of progression I want all companies and people to get to, a level where we don't comment at all about this topic as its so common. I only noticed because its a bit out of sorts and irrelevant to the subject, like if I ended this post by saying that all my enemies who are pedophiles will try to rape my children. Okay, I think I understand. My point was more a general one and wasn't necessarily directed at you. And that point, without repeating myself, is that I want society to get to a level where the types of relationships provided in games are irrelevant as we will make the choices that we want around those relationships. Its all about choice and equality for the fans of the games

I know the history of Al-Qaeda perfectly well. Of course their initial formation would still have happened, but after the resolution of the war in Afghanistan they would have played out their role. Do you even know why Osama attacked the US in the first place? Because the US supports the Israeli Zionists and also because they have military bases in Saudi Arabia (yes, apparently that was a reason). AQ has EVERYTHING to do with Israel/Palestine, just look at 9/11, which was largely a byproduct of the Israel/Palestine situation. (Nowadays I sincerely think they get more recruits from the PR they must have gained from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) They say it's because of Israel to gain more popular support amongst Arabs and other Muslims, but Jihad is a lot older than modern Israel, and their goal is to carry out global Jihad to establish a global caliphate, to overthrow current Arab regimes and replace them with revolutionary Islamist ones. US used to be an obstacle to those goals, so we got attacked on 9/11. Al Qaeda isn't fighting Assad because he's not anti-Israeli enough, they're fighting him because he's not Sunni and allied with Shiites in Iran. I was going to comment on the reasons for the formation on AQ, I thought you misunderstood why they were formed Ros but I see you know the reasons. I also wanted to add that during the first Gulf War when Iraq invaded Kuwait Bin Laden wanted the likes of Saudi Arabia to use the newly formed Islamic fighters to address this invasion. But when they asked the West to assist he considered this an insult to Muslims and adding to this the fact that there were military bases in Saudi he felt that the cause of greater Islamic hegemony was being betrayed. He declared many governments in the Middle East as apostate and AQ began there campaign of violence to achieve political change I also don't think support for the Palestinians is as unified amongst the Middle East as people think. The Sunni controlled countries like Qatar, UAE and Saudi are more concerned with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in there countries and the power of Shia countries like Syria and Iran than the plight of the Palestinians. Also many of the extremist groups have objectives in there manifestos outside of the rights of the Palestinians. So even though Islamists do care about the Palestinians its not the only or the most important thing.

I was thinking of a way to explain to some of you guys the reason why I feel rape is unacceptable in a video game yet I accept that gratuitous violence in a FPS is fine. Its difficult and I was hoping someone like Alan would do it for me as he has the ability to make more profoundly intellectual points than I can on these topics. However I have thought of a reason. The violence we see in video games is something that is unrealistic and we all know it. No one is going kill 100 people in a room in 30 minutes and survive being shot many times. But the idea and the act of rape is not, its one of the biggest social problems that face our mothers, wives, daughters, girlfriends and female friends. Also its not just about rape but domestic violence to women that in many countries is still perpetuated and nothing is done about it. So if we start now thinking that's its okay to have games that allow or show rape as "we already allow killing" I think this will detract from the campaign of people opposed to violence against women. On some subconscious level for some people that may not take the subject as seriously as they can. And that's something we don't want to allow to develop. We must be unequivocal in our view and stance around this egregious crime on any level

Wouldn't it be nice to live in a world where we didn't notice that development companies offered options for straight and gay players? It would just be as normal as choosing to play male or female. That's the level of progression I want all companies and people to get to, a level where we don't comment at all about this topic as its so common.

http://www.gamespot.com/features/why-grand-theft-auto-online-is-crazy-enough-to-work-6412714/?tag=Topslot%3bSlot1 Guys take a look at GTA Online implementation, I think it sounds very exciting

Okay that was funny

That's a good idea for a monster