Nonek

Try not to be so simple minded Bruce, a consumer boycott is not the same thing as censorship, a child could tell tell you the difference and that consumers advocating their rights is a blow for freedom of speech not against it, really that's a staggeringly idiotic view Bruce, try and do better. It certainly doesn't align with the censorship that only one side, yours, has practised in their effort to quash consumer voices, and of course uphold their right to remain corrupt and unethical as you have stated you wish them to remain as well. The book burning theatric is just petty and childish, refrain from such behaviour in future, for your own sake. If you cannot make the argument on your own, and need to parrot the words of various professional shills then that is equally damning, as it paints you as a simple minded follower clinging to fashionable platitudes instead of your own researched beliefs. If your arguments is so pathetically simple as sex workers are victims in real life and so virtual prostitutes should be removed from GTA V, then your argument is childishly simplistic, why should one group of victims be whitewashed from the game, what of all the other victims and why do you place special emphasis on sex workers? If you care so much for real life whores, then instead of trying to remove virtual ones from GTA V, instead stop using sex workers and forcing yourself upon them for money. Your actions only add to their misery, and propagate an evil and exploitative industry that anybody caring about womens rights would not use in the first place. There's no social justice in your buying of these poor womens bodies, and the humiliating acts they are forced to carry out to sate your whims. I agree that whore is a rather perjorative term, though you'd know better than me with your experience of buying them, and you should not have labelled Volourn's niece as such, it was nasty and small minded.

Sorry Bruce but i'm not going to read an article from an anti consumer publication, nor give it any attention, so if you could summarise why you want to remove virtual sex workers from the game in your own words, and ignore any other victims of crime, please do so. Stop being lazy and try to explain in your own words. As you stated earlier in the thread, you have used sex workers, and thus you are part of the problem and a hypocrite enabling the abuse that these poor young ladies must routinely suffer. I'm afraid that bearing this in mind i'm no longer disposed to listen to your sententious preaching on this subject, as your actions contribute to an evil and exploitative industry. Time to maybe stop lecturing us and everybody else and engage in some self reflection on your past deeds, and their impact on the women you bought. Edit: Also if you respect sex workers so much then why are you using the term in a perjorative sense when calling Volourn's niece a whore, this hardly seems to conjure up a deep sense of respect or even common courtesy.

Well the chap has got a point about hypocrisy, when one decrys prostitution and then uses prostitutes, thus propogating the sex trade, that gentleman is a hypocrite and contributes to the problems sex workers face. You've still not explained why exactly you want virtual sex workers removed from GTAV, and yet can cheerfully overlook any other virtual victims of crime, such as those murdered, beaten, robbed, raped etcetera. In other words you want special attention paid to whitewashing sex workers from the game, why exactly, is this related to your use of real life sex workers? The dodging answers thing has become a little too overused as well, been done just a few too many times now. I don't hold with Longknife's view that you intentionally need everything explaining purposefully, I think its just a limitation of your mental range (which I may be wrong about,) and that must obviously be forgiven. Your rote answers that everybody on the board can mimic before you've written them, well to me they quite firmly state that you've lost the discussion, and so must fall back on platitudes, so I don't particularly mind them. However I can see how Longknife finds them galling. However I most certainly still hold that free speech is a virtue and a gift, that discussion is superior to hectoring and would not think of censoring any of your "content." With all due respect of course.

It's a little simplistic and focused more on roleplaying than 4e, also the combat is rather lethal from what i've seen so far, I think it would be largely dependant on the implementation. Personally i've enjoyed GMing so far, but I have to admit my players have asked for various house rules to be added. Have the enhanced editions improved pathfinding and the other common complaints with the IE games?

Not to pooh pooh your ideas or discourage you in any fashion Osvir, but are you in the industry? I personally would not back a project from somebody with no industry experience who has produced no content before, I would look for a track record of excellence and an experienced hand at the helm. Ideas and concepts are ten a penny in a creative medium, filled with creative people, so to bring your dream to fruition i would adopt a long term plan: First gaining employment in the industry, then rising through the ranks of your company and perhaps one day having the experience to launch your idea as a Project Lead or put it to the test in a crowdfunding model. Before all that though i'd become familiar with a popular engine, make mods or adventures to sate your creative urges, and present these to a prospective employer when you pursue a position in the industry. Much like with literature, one suspects that developers are most impressed by content and what you have brought into being rather than concepts and visions.

It's nice to see that any class can use any weapon, there has been a disturbing trend lately in AAA+ games to limit characters to weapons the designers want them to weild, a disturbing trend and proven to be ridiculous by Poe with its miniscule budget allowing a vast variety to be weilded by anybody. Well done for not caving into the degeneration Obsidian. Of course also not limiting conversation options to a binary axis, or upper, middle and lower right is enormously attractive and positive, finally we know what our characters will say, we can choose our options and have a variety rather than being forced into a very narrow and pre-defined role. Nice to see actual roleplaying embraced, rather than cinematic arbitrary non choices, which are the favoured option of games with much higher budgets. Heartily approve of such positivity.

Commiserations to the deceaseds families and friends, it seems such a trite and small thing to say, but there are of course no words or justifications for such an atrocity. Hopefully the magazine will recover and arise to champion free speech against the evil fanatics whom wish to silence it through the use of force of arms.

Rather disappointing, too much combat, a poor narrative, too much railroading, and an undeveloped theatre of conflict.

I'd prefer we prosecuted the unscrupulous individuals whom use sex workers, pimp out the girls and propogate prostitution, rather than the young ladies themselves. They are often victims of circumstance, and of course their plight should not be swept under the carpet or censored, the same as any other victim of crime should not be.

I can't speak for you other gentlemen and ladies but the idea of self driven cars makes my alcoholism flare, one could finally indulge as one wishes and I assume that there would be a lockout for the too inebriated. "I can't let you do that Dave!" Or some such. On second thoughts probably a bad idea.

Finished Eye of the Beholder 2, am feeling like something a little more action oriented now, I was thinking of running through the Streets of Rage trilogy but to be honest i'm a little put off by the third installment, it was brutally hard even for my younger, more dextrous hands, to the point where I never completed it. I've heard that the Japanese original Bare Knuckle 3 is far more enjoyable, is this true? And does anybody have any experience of the remake of the series?

Yes almost paradoxical isn't it? Raised in the lap of luxury, and then survive by begging, while genuine poor and homeless people cannot get a handful of copper. Very strange, seemingly no conception of the value of money.

What still riles me to an unreasonable degree is how quick the SJFs are to demean, demonise and insult millions of people, they seem to have no hesitation in casting aspersions over vast swathes of people, even if they are spoiled white people themselves who survive off begging. They still feel they have a self righteous right to condemn millions of hard working decent people from diverse races and backgrounds, who happen to share a hobby. And yet we have seen from their moronic utterances that they are largely stupid and single minded, that they favour regressive non interactive games, that they are pro censorship and despise free speech, and they do want ethics to apply to a multi billion dollar industry instead favouring corruption, nepotism and their continued poor level of criticism and lack of purpose. I'd prefer to think that almost everyone is a good person, decent and moral, hard working and sensible. It may not be true, or it may be, but i'd prefer to give everyone the benefit of the doubt rather than arrogantly air my disdain for millions. I do not think that I have any right to do so, or am equipped to judge them. Just my opinion however.

Getting thoroughly sozzled, Happy New Year everybody.

Oh have I been sleep harassing again? It must be a terrible affliction that I have no memory of it at all, I wonder at my sleepwalking self having the ability to create twitter accounts and doxx people whom I don't know and have had no previous contact with, quite impressive really for the subconscious mind.

With the location and date of the game one has to wonder whether Jan Hus, and his spreading of John Wycliffe's semi-heretical doctrine, may play a part in the narrative. It seems too juicy and momentous an opportunity to overlook, an in depth examination of how the Hussite wars came to be.

In all seriousness OP I would visit your doctor and describe (what sound like the symptoms of borderline depression) that you are experiencing to him, however I wouldn't be fobbed off with anti depressants, I would ask for a more intensive course of action. Exercise as Woldan can tell you releases massive amounts of natural highs, hobbies can serve to involve the hands while the mind sorts its own problems out, perhaps a little therapy so that you can share your worries and anxieties, the daily routine and unbiased love of a faithful canine companion can serve to lend structure to your life, perhaps a little creative writing for your own pleasure, vent and express yourself. Prostitution I would condemn and advise against, I give to a London charity that supports young ladies caught up in this activity, and it is a vicious circle of suffering that one should not propogate through use of the unfortunate women involved in it. Forced drug use, rape, assault, slavery and long and short term mental health problems are not something to contribute to in my opinion. Hope you stay healthy in mind and body Sir.

Probably has to do with the shallow nature of it. How do NPCs know what my conjuration or enchanting skill is? How do they know I am in the Dark Brotherhood when it's a super secret society that kills you if you reveal its secrets? Why are they telling me they don't like those clunky two handed weapons either while they're wearing an iron greatsword on their back? Imagine if people passed Frodo on the road to Mordor and said, "Hey, I heard that you're carrying that horrid weapon of the enemy to Mt. Doom to destroy it... Good man!" <- That's what the writing in Skyrim is like. Which is why I really do wonder if the writer(s) finished highschool, or have read any sort of literature at all. Probably my biggest pet peeve in the game is this little gem: What have you got for sale? Yes this is part of the problem, along with my Archmage/DoverSole/Grand High Poobah being sent on the same fetch quests, and treated exactly the same as at the beginning of the game. It's as shallow as possible, which is probably why I generally prefer the implementation of pre-defined protagonists, whom have a place and a position in the world.

I can sell you my family if you wish, Lord knows i've had enough of them.

One suspects that survival in any time period other than the modern one in the first world was a struggle, and worthy of concentrating upon obviously. I suspect that Eora will not be a land of frolicking peasants with full guts, happily working the fields in some manner of non existent rural paradise, because it's Obsidian. I'd rather have a world brimming with verisimilitude, internally consistent and logical, rather than a modern setting with a thin veneer of renaissance fayre flavour. Personally i'd rather have as many features and as much content as possible, we have enough games which have degraded into alternate combat and conversation simulators, usually in corridors. Personally i'd argue against more and more content being abstracted, I can certainly handle more elements than I am currently tasked with by most games. Personally i'd love an RPG one day to have a survival system similar to "This War of Mine."

I have mainly one problem with Skyrim specifically, and it's not the streamlining and dumbing down that increase with each new ES release, it's simply the lack of interactivity, which is the true strength of this medium. True you can create any character you wish, forge them a backstory, decide how they will react according to their imaginary personality, what they favoured in terms of weapons and style etcetera, you can do all this and the game will not acknowldege any of it. So the question arises, do I need the game to do all this character building, no I don't. Unless my choices are acknowledged in game at some point, then really they're a little worthless, especially in an RPG. This lack of interactivity bothers me, I know that the regressive gaming press despise interactivity as it's catering to us disgusting consumers, but really it is the strength of the medium and to my mind should be prioritised. We don't want to be told, preached at or watch a graphical picture book, we wish to interact, this is key to me. Such interactivity seems fairly simple to implement in some titles: Torment gives us a different story and approaches based on stats, conversations and accomplishments. Alpha Protocol and New Vegas also both transform and adapt to ones playstyle and choices, giving us consequences, acknowledgements and little nods. When Omen Deng commented on my choice of attire in Taipei, that was appreciated and a nice moment of interactivity, or when Marburg complimented me and seemed honestly impressed. Personally until Skyrim offers me more than an unreactive hiking simulation, I will not be that enchanted with it i'm afraid. Edit: Personal opinion and whatnot.

There are a few Conan short stories set in the Cimmerians twilight years when he sat upon the throne of Aquilonia, I believe some of them were adapted from King Kull short stories, Howard's earlier Atlantean hero king. I too share your doubts however, it could be interesting if they focus on a strong theme, such as Conan's iron will sustaining his faltering, failing body as he is beset on all sides. His shoulders bowed under regrets, losses, old injuries and too many duplicitous enemies vying for his crown. I don't think that it will take such risks however, or plumb the depths of Howards frantic imaginings and dark mythos. Sadly I also think that it would take a better actor than Arnold to pull that off as well, unless the directors knows how to take advantage of the characters silence, like Mr Milius did in the original and Mr Cameron did in the Terminator. They certainly have enough material to borrow from however.

A string quartet plays to a black screen, a solemn, stately piece, echoing with sadness and majesty. The screen irises out and pans in revealing Sir Harcourt Smythe reclining in a comfortable armchair before a blazing fire, his study is crafted of dark polished hardwoods and deep rich brocades and velvets, in one hand he holds a meerschaum pipe upon which he ocassionally puffs contentedly, in the other he swirls a snifter of finest brandy. His gaze is held by the flickering firelight, that dances in the reflection cast by his monocle, and long, magnificent mustaches twitch as he ponders and mulls upon deep matters. All around him are mounted the heads of strange, fierce creatures, exotic treasures and amazing relics from an alien world. "Good evening." He intones, his voice a deep, rich, smooth and pleasant baritone, a voice suited to commands on the battlefield or in the boudoir. "I noticed you were admiring my knick knacks, a most impressive collection what?" "Hard won my dear ladies and gentlemen." He admits, a note of stern warning darkening his tone. "But for those of a stiff constitution and a stiffer stomach, great renown and reward can be won." He leans forward, the firelight dancing in his monocle, his brows beetling and his mustaches quivering with passion. The string quartets music swells to a crescendo, and the study seems to recede while great pillars of stone rise from the shadows to frame the gentleman. "Come, this spring seek the Pillars of Eternity, adventure and glory await. Steel your soul, load your rifle, sharpen your sword and your wits, for you will require all of these in the Reach." "But remember, there is no rest for the Watcher!" Sweeping music arises, the Pillars of Eternity logo rises to prominence and Sir Harcourt Smythe sits back in his armchair as he diminishes, staring into the flickering flames of his past until disappearing into the dozens of images that play throughout the great pillars of Adra. Iris out, and let the music repeat a soft, sad rhythm that hints of the ticking away of Eternity.

Commiserations on losing a friend sir, and of course deepest sympathies are extended to Mr Beckett's family.

Ignorant and stupid, could almost be a rallying cry for the SJFs. Ideally they shouldn't be allowed out of care institutions if they're that lacking in basic common sense, and yet these simpletons have the nerve to criticise gamers. Most amusing. Hope the poor animal is taken from her by the RSPCA or similar institution for its own good, and she's not allowed to own any other animals.