Drowsy Emperor

Picking up the tab is as a gesture of 'chivalry' is such a joke in a world where women earn about the same as men. I can pay the drinks for my female friends (they pay next time) or if I specifically want to treat my girlfriend, but for a random date - never. If a date expects you to pay for her, you best move on to the next one pronto. If you want to pay for company, might as well get a hooker, the outcome is guaranteed from the start so it's a strictly better deal.

I know there are a lot of people in the U.S. that understand very well how things are (not just on Sanders but on all of these issues) but they aren't a significant enough or influential enough chunk of the population.

Nothing that's public in America will ever again consistently be on an upward trajectory. The reason for that are ideological and have little to do with available means. The U.S. populace is the best ideologically groomed populace in the world because it blankly accepts the coexistence of unparalleled wealth and many, practically third world quality, public services as a fact of life, as if comparatively poorer countries have not already demonstrated that as a point of civilizational development, this doesn't have to be, and shouldn't be the case. This is because Americans seem to fervently believe 2 myths: 1. Wealth is predominantly created by hard work of entrepreneurial individuals and it's unfair to deprive them of it to feed the 'lazy leechers' at the bottom. This is just wrong. Wealth is an overwhelmingly inherited matter of class, and genuine 'made men' are far and few in-between. Most people that have lots of money did little to earn it (and have a comparatively easier time perpetuating it, than anyone climbing from the bottom). 2. The market knows best and will sort it out, so hand's off 'our money'. This has been demonstrated by every political economist with a shred of decency (so, no Milton Freedmans) to be completely bogus. The market won't sort out anything, and without severe correction it will concentrate wealth and spread deprivation. Markets are concerned with profit, not equality or justice and will naturally throw the latter under the bus at first opportunity. The logic that follows out of this is that the current state of affairs is the 'best one' or 'least bad one' and that any tampering will result in a terrible injustice to some hard working soul, and be downright immoral. And if you go so far as to suggest otherwise as some of the old American socialists/communists and unions did, well then, we'll just take a machine gun to you, as they did in Ludlow. After decades of such indoctrination, you can be forgive Americans for referring to Bernie Sander is a "Communist", something that was a running joke in Europe during the presidential elections. Nevertheless it speaks well of how truly fundamentalist the U.S. is regarding it's approach to old style capitalism, when a man that could barely qualify as 'democratic socialist' in Europe (basically capitalists with a bit of social policy, absolute lowest rung of leftist politics) is branded as an extreme leftist. All this prevents any serious discussion into a systematic overhaul of any public services, or any sort of 'new deal' and without the ideological threat of the USSR breathing down it's neck, there is no pressure on the American ruling class to change anything. So they won't.

TBH....I never could get into Morrowind. I played all *the best* and *kinda best* RPG's out there but....Morrowind? I really disliked the 'dialogue' system. Which was a shame! The music was awesome and I also enjoyed some other features but....yeah. That dialogue was a game-breaker for me. :/ (Unlike many other games, I didn't play Morrowind as a kid. If I would, my opinion could have been different.) I could never get into Morrowind either. I tried three times and each time I ended up slugging it out with some ugly critters in an oppressively brown landscape. There was a lot to read, but little of it interesting and the travel distances were vast without truly enticing content. Oblivion was objectively worse, but the graphics hooked one in at the start until the game's true, vapid, nature was revealed. When Skyrim rolled out, I tried it a bit and just didn't care - Bethesda games were never going to be up to the level of quality, cohesion and polish I expect from a (good) computer game. I can get behind budget games like Gothic that try to put their best foot forward in some aspects and expect you to give them a pass in others, but in a multi-million dollar AAA hype project having broken, half-finished, semi-randomly generated games out of the gate just don't fly. (insert No Man's Sky joke here)

Invading Iran is not feasible, in practical terms, for the U.S. Contending with the Iranians would be a feat in itself, but even more so when Russia and China start flooding them with latest generation of ballistic missiles and assorted weaponry. And you better believe they would, with a hostile army drawing so close to their spheres of interest all bets that apply in a country of middling importance such as Syria, would be off. And when a Russian or Chinese anti-ship ballistic missile tanks a U.S. aircraft carrier, drowning most of its crew and destroying it's air assets, what then? Declare war on Russia or China? There's no doubt that one of Washington's wet dreams is to see Iran in flames and a new Shah type government in it, but that's not on the cards soon. If they didn't do it back in the post-Cold War drunk-with-power late 90's early 00's era, they're not doing it now.

I want to play that game with them with a tazer.

I have to say the Swedes have really pounced on making RPGs. Symbaroum seems to have been quite a hit and there is one called Trudvang chronicles and that probably has some of the best art I've ever seen in an RPG book (if not the best, consistency and quality wise). And I have a huge collection of RPG books so it takes quite a bit to impress me.

IMO the best solution is (this heavily depends on what kind of game the players want to play, so it comes from my perspective), to have combat short, deadly with a smaller impact of gear relative to inherent racial traits. Talislanta did this really well with a template system that was flat out imbalanced according to what particular races were ideally like, no hit point growth (only skill growth) and simple combat resolution (armor was just a flat damage reduction number). This meant that some PC's could kill other PC's in one or two hits right away because one might be an non-combat artificer and the other could be a giant warrior monstrosity. It also meant that gear was secondary to the actual role of the PC within the gameworld (you can't stack up on magical crap and suddenly slap that giant silly - magic only allows for small edges) and avoided the whole numbers optimization game inherent to D&D. This way players learn to respect other races/monsters, have to play cleverly to get around stronger enemies and while they get better over time, they don't become a army slaughtering arrow-cushion as they do in D&D.

It's also interesting that D&D, for gaming purposes, tends to present armors as a progression whereas in reality it seems to have been a rather simpler situation - unarmored (a.k.a unlucky and possibly soon-to-be dead) or you either wore something was quite good, (the aforementioned gambesson) moving quickly into all but invulnerable (on the armored segments) starting with decent chainmail. There is a progression, historically speaking, but it cannot really be made to accommodate the gamey balance between characters with specific (magical) powers or skills (thieves) that need to be weaker by design than fighters that are allowed to wear everything. I had a similar 'simulationist' problem with Fading Suns since it assigns a typical progression of armor values to various medieval armors vs all sources of damage.... in a universe that has advanced guns.

The boiling process makes leather very brittle so, unless reinforced with steel, it can't really withstand a blow a weapon. It can reduce arrow penetration somewhat, so it's better than nothing. Some historical sources suggest that it was the poor man's option or even for braces and shins of knights who couldn't afford the whole metal kit, but a picture I saw had the boiled leather wrapped around chainmail for a little bit of added safety, rather than being the primary means of protection. I don't understand in what sense you meant those swords were different - relative to each other they're certainly not equal, but when properly sharpened they're a heavy piece of metal and should piece leather like butter. Sharpening is both a matter of material quality and skill of the sharpener, and even a poor metal can be made extremely sharp with dedication, if only for a short while. Even the primitive obsidian weapons of the mesoamericas, which look like a plank with bits of rock stuck in, can be sharpened to the degree that it can chop a horse's head right off: They have swords of this kind — of wood made like a two-handed sword, but with the hilt not so long; about three fingers in breadth. The edges are grooved, and in the grooves they insert stone knives, that cut like a Toledo blade. I saw one day an Indian fighting with a mounted man, and the Indian gave the horse of his antagonist such a blow in the breast that he opened it to the entrails, and it fell dead on the spot. And the same day I saw another Indian give another horse a blow in the neck, that stretched it dead at his feet.

I don't know why these people hate the wealth of armor history so much they'll invent bogus designs in 2018 Leather in general is not a suitable material for armor, since it cannot stop even the most primitive of weapons. It is a supplementary material to steel in making a variety of armor designs. This can be tested by dropping a heavy rock on your toes while wearing a typical Timberland boot on one foot and a steel reinforced construction boot on the other. This simple experiment will, besides potentially making you a cripple, demonstrate that leather alone is not that great for stopping dangerous things from making contact with the flimsy human body - particularly a heavy, sharp piece of steel aimed with intent to kill you.

Bro, he's persistently and reliably inconsistent- the only thing consistent is the 'in' in front of 'consistent'. Doesn't necessarily mean that he's wrong, but that certainly isn't evidence that he's right. I do wish people would drop the drink accusations though. ... To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand MCA. His posting style is extremely subtle and without a solid grasp of office politics the points will go over a typical reader's head. There's also Chris's nihilus development which is a deftly woven character- his characteristics draws heavily freom Vhilor in PST for example. His fans understand this stuff, they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depth of his commentary, to realise that they're not just well written characters and complaints about management, they say something deep about existence. As a consequnce people who don't believe Chris truly are idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate the accuracy in Chris's existential catchphrase "tinynickinyourmouth", which is itself a cryptic reference to the guy's username. I'm smirking right now imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as MCA's genius wit unfolds itself on the Codex. What fools, how I pity them. Any yes, by the way, I do have an MCA tattoo. And no, you cannot see it, it's for Codexer's eyes only- and even then they'd have to demonstrate that they're within 2 years of my join date (preferably older) beforehand and have at least 10k parrots received. Nothing personnel, vals. I've never seen you triggered so badly, what's gotten into you

I made a similar observation on Reddit the other week. To my surprise he responded. Durance was nothing more than Ignus and Kreia. Not a bad mix, but not a new character either. Same thing with Shape of Fire in MotB; an old character with a new name. MotB and KOTOR2 were full of Torment-like characters. It was particularly noticeable because they all speak in the same wordy, troubled, existential style and carry similar 'spiritual' baggage. Don't get me wrong, it's still better than daddy-issues Bioware, but MCA has been orbiting the same muse for a while now.

my issue with MCA is that he has been rehashing old ideas in many of the characters that he has written after Torment and I have not seen anything from him that is nearly as memorable for a very long time now. That really overshadows the entire nonsensical controversy for me. We're here for the games, not to be an ethics board. Presumably. He wrote Durance, right? It's the most annoyingly overwritten, repetitive bull****ter I've seen in a video game. I'd say that's the problem right there.

A circlejerk of people talking about what other people are thinking, saying or doing, with no special insight, from at least a state or a continent away.

When will this episode of the Kardashians end

I don't know what PST was like immediately on release, but the game worked excellently just a few months later. I only remember crashing on disc change. The whole point of Grace's diary is not to know what is in it.

MCA should just have done a remix of 'Without Me' and departed in style. Two vault park girls go 'round the outside... 'Round the outside... .... *no offense to the girls, dunno who they are but the opportunity was too good to pass up

It can't be overstated. When Chris left Obsidian back in 2015, everybody assumed it was an orderly and planned "resigned to pursue other interests" scenario. Maybe there was some bad blood involved, but it happened entirely out of his volition. Now all of a sudden he's talking about how his health insurance was abruptly cancelled and he was left in the lurch. That would not have happened if he had planned to leave Obsidian! So if Chris Avellone was fired, the question that needs to be asked is - why? Not really. His job or lack thereof is a private matter, regardless of how badly (or not) Obsidian handled it.

To deaden their fire? ...I'll leave now

Highly disappointing to read.

I'd argue it's not 'despite' but 'because'. I think majority of people enjoy feeling of progression, not gamification of accounting that RPGs tend to be - and STALKER nailed the feeling of actual progression without using any numbers that players would need to calculate through. Stalker just nailed atmosphere and that feeling of randomness (thus possibility, danger, excitement) that comes from older, non streamlined games. The systems and all the numbers bull**** melted away into the background of actually enjoying the experience of playing the damn thing. I don't even recall the progression in the game, but I do remember sweating as dark came and all the monsters started showing up, with my ever declining amount of bullets and tall grass and burnt out wrecks obstructing the view. It was like Dark Souls in that sense.

Nobody is going to budge on anything substantial. There is no way in hell NK will give up nukes, nor will the U.S. give up a single soldier in what is increasingly the most important 'battlefield' in the world. What NK wants is security for their government and there is no way to achieve that which does not include the double threat of nukes and the conventional failsafe of an army near the border. Perhaps when they achieve a good level of redundancy (potential for launching and thus retaliation in any scenario of U.S. assault) and reliability (of the ICBM's) with the nuclear arsenal the army will no longer be as necessary. In practice they have it - RAND studies have shown that there is no reliable way to attack NK and be sure that all the secret missile sites have been destroyed in a first strike, which means a low risk attack is not feasible. However, in other aspects NK's nuclear potential 'not quite there yet'. They still need to miniaturize the nukes as warheads (not easy) and a reliable launch potential to hit U.S. mainland (including things like solid fuel for quick launches, more rockets, a good level of precision etc.). On the other hand they're not going to attack SK on their own volition, even if the U.S. failed to lift a finger about it. That's not, nor it has been for decades, a credible threat. SK is an extremely populous country and would require a massive army to take and control. Attacking it would cause massive international condemnation and a war which would be extremely unpredictable and likely devastating for the NK government even if they eventually won. I see Kim's recent acts more as a way of maneuvering into a NK-SK deal that would push the U.S. out of the talks and make it very difficult for Trump to engage in outward hostility. If there is the appearance of a credible peace deal between NK-SK, even on the distant horizon, it's very hard to bomb the talks without suffering a reputational blow. NK gets massive stalling power from it, SK gov gets political points as well. And Trump has to play along, perhaps even more so in the situation of permanent scandals rocking his administration.

Invade, probably not. Bomb, yes. What is China going to do, take down U.S. planes that are not bombing it's territory?

It would be downright stupid to give up nuclear weapons - the U.S. would attack within months or perhaps even weeks, of such a decision. The question is really, how much freedom South Korea has in deciding it's own policies. They could literally push for de-facto unification now, and then slowly integrate over a long period of time to avoid turbulence. But that would take major balls.