aluminiumtrioxid

Its one of those words that are a victim of their ability be used as a bludgeon in discourse. It has too much emotive weight/baggage even though in and of itself is really a neutral concept (the problem is always how it's used and censorship is used every day in a wide variety of forms). Quite so. ...Since when is "dark content" offensive?

Frankly, judging by the fact that the dude couldn't even spell "light", I'd be astonished if it turned out backer submissions were even read at all, much less vetted for appropriateness. And you might be right. Regardless though, if they remove something solely on the grounds that it has offended or might offend someone, then it's censorship by definition. Even if they did it pre-release, if they looked at that limerick, and said "this might offend someone, we should take it out," then that's censorship. Once again, not good or bad, just fits the definition. I don't think it's a very useful definition then. (Also, typical GGer dogwhistle, which makes me even more hesitant to use the word.)

Frankly, judging by the fact that the dude couldn't even spell "light", I'd be astonished if it turned out backer submissions were even read at all, much less vetted for appropriateness.

Always applicable: [video link] Why should anyone care what Jim Sterling has to say about anything? Because it's relevant to the discussion and a pretty astute one as well? Always applicable: This is the definition of Censorship according to Wikipedia: Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication or other information which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by governments, media outlets, authorities or other groups or institutions. Removing a joke because someone was offended clearly, unequivocally falls under this definition. My argument is that censorship is just a word and is not inherently good or bad. The key here is to argue whether the specific censorship in question in justified. The joke wouldn't even be in the game if it wasn't a backer submission someone paid to put in. You call its removal censorship, I call it editing (assuming the person who submitted it is cool with it being removed, which I believe is the case).

Always applicable:

Well I think Chanters are pretty fine as they are. Partially because, I'd argue, opponents getting instagibbed before they could use Invocations is a problem with the party setup (too much dps), and partially because the short battles where they don't get to use their flashy powers would be won just as fast without them anyway, but in the long-running fights, where they can unleash multiple invocations, those invocations can be real game-changers. Granted, I have very little but my own experience to support this, spreadsheet gaming not really being my thing.

Well, you wanna crit a lot. The accuracy bonus from single wielding is probably going to be your friend.

You want some Con for your defender, otherwise you'll have to sleep more often than optimal for the first few levels until you get your deflection up to the point where nobody can touch you. Also, I'd go with no armor on any character you intend to use as a pure damage dealer. Personally, I'd recommend paladin with maxed Per and Res. You can dump Dex and Might, you won't be using him to deal damage anyways (and the enemy AI seems to be very averse to disengagement attacks regardless of how much they'd hurt, so a toothless defender can defend just as well as someone who can dish out some serious hurt). You may also want to consider a few points in Intellect for the auras, although that's not necessary. As for guns, they're best used in an opening volley, then switched out to a secondary weapon to circumvent reloading. Alternatively, you could use a chanter and the gunner talent to speed up the process.

Shadowrun: Dragonfall

Oh, right, it also allows me some semblance of respectability while arguing with myself.

Mostly the fact that it lets me douse people in oil then set them on fire.

What I was getting at is that it's an archetype with its roots harkening back to the movies, so I think it was definitely wrong of Bioware to not include the option. Then again, that would have required some subtlety from them. Bioware was never really big on subtlety.

She also seemed pretty much predisposed to accept that you're not capable of turning to the dark side, hence convincing her that you haven't, or at least, not really, shouldn't even be hard. You mean like Palpatine, avoiding detection for decades? I mean, I'm okay with force sensitives smelling the corruption on you, but you should be able to deceive the uninitiated.

I dunno, if I'm Dark Lord of the Sith and have been travelling with resourceful people all along, I'd expect to be able to convince them to, at the very least, put their concerns at rest until we resolve the whole "Sith armada looming in the background" problem, if I had a sufficiently high Persuade score. The problem is not that you can be a bloodthirsty ****, or a sadistic ****; the problem is that the game only offers you those options and is severely lacking a manipulative **** path.

He asked questions that were simple and constructive about what you found insightful in the article and then the bottom line was what set it all off, and lo and behold here we are with some stupid discussion instead of one about the article that was linked. I have a hard time reading "what was insightful to you? details on why and how the audience sucks?" as particularly constructive as opposed to accusatory, but ah well. Basically the underlying idea that most of the problems are undesirable results of - on the face, not entirely stupid - systems currently in place resonates strongly with me (and by "resonates strongly with me" I mean "basically the same thing I've been saying in this topic again and again", just applied to a different area). I could elaborate later if you want; pressed for time at the moment.

...Considering how fond you are of lambasting the SJ side over making statements you feel are not supported enough by empirical evidence, I think it's ironic that you're voicing that concern without any examples of this grudge actually carrying on to outside of the thread ...Who asked what questions? What I actually was accusing him of is "overvaluing a cynical-sounding opinion solely on the grounds of it being cynical". I also teased him about responding to a post of mine more emotionally than it could be expected, going by his seemingly impenetrably cynical facade. I mean, what you point out would only be ironical if I assigned a negative value to cynicism as a trait, which I didn't.

Isn't that stuff what this entire topic is about ? Generally people being ****, abusing sarcasm or trying to be edgy for The Cause ? ...said he, while maintaining with a straight face that he is absolutely not trying to don a facade of impenetrable cynicism. I'll either have to file this under "really elaborate performance art" or "sufficiently advanced hypocrisy".

How about we act like adults? Seriously this whole pointing fingers back and forth and arguing about who's most petty is what I'm talking about. It's stupid, pointless and dumb. Disappointing to see that's your reaction to me calling you both out on it. So what would you exactly want us to do? Start acting worthy of the generally *chuckles* measured *chuckling intensifies*, objective *chuckling further intensifies; occasional snorts* and highly informative *breaks out in hysterical laughter* discussion going on in this thread?

Well, your repeated assertions of "I only really follow this whole gamergate thing because it's good entertainment!" and generally dismissive attitudes towards social issues tend to create that perception. I know that despite this perception, you're not an unfeeling sociopath, hence "facade". I'm not sure why this would be insulting, but what do I know about the subtleties of language, I'm just a dirty foreigner after all. Well if you merely accidentally included a meaningless jab at "my group", as you so charmingly put it (hey, it's almost like meaningless jabs are just this... thing you do, without even thinking about it!), I guess it could've been avoided by snipping the irrelevant parts of the quote in order to prevent misunderstandings. Well sorry for thinking the phrasing was meant to signify that indeed, the quoted part was the only really good part for you

What a delightfully emotional reaction from someone so fond of pretending nothing penetrates his facade of detached cynicism Both of you sound dumb as **** with the petty jabs, ijs. ...said he, joining the discussion with a petty jab aimed at both participants

Depends on the game; I can totally imagine cutscenes as a crucial part of the experience in, say, an anime-inspired, high-energy game that emphasises spectacle and the main characters looking cool while doing their thing. (I also don't think this approach would be antithetical to the RPG genre; see also: Wushu ).

Absolutely. Actually, FNV is pretty much solely responsible for my opinion of DLC changing over time from "cleanse the heresy, CLEANSE IT WITH FIRE" to "actually, it can be done in a way that adds value to the game without undermining the core experience". Although I disagree with your implied assessment of New Vegas being a "pedestrian" example of AAA+ games Dude, if you provide me with concrete proof that you tend to overvalue highly cynical but not especially clever opinions solely on the grounds of them being highly cynical (as is the case with finding the statement "people campaigning for change don't really want change, because there are so few people buying innovative games" a "really good part" - you might notice there is no logical connection between the two statements, hence my verdict of it not being particularly insightful), then I don't really think it's particularly condescending of me to point out that you tend to overvalue cynicism as a trait.

Well, you can totally allow players to roam, meander and explore without forcing them to deal with boring, repetitive and badly-designed filler combats, so I'm fully in the "streamlining is good" camp. Or rather, "mechanics in roleplaying games should always work to enforce a game's core themes", which does not always equal streamlining, but the two tend to heavily coincide with the current industry standards being what they are.

What a delightfully emotional reaction from someone so fond of pretending nothing penetrates his facade of detached cynicism

Yeah, Bioware in general has this weirdly judgmental stance of "oh yeah, we're totally going to provide you with the options to play a bastard, except we'll punish you every step of the way. Also, we'll make a mockery of the supposed underpinings of the philosophy your bastardness lies upon (the same philosophy we made up)." I mean, KotOR1 gives you a perfectly good reason to go evil, then forces you to kill off almost your whole party for basically no discernible gain and with no alternatives if you do so. Jade Empire presents you with the Closed Fist philosophy, ostensibly all about forcing people to find their own strength by refusing to help them, but which generally translates to "kick all the puppies" ingame, with very few options to do things that are actually in line with what you're supposedly all about. And Mass Effect has the "hard man making hard choices"-esque Renegade path, which is revealed to be an utter farce upon replaying and seeing that basically none of those hard choices have yielded a better result than the alternative.