Longknife

Why do people still try and insist the Paladin doesn't suck ****? "You can get more reach though." Paladin is already highly demanding on stat points. It's hardly a consolation that a max int Paladin could hit that Moon Godlike just because it essentially means moving a good amount of stats to INT all for the benefit of 6 accuracy. That's balls. Likewise, putting the Paladin class "in the middle" is not that simple. AKA, if you mean between the tanks and the casters, then you specifically need to position the paladin every fight and they will not be a front line tank at all, whereas if you mean just have everyone cluster the paladin, wtf dude half your guys will get themselves killed doing that.

It's 4. Dispositions go up to 4, but Faith and Conviction maxes out at 3. As far as that talent goes, there's no difference between 3 and 4. Isn't it awesome how I keep learning new things about the ways Paladins suck ass?

I'm torn. I have respect with how good he is with women (not really shown in the video, but he must be), but at the same time...? With age I'm discovering I have a talent for talking to women myself. Supposedly we men raised by single mothers get an advantage in that category, and I'm already good with people in general. However, unlike that guy, I've also got commitment issues. I'm super cautious about who I let close out of a fear they'll want to be a part of my life to a degree I'm not comfortable with. If I try to put myself in his shoes....? There's of course a "sell-out" aspect where he's lying to some women and doing things he doesn't want to do to survive. Ever had a shot with a woman you just absolutely were not interested in? I have, and that's something society skips a beat over. Much of the male population knows this for themselves, but there is such a thing as a guy being turned off or disinterested in sex with a fairly attractive woman, but that never really gets discussed. This guy is no exception to that rule, so I'm sure there's a decent amount of doing things he hates to get by. You can't exactly blame him, but at the same time I don't know that I'd call his choice in lifestyle admirable as, me personally, I have more respect for someone who finds a way to live that they're completely happy with, and I find the odds that he's happy with this to be rather low, which his description himself supports. Who are you to judge? Granted, as stated above, he himself seems of two minds about his situation, but if he were happy and content living like this, then who are you to judge what a waste of life is? Believe it or not, some people are homeless by choice. I say this with confidence because Germany even distinguishes between the two. In my town, the homeless get the polite term of "Obdachlose" which simply means homeless. Then there's "Penner," which is more on par with bum or hobo. I could point the difference out to you very easily with one stroll through my town. The Obdachlose are the ones who look sad and are asking for money, the Penners are the ones loudly drinking and conversing with each other, showing no shame about living off what the government affords them, with multi-colored hair or punk/goth clothing as they give zero ****s about how they smell or how there's holes in their jeans showing their butts. (yes I have encountered a woman who had such a hole but was so ****faced drunk she didn't care) While I sympathize with the criticisms of the Penners, I also must say I wouldn't dare apply the phrase "wasting their lives away" to them, because they actually seem very content with their lifestyle.

The maximum is 3 per disposition, so in total 6. It's 4. Also for those bragging they have over 100 of a stat for Paladin, that's pretty much expected on Fighter too. It's nothing new or special.

I also wanted to say I'm not quite understanding the "controversy" around Pakman's interview with Sommers. I've seen GamerGate supporters going after him for a number of things, such as having an agenda, clickbait titles (wtf?), not really discussing GamerGate and a part where a clip is inserted into the video and it's "unclear" it wasn't played for Sommers. The criticism of it not being about GamerGate I find fair; in some ways I wouldn't expect him to know or understand it and her involvement with GamerGate is very limited anyways beyond saying she sympathizes with it, but you could of course argue he's a journalist and could do better with more research. Him having agenda I again find iffy cause while I do get that vibe, it doesn't insert itself into the video. Namely, what I think we're seeing more is his views and experiences coloring his expectations in the interview, but is the interview itself still conducted professionally and fairly? Absolutely, and that's all you can really ask for. The clickbait title accusation has me stumped. Accusations the video was not played for Sommers nd we were misled to believe so has me stumped too. Are we watching the same video? At no point did he say "let me play that clip for you now" and directly following her answer he recommends the video to her, making it crystal clear she had not seen it. Again, this is some of my annoyance with Gamergate lately: https://twitter.com/CHSommers/status/591705881793982465 The tone is so catty. I mean, you can ask the man to insert a disclaimer, something he did on his own the moment he saw this tweet. Instead there's this attitude of "oh man there's some conspiracy going on here!!!" Not a conspiracy like aliens and tinfoil hats, but like Pakman was purposefully trying to mislead the audience. That's insane. It was clearly an honest mistake and they could've calmly asked for the disclaimer. INSTEAD we see that kind of tone, we see a lot on the gamergate side (Milo, Sargon etc) jumping on board and trashing Pakman, and you know what? GamerGate does look stupid as hell now. Good job guys. Good ****ing job. So frustrating to see this happening over time. GamerGate is becoming too high strung and handling everybody as if they were some hugbox SJW with an agenda and a refusal to hear the other side. Pro-tip: that's not how everyone acts and treated everyone that way makes you come off as looney tunes as the people you're opposing.

I'll leave the rest because there's already a thread on it in the gaming forum, and also because this sentence alone is all I really need to make the point. Ethics is not, itself, about what is legal or not, it's about what is ethical. It isn't actually illegal for Gawker to do the vast majority of the stuff they've been accused of doing either, writing biased stuff, clickbaiting, paid for articles etc it's just crappy practice from crappy people- even their use of unpaid interns has not been proven to be illegal, yet. I don't give a flying asterisk if Valve's SSA is technically legal, it's a massive infringement on purchaser's rights* by a company that is monopolistic and responsible for egregious erosion of the practicalities of what game playing is, and all for the benefit of Valve. I don't use Gawker, and I don't use Steam, but in terms of ethics they're pretty much identical whether you like it or not, indeed as previous Valve is already profiting from the equivalent of a Gawker contributor actively plagiarising others' content- with the proviso that, apparently, Valve has been advising people that is actually OK to do so- which is actively illegal (albeit, you have to challenge them via DMCA, but it's exactly as illegal as piracy is, because it is piracy. Indeed, it's worse than baseline piracy because they profit from it). Sheesh, they've started censoring ratings for the paid mods because they're too low, that's straight out of a Gawkeresque playbook. *as someone from New Zealand software is a product, not just a licence, by law, indeed we have a specific addendum on refunds due to it being covered by our CGA; and unlike the EU one there isn't a legalistic workaround to allow them to refuse refunds based on technicalities because that loophole doesn't exist here. The ethical thing would, of course, be for Valve to honour the spirit of the law- lord knows, they have enough money as it is- but, as it actually is, they ignore the spirit of the law and solely work to and around the letter of it. **** them then. Fair enough points, but I would still argue that the difference is this: I do not expect the average journalist company to act and condone themselves as Gawker does. I do expect such greed and strong-arming from any company ever. The only difference between Valve and a smaller company is that Valve has the tools to strong-arm, smaller companies do not. Therefore, it's not so much an attack on Valve, but an attack on how the business world works in general. Is it a noble goal? Perhaps, but a noble goal with absolutely zero plan will never be nothing more than a pipedream. And that's exactly my point. If I were to look at GamerGate threads and see people suggesting brilliant ideas of how to change Valve's practices or change such practices as a whole? I'd be 100% behind them. But this? Name one idea you've seen thusfar beyond a petition and boycotting. There's no direction and no realistic goal here, and I think we should acknowledge that and cut our losses, OR actually demand those that want to complain about these issues develop working plans to fix them. I for one am suggesting cutting losses because I myself have found myself wanting to come up with plans to fix similar issues in similar situations, but nothing came to mind. I know these practices, I know how they are and I know why they are as they are, but I know of no alternatives to fix the parts I do not like. As such, lamenting the problem day in and day out will do nobody any good, so I reluctantly focus my time elsewhere.

Btw, i guess you'd put Wu in the same category, but she did talk Brad Wardell. So maybe it's not as black and white? Alright then, have a more topical example. Here's a link to the exact portion of the David Pakman interview video where a clip of Cenk is played: https://youtu.be/AhDPFJENqBc?t=22m38s Quite frankly, Cenk looks like an absolute ass, and I now understand why Orogun voiced the opinion of TYT that he did. That clip represents exactly what I'm talking about: emotional reactions and stories taking priority over actual discussion and intellectual topics. I understand fully what the guest was trying to say, but Cenk merely shouts her down and acts like an ass. Sadly, this is something that's grown worse over time. Remember, this is the very same guy who started Wolf-Pac. He's intelligent and capable of quite a bit, instead he's making an ass of himself and reminding me of Bill Maher when he's blatantly mocking people, except Cenk is doing it during a guest interview. (and if Maher does this stuff to his guests too? Now would be a great time for a disclaimer that I'm no big fan of Bill Maher) Also on the subject of Brianna Wu, don't give her too much credit. By her own admission, this is something she did cause she was tired of all the pressure from GamerGate and she did it in hopes of stepping out of their target sights a bit. It wasn't something she did in good faith on her own, but rather something to meet a selfish end and sadly something sparked by a pressure of sorts. As for Wolf-Pac, it's the one reason I haven't hit the unsubscribe button already, and you'll note that again, Wolf-Pac predates the time period that I began to drift away from TYT.

Yes. :smug: It wouldn't, you don't have a leg to stand on legally- though this is peripheral and was used primarily as a hypothetical. But, Paradox used to cancel support for base games when they released paid for expansions, for example, so it definitely has happened, and there is no legal recourse for it. Really? That's... startlingly naive, to be frank. Bethesda's base UI is rubbish, they have no incentive to fix it themselves if they can sell an improved UI for $10 a pop; it actively makes it against their interests to fix things like that. As for games always getting fixed- I don't know where to start, that's not even closely related to actual reality (eg Spacebase DF9, dozens upon dozens of Early Access scams etc). Buggy games get abandoned all the time because you don't have legal recourse, Valve excludes Class Action as part of their SSA, makes it near impossible to get refunds and good luck getting anyone to go small claims court or equivalent to get back 20-40$. Their SSA is about the most consumer unfriendly document anywhere- Origin's, for example, is positively benign in comparison, let alone GOG's. Read their EULA- they claim ownership of all mods anyway, they aren't 'asking' or 'buying' anything. That clause is legally dubious, to say the least, so they aren't trying to enforce it actively- since they would lose, it's mostly a hedge against similarity/ derivative based copyright claims- but it is there. And it opens the way to them compelling people to sell mods, or trying to outright seize them, or forcing mods to go workshop only. It is, quite simply, an abysmal idea practically even if the basic idea that modders be rewarded is theoretically a very good one. As for the last, they have an active interest in not catching problems related to charged mods. They don't get cash for free ones or ones hosted on Nexus, after all, only for those monetised on Workshop. And again, what legal recourse is a free mod maker going to take against Valve? Again, that's very naive. Lol. You might want to read the general gaming forum some time, I don't use steam at all and never will. But plenty of people who do use it are very upset about this. Well, you're not arbiter of what is relevant or not and it is clear that many do consider it relevant. There will be plenty of illegal stuff and plenty of unethical stuff done there, people are already monetising other people's mods which is copyright infringement, with Valve and Bethesda benefitting. Steam's support is rubbish and their curation is rubbish, those are the two things that are essential for this system to work, plus it's a further attempt to put even more of PC gaming behind steam's walled garden. Plus, the two parties that have contributed least to the mod by far get more of a cut than the person who actually made it. I couldn't care less if something is successful or if other people boycott or not. You can only do what you can do, don't do anything though and you'll always fail. Apathy is Death, to quote a famous computer game. Oi where to start here.... The EULA is more within the context that you are not within your right to attempt to commercialize your mods yourself without their permission. It is not claiming that Bethesda is legally within their right to take some guy's mod and release it as their own right now and profit off his work, because that would be blatantly questionable itself. What the EULA would claim would be irrelevant because a contract itself can be illegal and hold no value. So I promise you, what the EULA is merely expressing is that if I release a quest mod right now, I am NOT within my right to make my own website where I commercially sell and profit off of that mod, and if I attempt to do so, they can shut me down and take all my profits immediately. There is a reason modders have only ever requested donations. What's going on with modding now is that Bethesda would also be overstepping their boundaries if they blatantly ripped someone's mod work and released it as their content and profited off it. So what happens? Bethesda negotiates contracts with the modders where the already limited rights that modders hold over their mods are being bought out entirely by Bethesda, with the payment being 25% royalty fees for the creator. Bethesda's Base UI for Skyrim is not a case of false advertising. If I say I'm going to sell you a new car engine, then it's assumed that it works of course unless I explicitly state otherwise that it's missing a part or that it is unreliable in some way. You CANNOT go to court and claim Bethesda falsely advertised Skyrim as having this incredible, bug-free UI, because that never happened. What you are naming are merely your own qualms and issues with the products you've purchased, but by no means are they extreme enough to warrant a lawsuit. Extreme enough would be a case where something is blatantly advertised to the public as serving some purpose, and then it clearly doesn't. Your complaints are akin to....if you watch a movie and you think it was a bad movie...have the creators done anything malicious or legally wrong? No, they haven't. At most you can demand your money back, and you'd need a very extreme case for a class-action lawsuit to be possible. An example of what could spark a lawsuit? The Sims 3 has an expansion called Island Paradise. There are pathing and AI issues with the neighborhood added by this expansion, to the point where that neighborhood suffers from crippling lag that makes it unplayable, and in worst case scenarios, can corrupt the whole game and force a reinstall. The problem? Over half of the new features added by this expansion are tied directly to that neighborhood and cannot be used outside of that neighborhood. The content here was never officially patched. I am in awe that EA got away with that and that expansion did not spark mass refunds for all customers, the expansion becoming free for everyone, or some form of legal action. Having said that though...? I would bet you $1,000, easily, that if you own said expansion legally and you file a complaint with EA support demanding your money back for it, they will very quickly bend over backwards to calm you and appeal to your demands the moment you've proven legal ownership. Why? Because they know what's up. Having said that, that would be a case where legal action could accomplish quite a bit. Sometimes the difference between a company being sued or not is as simple as someone attempting, and EA should be counting their blessings on that one. As such, the above is also a case where, were EA to release a patch for that expansion and attempt to charge for it? Same exact thing. But you not being satisfied with Skyrim's UI? No, you have no legal claim. This is akin to you not being satisfied with the jokes presented in the latest Adam Sandler movie you paid to watch. It's sad day for you. As for Valve's SSA, two things: 1) It does not universally apply to all people and all countries. As stated, a contract itself can be illegal, and sure enough, Section 11 opens up with a big disclaimer that it can be irrelevant depending on the laws of your country. 2) It does not mean that you are incapable of making a claim against Valve, it merely means that the method by which you resolve any potential issues will be via Arbitration rather than via the court systems. Why a company would prefer this has various reasons, both innocent and harmless and admittedly self-serving and crappy. (for example, you may have inadvertedly answered my question as to why EA hasn't had a class-action lawsuit against them as for some reason that never occured to me, because binding arbitration could basically demand that each individual contact EA themselves for a refund rather than EA being forced to refund everyone, making it a "slow burn of sorts." Another use of arbitration is to sometimes strongarm people out of attempts as it is possible for it to actually cost MORE than a normal court proceeding, but that does not appear to be the case with Valve as they offer to pay your fees in several instances. Would also like to clarify that typically by and large arbitration is cheaper, I was merely naming that as an example of a way a company might use arbitration to it's advantage, given certain circumstances) It also lists a number of types of claims where the contract and it's obligatory arbitration hold no legal value. I am not stating there is no cause for concern with things such as Section 11, I'm merely stating that you are exaggerating it's ramnifications. That section is in place to protect the company from getting burned hard on a class-action scale, not to completely absolve you of your rights to complain, protest or demand any refunds or reimbursement. For several of the examples you've named, you'll need to clarify with me what exactly went wrong because I'm unfamiliar with them. As stated though, the Skyrim UI one is a very weak example and not a case where Bethesda has done anything legally wrong. Things begin to be legally sketchy when you explicitly promise a service and it isn't provided, aka false advertisement. Demanding payment for patches is exactly that, more or less. Finally, I never claimed to be arbiter of what is relevant or not, I'm merely stating that in my opinion, this is not something worth wasting time on because many of the claims being made hold no actual weight. I would suggest that people spend their time on issues that they can actually bring about change for, not on ones where they lament how much the situation shafts them, but the situation is sadly legally sound. Sounds reasonable, no? All I'm saying is I'd prefer to see actual plans to bring about change, but the controversy revolving around the modding is mostly just laments with no actual working plans to do jack about it, and it's pretty debateable to begin with in the sense that Gawker comparatively has all sorts of skeletons in the closet. Valve? Valve has zero, they simply have very bold and aggressive policies that are clearly made to their benefit, but they're 100% legal.

The day when there is no time for dialog and discussion is the day when we as the human race have already lost. How can you have dialogue with someone that wishes to erase dialogue to begin with? Compromise with only semi-dialogue put in the hands of arbiters that decide how narrow the narrative should be? Sounds like poison to the mind...damn, a few bottles of whiskey with friends really makes your mind spin. The issue is that from what I'm seeing and in my humble opinion, GamerGate supporters are blurring the lines and refusing dialog with those who are very much capable of having dialog, mistaking everyone to be as reluctant to debate as SJWs. You can't let that kinda stuff jade you out and make you stop trying entirely. Hell, I'd still periodically attempt dialog with SJWs or people who would support folks like Anita or Gawker, because I believe dialog is how I can best show them how they're mistaken. If they refuse to speak or listen, that's too bad, but that doesn't mean I should give up on trying, ESPECIALLY when the result is that I'm giving up on trying with everyone instead of just with those who dodged dialog to begin with. Case and point: this Pakman interview. I'm watching it now but I've heard Sommers is accusing him of taking something she said out of context, and GamerGate is talking trash about Pakman for it. Whether he is guilty or not (no idea, not finished with the interview), this IS a man you attempt dialog with. By all means call him out on it, but these idiots ready to go from "Pakman is a great journalist" to "burn him at the stake" in 30 seconds flat need to calm the hell down.

The same could be said of the Daily Show, and yet it's often used as a news source. Firstly, I wonder if Cenk would agree with you that it's an entertainment network, and secondly, regardless of his answer, they are fully within their right to be more entertainment than news or vice versa, but I am also fully within my right to prefer more news than entertainment and stop watching when it comes to that. As for examples....? Man this is something that stems back to like a year ago, so I'm afraid I don't remember concrete examples. I will say however that I've been subscribed since 2008 or so, and the TYT you see now is the TYT I initially subscribed to. They're similar, but back then there was more focus on, for example, corrupt politics. Now? I just checked their channel as an example: I have absolutely nothing against such stories and it's important to discuss them, but sadly these kinds of stories aptly sum up TYT very well lately. What do they advertise and sell more? The reactionary stories where there's clear reason to be outraged and the stories that make people angry almost immediately. Again these are fine, but I remember the TYT that had both these and the stories that reported on how a major corporation might take taxpayers for a ride by finding a way to get the government to pay them to do nothing but move entire warehouses of aluminum back and forth with no goal or reasoning behind it whatsoever. Sure enough, look through their headlines now: "Want a Bentley? Bomb Yemen!" "Talk show told Muslim women to stay out of sight" "Popeye's offers pregnant woman her job back" "Pizza-wielding robot saves man from suicide" "Photo of mom breastfeeding on the toilet goes viral" "SHOCKING responses when Homeless man tries to GIVE out money" "Students throw anti-gay day protest on campus" "Why did Porn hub send a new laptop to this guy?" What do these have in common? They're reactionary and click-bait-y. What I'm saying is that these stories are easy. The hard stories are the ones that require actual journalism and investigation. Yknow, the ones where they expose financial ties or where Cenk or Steve Oh explain the ramnifications a law could have from their more educated perspectives. Sadly, such stories are in the vast minority now. I am not saying they shouldn't cover the kinds of stories they cover now at all, I'm merely saying they're getting lazy and taking the easy route. They're picking on easy targets, not the difficult ones, and it's making them come off as gossipy and as rebellious young kids (aka work I'd expect from someone my age at 26, where cynicism and criticism is offered, but actual work is not) rather than serious pundits worth my time.

The day when there is no time for dialog and discussion is the day when we as the human race have already lost.

Why? I'm growing to hate liberal pundits because they have become such caricatures of themselves. I can't really think of one that's not smug, arrogant, engages in double think and generally fails to live by the ideals they promote when it counts. It seems the liberal pundit tv formulas is to arrogantly declare oneself into the intellectual/moral high ground by shaming the opposition for their views. They won't even refute them with a statement of why they are wrong they just act like they're right and if you don't get it there is something wrong with you. This is also a very good point. TYT went from a stance of calmly examining the facts to "here's a story and here's our opinion on it." I don't watch the news to be fed an opinion. They used to highlight how Fox with it's Talking Points memos on the screen are essentially propaganda (they totally are) and how it kinda forces it's opinions on you in a deceptive way, and now TYT essentially does the same. They read you a story briefly, and then they feed you the opinion they want you to follow. Cenk can still do very good solo work from time to time where he cites facts as to why an issue is a big deal or why something should be done, but Ana for example by comparison just provides reactions and nothing but, and Cenk often does the same when not working alone, sadly.

I couldn't care (much) less about corruption in games media so I'm a bit biased, but the paid mod issue is perfectly relevant when seen as part of a general consumer revolt, same as charging for patches, buggy releases and other crappy practices would be. The general GGer likes gaming and doesn't want it to be changed arbitrarily for the benefit of other parties whether they be rainbow haired 'progressives' pushing an agenda or monopolistic corporates pushing their profit margins. No. First I'd like to ask who has been charging for patches, because that WOULD have court case written all over it. Second, it's not the same because if I were to sell you a product and you buy that product in good faith that it works and functions as intended and advertised then I charge you for a fix, that's essentially scamming. That would get me in trouble, and that's exactly what charging for patches would do. If you're wondering why software developers get away with patching and none of them ever get taken to court over a buggy release, it's because they inevitably fix them via patches, and bugs are somewhat expected with game development. Bethesda making people able to monetize their mods....? Essentially what this is is Bethesda saying "excuse me sir, but your mod seems very popular and we would like to buy the rights to the mod so we can sell it as semi-"official" content of sorts, and our good friend Valve is willing to help us make that happen. Would you be willing to sell us the rights to your mod in exchange for a cut of the royalties?" People are in an uproar about this because Valve and Bethesda are strong-arming their corporate power to take the lion's share of the profit and showing little to no compassion for mod makers, and because they're leaving mod makers to fend for themselves legally, providing very little support there beyond "if someone has sold us your content claiming it as their own, contact us and let us know and we'll help you out" instead of trying to take pretentative measures on behalf of the modders to begin with; they're catching problems after they arise, not in advance. But what they're doing is 100% legally sound, and you know why they're strong-arming the deal? Because they know that not you nor anyone else is about to boycott Steam or Bethesda games in response over modders getting only a 25% cut. They've (Valve) been offering 25% as a cut for a long time now for their own games. It's a case where I understand the frustration, but there's absolutely nothing wrong or illegal being done here, and I definitely do not believe we'll see a successful boycott of Valve or Bethesda, so I see no purpose in wasting time on this. Why? I'm in the same boat. I have not watched the interview causing the outrage yet (which is Pakman's content anyways, and he's only an affiliate to TYT, who I've got no problems with), but I used to watch TYT as one of my major sources of news years ago. Over the past year or so I've become less interested in them because they began doing the same things they used to criticize others for: misleading titles, sensationalization of stories, and one thing was their channel was always plagued with troll commentators claiming they turn everything into a race or gender issue.....and that used to be trolling. Over time, it sorta became true, and I got annoyed that in ANY story, they'd attempt a racial spin on it whether appropriate or not. They did a ton of that after Ferguson so I just lost interest and stopped watching regularly. No idea if they're still doing it.

First time I picked up Kana, I proceeded to the fights, pretty wrapped up in how intense the Caed Nua enemies were for a newcomer. After a while I thought "hey wait, where is that guy" since I wasn't seeing him on the front lines with other people I don't have to micromanage hard like Eder and my character. Saw him in the back, looked at him a bit, and asked "wait....does he have a f***ing gun?" Two seconds later he raised it up, shot it, and an enemy died just like that. I thought "OMG, He's got a f***ing GUN!" and proceeded to ask myself "why the hell are we using swords if we can use freaking GUNS?!" and I was just laughing about how I didn't know guns were options and how stupidly OP it looked compared to conventional weapons, DPH-wise. Very entertaining to fight a tough battle and then when you're trying to think of how to down an enemy, Kana just shoots it in the face and problem solved. Often does a hilarious, wonderous job of pointing out how trivial a lot of alternatives can be when you've got a friggin' gun.

Here's an example of my frustration with GamerGate lately: Valve and Bethesda capitalizing on mods. Are Valve and Bethesda taking a large cut of the income? Yes. Is it bound to shake up the modding community quite a bit? Yes. Is it frustrating to watch Valve and Bethesda take this step? Hell yes. Does this have **** all to do with corruption and collusion in journalism? NOPE. Infact, it's legally really tight, nor is it anything new. Valve has long taken user-created content for Team Fortress 2 for example, picked out the popular ones, and made them official content that the creator gets a cut of. I wish I remembered the exact number, but I merely recall the creator getting a modest cut just like here, AKA for every $400 the created item earns for Valve, the creator gets 100$ of that or so. But GamerGate is outraged because they, understandably, don't like it. That's great and all guys, but unless you're highlighting something Valve or Bethesda is blatantly doing wrong, then this is meaningless effort. Big businesses are stingy and ruthless when it comes to cash. No ****? It's the same sort of no **** situation like when GamerGate was trying to blame Obsidian for even CONSIDERING talking to Firedorn about changing the limerick. I get it: it's heart-shattering to realize businesses are devoid of any moral compass and only adhere to whatever brings them profit, but this is how the world works. Until you can find a working method to change that, whining about it accomplishes nothing. Trust me, I went through heartbreak realizing companies are money-grubbing jerks too and I would be more than happy to welcome a system that could change this, but I am not intelligent enough to pull such a system out of thin air, nor do I think gamer outrage over a change in the modding community will change the system either. All it is is hopeful whining. It's whining about how Bethesda and Valve are jerks for taking such a large cut and making a move to make modded content become less free. Sucks for us, but are they in their rights to do this? Absolutely. You're in your right to boycott these companies if you don't like the gesture, too. But this has nothing to do with corruption in games media. Corruption in games media? Those are instances where journalists are dangerously close to breaking the law, or were doing so and had been getting away with it. (yay Gawker) I care about GamerGate because I care about proper journalism and because I stand against the doctrines and ways of thought exhibited by the SJW clique. This news of modding has jack all to do with that. If someone wanted to create a movement focused towards finding a way to diminish the extent to which big name corporations use their clout to get the majority share of profit? Please by all means, sounds like an interesting and good cause, albeit extremely difficult to work out. Do I expect such genius from GamerGate? Absolutely not, and I believe that if GamerGate attempted to pursue this, it's merely expanding it's goals too much, spreading itself too thin, forgetting it's purpose and losing focus.

...and how this cannot be translated into an hilariously entertaining interview is beyond me. Get your popcorn already! Who cares about PR anyway, GG is KKK, ISIS and every other hate group combined in the eyes of mainstream media. I care in the sense GG is starting to become the sort of collectivized group think that it was once criticizing. Leave him be and give him a pass because he's "one of us?" **** that, burn his ass too if he deserves it. Gotta be honest, I rarely frequent KotakuInAction these days because the amount of idiots going around downvoting anyone who doesn't fit the main narrative is frustrating as hell. May seem small now because by no means do such people represent the majority, but that's the EXACT kinds of people and attitudes GG was trying to stand against. It reminds me of how growing up in Oklahoma while not being a Christian was difficult at times because a lot of people there will absolutely refuse to speak to you if you're not Christian. And if they do speak to you? It's to try and shove their religion down your throat and force you to convert so they can "save" you. They'd acknowledge how ridiculous they were being but at the same time say it was justified because their religion was "the right one." I legit had some guy refuse to leave me alone and insist he would follow me home once we got off the bus until I agreed to say the Lord's Prayer. I was smart and just played along and tried to hide my lack of a belief system as much as possible, lest I lose any degree of a social life. Some other people though would rebelliously proclaim themselves as athiests so everyone knew. Sad part is this: you'd think I'd be happy to encounter an athiest, as that'd be someone I could openly discuss religion with and they wouldn't care. NOPE. Problem was the athiests of that community learned all the wrong lessons. They were just as forceful and dickish about their beliefs (or lack thereof) as the Christians themselves. They'd spend their days trying to explain to the Christians why religion is bullcrap, insisting their constant discussion of the topic was justified because they were infact right about there being no God. Sound familiar? Good job idiot, you've become what you hated. The same guys would also try and insist to me I wasn't being firm enough or I was being ridiculous if I preferred to think of myself as agnostic instead. Point is that childish behavior, group think and other such problems are not exclusive to either side. If GG becomes relaxed with self-criticism and just champions anyone on their side, then it'll quickly devolve into the same dog-piling group-think crap a lot of the SJWs are guilty of, where anyone who raises counter points just gets shouted down and "allies" of the movement are praised no matter how ridiculous or stupid they are. You've never visited GamerGhazi and found it absurd that those people legitimately like, trust and believe every word spoken by Wu and Sarkeesian...? (or maybe they don't, but cannot admit it out of fear of being shouted down and outcasted) I have, and the moment GamerGate is doing the same just on the principle that someone's on our side, that's the moment I stop bothering with GG. It's not for the purpose of improving GG's image. It's for the purpose of improving GG itself. GamerGate supporters need a reminder it's not a sin to speak out against another supporter of GamerGate and say you don't like them or throw them under the bus. Remember when KiA used to have front page posts about whether having Milo represent GG was a good idea or not? Opponents of GamerGate would've referred to Milo regardless of what the collective thought, but seeing GamerGate be critical of itself and it's members was good for GamerGate. When was the last time you saw GamerGate be critical of itself? I remember the last time I saw it: TotalBiscuit said KiA can be full of ****lords sometimes. They flipped out and harassed him til he apologized.

Shoot him.

I'm both familiar with this guy and his philosophies and I'm subscribed to that channel. Love both. I also agree with what he's saying. I believe that simplified, he's merely trying to say jokes can be as offensive as possible so long as you're laughing with the target, not at them. This is something I've thought about myself because I'm very passionate about comedy and I came to the same conclusion. Years ago I had to attend German courses when I first came to the country, and the thing was, everyone was rather reserved and quiet. Who wouldn't be? It's a new country with a new language, and classes with people from around the world and cultures you're unfamiliar with. I recognized that silence would "kill us," something my teacher later acknowledged; there was a time he pulled me aside and told me that often with language courses, the success of the students can live or die based on how outgoing and willing to converse the students are, and that I was a huge relief for the teachers to have because I was singlehandedly encouraging more socialization. Something I did was I just absolutely played the fool. I'd already learned from past experienced that....if you ever find yourself in another country where you don't speak the language? Three words are universal amongst the world: Sex, f***k, and chocolate. The accent on these words may vary, but everyone understands them, and I think this says a LOT about people on the whole. I'd had scenarios where I met russians and Ukrainians and the like and we communicated just by receiving assignments in class, and then when there was a picture to accompany the text? We'd modify it with as much obscene stuff as we could. None of this was a result of me having a particular passion for obscene humor or the like (typically I find it weak), it was simply something we could use to make a connection despite the language barrier. So in that class I had, I racially profiled everyone. I mocked EVERYONE. The japanese girl? I'd imitate her and do the overly polite bows she seemed to do as an impulse. I'd purposefully go through her **** knowing full well she comes from a culture that's too polite to tell me "yo that's my stuff wtf man?" I'd purposefully stop when we were walking together knowing that women often walk slightly behind men in Japan, and I'd do it just to mess with her. The Russian girl? I'd tell her I was a secret agent and a spy, and I knew damned well she was with the KGB. I'd mock how she would say "hippo" as though it were "hyippo" and marvel at the weird words with 20 constanants rammed together that she was capable of saying. I purposefully swore as much as I could around her because she said in Russia swearing was very bad, and I was intent on getting her to adopt my swearing habit over time. I totally won and succeeded. My Colombian friend? Always asked him for cocaine, and I mocked my Nepalese and Indian friends inabilities to talk to girls. Despite all of this, I was the most popular guy in those classes, because I did ALL of that with a friendly smirk on my face. I meant no offense, I merely wanted to share a laugh while mocking the little quirks we all had because of our cultures. I was just as ready to claim that as an American, I had no blood in my veins but rather Coca Cola, and that due to my German side, I must have a stick so far up my ass that all fun is forbidden in my presence. My point with all of this is this: You cannot and will not change that, stereotyping for example, while capable of being hurtful, will not go away. The Goth and emo kids in high school who proclaimed "LABELS R FOR SOUP CANS!!!" Guess what Goth Kids, every sociology teacher ever will claim without a moment's hesitation that you're trying to fit into a group and a label too, and they're right. Take a look at little kids. The hottest girl I knew in my high school life had a wonderful and humorous personality she developed from....being made fun of when she was younger. Why? Because her mother has black hair and her father was blonde. She had natural blonde highlights, and little kids in elementary school called her a skunk for it. It was attractive, and yet it got mocked. And why? Because humans learn by recognizing patterns. We stereotype by nature, and little kids are a great example of this, as they'll mock anything that's unordinary, even if it's actually a good thing. You cannot change that hurtful things will be said and that people will be hurt. Trying to do so just results in the kind of authoritarian attitudes we've seen. Tell me, is it ok to condemn a racist person who has always had the sense to respect the very people he's racist against to the degree he doesn't act on those impulses? Is it justice to treat him poorly for this? My friend from Nepal was actually blatantly racist, to the point where he would point out EVERY black person we encountered and ask "what's that black guy doing there?" He's buying food Suren. At the grocery store. Like us? Despite how obvious it was, we all considered him a good friend, including the girl with the black boyfriend, because he was absolutely harmless. Racist, absolutely, but harmless. So what can you do? You can acknowledge the world's faults and ugly side and you can face it head on together, and you can manipulate a depressing stereotype or truth and turn it into a funny and entertaining truth. You laugh at it together, and you make your brash comments with a warm, welcoming smile on your face. I offended multiple people during my time in German schooling, and in the end? I charmed the pants off every single one of them. They found it unbelievably bold and brash, but also irresistably charming. I like to think that what they recognized over time was my intent, and that my intentions were actually very good and I wanted to make a mockery out of all potential problems that we might face. Do I think things would've been better if we instead pretended things weren't awkward between the Israeli girl and the Lebanon guy, if I hadn't brashly said "HEY DUN UR COUNTRIES LIKE HATE EACH OTHER LOL?" when they first met? **** no, it would've gotten worse. Do I think things would've been better if we expressed to the Nepalese guy that he needs to shutup about black people and tried to encourage the Kenyan girl not to interact with him instead of just telling her "btw he's racist against you but dun worry it's hilarious?" No, it just would've been awkward. Do I think things would've been better if we never acknowledged to the Brazilians that they weren't the most intelligent people on earth and just silently kept that info to ourselves and passively discriminated with it? No wtf we told them one day and they agreed and explained why that was the case, and everyone left the room having learned something and understanding each other better. To sum it up/tl;dr: I've long had a simple philosophy that ideas are immortal, and that for example, even if tomorrow we were to erase all traces of communism and kill everyone who held a good opinion of communism, it is an inevitability that it would be found again or that someone new would re-discover it on their own. The moment an idea is had, it's with this world forever. Hitler's most racist views for example will never truly die, and we can't change that. That's sad of course, but should we solve it by trying to pretend they don't exist? No. Should we just avoid difficult subjects? Avoiding difficult topics and subjects will not stop their immortality, and at worst it'll leave us so ignorant of their mechanisms that we could fall prey to them ourselves. So what do we do? We confront those ideas in the most fun way possible: we laugh them off, together.

Obviously it's because if the skill didn't have that downside, then Paladins would be dangerously close to becoming OP. Honestly if you want a downside-free revival skill? Give it to Ciphers. They're clearly underpowered atm and could use a bit more love from the devs. The last thing Paladins need is more OP talents to choose from.

Honestly the only real large-scale problems Pillars has in my opinion are: -Stat deviation is too controlled. In Sawyer's attempt to make every build viable, the result was very little deviation in general for stats. If you try to make an expert gunslinger or something for example and you take talents to increase accuracy with guns? I think you'd get 11 more accuracy than a non-gunslinger. That's pathetic. It would be nice to have some sort of alternate path. For example, Kana just chills in the back with his gun, so why not offer me standard Chanter talents and then as an alternative, I can maybe get a talent that adds 5 accuracy, and simultaneously unlocks a second talent for my next level up that I can take that gives 15 accuracy. This would demand two talents of the 6 talents I'll have, but 20 accuracy (plus the 6 or whatever for the weapon-based accuracy talent for 26) is respectable and noticeable. You could even expand upon it further and make it three talents ranks 1, 2 and 3, all offering 5, 10 and 15 accuracy respectively. Such talents would provide alternatives to class talents, but would by no means make them obsolete. A Cipher for example has very nice class talents, so does a Priest. More accuracy is always nice and you could make a case a blunderbuss cipher would benefit from the accuracy increases, but you would be forced to take those over the cipher perks that increase the rate at which you build focus or even how much damage you deal per shot, if I'm understanding the mechanics of Soul Whip correctly. The accuracy focus would mean you burn half as long (less focus talents) but burn twice as bright (more likely to crit). I'm not the guy being paid to conduct such a system here, so mind you the above is just an example, but the main issue is that it often feels the degree to which you can impact your characters is +/- 10% of a stat. 10 more accuracy, 10 more will defense, 10 more crit, etc. Class talents deviate from this, but do so in ways that are still very controlled. For example a Rogue can exceed the +10 amount for critical hits, but can he do as Fighter does and exceed that 10 amount for defenses? Absolutely not. Overall, in Sawyer's desire to make no stats inferior and offer no bad builds, we have limited build options in general, out of a fear that, for example, an accuracy stacked cipher or a defense stacked Fighter would become the meta and outperform all alternatives....so instead we got no alternatives. -Choice and Consequence is largely an illusion. I can encounter a quest where a guy expresses his dying wishes to me in which he must entrust me with a valuable item. If I have an honest reputation, he'll comment and thank the gods for his fortune of me having been the one to find him. If I'm deceptive, he'll comment on how horrible this situation is, but how he has no choice but to entrust the item with me. My reputations are effectively worthless and do absolutely nothing to change the game in any unique way. Speech reputations tend to provide only an illusion of choice and consequence, but very rarely change anything. The only change off the top of my head is benevolent people get offered quests one step faster (aka one less box of dialog to click through....yay?) and aggressive people can sometimes psyche people out and cause them to surrender rather than attempt to fight you. (<----hands down the winner for most impactful speech reputation, and still pretty small and insignificant) Town reputations and reputations with groups do what? Get you a discount on store prices. That's typically it. There's one quest that unlocks via good reputation, but it's practically impossible to actually **** up your reputation in that community unless you mindlessly slaughter people. Another quest requires good reputation with a town to be continued, but that community hands you a large amount of positive reputation regardless of who you are or how you play. I seem to recall one part where you can actually lift up a child, threaten him, and then violently throw the child on the ground. Your companions will protest this, but does anything come of it? No. Of the times where you do need to make a choice, the consequences can be both significant and brief. For example one part of the game has you choosing one of three factions. The difference this makes? Changes your ending a tad and provides - you guessed it - a merchant offering different things from the other group. There IS also a passive talent you gain for helping that group out, and that's nice. It's a weird combination of providing choice and consequence, but the consequence is STILL rather small and forgettable. It would've been nice to see each of those three for example offering candidates for best weapon/armor in the game, but you have to choose one. The talent effects are also, like always, very controlled. Strangely? You carry more weight and impact simply for being a cipher than you do for any of the reputations. Why on earth is one specific class getting more recognition and unique interactions than anything else in the game, including reputations whose sole purpose it is to get such meaningful recognition for the player...? I'm sorry, but somewhere in production, that class clearly became someone's baby and got special treatment to the detriment of other classes (Paladin) and features. (reputations) Overall it's sad to say, but most choice and consequence is largely an illusion, nothing more. This is apparent in the fact that some groups like Bleak Walkers and Eothas priests get little to no reaction despite being characters that should get tons of reactions. You get flavor dialog pertaining to your reputations, but it's either meaningless OR it's a case where obtaining negative reputation would need some pretty dedicated roleplay (aka good luck concocting many character types that would realistically fall into that category) or purposeful sabotage. -Fights could use a bit more variety. When you fight fampyr enemies, they're plagued with charm effects, and they very wisely seem to charm all of your heavy hitters as though it were a rule of thumb for them. Charm and domination actually get their own special little problem-child category in that the player is provided absolutely zero way to counter these effects, (I think the priest EVENTUALLY gets a spell to provide resistance vs these very late game) but aside from that...? Aside from that, I think Obsidian missed an opportunity here, because having that enemy type provide a more thought-out and effective way of attacking your squad does a lot to provide you with more challenge. You know what archers who tended to target the wizard first might do for the game? It would provide stats like resolve and perception more utility for wizards. It would make it so that a wizard with less intelligence but more resolve suddenly had noticeable upsides, thereby buying into the "no build is bad" idea. This, in and of itself, affords the game more diversity because it means that there WOULD be battles where your party that believes "just stack accuracy and GG" (assuming my three accuracy talent suggestion above were used) would inevitably encounter a battle that punished this trend of min-maxing and rewarded the more well-balanced squads that focused a bit on everything. Don't govern characters, govern battles. Give us more tools to play with to make our characters stand out, feel unique and feel powerful, and counter those efforts by making more battles stand out more, feel unique and feel challenging. Just as a comparison, if I play New Vegas and min-max my character to be an absolute master of melee and unarmed? I am absolutely allowed to do this, and I will feel like an absolute badass and absolutely love every minute of playing that character. Will I completely wreck the game and win every battle easily...? Well the base game's difficulty is admittedly not so high, but if you attempt all the DLCs? Each of those DLCs gives preference to a different weapon type, and you will be torn apart if you show no ability to adapt. Dead Money is harder on gun users but extremely loving towards melee and Unarmed, Lonesome Road is the exact opposite. Explosives experience will serve you well in Lonesome Road or Old World Blues, but it'll probably not work out so well for you if you try to do Honest Hearts with just explosives. Each of those DLCs was like a "battle," and while the specialist characters were fun as hell, they would eventually fall flat in one of these "battles" and the more well-rounded characters would prevail because they showed an ability to adapt. This did not mean the specialists were completely ineffective: hell no, they were fun as hell and could make quick work of battles that others would struggle with. Pillars largely doesn't have this and the specialist characters are reigning supreme. More combat diversity would both challenge the player in new and interesting ways, AND simultaneously, it would passively support more character diversity. (and would do so far better if character deviation weren't so painfully small and controlled) While all three of those are very disappointing, I also don't see any reason to rag on Pillars like it's some pinnacle of incompetence or something, because let's be real here: not MANY games achieve excellent balance, sadly. There's a reason we all long for such games, but it's also not exactly a crime if Obsidian failed, so long as they're willing to listen and reflect on what was done wrong.

It sure is a good thing Russia doesn't have to deal with these kinds of problems!

Better? You mean you don't like the entire one style of choice you get?

I think it has to do with the decline that started in 2000s when 3D graphics became the norm for most of the games, unfortunately for RPGs too. 3D graphics meant a lot of effort put into visual effects (and let's be honest, at the begining of 3D gfx cards the landscapes looked horrible compared to 2D pixel art) at the expense of game mechanics and complexity. About the Fallouts, I'm not judging F:NV because I haven't played it, but FO it's a lot about atmosphere and tactical combat. With isometric map, you can plan an ambush at a door then count how many steps you need to take to cover around the corner of the house, before starting the fight. A FPS style engine is more superficial in terms of tactical combat since it's harder to predict in advance how long it would take to reach point X or if the enemies are going to come through point Y. And let's not forget the style, since you mentioned it. To make a wild comparison, it's like a homage band to an old school heavy metal band, dressed in glam rock style. From your mentioning that you weren't into isometric games until PoE I take it you are young, but the golden age of computer games was in the 90s, before today's AAA titles and big companies. Hell, by isometric I understand tile based maps, not hand drawn landscapes like in BG/PoE. Right, I'm not saying people don't have a right to express disappointment or disinterest in such a style of game given where it came from or just given basic personal preference. At the same time, to show a complete unwillingness to return to a franchise you loved that kept everything else in tact (the RPG mechanics, the story themes and motifs, the character customization) I find a little over the top, and I find a desire to name it "inferior" rather than to accept that as a preference and opinion to be nothing short of ridiculous. I played New Vegas and determined it the best game I'd ever played, then was interested enough to want to retroactively play the originals, so I have very limited sympathy for those that argue they cannot get into Vegas enough to finish it. Honestly, the only reason I've not finished FO 1 & 2 is because visually it strains my eyes. I don't mean that like "EW BAD GRAPHICS = BAD GAMES," but like it's dated enough that my eyes hurt from playing it, so I never seem to make it past the midway points. Tactics I could probably finish, it just crashes on me for some reason at certain points. :C I also don't know that I'd be considered "young" at 26. I think I had opportunities to play these games, I just didn't.