Diagoras

Why? I mean, historically speaking this would be completely inaccurate. Early black powder firearms were but one kind of weapon in a vast arsenal of weapons, all with their own unique strengths and weaknesses. I really don't see why they would be the best weapons available for any given quality, from either a realistic or gameplay perspective. Well, we should note that P:E has a definite lean towards realism - check out Josh's post on armor, for example. But even from a balance perspective, this doesn't make sense. As you level up and get better equipment, why not make one of the vectors reliability? It'd be both realistic and encourage players to improve their equipment. Making higher-level items uniformly worse only confuses the leveling process. Of course, depending on the level of micromanagement in weapons, you could have trade-offs among a given weapon tier between reliability, power, reload speed, etc. But arbitrarily making higher tier weapons inferior in an aspect seems to punish players for leveling up more than anything.

Ah, gotchya. Yeah, if you're applying an "awesomeness" modifier, apply it uniformly - excepting game balance decisions. That might be getting a bit ahead of things.

How does this make sense? If anything, lower quality weapons should misfire more often. Remember that plate armor continued to be used through to the late 17th century. Firearms and armor are still in a state of relative balance, in the early 1500s actually saw an explosion in the use of heavy armor. There are some significant differences. Can you expand on why they should be treated the same?

The era P:E seems to be aiming for, at least in firearms technology, we're pre-bayonet. And in fact, the bayonet wouldn't be very helpful, as this is the era where the price of plate armor (though not good plate armor) begins to fall like a rock as economies of scale take hold, but heavy armor is still useful enough to wear. In fact, there are examples of bayonets from this era, and many of them are essentially maces you can screw on to the end of your gun! Much more helpful against an armored foe then a blade. The bottoms of pistols also ended in a giant ball for more than balancing reasons - it could fetch an enemy a good clonk on the head in a tight spot. Of course, that doesn't tell us much about adventurers, does it? The reasons bayonets weren't used until later used were mainly military ones, and drawing direct parallels between the militaries of the time and adventurers isn't very helpful due to their very different combat needs and resources.

Considering the ridiculous speed multiplier which is usually given to crossbow reloading, and the ridiculous accuracy modifier that is given to bows, I'm not sure realistic muzzle-loading speeds make sense, And this is ignoring D&D's even more preposterous takes - I mean, look at multishot! I think appeals to realism with firearms ring hollow unless they're applied uniformly across all weapons, or the same "awesome modifier" is applied to all weapons. Since firearms were used as primary weapons by some military units (including knights!) at the time P:E is roughly analogous too, I'd be surprised if that wasn't an option. Reloading speed enhancements are totally possible, ranging from paper cartridges and breechloading weapons, to double-barreled weapons or revolving barrel/cylinder pepperboxes. Another approach, of course, is the always dependable "carry a bunch of guns with you" favored by Imperial Reiters of the 16th century. If we're using realism to inform our decisions (as it appears Obsidian is), guns were favored for their fantastic armor penetration abilities at range. Note that compared to many melee weapons (especially warhammers), the actual armor penetration wasn't fantastic - but it blew other ranged weapons out of the water. Individual accuracy is also mentioned: the ability to hit and kill man-sized, moving, armored targets at range. It's no coincidence that the first dedicated military sharpshooters used firearms. Ammo was incredibly cheap next to the relatively expensive arrows or bolts, and was also easier to carry, allowing shooters to blaze away in engagements without concern of running low on shots. Longbowmen, in contrast, are often mentioned being careful to conserve ammunition. Rate of fire can be maintained without fatigue, allowing shooters to wear heavy armor and engage in melee combat once closed, though this is more of a problem with the longbow in general. And of course, firearms are relatively easy to use somewhat effectively with little training, while longbows and even crossbows require more practice and care. This should not be used to denigrate them, however. High quality weapons in the hands of expert marksman have pulled off amazing shots - the Turkish sniper fire during the siege of Rhodes coming to mind - and expert musketmen divisions could get high rates of fire (4-5 a minute are the numbers tossed around) once they deployed their heavy weapons. And of course, this all ignores various expensive modifications, like rifling and breechloading, which militaries avoided but adventurers might go for.

Hmm, if rangers are marksman specialists, it might be interesting to see how they get built as sharpshooters with wheellock rifles. Bit of a Minuteman/American irregular vibe, quite possibly.

Really? Because it's my understanding that in every single country in the world, copyright infringement is explicitly not theft. That's why "copyright infringement" and "theft" are two different crimes. Well (and I'm guessing here) if you download a copy that you don't own and then share it, isn't it technically theft and then copyright infringement. If you however own a copy and then share it, then it's only CF. No; to use BruceVC's watch example walking into the shop and taking the watch is theft- the owner is deprived of the ownership of the watch and its benefits, including selling it. If on the other hand you duplicated the watch the owner would still own the original and have its benefits no matter how many copies were made, similarly if I copied the Mona Lisa it is not the same as stealing it from the Louvre, though both end up with me having the painting one means that the Louvre still has the painting while the other deprives them of it. If you steal a CD with songs on it you will get arrested and (potentially) charged criminally with theft, if on the other hand you download the songs that make up the CD the shop can still sell the CD and the law broken is copyright infringement which is (at least in small scale cases and most jurisdictions) a civil rather than criminal matter. Okay I am confused, are you guys saying if I use Torrent to donwloand DA2 and play it with a cracked license then that is not illegal? No, he's saying that it's a civil rather than criminal matter. Though I believe large-scale distribution of copyrighted works is criminal, although I'm not aware of criminal penalties being successfully applied to non-commercial distributors.

Really? Because it's my understanding that in every single country in the world, copyright infringement is explicitly not theft. That's why "copyright infringement" and "theft" are two different crimes. Well (and I'm guessing here) if you download a copy that you don't own and then share it, isn't it technically theft and then copyright infringement. If you however own a copy and then share it, then it's only CF. Nope, both are just copyright infringement. Theft requires that you steal something, copyright infringement is just the violation of a state monopoly.

Hmm, I should have been more clear. My understanding is almost all DRM that now exists and is used is targeted towards "casual" copyright infringement - like lending your game to a friend. The intent it to lock down the product as much as possible so that you can't give a CD to your friend, or lend him the game, or rent it from a store. CD keys, online authentication, etc. are part of this. Meanwhile, "hardcore" piracy on torrent sites with cracks and keygens have long since been given up on by most major publishers as being too expensive to counter.

Matchlocks gave off a distinctive odor while the slow match burned which would let alert enemies know that a shooter was in the area. Sharpshooters of the 16th century used firearms for a reason. Armor penetration, resistance to wind, and an enhanced ability to track moving targets are usually given. Accurate range at distance is also mentioned, though I haven't run into any confirmation for that.

Really? Because it's my understanding that in every single country in the world, copyright infringement is explicitly not theft. That's why "copyright infringement" and "theft" are two different crimes.

...what? What? Can you expand on both those points?

Depending on the terms of the license and the jurisdiction you're in, both could be illegal. If singing "Happy Birthday" in a restaurant is...

Does software piracy drive DRM adoption?

Insofar as breaking the law is morally wrong, yes.

And, to my knowledge, there is no one who opposes prosecuting people guilty of theft or hacking. If someone has done that, then that is both illegal and immoral. I don't think that's controversial. You generally have the right to do whatever you want with a product you own. You can set it on fire, throw it in a swimming pool, give it to someone else, or copy it. Copyright is where the state grants certain entities limited time monopolies on the copying of something (among a bunch of other things), thus suppressing the consumer right to copy it if they want to, due to a compelling economic interest on the part of the government. Now, this type of thing isn't controversial. Your rights are suppressed every time you're forced to pay taxes or follow a regulation - that's part of the deal of living in a nation-state. But establishing which direction coercive force is flowing is important for establishing burden of proof. If you want to abrogate people's rights, the burden of proof is on you to establish why. What that level of proof is varies, but it's important to note that people don't have to justify their rights, governments have to justify abrogating them. Everything above applies primarily to the US, so I can't vouch for philosophies of government outside of it. However, the whole "burden of proof on expansion of state power" paradigm applies to all liberal democracies I can think of, although exactly what constitutes "proof" varies a lot across different countries and different issues within one country - even more so as we're talking about political philosophy rather than law. IIRC, the point that was referring to was the idea that copying something without the creator's permission is immoral. I was pointing out that it's insisting that people not copy your work and using coercion to enforce it that's actually morally questionable. This is disconnected from the question you're asking here, which is about the practical value of providing an incentive for people to distribute content. Do I understand that correctly? You think it takes the lifetime of the author to recoup the expenses of distributing the work? Or even to generate an ROI?

I love these gun shields so much, I had to include another one. I can't believe people actually used these. An Imperial (German) matchlock musket. In the 16th century, "musket" was a specific term for a heavy weapon that could not be fired without resting it against a support, usually used to kill heavily armored enemies. Musketmen were usually elite soldiers, trained to operate as a unit and deliver rapid, heavy fire once deployed. Just had to show some of the exquisite detailing on these weapons. Specialized wheellock weapons were so expensive that they were as much works of art as tools of war, complete with being named by their owners. The image below are the detailing on a wheellock petronel (cavalry gun), and a wheellock rifle (sharpshooter's weapon) respectively. The same pair of wheellock pistols from before from a different angle, followed by their internal clockwork mechanisms. Just wanted to show how complicated a wheellock weapon really is - up to 13 moving parts, each needing to be carefully constructed and assembled by a gunmaster. Finally, a hand mortar with a combined wheellock-matchlock firing mechanism. Makes sense to have two, as using a hand mortar involved tossing a live grenade into it and then pulling the trigger. If it failed to ignite - boom!

Software developer/student. I specialize at yelling at computers when they don't do what they're supposed to. So do I. To be clear, I'm not decided on the question of copyright. But I do think that there is a need for serious reevaluation, given the original intent vs. the nature of the modern world. Specifically, the digital revolution has changed many of the assumptions that went into copyright about the distribution of media, which suggest that a different approach might be better adapted for the 21st century. What that different approach might look like (no government intervention, direct government funding, "copyleft", reduced scope copyright, etc.) is less clear. Thanks. I appreciate you putting up with my giant, spastic walls of text.

To bring this back to the comment I was originally addressing: Seems to assert that merely creating something that someone else uses means you get compensated. I was pointing out that only the moralistic, intrinsic theories of value (namely LTV) assert that, and in our modern societies you only get paid by monetizing your labor - copyright being a monetization mechanism. Obviously, the rivalrous nature of physical goods means it's impossible to receive one without compensating the creator or stealing, so normally this isn't a problem. It's only with non-rivalrous intangibles that this breaks down. Can we agree on that? BTW, we are going wildly off topic, but I wouldn't mind picking your brain a little on price/value/marginalism, as some of what you're saying is very different from what I was taught. For example, your take on marginalist's answer to the diamond-water paradox. Do you mind if I shoot you a PM? If you want to take a rain check, that's fine - this isn't exactly a thrilling topic. How about property rights, then? As in, there is a clear difference between negative property rights (ie. don't steal) and state-mandated monopolies like copyright, both philosophically and legally. That would be pretty consistently morally objectionable, as it would involve theft or hacking into someone's system. So yeah, screw those guys. What? No, you've been awesome!

Yes, but it was sold to someone else, or how else did they get it? That person then distributes what they bought for free. All else being equal, if you want to keep something secret keep it secret. If you put it out in public, it won't be a secret any more. Business models predicated on putting thiings out in public and insisting that no one else talk about it/copy it/share it are not very good ones. At least, not until you get the iron fist of government involved. I was talking about the hypothetical abstract (IIRC) rather than our actual world, responding to the idea that there's an inherent right to control what other people do with your goods once they're in their hands. You should note that we're not discussing taking, but copying, which doesn't violate property rights. Anyway, refer to the ongoing conversation about monetization to see possible answers to this question. In short, there are other ways to monetize entertainment media than to use the government to force everyone to pretend that they're like physical goods. Could you say why? Especially given the purpose of copyright?

No, price determines value. Under marginal theory of value, there is no objective "value" floating out in the cosmos that differs from price. The value of a good is determined by the price the market puts on it. This is all well and good, but I'm failing to see what it has to do with copyright. First, this isn't a taking. That would be theft. This is copying. You probably like air. A lot. You don't pay the owners of forests for the oxygen they produce. You might walk past an outdoor orchestra and enjoy their music. You don't pay them for it. And both of those things are probably less rivalrous and excludable than IP. Just let that crazy fact sink in for a second. You really can't pick and choose the way you are. Under labor theory of value, the price paid for something should be equivalent to the effort required to create it. Under maginal theory of value, goods are worth what the market prices them at, making monetization key to making a profit. Unless some other rights are being violated, you don't get paid just for making things. You have to figure out how to turn something useful into something profitable. This is the reason the first wave of Internet startups failed - many of them had good ideas, and millions of customers, but no paying customers. They were unable to monetize a very useful product or service. It wasn't the customer's fault for not throwing money at the websites, it was the startup's fault for not monetizing their product. I recommend reading up on marginalism in general, and marginal theory of value in particular, if you want to know more. ...no. Theft violates people's natural right to property. No one has a natural right to not be copied. And I have no idea where utilitarianism came from. ...or by looking at economic outcomes. Which is how it's normally determined. Even if you decide that economic outcomes are a moral judgement, that sort of reductio ad absurdum is inane. You can reduce any and all laws ever passed down to some incredibly simplistic moral judgement, and then decide that regulations on the length of scissors in a barbershop is a sign of society's deep hatred of long scissors. That's got nothing to do with my point, which is that copyright is an economically targeted and justified law like other economic interventions, rather than an explicitly moralistic law like blasphemy laws. Appealing to vague moralistic arguments about copyright makes about as much sense as doing the same to justify stimulus spending - the argument isn't about morality (we all like strong economies) but about economic effectiveness. This also ignores that copyright itself is on the moral defensive, its existence reducing consumer rights. It's justfied despite being an infringement on people's rights due to a perceived compelling economic interest for the public as a whole. As I said originally: copyright doesn't exist to benefit rightsholders, it exists to benefit the public. It's a privilege granted to those who hold copyright specifically due to the economic benefits, as opposed to a right inherent to creators/publishers. In discussions online, it's surprising how many people think that copyright is the default state, as opposed to reality where the burden of proof is on it.

16th century gun shield. 16th century petronel, a forerunner of the horseman's carbine. A pair of 16th century pistols.

I agree with all your points, but I want to clarify: I'm not anti-copyright. Well, it might be better to say I'm not anti-government meddling in the creative economy. But I am skeptical of the long run justification for copyright, and I'm uncertain if there's really enough evidence for the necessity of copyright law - especially considering some of the downsides. For example: why don't we just have the government fund artists? What really is the point of the cumbersome middleman of copyright in this whole arrangement? I could understand it when intellectual property was very similar to physical property and the point was to deal with publishing costs, but nowadays it seems like "tipping the scales" of rivalry and excludability is beyond almost any government action. ie. Why not just admit that entertainment media, delivered as a product, is a public good with all that entails? Media companies themselves are already starting to admit that, as evidenced by their shifting monetization models.

Yes, it does. The marginal theory of value indicates that the value of goods is determined by the price people pay for it. Obviously, there is some negligible time and effort value involved, but the price of digital goods in and of themselves is at or near zero. On the other hand, the labor theory of value is advanced by Marxists, and claims (roughly) that the value of goods is equivalent to the labor input. I was pointing out that unless you're a Marxist, saying "People work hard on games and thus deserve money" makes no sense. What? What I said was that the reasoning behind copyright has nothing to do with morality, and everything to do with brute economic utility maximizing. It's like a bailout during a recession - not based on morality, but on achieving an optimal economic outcome. Yes, but those aren't law, are they? Copyright is a specific law with a specific purpose based on a specific chain of reasoning. Moral discussions are entirely relevant - we don't have copyright because artists inherently deserve to have monetization done on their behalf or something. Again, I'm talking about the reason behind the law. Your private actions can be for whatever reason, but I'm talking about the reason that we'll take people who copy things without permission and lock them in jail for years. We don't do that because of your desire to make money - as cool of a guy as you may be. We do it for a compelling economic purpose to society as a whole. Yeah, I think we can agree that DRM is a very bad monetization route. SAAS, crowdfunding, microtransactions show way more promise.

How is that different from what I said? It doesn't have to do with "creator's rights" or quasi-moral reasoning, but an economic calculation. It looks like you're violently agreeing with me here. Yes. ...why should they pay for someone else's work? Consumers seek to acquire the cheapest goods, and producers try to make as much money as possible. Are you positing a moral necessity for consumers to spend more on things? How much more? Why? I really have no idea what you mean in that sentence, and I've read it at least three times. Would you mind explaining in detail?