JFSOCC

You got it reversed. Israel, in order to "protect itself" has been going into Palestine with military patrols on a daily basis. They seek out Hamas leaders and fight them. They often kill civilians, far more than they hit Hamas. And while Hamas is internationally recognized (after much lobbying by Israel, and a terror attack in Munich) as a terrorist organization. Palestinians might feel differently about this however. Hamas is not just the only thing that fights Israel, it's also the only somewhat organised police force they have, they only future for starving people cut of from the world, and the only organisation that, using tunnels, has access to the outside world. Palestinians are desperate, they hate Israel, and that's quite logical too when Israel has blocked all access to the outside world best they can. They built a wall around Gaza (allegedly to stop the rocket attacks, and it has been fairly effective at that) which meant that business in Palestine (I'll be talking about Gaza, not so much the west bank) got cut off from tourism which they had before. (the border between Gaza and Israel is vague and disputed.) Israel cut off electricity to Gaza city as well, ages ago, and electricity has been intermittent at best since. Even by sea there is a blockade. Now, you might think "why does Israel continuously send troops over its borders into another sovereign nation" or "Why does Israel's blockade take place in Palestinian waters. Well there is the crux you see. Palestine isn't recognized as a nation. So it's sovereignty technically doesn't exist. Now that's dumb, because the Palestinian people are clearly living in their own land, not ruled by any nation. But, despite their best efforts, the United Nations failed to pass a vote to recognize Palestine as a sovereign state, following a veto by the United States. (lobbied by Israel) And a warning that any following attempts will surely be vetoed. Meanwhile, Israeli extremist Jewish orthodox families are settling on Palestinian lands, chasing away the rightful owners, often with threats of violence or outright violence. Palestinian farmers can literally do nothing but watch. These settlements have been declared illegal by pretty much the entire world. Israel "sees the problem and tries to do something about it" which means that while they provide funding to these very settlers (they do) they sometimes close down a settlement, or remove some of them. Cameras are present every time, seeing those sad people removed from the land (that they took) Palestine has become smaller with every annexed piece of land, and continues to diminish in size. Red Cross has complained in the past that Israel is blocking and delaying relief and food and medical help to Palestine. If you're seeing a pattern here of Israel playing the victim you'd not be the only one to view it as such. So, from the palestine's point of view: Israel violates Palestinian sovereignity on a daily basis Israel build a wall and a naval blockade that completely isolates the people of Palestine Israel annexes, by proxy in the form of settlers the land that's Palestinians by right Israel kills Palestinians in raids supposedly against terror, despite a high amount of "collateral damage" (children included) Israel is slowly killing the people of Palestine as they don't have access to basic food and services. Hospitals have to do without some bare basics. Living in Palestine is kind of ****. and Israel made it so. So you find it strange that the people of Palestine hate the guts of Israelis? We'll ignore the tangentially related stuff, such as the rampant racism in Israel, the fact despite claiming to be a democracy and not a theocracy, 11/12 people living in Israel can't vote because they're not Jewish (or part of a group of mostly Christian Palestinians that helped them in the 1967 war) We'll ignore the apartheid within Israels own borders We'll ignore the article where the head of Mossad states that Netanyahu and Barrak (not Obama) ignored suggestions which could have led to better relations at the very least, in favor of more aggressive methods advised against. We'll ignore that Netanyahu has deliberately worked to sabotage the Oslo Accord. We'll ignore the damage Israel does to historical sites that don't show that Israel was Jewish in the past. denying applications for restoration, or simply not maintaining historical sites because they're not Jewish. We'll ignore the reports of atrocities such as the use of white phosphorous in urban environments in the 2010 war. instead let's just go to a few days ago. Israel announces that they killed a Hamas leader. They did so with a bomb and quite a bit of "collateral damage" IE many innocents killed. This Particular Hamas leader was well liked. That's when Hamas, the terrorist organisation, started lobbing rockets over the wall. They can't do much more than that. (but I certainly don't condone it) And Israel, come election time, has got a nice project going on. What's really happening is a slow genocide of Palestinians, cast as the bad guys, these people are so desperate that they fight with 600 dollar rockets against the best armed opponents in the region. They have no chance of winning. they know they have no chance of winning. But they simply can't stand by and do nothing. it's utter desperation. There is more going on of course, as there always is. Like neighbouring nations that have historically not helped Palestine out because it distracts nicely from their own problems. Also nations that do (Iran stands accused of doing so) quickly earn the enmity of the most hostile and powerful force in the region. Some have argued that Israel might simply be stuck in its ways and doesn't know another response than the stick anymore. And antagonising from the occasional terror attack from Palestine doesn't help them mellow down either. And while Palestinians might argue that these are desperate attacks, fact is innocents do get killed here. But when you tally the damage, it is always, has always been, and always will be the Palestinians that suffer the most. Their infrastructure, gone, their people poor, starving. Their access to education, gone, their freedom to travel, non-existant. their chances to be heard, slim thanks the the very effective propaganda wars from Israel and Israel's powerful lobby abroad. For a lasting peace to exist, I believe the following needs to happen. 1. Palestine needs to be recognised as a sovereign state. This will give them access to UN support, including the peace corps helping out, and the rights Palestine will have. (such as the right not to be invaded by a foreign power) 2. Hamas needs to be made into a professional army. this would end the cell-structure we know from terrorist and guerrilla organisations, and end the problems of one cell not following orders from up ahead. (such as not independently deciding to attack Israel with rockets, which an angry man on his own might decide to do faster than an organised army would. This would give accountability for actions as well, allowing the Palestinian leadership to control Hamas and prevent it from escalating the situation. Also, when this happens, it means that any action done by a member of Hamas can no longer be claimed to be independent, the work of lone fools. 3. The (majority opinion says illegal) Blockade needs to end. the only ones suffering are the Palestinian people as the rebels/terrorists have access to the tunnel smuggling networks anyway and these remain largely intact, despite heavy bombardments by the Israeli airforce. When the Blockade ends, the people of Palestine have some chance of self-determination again. 4. Israel needs to stop funding settlers, and these annexed settlements need to be removed. 5. Palestine needs to accept that they're not going back to the 1967 borders.

3 people voted for a class in both questions.

All paladins are zealots, all of them adhere strictly to a absolute moral code. that makes them religious fundamentalists and decidedly not good. Yet the alignment says lawful good. it's already been decided then... I come up with some examples of why I don't like the alignment system, and your responses (as they come across) are along the lines of "but sometimes it makes sense". Even a clock that stands still is right twice a day, right? Well, if you do away with alignments and focus solely on motivations, I think it will always make sense.

I couldn't agree more. You can have the full spectrum of characters and personalities inside the human race, because we do have the entire spectrum of characters and personalities in the human race. And tying character to species/race is silly. I think it's a bit unoriginal Goblins/ferengi do the trade, orcs/klingons are the powerful warriors, elves/vulcans are the wise sagely creatures. it's just so uninspired and shows a lack of effort to make species distinct based on inherent traits. I have no need for racist stereotypes to be real. (Khajit like to sneak) Now I don't mind having other races/species in the game, but give all of them access to the full spectrum of character/personalities

You never did undestand aligment really, did you? Aligment is a guideline. Tendancy. Aspiration. It's not an abosolute. And IIRC; you could connvince Keldorn to stay with his wife. Also, how is he narrow-minded? Beliving path X is the right path to take in not narrowmindedness. Alignment is a weak device, and the mechanics built around it made it fairly absolute, because it never makes sense to stray from your alignment. that prevents a character from having an arc. "This is the way they think, and this is how they'll always think" A Bard can't become lawful, and a paladin can't become neutral, where as rangers aren't allowed to take up a cause other than what the game designers have determined is a neutral cause. Why must my assassin be evil? why is a class linked not to a skillset but to alignments? Must I accept that people choose to be evil, or that those who have a good alignment will therefor be good. that's incredibly dumb.So yeah, I don't understand alignments, they don't make sense, are incredibly unrealistic, limit role-playing, make characters more 1-dimensional, and there is an infinitely better alternative available: Not having alignments, but character motivations. I didn't want Keldorn to stay with his wife, his wife clearly didn't love him anymore. but in his narrowminded mind-set there were only 2 solutions, prison or back into an unhappy marriage. If Keldorn can't think outside those options, then clearly he is narrow-minded.

just a thought, but what would you guys think of different interfaces and types of input for different classes? So one class might have "strength, intelligence, dexterity, etc." as attributes, but another class would have "shielding, energy systems, restorative power, etc" and another yet might have "instinct, flow, clarity, etc" and they'd all work differently, but the outputs are similar and can be input against other classes. (so one class' attack score might be calculated against another's defense score based on different types attributes and modifiers. I.E. Shielding might work as defense, but also a will save against certain spells (which for another class would have been the will save) Maybe too complicated, but as a thought experiment, consider how that would make all classes so much more distinct.

I enjoy the nymph-like elves. Don't much care for the problems of this world, aloof, don't take part. Not because they are better, but because they're inward looking. Found drinking in the forest having a ton of fun with dancing and prancing, practicing art. High alcohol tolerance, go climb a tree for fun. Frustrating by nature by being intractable to strangers. "No, I don't want to join your cause, but good luck with it!"

Ah yes, but do you read EVERY SINGLE THREAD? Including our pet threads, the ones we hold close to our hearts. with all their walls of text. the ones that have sections going in circles. the one with that cool idea that might just not be within the scope of the project; or going in a wildly different direction of game that you intend to make. or those threads which you've seen multiple variants of before, asking similar, but just not quite the same questions. Do you read every thread despite the long hours that would go into keeping track of everyone's opinion, and still have time to make a game? DO YOU LOVE US?

I don't think there's an RPG where I haven't picked rogue, but this cipher class intrigues me, and would probably be the next play-through. I don't always care much for the "magic has an answer to everything" theme of DnD inspired games, so I tend to avoid magicians.

This would be fantastic. But that would make the rogue so much cooler than all the other classes! I like the idea of there being an ability the rogue has that time sort of slows down and the rogue gets 5 or so seconds to get in position before time resumes. (as if he was already on the move when the threat started)

I think the problem is that classes are inherently archetypes, and nobody is an archetype. If you must frame differences, decisions would need to be made, but this thread shows that we can't even decide on it. Everyone will work with their ideas of what a class should be, and then apply it to an available archetype. Or you could argue from the Archetypes "what should they have" but that only works if everyone has the same idea what constitutes the Archetype. same problem. What defines a class? What (ultimately) the designers choose. And I don't know if everybody can be pleased. But we can all have our say in what we like and enjoy.

fair enough

I thought guild wars did exceptionally well with both the maguma jungle and the crystal desert. have you played that? I am playing it and I dont like their enviroments. Jungle is not dense, crystal desert is not desert. MMOs are worst thing to show well made enviroment guild wars 1 or 2? I'm talking about 1, and the crystal desert is undeniably a desert there.

"zomg he looked at my thread, he must less than three me!"

I thought guild wars did exceptionally well with both the maguma jungle and the crystal desert. have you played that?

In combat: Warrior: skilled in various forms of combat, does a fair amount of damage with attacks, can take a fair amount of damage from attacks Rogue: debuffer. uses tricks to make enemies waste skills, interrupts spellcasting, lowers enemy stats weakening them up for other classes. (with poison, traps, precision attacks to cripple, etc) Mage: diverse class, I would play it as a ranged attacker with fairly low defense but high offensive spells. (I was never that charmed by spellcasters so I rarely played them) Priest: Buffs party, heals party, good against specific types of enemies, fairly good at defending. outside of combat Warrior: welcome in most places as a hand that can help out. could climb to get to better ground unexpectedly. I'm thinking more of a special forces type character, meaning still quite adept at stealth and surprise takedowns. (like the green beret in the commandos games) could glean information concerning warfare rogue: utilitarian character,good with mechanisms (opening locks, setting traps -or setting them off- as usual. Good at gathering information via speech, subterfuge and observation skills. Socialite that moves in various circles, both courtly and low. mostly out of sight of prying eyes. Mage: great deal of utilitarian spells, can repair bridges, call rain or storms, levitate small distances, teleport. scientific mindset makes him welcome in Academical circles and high courts for their knowledge. Good at researching information found in books and tomes. Priest: man of the people, welcome amongst the commoners for guidance and help. good at gathering information from the people, makes himself useful through simple medicine, a listening ear with friendly demeanor, and might be asked to adjudicate disputes. A wandering bureaucrat of sorts. Also welcome in religious circles, though not all.

Keldorn the man who put his own wife in prison because we don't do divorce. That to my mind is one of the reasons why he was an interesting character: even him doing that didn't break him, if a character can make that kind of decision there is more or less nothing you can do within reason to break him. I think one of the weaknesses of the perception of "lawful good" (or to a lesser degree, lawful evil) is that at some point or other these are going to conflict with each other. It's certainly possible to put a character in a position where they have to choose either their own personal rules or what the actual good thing to do is. As paladins are historically the lawful good exclusive class, lets stick with them for now. So for a little example using Keldorn, presented with a choice of the lawful choice (send his wife to prison) or the good choice (forgive his wife) he decides to go by his personal code. A "lawful>good" character is therefore one which while they will try to be LG generally speaking, if they have to choose will go for lawful, while some given the choice will go for lawful<good, but its the nuances of either where you get the real juice of the characters. We don't need alignments. I didn't really want to repeat that since i've mention it in several threads already. Alignment is a narrowminded black and white way of looking at the world, and completely unrealistic. A person doesn't do evil or good just because they are evil or good, they're not prone to lawful or chaotic behaviour because that's just their alignment. that's ridiculously stupid and I won't stand for it. Obsidian wants to make a more mature game? then alignments must be out. People have motivations, sometimes those make them come in conflict with others.It sort of worked for Keldorn, not because he was lawful good, but because the has the religious zeal we know from paladins, he was a narrow-minded idiot who wouldn't stray from his dumb absolutist path. Except that the reason he couldn't ingame, was because switching alignment would have made him lose all the paladin levels. that's not a good way to write characters. I'm happy with the idea that you can influence your companions however. not their alignment, but the way they view the world.

So you're saying that it would be... Hammer time?

That's about the absolute basics though, the interface. That would still tell you nothing about the game. (except that it has traps) look i played BG1 and 2, IWD1 and 2, fallout 1 and 2, arcanum and PT without reading a single page from the manual. all i had to do was to look at the tooltips appearing on the interface buttons to know what i could do and how to do it (well maybe not in arcanum but it was still manageable). it was all pretty straightforward. i picked up an item... do i need a big sign to tell me "click here to open the inventory"? im pretty sure i can see the button just fine and i think i know i picked up an item so i dont need a sign to explain it to me every time i pick something up. same thing with quests: a simple "journal updated" message is enough... i can open the journal without a constant indication that the journal button is *here* today the fashion is to make games retard-proof, so even a guy with minsc's intelligence can play them, thing that makes those with a bit more brain or experience in the sport feel like the developers consider them idiots. and you can see that in everything, from the controls, to the interface to the level design, it's al made so that you wont need to use even a single brain cell in order to go on in the game. You misunderstand me, I'm not arguing for hand-holding tutorials. I do feel the game could be taught to the player, but in subtler ways. What you described isn't a tutorial in the sense that it teaches, that's all I'm saying

Keldorn the man who put his own wife in prison because we don't do divorce.

I watched limitless yesterday. Blew my mind.

just browse http://www.reddit.com/r/earthporn/ for inspiration And I think I might have posted something earlier.

Definitely not part of the horror crowd, not for 15 dungeon levels straight, I get miserable just thinking about having to wade through 15 levels of depression.

I've never played with the psionic classes, so I can't answer your poll

Combat wise, I can see myself playing a rogue as a debuffer/hexer. Weakening tough opponents, not through damage but skills that weaken defense, reduce stats, lockdown skills. interrupt spellcasting, or create false targets making the enemy waste their useful skills on air. I can see the rogue as a dirty fighter, and I can see the rogue as a force multiplier support character.