Dawn Quixotic

And well, I mean... there's a difference "having sex when you're not really psychologically ready" and being sexually assaulted, so it depends on what you're talking about.

Unfortunate arbitrary limits. Same deal with why can I only have five companions? Man, imagine if you could have recruits everyone in BG2 on the same team. Why can't I have like twenty magic necklaces and rock out like the Mr. T of D&D? Even in PnP D&D where they aren't constrained by the limits of programming a game, they still enforce a limited about of "item slots" for the purpose of game balance. Though that's always something I'm fascinated with houseruling away in tabletop games.

What I guess you could say is... There's a difference between these two questions: Is it possible for someone of a given age to meaningfully consent to sex? Should we have an age off consent regardless of the variance in young people's development in order to facilitate the workings of society? Age of consent in the US is 18. Many other countires (such as UK, like you say) have it at 16. It's clear that children can't consent. But it's not clear where a child reaches a point in their adolescence where they can. As such, I think it is good for a culture to have a legal age of consent in order to facilitate prosocuting people who abuse children. In a society without a legal age of consent, which in a way would make sense, there would be a lot of debate in child sexual abuse cases of whether or not they consented... since mostly the children don't fully understand what is happening... which is why they have an age of consent. Because it's much to complicated and time-consuming to each individual time determine whether or not a given person is capable of meaningful consent. They might be 12 and perfectly capable... but it is simpler to say, "It's not likely, so we'll go with 12 year olds cannot consent". "Close in age" exceptions exist to mitigate situations where it would be ridiculous to use these laws... in the US where an 18 year old has sex with a 17 year old, it's like, come on... and I think more attention needs to be paid to those because these laws aren't meant to target teens having sex with other teens. Same thing with death penalty, really. There's a difference between asking, "Would the world be better if these people died?" and "Should we be legally allowed to execute people for crimes? If you saw someone trying to murder a child and killed them... no way would I say that was wrong. But translating that morality into a precise legal system is a much more complicated matter.

My opinion is that it depends on the size and style of the game. Stuff in the "look at this ridiculously huge world where there's tons of stuff going on" like you see in a lot of RPGs, Baldur's Gate, Elder Scrolls, etc., that's something you need to handwave a bit more, except in certain cases where it's much more immediate. Reason being that the world is just so huge and you're going to be adding quests to your log all the time just because you talked to some random guy that's going to ask you to do something. Because if you want to bring realism into it, while there certainly are people who can take on too many commitments, real life isn't full of "side quests". And of course, there's the matter that a lot of the "problems" are probably being handled by other people, because, it's their lives. In the game, there's only one life, and that's you, the player, and that's why in, say, Skyrim, you single-handedly accomplish everything there is to accomplish because no one else is doing anything. It's why by the end of all the quests you've killed everything in the world, own all the treasure in the world (or have all the money from selling off the treasure), became ceo of a major corporation, head of state for the whole country, boss of the local crime syndiicate, and like, the pope or whatever, and you get to be all that while still having enough freedom to run around performing fetch quests for the people you ostensibly now rule over. There's also the fact that... a video game is finite. So if you miss out on things, then, that's it. You'd reach a dead end where all the quests expire and you can't do anything anymore. Except start over. In real life, if you miss out on something, there's always other stuff you can pursue. Let's say you want to go to a convention. But you can't because of work, or some other commitment, it just can't work. Or you just slacked and the con filled up and there's no more spots for attendance. There will be other cons... that same con next year, and probably other cons elsewhere in the meantime, if you're wanting a con experience... in a video game, there aren't all those possilbiites, there's just the one that the creators put in. So it's beneficial to not have too many time limits so the player can get around to doing everything, since the game doesn't have the infinity of real life. I think if a game is going to step outside that convention, it should at least be a courtesy that they let you know "hey, don't tackle more than one quest at once" and make sure that while you're on your way to save the baron's daughter that, unless you go out of your way, you won't bump into a guy that needs you to save HIS daughter too, in the exact opposite direction. On the other hand, I think it miight be interesting to make a game where you *can't* do everything and you *do* have to pick and choose no matter what you do... it would have a very different kind of theme and feel.

Isn't that just the thing? I mean... a Warcraft movie. Dunno how they'd do that. If they intend to take the story more off the original games (which is to say, Orcs vs. Humans) or something more in the flavor of what World of Warcraft is now? If they know what's good for them, they'll include a Pandaren character. But either way... it's harder and harder for me to feel anticipation for movies. Latest I've seen is the new Riddick movie, which was fine, Vin Diesel's great and all, but there was some stuff I felt that was missing from the rest of it. It was still much better than I was expecting it to be though. But it's kind of indicative of a lot of movies these days, especially in these kind of genres. Some movies in spite of glaring flaws can be great just because they were well-made on a variety of levels, but you see a lot now that just seem... kind of dialed in... like they don't even know how to really make movies and just hope to bank on the brand name attracting people to the theatre, hashing in enough good stuff so it won't die right away, and hoping to cash in on the opening box office... rather than figuring out how to make something that's good as a film and will be something people actually want to see and spend money on in a bigger way. I mean they all want the franchises, and if they did it this way, you'd have a lot more successful ones, and a lot more that are able to go in new directions and maintain momentum rather than starting off great and then crumbling with each installment (Pirates of the Caribbean is a great example of this). They play it safe too much, but then again, I suppose they have to. When you have hundreds of millions of dollars in a project, you want something you feel will bring that back and profit... though, with their methods, I think there's a lot more of a risk of striking a huge loss... partially due to going after the big budget stuff and bloating the movie with garbage... making it two and a half hours of crappy action and special effects and then BAM it goes down... which is what a lot of the criticism I've seen levelled at the Long Ranger has been, a movie that probably could have been much more successful if didn't have a 200+ million budget going against it, was a much better, streamlined movie in general and not just banking on Johnny Depp to get people in the seats. But it seems things are just set to keep in this way.

I'm mostly here to follow Project Eternity. Which is kind of funny, because the internet forum I ever jo ined was the Bioware forums waaaaaaaaaay back to follow the development of Neverwinter Nights (and subsequently the Black Isle forums due to community overlap). Kind of fell out of PC gaming since then for various reasons, but now I'm starting to get back into it bit by bit and so I figured, since there's an upcoming game I'm interested in, might as well check out the community while I wait for it. So in a sense it feels a bit like coming full circle.

I went mostly with "Novelty", in regards to why I like fantasy over other types of fiction. Especially because I like a lot of surreal kind of fantasy, where the emphasis is more on creating a certain aesthetic, or feel, or the kind of fantasy that deals with... really exotic things, manifestations of abstract concepts, the idea that it's an infinite world out there and you could find literally anything, and it doesn't need a technical explanation, it just is. Probably why I like the Planescape setting so much. Wish Fulfillment and Escapism play a part too, though I can still get those through stories that don't involve dragons, wizards, or giant robots.

I always thought that about liches too. Especially since they are supposedly doing nothing *but* seeking arcane power. And your PC wizard still levels up to 20 in what in-game might even be under a year.