Hurlshort

I'm sick to my stomach right now about the shooting at the Connecticut school. It makes me want to rush out of work and go pick my daughter from kindergarten, and then take my family in the RV and live off the grid for awhile. I also keep staring sadly at my students, which they probably find a bit odd. Anyways, I know these are all emotional reactions to a very tragic situation, but I decided a good way to take my mind off of the horror is to discuss what we can possibly do to stop these things from happening. I realize we don't know enough about this case to really reference it yet, but I think there are enough recent shootings going back to Columbine to have a discussion. So I want to talk about the big issue of gun control. I've always been on the fence about it, but after the shooting in the movie theater in Colorado, I started to really question why certain weapons are needed by anyone in a non-military or law enforcement role. The Oregon mall shooting could have been much worse if the gun hadn't jammed, and now we have this shooting in Connecticut. I don't know a lot about firearms, so I am hoping some of you can educate me. Are there any restrictions we can place on rate of fire or something? Can we limit some of these guns strictly to gun ranges or something? I'm not sure what the answers are here, I just think something needs to change. Other than gun control, I think we need a massive change in our psychiatric care system. But I suppose we can start another thread for that.

I'm just in complete shock about the recent school shooting in Connecticut. I don't even know what to say.

But you are assuming the mass relays are destroyed. They didn't actually explode into tiny bits, they look like they got overloaded. They might be simply rebooting with new information or whatever. Which the extended ending makes clear because everyone seems to be traveling around the galaxy with no problems. It was a vague ending, and some folks chose to take the worst possible interpretation of it. Given that it has since been extended to make it more clear, continuing to bring it up only sounds silly.

I think you have to buy a few credits to unlock the preferred status though. Basically you spend $5, it bumps you to preferred and gives you a bunch of cartel coins that are in escrow from when you were a subscriber.

I've never understood this obvious misinterpretation of the ending.

This game really would have benefitted from playable instruments, like Asheron's Call 2. Then you could hang out in the cantina's and start a band.

There are also a lot of options to increase your xp gains now, with all the legacy stuff. Do f2p people get rest xp?

I did find the Ferris Bueller CR-V commercial pretty hilarious.

Ugh, Airbender was a travesty. Especially because the cartoon is pretty entertaining, and it looked like it was going to at least be cool visually. After Earth looks like it might be another pretty but vapid entry. Hopefully Will Smith can carry it or something, although it looks like he's sitting in the spaceship the whole time.

While it has some of the best quests I've ever seen, and the skill deck building is fantastic, it has a major lack of content. I hope they've been able to add more since it was released. Just the fact that there is almost no content differences between the 3 factions is a major ding in today's MMO's.

I will say this, the whole companion thing is pretty awesome. It makes soloing a bit more tolerable than most of the older MMO's.

Yeah, but Unbreakable was along time ago. He's had a lot of duds since then. I was even ok with Lady in the Water and that one with the blind girl in the forest, but The Happening was one of the worst films I've seen in a long time, and it was pretty clearly the fault of the director. Will Smith is a very good actor that has grown tremendously since The Fresh Prince. Ali and The Pursuit of Happiness are fantastic examples of his work. His son is pretty young to make any real judgement, but the Karate Kid reboot was a pretty entertaining flick.

That's good, it was a pretty interesting game. Although I imagine the lifetime sub folks are a bit upset about dropping a couple hundred on it.

I'm pretty sure your pros and cons are mixed up Morgie. Will Smith and his son make good movies, and Shyamalan doesn't.

I always felt Shephard was living on borrowed time, I mean he was a bunch of floating chunks in space at the beginning of ME2, so I didn't really expect him to ride off into the sunset.

I'd say the end game content was a big issue. I know a lot of people that played right to level 50, and then cancelled their sub. It just didn't offer enough. I'm not even sure that WoW had significantly more to do at the end game than TOR, but WoW has had long enough to develop that content and so it still sits on top of the MMO mountain. Really I just don't think TOR is a good enough MMO, or at least it isn't one yet. Games like Rift and Guild Wars 2 have embraced some dramatic changes in order to engage MMO players, and TOR is simply lacking on the social and gameplay aspects. That being said, they created an amazing atmosphere, and they tell some great stories. But those aren't really what keep people paying month after month. It's too much of a single player experience. I hope it recovers, or rather stabilizes long enough to improve. I think it will, the servers are packed right now and they are making improvements and adding content at a good rate.

Yeah, I had a couple good times with Raithe, but once I got back to work it was pretty hard to meet up time wise. Plus I was having some odd latency issues on the server, so I jumped to another one. I remember we had one good night where we blew through a couple flashpoints, that was fun. It was actually the only time I've done any of them.

I really hope they open up transfers completely soon. I know they will probably charge for it, but I'd be happy to pay to get my trooper off the east coast server so he can join all my other characters.

Your most recent work makes me reminisce about the magical maps of Jagged Alliance 2. Well done.

I'm on Beregren Colony (or something like that) and I think it is a west coast RP server.

Because AC2 built significantly on AC1. And 3 just decided to kill the franchise. Hmm...I did really enjoy AC2. Does AC3 have at least some redeeming qualities? It's getting pretty rave reviews, but that doesn't say a ton.

Based on my very limited understanding of the video game industry, the problem I see with your statement about "black and white" scenarios is that in many cases the copyright holder (the publisher) has created nothing. They have bought a product from the developers. The developers are the creators of the product and in many cases have already received payment for their work, yet often have very limited or even no copyright. I personally find the practice of granting copyright to something other than the creator of a product to be ethically challenging. Not being the creators of the product, what ethical right does a publisher have to the copyrights to a product? I am not a huge fan of publishers and studios holding copyrights where the creators have no say in their use, but it is often necessitated by the high costs of creating a game. The publisher is controlling the copyright because they are the ones taking on all the financial risks. They are paying the developer, paying for advertisements, and paying for production. If they are making a game based on an established property, they even have to pay to licence it from the original IP holder. That is the way the business works. A smart developer can work around that system if they want to maintain control. Obsidian is doing that with Project Eternity. Independent developers do that by keeping costs down. So if you aren't happy with the system, then support those projects. But the business model doesn't excuse piracy. People pirate indie stuff all the time. Heck, Lord Socks already admitted pirating Minecraft, which was money that went directly to the creator. How do you justify that? Does it matter that he payed for it later? What if he decided he didn't like it and didn't pay for it? The morally just action is to not buy a game if you have any concerns about it. I don't see how you can justify anything else.

He's not exactly chop liver in films like Born on the 4th of July and A Few Good Men. I also thought he was great in Collateral. He might not have the range of a guy like Daniel Day Lewis, but I'd put him up there with Brad Pitt as an actor who can carry a role.

Actually War of the Worlds was not a film I enjoyed. So there is one Cruise flick I didnt dig.

Actually you are biting into the apple, and then deciding if it is worth buying or not. Yes, I know we are talking physical versus digital goods, but it wasnt my analogy. I know morality can vary, but when someone offers something they created and asks for payment, its a pretty black and white scenario. You pay or you dont, again we arent talking about a life saving serum. It becomes gray when you are talking about regional locks, games out of print, etc. But that isnt what the sock lord was talking about.