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Yeah, I saw that. However you couldn't resist taking a potshot at your friendly neighbourhood commissar (seriously, outside of philosophy and polsci undergrad circles, WHERE are these people?), hence my comment. I don't really agree that "the left" (I guess you mean contemporary leftards) get a free pass. Left-leaning totalitarian regimes do enjoy the advantage of not having been utterly destroyed in a world war, so there's generally much less open debate and criticism going on in countries that suffered said regimes where their heirs are still directly in control. Other than that, I think just about anyone with half a working neuron outside of those countries will agree that statist genocide and oppression are bad, regardless of what banner you wrap it in. Using "the left" label to lump together everyone who isn't happy with the status quo and then pulling the Red scare card is just cheap, man. Anyway, I thought this was about UK elections (a discussion I find way more interesting), and not a thinly veiled attempt to rehash the same old topics for the billionth time. Can we let old ghosts in the past and discuss the present situation instead? I understand if the left really are as pathetic in the UK as they are in my country you'd be right to point and laugh. You don't need to drag Uncle Joe out of his grave for that, right? Right?

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you a few facts that you'll most likely ignore anyway! Well, yeah. The "left" murdered more people in Siberian prisons that anyone else because only the "left" could use the prisons in Siberia to murder people in. If, however, you are talking about genocide in general, your info is a bit out of date, I'm afraid. And, at any rate, more people died outside of the camps due to famine and disease, engineered or otherwise, than within. But do we really always have to end up comparing **** size? Jeez. Regardless, it's at best disingenuous to continue to try and place Bolsheviks and Nazis in the normal left/right spectrum as they had more in common with each other, despite obvious differences, than they did with more moderate political alternatives (go go totalitarianism). Hello, this isn't 1920 anymore, maybe it's time to cut the Red scare tripe out. Ironically enough, the politics of inequality continue to create and nurture the fecal culture in which the bloody grassroots revolts you (rightly) fear are born. The suggestion that wealth redistribution is somehow an exclusive practice of the political left is also pretty lol-worthy.

Personally, I can't wait to start throwing fat wads of cash at Prosper.

Hold up. Aren't you part of the British public? Charles? Is that you?

Just to clarify, I wasn't necessarily disagreeing with you, so I apologize if I came off as confrontational. I quoted you because I wanted to express, as you did, my own pov on the matter, specifically regarding the "they deserve to get paid for their work" sophism I see repeated so often these days. I may have misunderstood what you mean with the LoL example but seeing as I came to a similar conclusion I actually don't think that's the case. I didn't watch TB's vid because I can hardly sit through two hours of A+ movies, much less some random dude rambling about stuff. I know what his general stance is though, and from what little I've watched/read he's also guilty of the same sophistry, which isn't really surprising considering he's personally invested as a content creator. I may be wrong, though. Regardless, two hours. My poor ADD... And as an aside, I'm not especially frustrated about mods — but it does piss me off to no end that these days the only value is dollar value. These events are just a facet of that overarching issue.

(emphasis mine) See, this whole debate is rooted on statements and assumptions that at first sound good, but don't really hold up to scrutiny. Let's talk about "work". Should people get paid for their work? Well, yeah. I'm a worker, and I sure like getting paid. Problem is when some marketing or finance genius (read: good-for-nothing parasite) comes up with a great idea to turn random **** into a commercial transaction. For instance, I like trying new recipes, and I treat my friends when they come over. Should I start charging* them because "I deserve to get paid for my work"? I also offer free advice to clueless newbies at the gym now that I no longer work as a PT. Should I charge for each and every pointer, every spotted exercise? Because, you know, "I deserve to get paid for my work". I also like to open doors for old ladies and even help them with their bags sometimes. I guess I should charge for that too, because I should get paid yadda yadda. And don't anyone dare say it's not work. I just do that **** because I enjoy doing it, I believe I should do it, or simply because I ****ing feel like doing it, not because I hope to receive monetary compensation. I like the LoL simile, and I'm going to extend it to sports in general. Imagine if everyone who trains in a sport but isn't good enough to make a living from it started demanding to "get paid for their work". A majority of amateur sports events are free to attend. Much like mods, some of that is barely worth the time spent watching it, let alone actual money. Unlike gamers, however, sports talent scouts will demand to see a demonstration before committing a fiver and will simply not fund/sponsor/hire anyone who doesn't meet the standards for pro sports, regardless of how hard and how long they train. It's those standards that justify the price of admission for sports events. With this ****, standards are kicked to the curb and your money suddenly buys less, because when devs start getting a cut from mod sales, the "Day One DLC" effect is going to be amplified with devs putting the absolute minimum effort into build a platform that is suitable to build mods on. Because anything else isn't cost-effective and cost-effectiveness is the difference between staying in business and foreclosure, buyout by EA, asset stripping etc. Peeps want to charge for their mods? They can step up their game and offer the same dollar-to-content ratio you'd expect from a professional studio, work with the devs and publishers to get their product certified under the same QA standards and get it distributed the same way DLC is, with the same guarantees, lackluster as they may be. That will encourage more and better mods. That "work" I'm willing to pay for. Regrettably, it also requires an investment from the industry which means putting a dent on profits, so **** that **** and let's just scrap standards instead. With this ****ing bull**** consumerist market pandemonium we live and breathe, it's not at all about what you "deserve" to get paid for, it's what you can get away with charging for (and how much). People have sadly lost the ability to distinguish between the two, and anyone arguing the opposite will be downvoted to hell and branded a commie, a freeloader, an entitled man-child or what have you by the hordes of loyal thralls. *of course, they would argue that I should pay them, and that is kind of the ****ing point. With mods it's all good because it's just harmless fun, right? Wrong, Gaben dixit.

I liked AP a lot, one of my favorite Obs games for sure. Underrated, though many, even here, will disagree. Still hopeful that SEGA will dust off the IP and fund a sequel, some day.

Mods pls rename the thread to "MEH I GOT A ROGUE MOLE". (grats on your non life-threatening cosmetic imperfection, btw)

So it's not any mainstream left group in particular that you can point to, and it's not the Democratic Party either. Seems to me like you are constantly referring to some ill-defined and nebulous "left-wing progressives" that don't actually exist? I mean, they may be slightly more real than Sasquatch, but they aren't representative of your average pinko any more than someone who shaves their head and gets a keltenkreuz tattoo on their chest is representative of "conservatives". Looks like A-level strawmanning to me, chief. Please prove me wrong. As always I don't know which is worse the lying or how bad they are at it. So people being **** again, I'm shocked. Cops and the media will lie and say that the victim reached for their gun or that they felt "their lives were threatened" to justify putting a whole magazine worth of lead in someone's back. Thugs and the media will lie and say they are demonstrating peacefully after burning down the drug store they just looted, and cutting open the fire hose used to put out the fire. Remember the time when people actually did as they said? Me neither.

They don't even have a dedicated website for the game? I thought this was going to be a MMO? It's hard to tell by the Steam description. I... am not sure I want this game.

What is this "progressive left" you keep referring to in these bogeyman posts you make? Because the American left I'm aware of is very much for the repeal of PATRIOT, the de-militarization of police forces, the reduction of the budget dedicated to the intelligence apparatus, etc. Sure, they like to complain about some of the side-effects of big government and hold emotional speeches about the need for "change" to make themselves feel better, but when push comes to shove and they realize that actual change would threaten the political-financial complex that their Democratic party is deeply embedded in, they backpedal. PS: Same with immigration reform. Progressives love to exploit tragic stories of immigrants to proof to each other how much the 'care', but when it comes to concrete policy suggestions, they quickly find excuses and the only ones left defending proposals for more open borders are libertarian / classical-liberal types. So, the "left" for you is the Democratic Party? That explains a lot.

Say what you will about Angry Joe, but he does have great taste in metal:

Who said anything about wealth. I said I'd help you out. I can offer moral support. And not-so-witty one liners. And no, I live in a city inland. No beach for me (or you). If you ever come visiting hit me up, I can still afford to buy you a beer -it remains to be seen for how long- if you are into that sort of thing.

^ I'll be happy to help you out when I'm no longer extorted by the government into paying for protection I don't get need and services I don't receive.

He does have a point. Does he really need 1500+ words to get it across? Jeez. I disagree, though. There are plenty of games that don't have violence (explicitly anyway, it may be in as an abstraction). He wants non-violent games in a genre -first and third person- that originally developed to depict and submerge the player in violence. And when he finds them, he glosses it over. It's a buyer's market and AAA titles are what buyers demand: CoD and Battlefield clones. I read that just ~15% of players finished Alien Isolation. Not enough shooting and gore, perhaps. Then again, I'm an old school FPS fan, so what do I know... I don't know if the Alien Isolation thing is because of a lack of shooting and gore. I think for a lot of non-hardcore gamers (and even some hardcore gamers), that game is really scary and that probably caused it. I think this because Frictional Games released their metric info that said only about 2% of players finished Amnesia: The Dark Descent and I believe Outlast had a similar number. Now Alien Isolation wasn't as scary as those games but it was still pretty tense and scary compared to most games that come out. Yeah, maybe. I make no assumptions. However, if it's because it's really scary, you have to ask yourself how verisimilar is the violence depicted in games. Because survivors of real world violence, not to mention near-death violent experiences are often scarred for life and commonly describe the experience as "terrifying". Messed up sleep for years after, PTSD, damaged social skills, etc are common, long-lasting sequels. Violent games are rarely scary. I mean, people play violent games to relax. Hmm.

Feed your anger on the potential. Be mad at what could have been and how they could do it in the first place. And then we'll find a way to monetise the anger. Because we strongly believe that angry people should be rewarded for the effort they put into getting pissed at stuff. We want to encourage angry people to work full time on their pet peeves, so more quality rants are produced. We believe this will result in more butthurt for for everyone, fostering competition to produce top-notch foaming at the mouth. We want minor annoyances to lead to bloodshot eyed-frenzies, and we want it to happen organically for any mildly irritated person who wants to take a shot at suffering a stroke.

What is this "progressive left" you keep referring to in these bogeyman posts you make? Because the American left I'm aware of is very much for the repeal of PATRIOT, the de-militarization of police forces, the reduction of the budget dedicated to the intelligence apparatus, etc. Pretty much the opposite of your fear mongering narrative. I'm genuinely curious. Do you have any links to illustrate that more or less mainstream left groups in the US aim to do what you suggest? Disclaimer: I am not American, and therefore functionally illiterate regarding the American political landscape.

He does have a point. Does he really need 1500+ words to get it across? Jeez. I disagree, though. There are plenty of games that don't have violence (explicitly anyway, it may be in as an abstraction). He wants non-violent games in a genre -first and third person- that originally developed to depict and submerge the player in violence. And when he finds them, he glosses it over. It's a buyer's market and AAA titles are what buyers demand: CoD and Battlefield clones. I read that just ~15% of players finished Alien Isolation. Not enough shooting and gore, perhaps. Then again, I'm an old school FPS fan, so what do I know...

Nothing major, but it was nice.

Haha, I know that feel. I tried not to cry when I finally broke my BGT installation after trying to change something related to the 1pp paperdolls or something mid-game. Then I cried a lot. RR does add some obvious stuff and it may or may not be up your alley. I usually don't have a problem with fan content provided it's well done and I think aVENGER's is some of the best out there, but that's evidently just my opinion. For instance, I especially liked the spin on Arledrian (Gaelan Bayle's fence). The CoC encounter is difficult even for someone used to SCS, and it can feel out of place because of that, and because of how the dialogue leading up to it is structured. On the other hand, that same dialogue allows for at least 3 different outcomes that I remember, which is also unusual in BG2 encounters. After beating it, it's plain that a huge amount of work and care went into crafting the encounter, and I wouldn't be surprised if aVENGER considers it the centerpiece of the mod. As for AI backstab abuse and serial potion chugging, is that different from SCS behavior? I don't remember... but I do remember that having both mods installed suddenly meant that the absolute most valuable rogue skill turned out to be "Detect Illusion". Heh.

If you must know, I was educated in a country where 25% of people believe the sun revolves around the earth, and one in three will agree that humans and dinosaurs coexisted at some point. For me, reading these boards is the e-quivalent of going for coffee at Les Deux Magots, man.

Unlike in ToB, it remains that way for most of MotB. Spirits/undead make up the majority of enemies throughout the expansion, totally gimping certain builds. Bad, bad design. Might be some mod I had on last time I played, but I believe BG1 Drizzt was perma-hasted, making it difficult to run away from him to hide. I don't know, I like backstabbing, but I agree that it's oh! exploitable. The "Chosen of Cyric" encounter in Rogue Rebalancing (damn you aVENGER!) is as fun as it is frustrating because it's programmed to abuse backstabbing as the player would. I remember that one time I made Imoen a multiclass mage/thief and cheesed through the game with the mislead/chain-backstab combo... fun times.

Homeskillet is a fairly effective troll: That's some subreddit or /chan fishing for lulz. They also picked an account with 0.8h registered in Skyrim. Classic.

Valve can't into math. (who do they think they're fooling?)

Agreed on both counts. But your original post was about research into a fix, which I (possibly mistakenly) assumed to mean a fix to them. But until we fully understand the causes of the problem, we don't know how or where the solution must be applied, or even what the solution is. What do you think can drive a person to think their genitals don't belong in their body? Do you think such a thing would be possible in a social vacuum? Discrimination and stigma are, as it stands, an unavoidable side-effect of dysphoria. We don't know to what extent they might influence someone's already present ideas about their own body, and we don't know how such ideas to appear to begin with. A biological root cause is a possibility, but even biology isn't likely to provide black and white answers, and certainly not in simple terms (epigenetics, brain plasticity...). Hence my reply that before researching a "fix", we need to research the whats and hows.