Gromnir

I don't remember saying anything of the sort? probably the pot screwing with your stm. "Yes, punishment after the fact is not a perfect/awesome solution since then it's "too late" & there can be "miscarriages of justice". Anyone who deals with domestic violence (and other such) cases can speak to that enormous frustration." clearly you understate for effect, but even you recognized and identified the problem. but hey, Gromnir is here to help, no? HA! Good Fun!

Well, there goes alcohol too! You don't want to be a hypocrite, do you gromnir? Wait, of course you do. buckethead is really living up to his moniker today. first o' all, we has said we is in favor o' legalization, but you keep missing that point. second, we has noted that alcohol and tobacco is legalized In Spite o' their obvious societal costs. various state, fed, and local actors has tried, at one time or another, to ban alcohol and tobacco because o' the harm they cause to voluntary abusers and innocent bystanders alike. virtual every such attempt has been a failure. 'course somehow krez equates such failures as a rational for legalizing any arguably less dangerous activity? HA! am hoping that it is the pot that makes you soooooo slow. HA! Good Fun!

"With that out of the way...we have punishment laws." oddly enough, you already pointed out the silliness o' depending on such. am curious why you would bring up given how easily such an argument is dismissed. spend a few moments considering all o' the deadly eventualities that laws seemingly is written to prevent... traffic, weapon, environmental, etc. "But the issue is some feel that competitive sports, the playing field should be level." no. sorry, but you either ain't been paying attention or is simply ignorant. sports fans is concerned 'bout the level playing field stuff and the sanctity o' various records, but when these issues come before congressional hearings, more often than not the issue o' health issues and undue influence on impressionable children is the topics debated ad nauseum. "But I don't believe that because a (possibly) small percentage of weed users may be irresponsible parents/irresponsible in general, we should say no one at all can smoke weed." why not? 'cause you thinks you has Right to get high? assuming you is correct and the number o' children injured is small, if a legislator has to choose between the rights of a handful of innocents compared to a multitude o' stoners, which way do you think he is gonna choose... particularly if we is talking moral high ground stuff, eh? really, if anybody is arguing just to argue... HA! Good Fun!

"Asking someone to justify whether a law should be or shouldn't be legal via only "proven facts" is a teensy bit like asking someone to justify their spiritual belief (imo). " never did so. am suspecting you can work out the flaw in reasoning if you think it through a bit more. the list o' activities that is criminalized but arguably less dangerous than alcohol use is vast... but so what? legitimize mj legalization 'cause some other dangerous activity is not criminalized? how does the existence o' a more dangerous and non criminalized activity somehow bolster rationale for removing the prohibitions regarding weed? if you feels better, we s'pose the fallacy is probable more accurate described as ignoratio elenchi. really, the legalization o' tobacco or alcohol does not in anyway impact the pros and cons o' mj legalization. personal choice laws? is a quaint bit o' phraseology. so, given that we is talking 'bout a mind-altering drug, no doubt the State should leave up to individuals to be responsible and not let their recreational drug habits affect their work responsibilities and those persons around them, eh? am guessing that we could dispense with the fda if lc got her way... could be a good thing. and no doubt folks such as jose canseco and barry bonds would be overjoyed. personally we got no issue wit lc's preference, 'cause as we said before, we is having little issue watching folks destroy themselves... but how do you guarantee folks will only hurt themselves? lc is ok with private persons using weed in their homes... or anything else for that matter, right? coke, crack, meth, etc? *shakes head sadly* here is a little fly for lc's ointment: what if your recreational drug user has children? again, Gromnir is willing to go along with the legalization pov, but trying to convince us that the potheads got some kinda moral high ground is difficult to accept. HA! Good Fun!

am thinking that Di is a bit overly optimistic concerning the lack o' a downside. first, just 'cause mj use would be illegal for minors does not mean that weed use amongst minors will stay at current rates. given increased availability and relaxed social contempt, we expect a rise in teen and pre-teen usage... am just not certain if the increase will be significant. also, do not believe for a moment that legalization will put drug lords out of business. weed use will be taxed, and taxed heavily. vices is invariably taxed heavily. the more heavily a good/service is taxed, the more attractive you makes illegal proliferation and distribution. HA! Good Fun!

I'm pretty sure that tobacco does cause cancer, but the amount of non smokers with cancer is significant. Whatever is giving it to them puts the rest of us at significant risk and this cause isn't being addressed because cancer has become synonymous with anti-smoking. But this isn't really the topic. *groan* oddly enough, as wacky as ogrun's bassackwards reasoning would seem to be, it were a very effective defense for the tobacco industry when dealing with individual plaintiffs. now it should be understood that only the most obtuse yutz would, in 2010, argue Against the correlation 'tween cigarette smoking and various cancers. however, keep in mind that People have standing to sue in court... abstract causes do not. ... does tobacco use cause cancer? pretty tough to deny that it does... but keep in mind that hundreds o' other things may cause cancer as well. also, there is much documented evidence that Bob, and Tom, and Phil (and tens o' thousands o' lab mice) smoked the equivalent of a pack a day for 20 years and did not get cancer, so how can we says with absolute certainty that the tobacco use causes cancer, yes? cancer caused by smoking not have some particular genetic marker that distinguishes it from cancer caused by the literally hundreds o' other plausible causes o' cancer, so how does plaintiff prove that his cancer were caused by smoking? look at the numbers en masse and it is pretty much impossible to deny a correlation 'tween smoking tobacco and cancer, but look at a single individual case o' cancer and it is difficult to Prove that the cancer were caused by cigarettes. HA! Good Fun! ps to clarify on the weed issue, if Gromnir were to take a moral stance on the issue, we would be in favor o' maintaining the prohibition on recreational pot use. it is also perfectly legal for the govt. to prohibit pot use... this is still a representative democracy, no? until the law changes... *shrug* is no fundamental rights being denied to pot heads, and the notion that weed users is somehow being treated unfair in light o' legalized alcohol or tobacco use is, as already discussed, a nonsense argument. am okie dokie with legalization (if only barely) 'cause we thinks the actual cost o' criminalizing is too high... and 'cause the social cost resulting from allowing recreational pot use does not particularly affect Gromnir. the musty smelling wasteoids who will cheer pot legalization is not really our concern. as we has already noted, the one group o' persons who is particular at risk from pot use is early-teens who is still undergoing substantial cognitive/brain development. if we saw any compelling evidence that suggested that this at risk group would increase in size after legalization o' pot use we would very quickly change sides to the opponents o' legalization.

it replaces lines o' dialogue with emotes and prunes dialogue bifurcation from the player-character side of conversation, thus saving the developer from considerable writing and vo expense. huzzah. if, as a player, you is very desirous of full vo in a large game, then the dialogue wheel is a boon. sure, you sacrifice depth and breadth of writing, but as far back as the ps:t development we were aware of how resistant the average gamer were to reading many lines o' dialogue, particularly as game developers is not exactly hemingway or beckett; convey complex concepts and emotions with minimal text is a rare skill we does not expect to see from some geekling crpg writer. bioware saves player efforts by only making the gamer read a collection o' brief emotes. such a feature may, on some levels, seem patronizing, but underestimating one's audience has rarely resulted in failure. HA! Good Fun!

I do understand your point that tobacco/booze isn't weed (cats aren't dogs), & yeah, technically that's probably 'strawman', but... ... well shucks, don't sell yourself short. not only were you able to untangle, but you even admits strawman... though you inexplicably seem to rail against it. am guessing that that is ok because you admitted being illogical? lord only knows what "its fairly common" has to do with logic, reason, or strawman, so why you would continue to wanna draw parallels 'tween alcohol, tobacco and weed is perplexing. am suspecting that your unidentified reason for wishing to do so is all three substances may be able to be identified as recreational drugs. yes? that's it? *shrug* am honest curious: what Right does you believe is infringed 'pon by the prohibition of recreational weed usage? perhaps looking at the issue from a different perspective might help us understand. we is in favor o' legalization, but we is also dismissive of pothead rights... and potheads in general. our support o' legalization is lukewarm at best... so convince us to be ardent. don't bother explaining the practical benefits and drawbacks o' legalization as such things is known to us. as a student of law and a proponent o' justice, we wish to know what right you is being denied so that we might become justifiably irate in defense o' the cause. HA! Good Fun!

No, my argument is that long term study shouldn't hinder making a decision and alcohol and tobacco aren't psychedelic substances. The only reason that marijuana is illegal is because of Mexican aliens and hippies. Plus you are ignoring all the economical benefits that it could bring, this is a market that if legalized it would explode and give a much needed injection of life to the economy. ... you ain't making much sense... regardless, where does you see Gromnir ignoring economic benefits? we already said we is not opposed to legalization. nevertheless, our pov does not preclude us from exposing the weakness o' other pro legalization arguments. HA! Good Fun!

Yet cigarettes were in circulation before anyone knew the long term effects, which IMO are being exaggerated. Alcohol abuse also makes people dumber, both kill neurons. I really need to see numbers to believe that weed effect on the brain is as great as they say, plus Americans can't get any dumber otherwise their brain cavity might implode. what is with you people? the dangers o' tobacco and alcohol has 0 moral or legal relevance when considering the implications o' legalized mj. is your argument honestly that it isn't fair that pot smokers should be denied the same opportunities to legally endanger themselves? your observations is only persuasive in explaining why tobacco and alcohol should not be legal. "Well, Billy's mom lets him stay out past 6:00 PM." parents everywhere is unmoved by the traditional argument concocted by foolish kids. is less funny when adults try the same shtick. HA! Good Fun!

*chuckle* don't forget the baked goods folks. sudden increase in brownie mix sales following legalization? 'course, if general foods or kraft were heading the fight to legalize, we suspect they woulda' had more success. the reality o' the situation is that the persons advocating legalization is probable the primary reason we has seen virtual 0 progress since the 70's. with woody harrelson and krez-clones as examples o' your poster boys, you gots a serious image problem to overcome. HA! Good Fun!

there is considerable debate 'bout the long-term effects o' pot use. the only consensus we has seen regarding long-term dangers is related to early-teen users. if there is long-term physical harm from pot use for adults, it doesn't have much scientific support in spite of considerable testing. that being said, the short-term deleterious effects o' weed use is not in question. pot use does make the user... dumber... considerable impact on short-term memory and other cognitive functions. 'course, "short-term" is an inexact measure. as with so many chemicals and poisons, the impact on individuals varies greatly. short-term for bucket-head may be a few hours... or a few days. ... so why should Gromnir be bothered if people willingly wants to make themselves dumb? am all in favor o' such stuff. score a point for social darwinism, eh? HA! Good Fun!

How frequently did separate dialogue choices (at the same point) in the ME games speak the same line of dialogue? I didn't really notice, but wasn't looking for it either. Every Single Time again, that were the point o' the wheel. if there were 3 dialogue choices on wheel, at least two would have same vo spoken line. vo is very expensive, and the wheel allows 1-spoken line o' vo to be having multiple interpretations. unfortunately, from a crpg pov, this leads to funneling of dialogues rather than bifurcation. Just to make sure I'm clear here, you're stating that every single dialogue option (I'll assume you're hyperbolizing a bit, and will allow for the odd exception) in the Mass Effect games had options that you could choose different paraphrases where the PC would actually speak the same line of dialogue? we didn't test the entire game, but we did do a substantial portion o' feros with wheel testing as our goal. we got bored after a while, but there were always a funneling effect with the wheel... always: fewer actual vo lines than wheel options. am willing to concede that we had maxed charm, so often we were dealing with an additional dialogue option than those players with lower persuasion skills. HA! Good Fun!

That's another problem with the wheel, though you're going into an hyperbole. I don't see much difference between that and offering you 10 unvoiced options which are answered the same way though. *chuckle* is amusing that you would indulge in hyperbole to identify Gromnir hyperbole. in any event, we will observe that having some responses seeming unaffected by your chosen dialogue is hardly unreasonable. no doubt you has been involved in a conversation in which you came to realize that no matter what you said, the person you were speaking to had already made up their mind. in any event, we does admire biowarian chutzpah. honestly, it takes some guts and guile to sell a resource saving device as a Gaming Innovation. if bioware had been honest and admitted that the real purpose o' the wheel were simply to save vo resources, people woulda' moaned, groaned and complained. instead bio convinces people that the wheel is a groundbreaking feature. amazing. btw, ap is a notoriously short game. no mystery. HA! Good Fun!

it is very difficult for the da to successful prosecute con-men. the single greatest obstacle to such prosecutions is getting the duped to testify. successful and seeming intelligent citizens not want the stigma o' being exposed as fools. HA! Good Fun!

How frequently did separate dialogue choices (at the same point) in the ME games speak the same line of dialogue? I didn't really notice, but wasn't looking for it either. Every Single Time again, that were the point o' the wheel. if there were 3 dialogue choices on wheel, at least two would have same vo spoken line. vo is very expensive, and the wheel allows 1-spoken line o' vo to be having multiple interpretations. unfortunately, from a crpg pov, this leads to funneling of dialogues rather than bifurcation. dialogue wheel may be a necessary evil to makes full vo possible, but we is personally offended by the flimflammery that bioware indulged in when selling this "feature" to the gaming public... and as much as we is offended by the attempt to mislead and misdirect, we is even more surprised by their success. how did the biowarians pull off such a monumental Dr. Mesmer routine? HA! Good Fun!

observing that "that there should be a law against it" does not necessitate a belief that the law will effectively cure a social ill. HA! Good Fun!

So you prefer to guess what your PC is going to say? With bad voiceacting to boot? Because that was my experience with the wheel in ME. Wasn't nice. At all. What do you mean with "guess". I knew exactly what I was saying in ME. And what do you mean with bad VO? Jennifer Hale rocks. And you haven't heard Hawke yet. ... you do realize that the actual point o' the dialogue wheel is to conserve expensive vo resources, right? the reason we get wheel in da2 is because we is getting full vo for the player, and the wheel allows a single line of spoken dialogue to gets multiple interpretations. instead o' dialogue bifurcation you gots dialogue... funneling. you is being cheated and you don't even realize 'cause the biowarians did an effective snow job, aided by easily duped members o' the gaming media. HA! Good Fun!

am gonna call strawman. am not sure the naivete you envision is quite so pervasive as you suggest. how many folks genuine believe that criminalizing an activity will makes it disappear? *shrug* deterrence is a goal of many legally mandated punishments, but is rare the totality for the reasoning behind such criminalizations. HA! Good Fun!

What worries me about this is, are we going to see from the narrator: "and after Hawke accomplished x he went under the radar for awhile, now we skip ahead six months to a time when Hawke resurfaces and this is what happened next..." The game spans ten years, and if that's how it's done... meh. I'd rather have one continuous adventure. dunno... am actually looking forward to the decade aspect. in a typical crpg your character goes from being an incompetent b00b who has trouble dispatching the rats in a tavern cellar, to world-saving demi-god in a matter o' weeks/months. if bioware can find an elegant way to embrace a more plausible time-frame for our inevitably epic ascension, we is gonna be appreciative rather than dismissive. HA! Good Fun!

I haven't played ME2, but isn't that a problem Bioware has had since forever? The only game I don't remember having this problem was Baldur's Gate, but the companions were practically mooks at your orders. bg2, kotor, and me1 jnpcs (with some notable exceptions such as carth) is models o' well-adjusted mental health compared to the broken dolls who comprise the me2 crew, and as you already noted, the bg1 npcs were developed little beyond their character record sheet and a catchphrase. HA! Good Fun!

the thing that bothers us the most is that biowarian storytelling errors is typical very obvious and fixable. the villain for da were terrible. a crpg protagonist is necessarily ill-defined. so, bioware decides to has an ill-defined protagonist AND a villain devoid o' personality? how on earth did the biowarians allow such stoopidity to go beyond the earliest planning stages? also, more than one da joinable npc had a wtf moment, and wtf moments is the result o' poor development more than anything else. how 'bout me2? the me2 Big Revelations were pretty anti-climactic when one considers how me1 concluded... and the biowarians went serious overboard with their infusion o' Drama into the crew o' the normandy. given all the me2 characters who got abandonment/daddy issues, one might suspect that the biowarian writers is a collection o' teenage girls. maybe for their next game bio should do a kissy-vampire story... a twilight saga crpg seems suited for their current writing talents more than does epic sci-fi or traditional fantasy. ... am honest curious what the biowarians thought process were regarding some o' the me2 and da story aspects... perhaps the kanadians is too polite to provide each other with useful feedback and criticism. maybe hire some American or Irish writers/editors would help. HA! Good Fun!

*groan* am not needing more of that wretched sleight-o'-hand nonsense. is a cheap way for bio to create an illusion o' multiple dialogue responses; it is a resource saving device that the biowarians somehow bamboozeled folks into seeing as a feature. HA! Good Fun!

nevertheless, it sold very well. so what is biowarian motivation to make wholesale changes? conventional wisdom suggests that with a sequel it is far lass risky to give people more o' what they want rather than trying to come up with a new approach, no? HA! Good Fun!

there is no evidence to suggest that the da2 protagonist is any more pre-determined than the grey warden o' the genesis game... at least as far as we has seen. is possibly little different than the nwn2 'hero'... with a gender neutral given name. every protagonist in a story driven crpg is predetermined, whether you realize it or not, but am getting what mc means. however, from the info released so far we cannot tell the degree to which player freedom is being handicapped. that being said, Gromnir were very much unimpressed by the da origins which resulted in largely undifferentiated gameplay regardless o' the origin chosen. perhaps the biowarians also realized that origins approach were a waste o' resources and has chosen to abandon such nonsense. as such, we is not as discouraged as is mc... although to maximize player freedom and increase potential for story building, we would prefer to see less of a focus on the protagonist, but clearly that ain't the direction bio has chosen for their development scheme. HA! Good Fun!