Sofaking

I can't tell you how often I see on the news stories about a man leaping from a building onto his wife, assaulting her with his hidden blades, and then escaping from the police by hiding on a park bench. These violent video games are wrecking our society.

Where do I get the pregnant? Shouldn't she get it? OMG I'VE BEEN DOING THIS WRONG THE WHOLE TIME!

As a victim of this type of violence I can assure you it is a problem. But thanks for dismissing me like everyone else. I guess I should just grow a pair of balls eh?

Yeah, but those are already available in games. I was under the impression the discussion was about the triggering of the event. In your example the PC triggers the event and the time is when the event expires. Like the Fallout example, the game starts you with a 150 day time limit to get the water chip and save the vault. The game in the theoretical example would also start you with 4 days to save Shady Sands from the rad scorpions and 15 days to kill Gizmo before he takes over Junktown. All these are triggered and start counting down the moment you start the game.

While an interesting idea, I have two main objections. Firstly, it sort of destroys the reason that open world sandbox games are appealing. And that is your ability to play at your own pace. If you want to spend forever wandering around doing side quests and collecting all the gnome statues you can. You’re not pressured into the story until you’re ready for it. As soon as you begin requiring the PC to participate in the story in order to avoid missing it you take away the free roam and story as options and make them a choice one or the other. You also have an issue with pacing. How do you properly pace a game so if the character arrives early, let’s say two weeks for something, they don’t just feel like they have to sit around and wait? A properly paced story makes the character want to play it because they want to find out what happens next, not because it’s just time to do story mode. My other objection is this seems like something very hard to actually program maybe even impossible. With each event on a timer, the result of which creates a story branch, which affects other branches and you have branches on branches it just becomes a huge mess to script and program. Sure you could half ass it and make a bunch of the events cookie cutter but that defeats the idea. So what if you miss some events and are there for some others. Do the NPC’s react differently if you’re just now showing up halfway through than if you’re well known and have been there. Could you imagine having to program this so the character knows what is going on, is caught up on any backstory. What about if the NPC’s get angry because you started with them, missed a deadline, and now react poorly towards you. How do you program these to make sure the character doesn’t dead end the story because of a mistake? Fallout was probably doable because you had one timed event which affected an isolated area, the vault. There were some other impacts but there was only one “Take New Vegas for example, lets say you wanted nothing to do with the war between the Legion and NCR, and decided you just wanted to be an adventurer, time will pass and the world will change depending on your choice, or lack of choice.“ This could still be a choice made in a non-timed manner. Let’s say you arrive in town, the mayor asks you to help defend against the legion and your response is “Sorry this isn’t my fight.” And the next time you show up it is overrun. You could even refresh this event over the course of time to show an ongoing war between the towns and Legion. You could do certain timed events that say do mission X in X days. But you would still need to start them. Otherwise each town would have things expiring before you could get to them and you would miss quite a lot.

I'm just happy this hurricane is going to be gone by the 4th so our fireworks aren't rained out. Any other 'Muricans doing anything exciting for their 4th? Any of you unwashed foreginers want me to send you some freedom?

No you misunderstand me my Canadian friend I said there isn't a societal issue with violence against men. In other words violence and abuse perpetuated against men by women is much less. Wow Bruce, this is wong on so many levels. http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/ID41H3a.pdf "The results in the first part of this paper show that almost one-third of the female as well as male students physically assaulted a dating partner in the 12 month study period, and that the most frequent pattern was mutuality in violence, i.e. both were violent, followed by “female-only” violence.Violence by only the male partner was the least frequent pattern according to both male and female participants." It is really terrible to perpetuate that myth, it does nothing but hurt men and women.

MGS4 had the FROGS, does that count? Sofa I wanted to say earlier how are you enjoying being active on these forums? I know you come from the old days of BSN\Black Isle forums but its good to see your perspective and the fact that you do contribute towards certain topics I am enjoying your views I a m Oh hey, thanks. It's nice, an interesting crowd here. You guys don't goof off nearly as much though. I just wish more of the people who brought me here were sticking around too...

MGS4 had the FROGS, does that count?

From the way he posts i always assumed he was some sort of schizophrenic dwarf.

"from a smart and funny guy who we would happily introduce our sister to if not for the fact that the guy don't even realize that he is racist. " I'm totally not a racist... just saying.

Careful, math this complicated might confuse Bester.

Now look who's being racist. LOL.

Not everyone lives in multi-ethnic societies. It's very weird for people from mono-ethnic societies to have romances with people from other cultures and ethnicities. People in America mingle a lot, so a black guy and an asian woman can have the same background. But it doesn't apply to all countries. Not going to call you a massive idiot, though, cause that's just not a correct way of having a dialogue. Also, can you truly say that all your white friends want a black girl just as much as they want a white girl? Just answer this in your mind and leave it at that. Is this Troll Tuesday or something? Look, "So I kind of skipped that huh. When the Addon (SOU) came out, there was a guy who was extremely flirty and witty from the first line, sarcastic, evilish, half-orc, OMG SEXY, he would always say things like "HUH, You're like me, we make a NICE TEAM ;)" So a green bucktooth half-orc is sexy but a BLACK GUY is just unacceptable. I mean, isn't it quite clear your fiend views black people as sub human when a literal half human is viewed as more attractive than THE BLACK GUY. Edit: "Also, can you truly say that all your white friends want a black girl just as much as they want a white girl? Just answer this in your mind and leave it at that." To answer your question my friends would most likely find a black woman more attractive than a half orc woman, because you know, they aren't racist pieces of ****.

I suggest you tell your friend not to send this letter. She is a massive idiot if she thinks her racist homophobic rant is even going to be taken seriously when the point is "don't be a misogynist."

Hey, don't make me come over there and give you some freedom.

This is basically what the SCOUTS said, the government could provide the contraception themselves and still fulfill their goal of giving access to everyone. There is no need to force an employer to do it. I am butting into something here that I don't claim to understand and that isn't my business, but... If the claim by businesses is that because of their religious value system they feel they cannot -and should not- in any way be forced to help their employees to get contraceptives, wouldn't they still be in the same position if the government did it with money funded from taxes that were in part raised from these businesses? It’s not that they can’t, in any way, be forced to, the idea is that if the government mandates something that is objectionable to a religious group, they should do it in a way that is the least restrictive way. So taxes are less restrictive than making the employer buy coverage directly. So the government has mandated women be provided with contraceptive coverage, the least restrictive way they could do this is to provide it themselves.

You damn forum hipsters made me start a new game of Fallout.

This is basically what the SCOUTS said, the government could provide the contraception themselves and still fulfill their goal of giving access to everyone. There is no need to force an employer to do it.

That's not true, as I understand it. What the ruling on the 1990 case says is that states have the power to accommodate illegal acts done in pursuit of religious pursuits states are not required to make those accommodations. Its important to note that the Hobby Lobby case is not regarding a state, but the federal government, so its not exactly the same thing (and as I understand it the RFRA is specific to the federal government; states would have to pass a state version for it to be applied at the state level). Maybe 'does not' would have been a better choice of words than 'cannot'. In 1990 the state was not required to accommodate the use of peyote and it did not, even though it had the power to. Enter the RFRA and various state level laws which followed, which now compels the government to make rules in the least restrictive ways. RFRA, and similar state laws, were clearly sparked by the Oregon Vs Smith case. Since peyote can now be used by natives and businesses don’t cover contraceptives. I mostly found it interesting because of Scalia’s statement in the 1990 ruling. “The rule respondents favor would open the prospect of constitutionally required religious exemptions from civic obligations of almost every conceivable kind -- ranging from compulsory military service, to the payment of taxes, to health and safety regulation such as manslaughter and child neglect laws, compulsory vaccination laws, drug laws, and traffic laws, to social welfare legislation such as minimum wage laws, child labor laws, animal cruelty laws, environmental protection laws, and laws providing for equality of opportunity for the races, The First Amendment's protection of religious liberty does not require this.” So it appears that prospect has been blown wide open.

Well, there is some pretty interesting history leading up to all this. 1990 Employment Division vs Smith http://www.oyez.org/cases/1980-1989/1989/1989_88_1213 "Question Can a state deny unemployment benefits to a worker fired for using illegal drugs for religious purposes? Yes. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, observed that the Court has never held that an individual's religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that government is free to regulate. Allowing exceptions to every state law or regulation affecting religion "would open the prospect of constitutionally required exemptions from civic obligations of almost every conceivable kind." Scalia cited as examples compulsory military service, payment of taxes, vaccination requirements, and child-neglect laws." So 1990 your religion cannot exempt you from following federal or state laws. 1993 Enter The Regligious Freedom Restoration Act If the government does set rules restricting religious pratices "that the rule must be the least restrictive way in which to further the government interest." So come 1993, if you have a compelling reason which meets strict scrutiny you can get an exemption to the law for religious reasons. Today: The requirement for 'closely held' businesses to cover contraceptives is not the "least restrictive" since the feder government could (and IMO should) provide these services themselves.

Started a new Fallout game, forgot to name myself. So the hero of the wastes is forever None.

Well these comments have certainly been much more interesting then the article. One question that always kind of pops up in the back of my head when these discussions about race and gender in video games comes up is, where are the female game developers? I could understand the argument about "white dudes in a conference room" and how it relates to a repression of female characters when it comes to big budget titles. But where are the female indy game developers? With the sucess of indy games like Minecraft, Super Meat Boy, Braid, Fez etc. We're living in a time where people are eliminating the white suits and bypassing the normal development system. Literally the only game I can think of is Journey. But even that hasn't satisfied what people want beacuse ultimatley the characters are genderless. The reason this irks me so is because I constantly see people turn to the established developers and cry "where are the strong females?" Well, I am asking the same question, but I ask the female gaming community not the establishment. With the way the market is now, with the tools like Steam Greenlight and Kickstarter, the tools are out there and avaliable. Could this game be sucessfully markeded without just being sold as a "girrrrl gamerz!" game? I look at fantastic story driven games like Gone Home, which had a wonderful atmosphere and story and wonder, "why couldn't this have been done by a woman?" Let's face it, most writers and content producers creat characters which they can easily self identify with. I also read a blog, Should a Black Writer Write White Characters? in which an aspiring black writer asks the question, "Do I make the character black because I’m black?" and "Is it wrong that I see the main character as white?" I think these questions sort of hit on why we mostly see white male characters in games, they are developed by white male creators. The post brings advice from author Marita Golden, she says: to simply "tell the story you want to tell." Start from there, and then if the character turns out have a racial identity that isn't yours, go with it. And I think that this is the sentiment we, as gamers, need to take more into consideration. There is a reason women are so often poorly represented in video games, that is because it can be difficult for men to wirte them well. And when you ask a content creator to change the story they want to tell in order to fit your expectations you're going to get a poor product. I think creators should be free to write characters of any culture they want to if that is where their story naturally flows. They should not feel pressured to stay within their own culture nor should the be pressured to wirte outside of it in order to avoid the lable "oppressor" or not "progressive." "We need to be the change we wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

That's what thought and to me that's an important distinction (also the reason I chose 2 Fighters in the "Whats your party" thread). Any class can "tank" one enemy but to me, that's not a tank. The Barbarian seems like it can do ferocious damage but that's not the class Im going to park in the doorway (bottleneck) because enemies will just stream past and savage my clothies. I think the problem is you're always going to find problems when you try to force this type of RPG into the traditional MMO class dichotomy. Each character will have a unique set of skills which reach beyone Tank, DPS, Control, Heals. Sometimes they are even a mix of the two.

This is another reason I don't want to move. Trying to get your deposit back is like pulling teeth. But of course buying a place is pretty much out of reach unless you've got two incomes here, so I'm stuck renting. Also, lazy. Reports here say to buy a house you need a combined household income of $120,000 annually. So we would need 4 incomes. http://www.crackshackormansion.com/ Sounds just like the US just before the housing crash.