Irontruth's page

I think that the cultural area centered on India is woefully neglected...

I have a present for you.

MMCJawa wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

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Irontruth wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

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edit:

Because they work Americans, hard... ??

It was better than I thought it would be...I actually liked that I was spoiled on the Khan reveal, as I would have been more irritated with all of J.J. Abrams denials had I found out during the movie.

** spoiler omitted **

Like a goblin, your insults don't carry a lot of weight.

The show has definitely had it's CW moments during the season, but what really struck me was how tightly crafted the finale felt. All the events and dialogue served a purpose, to further the story.

Also, I think the flashbacks were probably the best overall, in how they fit in with the present day timeline. It wasn't it's own story, it was there to highlight and illuminate what was going on.

DSXMachina wrote:

With Sebastian's spoiler above, is that more or less of a spoiler than the thread title?

Hard for me to say without seeing the movie. Maybe someone who has seen the movie can chime in to confirm that the first 30 minutes of Cumberbatch being on screen involve him saying "my name is Keyser Soze, I'm really not Kahn" and then, when confronted, he laughs and says "Sucka! I am Kahn!" In that case, the thread title seems like a spoiler. But, if everyone is saying "holy cow, it's Kahn" when he first shows up, or he kicks down the door and yells "IT'S KAHHHHHHHHN!!!", I have a hard time thinking of the title of this thread as a spoiler.

Spoilered, just in case:

Edit: Also, it's spelled Khan, not Kahn.

Mark Sweetman wrote:

Bill Kirsch wrote:

All I know is,this has soured me on KS in general. Fool me once, I suppose.

Too bad I have already ordered from the Dwarvenforge KS. Here's hoping they don't screw up their delivery like Reaper has.
No more Kickstarters for me. Live and learn.

Bill - what in particular has soured you? - is it just the delay in receipt of the minis?

If it is just the delay then I would suggest being ready to gird your loins for similar disappointment on the Dwarven Forge KS. I'd say there is a fair chance that they'll not meet their time target.

In both cases though, rejoice as I'm sure you'd agree that from Reaper and Dwarven Forge the goods will eventually arrive and will be quality as advertised.

The ever increasing delay. March became April which became May which is likely to become June or July. If they had said "Summer 2013" I probably wouldn't have pledged because I'm not in the habit of giving money with no results for that long.

Both KS's I've back are excellent deals. That's why I backed them. But I expect companies to keep their commitments, included estimated delivery.

As far as Dwarven Forge is concerned, I guess that remains to be seen. If it is standard operating procedure to be consistently very late on Kickstarter, then KS is not for me. Thus, no additional backings.

I'll echo some of what Mark said.

I would recommend keeping an eye out on Kickstarter for you, but backing very, very rarely. Don't jump on the big projects that are already successful, instead use those to create wishlists for future purchases once those products actually come to market.

Instead, look for projects that you find interesting, but actually need help. Ones where they look less likely to receive funding and you feel willing to contribute to help ensure they do succeed, but more because you want them to succeed, than because you really, really want to have their product in hand.

As DQ mentioned a little further up, think of it more as 21st century patronage. Only put your money in when it's something you believe in.

Yeah, I don't think it's a spoiler if you can find it out just by looking at the cast list.

Irontruth wrote:

Here's an interesting bit for you.

I have a different viewpoint and expectations of what happens on Kickstarter, than some of the other people in this thread. This different viewpoint and expectation has left me unsurprised and not at all frustrated.

Convince me that I would be better off with a viewpoint that left me surprised and frustrated.

I'm neither particularly surprised or frustrated at the moment.

I simply agree with folks that think there should be more communication on the matter of delays, and I disagree with folks that are trying to say that Kickstarter isn't (or hasn't been allowed to be co-opted into) a preorder system.

If you have no issue throwing money at folks and not expecting accountability or timely delivery, that's fine. More power to you.

But lambasting folks who do expect promised deliveries, who expect them to be delivered on the schedule that they were promised, and ultimately, who expect timely communication when those are not met? Shame on you.

I don't throw my money at folks expecting nothing. I research the people and try to at least have some guesses on the how the industry process should work. I've had excellent results with my kickstarters.

For example, WotC's miniatures line, which is fairly similar to the Bones project, probably had a turnaround time of a minimum 4 months, but possibly as long as 6 months. But that is an established product line, with a system already in place. It's really not that surprising that a much smaller company trying to start their own similar line would take 12 months to get their product to market the first run, especially a run with this many variables.

I'm sorry other people bought into the pie-in-the-sky goal of delivery within 6 months. It was unrealistic of Reaper to make that promise, but it was also unrealistic to believe it IMO.

I agree that Reaper could have communicated more. I've never disagreed with that.

Irontruth wrote:

Kickstarter is not a preorder site, regardless of how much it might appear to actually be one, or how much you wish it were one.

Kickstarters marketed as preorders are preorders regardless of how much you might wish to tell people they're not.

Itontruth wrote:

The majority of preordering that goes on, for the majority of products in most industries falls into the first category. Established companies promising products that they are familiar producing. Established companies don't use Kickstarter as their preorder system, because they'd have to give KS 5% off the top. Paizo would never do their established book lines through KS, because that would wreck havoc on their profit margin.

Paizo might not, but, then, explain why plenty of other established gaming companies are using Kickstarter as their preorder system?

Really, it has nothing to do with Kickstarter taking a cut of their profits.

It has to do with risk vs. reward on behalf of the creator.

Traditional preorders traditionally take more time than a Kickstarter, and don't have the hype factor.

With a Kickstarter, the creator doesn't have to assume any of the risk themselves - they're fully compensated up front.

Itontruth wrote:

Technically, it is preordering on Kickstarter, but it isn't even close to anything you'd do, either at Paizo, Gamestop, Amazon, or any other major retailer.

Because major retailers have resources that most project creators on Kickstarter don't.

Itontruth wrote:

Most businesses have an established method/process for refunding you your money and under what conditions. None of that exists on Kickstarter. Kickstarter doesn't have anyone to help you with customer service, unlike Amazon, or even Paizo. Amazon handles KS payments, but even then it isn't necessarily smooth and can be a hassle for both sides.

And your point here? Kickstarter is the middleman. We know this. Kickstarter's Terms of Service are clear - they're not liable for anything,...

Here's an interesting bit for you.

I have a different viewpoint and expectations of what happens on Kickstarter, than some of the other people in this thread. This different viewpoint and expectation has left me unsurprised and not at all frustrated.

Convince me that I would be better off with a viewpoint that left me surprised and frustrated.

Compare it to dealing with Paizo. You can preorder books from Paizo. Sure, the books are each different, and sometimes different people work on them, but overall Paizo has a process. They've worked most of the kinks out of their system, they know their suppliers well, they know how long everything takes to accomplish.

But then Paizo wants to start up a car company. They don't have an established history making cars. They make have really good ideas and be good at designing cars, but they don't have relationships with their suppliers. They don't know from experience how long it can take to get certain parts or materials. They're going to have to learn how to do every aspect of that kind of business, you're going to have to wait until they do.

The majority of preordering that goes on, for the majority of products in most industries falls into the first category. Established companies promising products that they are familiar producing. Established companies don't use Kickstarter as their preorder system, because they'd have to give KS 5% off the top. Paizo would never do their established book lines through KS, because that would wreck havoc on their profit margin.

Most of what is happening on Kickstarter is the second paragraph.

Technically, it is preordering on Kickstarter, but it isn't even close to anything you'd do, either at Paizo, Gamestop, Amazon, or any other major retailer.

Most businesses have an established method/process for refunding you your money and under what conditions. None of that exists on Kickstarter. Kickstarter doesn't have anyone to help you with customer service, unlike Amazon, or even Paizo. Amazon handles KS payments, but even then it isn't necessarily smooth and can be a hassle for both sides.

Kirth Gersen wrote:

Citizen Betts, I notice that you, too, found the capitalized "THEY" a bit telling.

Emphasizing that if they find it ok why not for anyone else? racism, they are as bad as what they gripe about. Any thing but equal is racist, and you all seem to support that.

You're failing to understand it's not a double standard. When you examine only one word and one group of people, it appears to be a double standard, except it isn't actually, because there is more than just that one word and more than just that one group of people.

The standard is that people who are familiar with each other, or belonging to the same group have more leeway when referring to the group or individuals than people outside of that group.

The standard is equal for all. When you are dealing with strangers, if you want to keep things polite you will probably have to maintain some sort of control over your mouth.

The word n*!&&~ is an example of that standard, not an isolated case to be examined without acknowledging the existence of other words and other groups.

Similarly, there are a lot of women who find it offensive when strangers call them things like honey, pumpkin, sweetie, toots, etc. Because those are words carry implications with them that make the women uncomfortable. Some women don't care, but if you don't know them and what they might find offensive/uncomfortable, why use those terms for women you don't know? Save them for family/significant others.

Irontruth wrote:

There plenty of worse cracks in the system showing than this project. Here's a project that pretty much died.

The KS funds have all been spent. The project creator is now digging into his own pocket to supply refunds, but you have to contact him directly and he has to pay pal it to you. I don't know what his exact financial situation is, but if he's out of cash in his pocket, you're out of luck on your refund. You could take him to court over it I guess.

Kickstarter is not a preorder site, regardless of how much it might appear to actually be one, or how much you wish it were one.

Now what does that remind me of? Certainly not any kind of preorder situation.

Do your research on people and the industry.

Don't just go "ooh, shiny!"

Doing research means:
1) less likely to get burned (but it can still happen)
2) less likely to be surprised when setbacks happen, because you'll know what kind of setbacks can happen

KS is not a handholding site.

You're putting your financial information into a website that has zero policy/infrastructure on returns and zero mechanisms of enforcement. The company that owns KS will do NOTHING to help you obtain your promised goods/services, or refund your money. NOTHING. It is up to you to protect yourself.

thejeff wrote:

Irontruth wrote:

I understand the point he's trying to make. Unfortunately, he can't separate what he wants his point to be from my point. They are directly linked and he can't just wish them to be separate.

A white person who uses the word n~&$%+ is (perhaps unintentionally) invoking the history behind it.

You're talking to Andrew.

I understand the point he's trying to make as well.
We've been through this before.

It's that actual racism is a thing of the past and all claims of it now are just tools for minorities to attack whites with. Racism against whites is the only racism that matters today.

Not at all, i simply believe in true equality where we are all held to one standard.ONE. I find the creation of what is ok for the white man and what is ok for the black man to be inherently racist. You see me as racist for demanding one standard. i see you as racist for wanting to make people separated by race

I'm sorry the world is tough and unfair. People have had a lot of suggestions for those who are easily offended, such as grow a thicker skin. Maybe you could check out some of that advice.

Yes, you and I didn't enslave millions of black people and deny them their human and civil rights, personally. But we live in a country where that is part of our history. Put your big boy pants on and deal with it.

Long post about gray areas

This thread is making the assumption that the people who are the target of offensive words are in the wrong. People are basically making the argument that the words are only offensive because the targets of them choose to be offended.

I'm taking those same concepts and showing how they can easily be directed at the speaker of offensive words as well. To me, they actually sound much more convincing too.

If the listener can choose how they react to an offensive word, then the speaker can choose how they react when they are told it was offensive. Instead of getting defensive about the use of the word, they can ask honest and respectful questions.

Quote:

"Kickstarter is not a preorder system."

"Kickstarter is not Amazon"

Regardless of what you call the relationship, Reaper took people's money with the promise of future delivery of product. That's a customer relationship of some sort or another. As a customer who has prepaid for a product, there is an expectation of reasonable communication about delivery timing.

Being late is understandable. Communicating it terribly and in a mis-leading manner is far less so.

I understand why you'd think this is true. Kickstarter can feel like a normal website where you buy things from someone.

Except that isn't exactly what is going on. You can claim it is until your blue in the face, but that doesn't make your viewpoint a reality.

You are providing money for someone to start a business, or complete a project. In return, they're going to give you some stuff, once that business is up and running, or the project is completed.

KS avoids the term investor, because you don't get a fiduciary return on the money you put into the project. So they use the term backer.

There plenty of worse cracks in the system showing than this project. Here's a project that pretty much died.

The KS funds have all been spent. The project creator is now digging into his own pocket to supply refunds, but you have to contact him directly and he has to pay pal it to you. I don't know what his exact financial situation is, but if he's out of cash in his pocket, you're out of luck on your refund. You could take him to court over it I guess.

Kickstarter is not a preorder site, regardless of how much it might appear to actually be one, or how much you wish it were one.

Irontruth wrote:

A white person who uses the word n~&&*& is (perhaps unintentionally) invoking the history behind it.

What about the word vinegar?

You've successfully convinced me this thread is over.

darth_borehd wrote:

I don't think it's that more people are more easily offended. Instead, it's that courtesy, manners, and empathy have become much more rare.

Mostly thanks to the television, mobile phones, channels like MTV and Commercials that make beautiful people look like Gods and normal people look like non-important boring creeps, mostly if they use ugly or normal people they are meant for comical reasons...

Television is the biggest reason people changed, especially commercials and Jersey Shore-like shows which are non-stop on every channel these days, about antisocial people that rule and are "cool", just take a look at that horrid snookie.

People learn that its OK to scream at your boyfriend/husband or cheat on your friends because in those shows they do it as well...

There's a quote from Alan Bennett I think of whenever someone decries the end of civil society:

"I saw someone peeing in Jermym Street the other day. I thought, is this the end of civilization as we know it? Or is it simply someone peeing in Jermyn Street?”

Only 60 years ago, in the US, a mob could still hang a man for an unproven offense. If that man was black, and it took place in the South, the odds of the police charging anyone with a crime was extremely negligible.

And you want to describe the Jersey Shore as a decline? While I find it distasteful, I think it's actually an improvement compared to communities committing murder.

I understand the point he's trying to make. Unfortunately, he can't separate what he wants his point to be from my point. They are directly linked and he can't just wish them to be separate.

A white person who uses the word n%+#@~ is (perhaps unintentionally) invoking the history behind it.

You think white people should be allowed to invoke the memory of 400 years of slavery of black people, specifically through a word that was adopted as a pejorative in an attempt to remind black people to be submissive to white people.

You think that white people shouldn't just feel free to use the word, but be angry when people disapprove of their use of the word.

A word adopted in an era when black people, who had been freed, were subjected to a host of laws that denied them their dignity and human rights.

This is your argument?

Just to clarify, you think white people should be angry they can't call black people n!++~+s.

Don't just blindly trust whatever they write. Research the people behind it, research the industry, etc.

Kickstarter is not just a preorder system.

Anything JJ Abrams touches always ends poorly. He can't even end stories as good as Michael Crichton, and believe me that is a pretty low bar to clear (... uh how about a volcano blows up and everyone jumps on a hot air balloon).

I agree with you, JJ Abrams is really good at thinking up the beginnings of stories, but has a weakness of ending them well.

Other than a giant, glaring error in physics though, the ending of Into Darkness is fine.

More generally, I found Into Darkness to be much better than the previous one. It kept a large number of nods to the original, which increased in the final act of the movie, but they didn't feel as forced as they did in the first movie.

Cumberbatch is excellent as always IMO. It felt like Pine and Quinto settled into their roles a little better with this one, particularly Quinto.

too many replies to catch up on, but one post near where I left off caught my attention.

TOZ wrote:

people don't choose to be offended, they choose how they react to being offended

This. Pretty much sums it up what I've said in one sentence.

And when someone says "you just said something offensive", people get to choose how they react to that, as well.

Irontruth wrote:

A white man calls a black man a n@$#!!.

Who would be in the wrong for getting angry over this?

Context. Does he say it out of the blue? Was he called a honky first?

The context is that both are from the US and it's taking place in the US.

Do you think a white man should ever get angry over not being allow to call black people n!&$*@s?

In early WoW there was a bug sometimes when looting. If you 'opened' the corpse and someone in the group was dead, they would not be able to receive the loot. They eventually fixed the bug.

Our guild though had such an ingrained memory, that for the next 3 years after it was fixed, we maintained the practice of getting everyone up and alive prior to opening the body. Eventually the practice started to diminish, particularly as Blizzard added tools to make loot distribution easier, but it stuck with us for a long time.

Oh, to answer an earlier thing Meatrace, getting offended is basically just being angry. It just happens that years past, the word(s) might cow an individual into submissiveness, as they reasserted the reality of their situation. Now as people are gaining some measure of empowerment, instead of being submissive, they get angry that someone is trying to make them submissive.

Imus calling them nappy-headed ho's was verbally trying to put those women "in their place", because he didn't approve of their appearance. I figure we all agree it's offensive, but as I see it, that is the "why" it's offensive. He tried to devalue them as women and as basketball players, because they didn't fit his conception of beauty, or 'polite' appearance.

Going back to that short example I made, your reply about the black guy punching out the white guy, the black guy is basically rejecting the submissive nature being assigned to him, by using violence to assert his own dominance. I personally don't agree with that method, but that has more to do with me not wanting to promote violence.

I'd say free action.

If you want it to be particularly "realistic", I would say it like this:

Drop Backpack: Requires a move action. If nothing is held in either hand, or any such items are dropped at the same time, it can be done as a free action.

Taking off modern backpacks is pretty quick too, particularly if you just drop it wherever. Some larger packs that have both a hip belt and chest strap take more than a second, but even then I wouldn't put it past a move action.

I know a little bit about the history of backpacks, things like hip belts and chest straps didn't show up until quite recently, maybe 80-90 years ago. The French fur traders for example used heavy, large packs that just had two should straps. You can see an example here. You can't see the front, but trust me (I've been using these kind of packs for nearly 30 years), there is no chest strap or hip belt on it. They are not hard to shrug off, even though there can easily be 40-80 lbs in there.

Now, that is a pack from a specific region and period, and for a specific purpose (they were also loaded into canoes for long parts of the trip), but they were still carried a long ways on foot and if the Europeans had figured out the ergonomics of backpacks, I think it's safe to assume they'd have used that technology on these packs.

If you want to be extreme, a Move Action, but I think a Free Action is also very believable and more appropriate for the game. The character also has to be able to return to that square to pick up the pack after the fight, if they're chased off, they lose everything in their pack.

I'm really starting to enjoy the irony of 'capitalists' claiming that union's should take a pay cut "for the good of the economy."

@Iron Truth: The irony is how easily offended you get at how someone responds to your posts. I never took what you said grossly out of context. Its not me interpreting it wrong. Its how you wrote it.

You equated the difficulty of choosing not to be offended with the difficulty of making peace in israel saying they're both incredibly difficult. I say the former is fairly easy and the latter is ovwerwhelmingly, painstakingly difficult thus you're comparing apples to unicorns.

I'm not offended. I'm pointing out you don't care about the context of words within a post, therefore you don't actually care what people are saying. If you don't care what I have to say, why should I care what you have to say?

My post wasn't a mile long, there was no reason to snip it apart, or exclude any of it.

And I'm not comparing what you think I'm comparing. I'm saying that the post you wrote is a vague non-answer, and it's so vague, it can equally be applied to the opposite side of the argument.

People saying offensive things can:

a) choose not to say them
b) choose not to be defensive and pick a fight when people tell them they said something offensive

Your post is the equivalent of "lets all just get along". A vague and largely useless platitude as far as solutions go.

Apply your solution to a situation for me. Lets keep it simple and not use too many factors, but we'll assume it takes place in the USA:

A white man calls a black man a n#!@&*.

Who would be in the wrong for getting angry over this?

Irontruth wrote:

kmal2t wrote:

SuperSlayer wrote:

My advice would be to man up, tough it out, and don't be a baby. There is people dying of disease and famine and people crying about 1st world problems. Maybe a natural disaster should hit your city so you can manage to appreciate life more.

Thank you.

And your initial emotion to something is obviously not something you can control with a switch. If your immediate reaction to something is anger, fear, annoyance etc. that's usually not within your control unless you try to condition yourself to be more positive or happy or whatever so these aren't the emotions that initially surface (or as strongly)

regardless...what you do AFTER your initial reaction is a CHOICE. My initial reaction to someone cutting me off in traffic is to get angry. I can't control that reaction that just comes out. But after that first second I can choose whether to try to control and get rid of that anger or stay angry. "Take a deep breath. Just let it go, it doesn't matter"

Same thing with being offended "WTF did he just say!?" is the initial reaction..now you can choose to say "Who cares, I'm not going to let him make me mad and there's more important things to worry about" or "WAAAAAAAH! He ruined my day! God this is the most awful thing to happen EVER!"

You can choose to be a whiny, oversensitive b***h and you can choose not to.

Everything you just said can apply to the a**$+!$s saying offensive things.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. If I'm the "offender" and said something offensive like hm... "Asians can't drive" (cool your brakes Mods this is an example), in that scenario I'm not reacting to anything. I'm saying something that, while not true, doesn't affect me or hurt me. I go about the rest of my day not even thinking about it. You as the offendee go around letting YOURSELF get pissed off at what I am no longer thinking about. You are letting the offender have power over you. You pointing out it offends you is pointless when...

I posted that whole post together for a reason. When you pick one sentence in it, and remove the context of the rest of the post and then act confused about it, I get a sense you either don't actually read my posts, or you are trying to be disingenuous.

I put those sentences together in a paragraph for a reason. I then put two paragraphs together in that post, for a reason.

If you want to nitpick on one sentence or phrase, ignoring other sections of my post, which I included for a reason, why should I care what you have to say to me?

Irontruth wrote:

Everything you just said can apply to the a&*&&%#s saying offensive things. I'm not saying you're wrong, but it's as useful as walking into Jerusalem and saying "why can't we all just get along?" It sounds like a resolution to the situation, but it's too vague to actually resolve anything.

For example, when someone says something offensive and it's pointed out, they are CHOOSING to get defensive about it, instead of just accepting that the other person was offended.

If someone is offended by something I say, telling me they were offended and why is the correct course of action. If it bothers them THAT much.

The incorrect course of action is boycotting me, harassing me, trying to get me fired from my job, trying to censor me, starting a social media campaign to belittle or shame me, or portraying what is likely just one jerk on the internet as being the manifestation of a system skewed against you.

The world will always have asshats. Telling them they're an asshat sometimes works. Trying to eradicate all asshats makes YOU the asshat.

Your first paragraph is a response to what I said. The second one has nothing to do with my point. The third one was back on again.

When someone makes the claim, like kmal2t did, that offended people are CHOOSING to be offended, it's just as easy to claim that those doing the offending are either CHOOSING to offend, or CHOOSING to be defensive about their words and pick a fight to defend their right to say whatever was offensive.

So, in effect, talking about how people could just choose to not be offended is a vague non-solution, disguised to look like a solution. In essence, it's saying "if this problem didn't exist, there wouldn't be a problem."

I'm not interested in getting into the other stuff in your second paragraph. If you want to talk about it, feel free, but I'm not.

A rather large list of free rpg's.

SuperSlayer wrote:

My advice would be to man up, tough it out, and don't be a baby. There is people dying of disease and famine and people crying about 1st world problems. Maybe a natural disaster should hit your city so you can manage to appreciate life more.

Thank you.

And your initial emotion to something is obviously not something you can control with a switch. If your immediate reaction to something is anger, fear, annoyance etc. that's usually not within your control unless you try to condition yourself to be more positive or happy or whatever so these aren't the emotions that initially surface (or as strongly)

regardless...what you do AFTER your initial reaction is a CHOICE. My initial reaction to someone cutting me off in traffic is to get angry. I can't control that reaction that just comes out. But after that first second I can choose whether to try to control and get rid of that anger or stay angry. "Take a deep breath. Just let it go, it doesn't matter"

Same thing with being offended "WTF did he just say!?" is the initial reaction..now you can choose to say "Who cares, I'm not going to let him make me mad and there's more important things to worry about" or "WAAAAAAAH! He ruined my day! God this is the most awful thing to happen EVER!"

You can choose to be a whiny, oversensitive b***h and you can choose not to.

Everything you just said can apply to the a+~~&$*s saying offensive things. I'm not saying you're wrong, but it's as useful as walking into Jerusalem and saying "why can't we all just get along?" It sounds like a resolution to the situation, but it's too vague to actually resolve anything.

For example, when someone says something offensive and it's pointed out, they are CHOOSING to get defensive about it, instead of just accepting that the other person was offended.

I do think overall the theme park MMO is a dead genre for the future. As mentioned above, the investment requirements for a truly WOW style game (size and scope of the game world, variety of player options, etc) is very large and is plagued by the problem of video games in general. Technological advancements have improved the potential of games, but every advancement has increased the number of man hours required to take advantage of it. I don't actually know the number, but I would guess that 200,000 man hours is not unrealistic as a minimum for a AAA game.

I do think that WoW hasn't done itself any favors by making it easier to play the game without making friends. An MMO's strength is the other players and the social experience, making that easier to avoid takes away the primary strength an MMO can have against non-MMO games. Sure, Farcry is cool, but once I've beaten it, I'm going to look for another game. If all my friends are still on WoW, I'll go back. If I have no friends on WoW and I've accomplished my primary goal, why would I go back to it?

SWTOR's primary failure was to make it a good single player experience and be largely devoid of interesting things to do with my friends. The initial game release was interesting to level, but almost nothing to do afterwards, and the best parts of leveling were done alone.

Currently I am enjoying Planetside 2, which is again, entirely about the social experience. If you play solo, the game is pretty bad IMO, you can easily end up alone facing off against 5-50 people who just destroy you. It's a team game, so you're best off finding a team you enjoy and working with them. They still need to improve the overall experience though, but they are working on it.

Oh, WoW is 8 years old. The only games that are that old that might have that many people still playing are probably from the Sims series, or other Blizzard titles.

Irontruth wrote:

I like how you think this anecdote is more important that the fact that union workers average $10,000 more per year than their non-union counterparts.

Convince me why it's in my best interest to give up $10,000/year, and give up my medical and retirement benefits. You said you have my best interests at heart, but that doesn't sound very convincing

I just like the book, and had it handy. It wasn't really a point to make. It isn't in your best interest, it's in the interest of others who wish to work in a position such as yours. It's in the interest of companies staying competitive, in business, and yes the cheap consumer goods. It's in the interest of those who wish to work in a similar position, but can't get hired because they are priced out. They earn more, but that extra earnings and benefits don't come without a cost.

You're argument is now "you have to give up your pay for the greater good". How is that capitalism? That sounds like socialism.

Here's the other side of what you're saying: because workers are paid more, they can afford to buy more things, thereby helping pay the wage of other workers, who can now buy more things.

Remember my point earlier, working class people tend to put 10% of their pay (or less) into savings. While wealthy people tend to put 30-50% of their income into savings.

I agree, a company can't pay it's workers more than it can afford. What I disagree with is that more and more of a companies expenditures on people employed are going to those at the top, instead of those who do the grunt work. When the CEO gets a 100% raise, why should the workers not also demand a 100% raise?

Your argument is so incoherent at this point, even you don't know what it is.

Irontruth wrote:

Manimal wrote:

Here's what gets me about the trailer:

** spoiler omitted **

Repeated testing has shown that audiences respond better to trailers that give away major plot elements, despite the fact that audiences SAY they don't like. When asked to rate trailers, plot reveals score higher.

I didn't know that, and now my soul has been crushed.

My hypothesis for an explanation is relatively simple: When people know a little more of what the movie is about, they are better able to make an informed decision about whether to see it.

A vague trailer isn't informative, a more specific trailer is informative. People don't want major spoilers, but even from a hindsight perspective the destruction of that planet isn't the real spoiler, it would be the revelation of Ender's dreams.

Here's what gets me about the trailer:

** spoiler omitted **

Repeated testing has shown that audiences respond better to trailers that give away major plot elements, despite the fact that audiences SAY they don't like. When asked to rate trailers, plot reveals score higher.

It is difficult to go against the tide, when believe it or not, I have your best interests at heart. I was reading through a early 20th century essay on unions, but it made me remember something much more interesting and entertaining that I came across.

From Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential:
he's talking about his job at the Rainbow Room in NYC atop Rockafeller Center

Quote:

They were mostly older guys who'd worked in the hangar-sized kitchen forever, their jobs secured by a union who's only discernible benefits were guaranteed job security and an assured mediocrity of cuisine

Eventually he works his way through the ranks and is granted shop steward. This is sort of head negotiator and deals with union president. He won by election.

Quote:

The next day, someone from management came by and made an unusually frank suggestion: if I wanted a long, successful and, most important, healthy career in the restaurant business, perhaps I should step down and let that nice Luis continue his good works as shop steward.

I like how you think this anecdote is more important that the fact that union workers average $10,000 more per year than their non-union counterparts.

Convince me why it's in my best interest to give up $10,000/year, and give up my medical and retirement benefits. You said you have my best interests at heart, but that doesn't sound very convincing.

Irontruth wrote:

DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:

I've watched it twice now and all told enjoyed myself both times. At first I was conflicted.

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **

This one is a favorite of mine, Electric Six - Radio Gaga. The video is really what sells it though.

Irontruth wrote:

Its not that I'm pro-labor, I think our system should benefit the largest number of people possible, while putting as few people at a disadvantage as possible. It just happens to be that most people are workers in this country, so I'm in favor of making sure they get a fair shake.

The bottom 60% of Americans own 2.5% of the stock market. Please describe how a fair system produces this kind of result?

"Little pink houses for you and me"

Perform sing:1d20+2
Although recently the economy has taken a nose-dive (and will get worse) the material wealth that the bottom 60% enjoy is kingly compared to 100 years ago. They have cars, running water, electricity, cheap cloths and toothpaste, and get to send their kids to school instead of the factory. The incentives and capitol to create this material wealth is in the free market, and redistributing the wealth would make us paper-rich, but we wouldn't have anything to buy.

Again, your point is that wealth should be valued greater than work. Just own it and be done. You think the working class should serve the rich.

I used to know a guy whose screen name was Optimisticly Cynical [sic].

There's a joke:

A cynic thinks things can't get any worse, an optimist is sure they can.

I just hope the screenwriters understand and are driven by the fact that "Ender's Game" is not an adventure story, but is instead a morality play.

Hopefully they're just trying to highlight the action in the book, because there is a bit of it, but I fear you could be right. Look at what they did with I, Robot.

Have you tried it? What did you like about it? What would you have done to improve it?

We just started a new campaign with one of my groups. We tend to have around 6-10 people show up and we really enjoy city campaigns, where the group isn't necessarily always together. Since most of us have run a game at least once, we decided to use two DM's this time.

The setting is homebrew, we've been using it for a little over 10 years now. A major change is we're going to try it with E8 and trending slightly towards lower magic, but not strictly.

Anyways, we're a couple sessions in and it's going well so far. We used the Ghost Tower of Inverness as an intro dungeon crawl (we actually used the tournament time rule to encourage them to split the party). Low RP session so people could just get their feet wet. (We did use this method of character creation that I've adapted)

Second session we did a murder mystery, which works well for introducing a large number of NPC's, factions and backstory for a city campaign. We put a cap on the number of scene's per day in-game, but let the party split to deal with tasks.

Partially this is also to solve the common (for us) problem of the thieves going off for an hour and doing stuff while everyone else waits. Now they get to do something too, that is important and relevant to the game.

One I'd be curious from other DM's who have done something like this, how did you coordinate prep? Any tips, tricks or tools you'd recommend? Right now we're using Google Docs and it works pretty well.

I'd love to hear stories from other people about experiences, both as player and DM of having multiple DM's. What did you like? What could have been done better?

(Notice, I left out "what did you hate?" I don't care what you hated, I'm only interested in the solution it resulted in)

I'm getting a little bored with Island flashbacks though. I'm much more interested in the present day story. I was hoping they'd kind of finish with the flashbacks to fill in the backstory and then be done, but apparently, no, according to an interview with the producers (sorry can't remember where), they're hoping for a five season run, and every season will advance, slowly, the five year island plot in addition to whatever happens in the present day. God. But it's not like the flashbacks are terrible, I just care a lot more about the Queens and the Lances and the Merlyns than I do about Deathstroke and Shado. At the same time I'll trust they're going good places, so we'll see.

I'm with you, but for slightly different reasons.

The island shouldn't be it's own story line, it should be used as a way of explaining how Oliver changed and to highlight things going on in his life during the regular story line.

Also, I'm not a fan of the actor's portrayal of younger Oliver. He's over the top trying to make it different, whiny and privileged. The writing for it isn't bad, so I'd put the blame on the director/actor for those scenes. He'd be fine if he toned it down slightly.

This is probably my favorite new show of the year though.

I've watched it twice now and all told enjoyed myself both times. At first I was conflicted.

** spoiler omitted **

A metal band covering "Sound of Silence"

This one should go into a new thread, good/great covers of bad songs.

Oh, and DLH doesn't need a degree in anything. He's already smarter than everyone in every field ever. He's made that claim before and he doesn't make claims if they aren't true, according to him, so it must be true.

I'm not making this stuff up either. I'm just too lazy to dig through posts and provide the links.