You do not understand psychology. Only a very small percentage of people who were born lacking empathy can ever find criminal activities 'fun.' For most criminals, being so is a terrible choice, but the best they feel they can do. I really don't understand where you even got that impression, it sounds like something you made up. Have you ever studied criminology, psychology, or sociology in any form whatsoever?
You have a very sick and twisted view of human nature. The world must look like a brutal, vicious place to you. I wouldn't wish your world view on my worst enemy. That kind of self made hell is difficult to escape from. You must have been brutalized into accepting such a negative world view as a defense mechanism. I'm sure internalizing such a destructive way of looking at the world seemed like the best choice at the time, just like a criminal's poor choices seemed like the only thing they could do, but like criminals, you can unlearn bad habits and see the world as the loving, cooperative, and fundamentally supportive place it really is.
If hearing me describe the world that way fills you with rage and a desire to stamp out that belief, that's a sure sign that you have been infected with the control/judgement/punishment memetic virus, and it is trying to defend itself. It makes you feel that its kind of thinking is necessary, and it won't let you rationally consider other world views. But it is not you, it does not control you, you let it in, and you can kick it out. Do so or live in your own self-made hell for the rest of your life.
You insult the intelligence of your readers, attempt to smear a run of the mill and fairly ethical politician by comparing him to one of the worst crooks in the system, repeat a lie that has been debunked countless times, and THEN try to take the high road because you can't back up your original position? Classy.
Why are you reading this? Why are you posting here? You do care about politics, obviously. You are completely partisan but trying to appear impartial. It's not working.
News flash. It's not the middle ages anymore. We don't need peasants farming the land in order to claim it. Who is going to take it from us, and how are they going to do it without risking a war with a superpower? If the resources are so valuable, the companies extracting them can afford to pay people enough to live there. We don't need to subsidize Alaska.
I had a roommate who was a paranoid schizophrenic model. No lie, one time she said, "Do I look pretty? Stop looking at me!" Another time the electricity went out in the middle of the night. She shrieked like a banshee and came running into me and my girlfriend's room. Normally when a hot model comes running into your room in the middle of the night wanting to sleep with you because she's scared, that's a cause for celebration. Not this time.
So there's your rough rule of thumb. If a totally hot chick is just being a bitch, most folks would still sleep with her if given the opportunity. If the idea of sleeping with her gives you the heebie-jeebies then chances are she's not just being a bitch, she's fucking nuts.
Genes don't work solely on the level of the individual. They can and do code for cooperative behavior between individuals and between species because cooperation, as a strategy, works better than strict selfish competition where there are often local scarcities and surpluses. Which characterizes much of the natural environment, and so the history of evolution is as at least as much about the development of cooperative strategies as it is about competition or parasitism.
Modern economic, sociological and psychological research has shown some interesting facets of human nature. People, by and large, are prone to cooperation where their society fosters it by punishing free riders. Where people are allowed to benefit from the advantages of cooperation without contributing, the majority default to a competitive behavior so as not to be taken advantage of.
But people are born with a drive to love and to contribute. In Maslow's heirarchy of needs, competitive motivations really only come to the forefront when cooperative motivations are satisfied. Just as cooperative motivations only manifest when basic needs such as food and shelter are met.
Modern sociological surveys have shown that only three things correlate unfailingly with happiness the world over. Assuming again that basic needs are met, a strong family, belonging to and contributing to a group, and practicing a religion. Conventional success does not correlate very well with happiness at all.
Modern economic experiments have shown that people would rather cooperate, and in fact go against their own self interest to do so, even when the equivalent of two months salary is on the line. This basic fact underlies much of modern management techniques and corporate structure. If competition is such a great motivator, and really brings out the best in people, why do no corporations organize themselves internally into multiple competitive units? Because it has been tried and failed miserably. People were de-motivated and the multiple competing units performed worse overall than a single unit had.
In short, I think that your theories regarding cooperation and competition are misguided at best. I think that your attitude will not only get in the way of having close relationships with others, but cause you to claw your way to the top of something before checking to see if you are clawing your way to the top of a pile of shit. You've been beaten into believing that oppression, competition and control are necessary and primary facets of nature. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Yeah, you fed the troll a little bit. But I was more over-reacting than really trolling.
Making money is okay. Sure, I made a big leap of inference there. Something about the attitude pissed me off. It's not just you, I've seen it before and I guess I took it all out on you, sorry. It really feels like some people have a knee jerk reaction towards people complaining about commercial things, like the only legitimate way to express one's dissatisfaction with a commercial product is by not buying it. Complaining about it to others is too much like collectivism, and we can't have that! I don't know if that's what you really think or feel, but it's the impression I get whenever anyone makes those kind of anti-free-speech, shut-up-and-just-don't-buy-it arguments.
So, okay, maybe I over-reacted. I'd love to hear your explanation as to why people complaining about something they don't like is so bad. When people complain, they are providing free information to the producers of the goods being complained about, who would otherwise have no idea exactly why people aren't buying their product. Maybe we should charge for our complaints.
I think paying for advertising is bullshit and I want to convince others of the same. When I don't like something, I do more than not buy it. Depending on how much I don't like it, I may tell a few friends about it if they ask, I may post something online, I may call the BBB, or even write a letter to my representative.
I don't think you really find that amusing. I think it pisses you off. I think maybe you are even a little put out by the idea of anything being free, and relish the commoditization of everything that was once cooperative and social. It all smacks of hippie liberal activism, doesn't it? All these tiny, unimportant people, talking amongst themselves and screwing with the God given right of important people to make a profit, it's horrible, isn't it?
Smart people need stupid people to do all the boring stuff that has always worked. Stupid people need smart people to think up new stuff that might work better. Isn't it a lovely coincidence that evolution has provided humanity with an optimal mix of smart and stupid people? The inferiority complex comes from society's over-valuation of the innovator role, and the undervaluation of the support role. If we valued according to the excellence of a person's contribution in their natural role, people wouldn't try to inhabit roles they were unsuited for. People wouldn't be jealous of others with differing abilities, because of the acknowledgment that all contributions are valuable, and that a system can't function optimally with the wrong mix of parts.
Because we over-value the leadership role, for instance, people who aren't leaders try to be leaders. This makes people suspicious of leaders. As people have no access to leaders who are part of the dominant cultural group, only their own leaders, they try to tear down the leaders that are accessible to them. As real leaders absolutely need the support and approval of their followers in order to lead, the real leaders can not inhabit their natural role. Instead, talentless fakers who are not inhibited by a natural leader's need to actually lead people where they want to go become the leaders of society. And they hate the rest of for "making" them be leaders. Noblesse Oblige, why is it an obligation? To a real leader, it feels like a motivation, not an obligation. And real leaders never feel superior to those they lead.
Similarly, real smart people do not feel superior because of their brains or ability to think logically. That need to feel superior is just a defense reaction to being put down all the time.
Your argument is valid, but I think you have to aim it better. The person you are responding does not appear to be an irrational USA hater. You can't use your argument to quash all criticism of the US. Affixing blame to any single entity is usually less valid than looking at systemic causes, but it isn't always completely invalid, either. And even your logic is flawed. Sometimes we do discuss blame not because we want the "guilty" party to make amends, but because we want them to stop. Not looking at or thinking about a problem does not always sap energy from that problem and make it go away. Sometimes it lets it fester.
Now, sometimes the USA haters motivation really is along the lines of, "It wasn't me! I'm not that kind of American, really!" Sometimes it comes from political naivety, the first blossoming of political awareness coming through in childish overreaction, as if the person is the first to discover these truths or take these actions. Sometimes it comes from the "rah-rah!" sport booster mentality that seems to have infected our political discourse. But sometimes it is legitimate.
Wow. What did I blame on you? I said you were a jackass, and that you demonstrated so yourself. I never blamed anything on you. You are obviously experiencing such deep cognitive dissonance that you are incapable of thinking rationally. Your "arguments" are getting more and more deranged. Your original post is derogative towards me, and towards homosexuals. You are obviously incapable of looking at yourself, your motivations, and your behavior rationally. You amuse me.
You are not doing anyone a service by continuing this, least of all yourself. You should really just admit defeat at this point, continuing only makes you look more and more irrational. But I don't think you can stop. I think that if I keep responding, you will be compelled to respond. I own you. I own your emotions. I own your brain. I control you. It's disgusting, like owning a pile or raw sewage.
I don't blame this on you. Here's the deal: YHBT. YHL. HAND. There's one surefire way NOT to respond to a troll, especially a troll that makes legitimate points, as all good trolls do. Don't be an ass. As soon as you get emotional and come across as an ass, you have lost and the troll has won. Now, if I was trolling against crippled children or saying Osama is a great guy or something heinous like that, you might have a point. But I was trolling people who have a problem with fat chicks. Totally legitimate target. And you responded exactly as someone who has internalized our culture's hatred of fat women and homosexuals would be expected to. And you don't even know enough about Slashdot culture to know when a troll is legitimate. Did you notice the UIDs of the people who responded? Notice that only one person with a UID under 700,000 responded, and he didn't take it as a troll. I may have gotten marked troll and flamebait, but I have pre-cap karma, I'm never, ever going to drop under excellent. It's kind of a badge of honor for us old timers to say inflammatory stuff and take a karma hit now and then, just to show how we don't need to pander to the masses. So, I took an unimportant karma hit, but you had everyone who knows better laughing at you.
So tell me, why exactly did that post push your buttons so hard? Are you closeted, are you a fat hater, or do you just support oppression in general? Maybe you're a conservative and you hate hippies and liberals because you know we have more fun than you. Who knows? All we know is, you let your buttons get pushed. You didn't "call me" on anything. In your first response, you question my masculinity in a way that is derogatory to gays, and that reveals a profound discomfort with anyone who call our society's definitions of masculinity and femininity into question. Look at crabpeople's response That's how you "call someone" on a post like I made.
Your response would shame an emotionally mature 8th grader. You also let Doc Ruby get you so upset that you have to link to a post of his that actually doesn't even prove he's a bigot. Anyone with a high school reading comprehension level knows he's using the term 'dirty queer fantasies' to show how closeted republicans feel about homosexuality, not how he does. He's saying something similar to what I'm saying, and it pushes your buttons in the same way. Look, it's okay to be queer. What's not okay is to be a closet case and a anti-gay bigot at the same time.
You have to ask yourself, why do posts mentioning closeted homosexuality push your buttons so hard?
The layout of each city and the NPCs will be unique for each city. While some quests might be activated from any shady bar, other quests might only be activated when talking to the mayor of North Rend, and still others might be activated in any building in North Rend if you've done any of the Mayor's first five quests and an orc is present.
You see, I've been thinking about the best way to have certain scripted elements interact with the simulation and the NPC AI. You know that the AI in Oblivion had to be turned off because the AI would do something wacky and the story would dead-end. So I thought about ways of having a multi-branching plot that could use whatever elements were available.
As for your bandit example, well, in a simulation the value of removing bandits would depend on the number of bandits present. It seems like you are still thinking in terms of static content with static spawn points. That is not what I'm going for. In a sim-driven game, once you killed enough bandits near North Rend, there wouldn't be any more bandits near North Rend! This would have knock-on effects in the sim, more goods would flow in prompting lower prices, while bandit hunters would leave, perhaps leaving an opening for some PC banditry. With no more bandit hunters in North Rend, eventually the bandits would move back in.
In a situation like this, it would be much more difficult for players to find the optimal strategy for a given situation because all situations would be unique. Instead of reading a FAQ and doing exactly what it says, players would have to think on their feet.
If each shard is a simulation, they will develop differently. And by generic, I mean not specific. In the example I give, instead of using the same exact NPCs for each quest, the game would look for existing NPCs that fit the criteria for the quest. The game play is not generic. Get it?
So what if only one guy can overthrow the king? In a system like I describe, someone else could then overthrow the PC who overthrew the king. Or an NPC could. Not everyone will ever get a chance to play out all the quests. You won't even know the specific quests from stuff just happening because of the simulation.
MMORPGs need more interactive elements and less static content. I would love to see a game where you could start a merchant empire, overthrow a king, or build a village, as well as delving in dungeons and hacking monsters. Everything outside of combat skills is relatively useless in most MMORPGs. With elements of simulation included, skills such as diplomacy, leadership, and acting would become important. Every server would develop differently. Developers wouldn't write static content, but would instead script dynamic content that would draw from the present game world instead of shoe-horning new plots into every instance. For instance, rather than making quests that use the same NPCs, existing NPCs with the right characteristics would be used every time the quest was given. Rather than use the same locations, generic locations such as "any lower class bar" could be specified, and the quest might be activated any time the PC went into such a location.
The Super-8 are a group of mutants with various super powers. One of them has an eidetic memory, another one is a telepath who reads his memory and beams the images into your head. The darkroom is where I keep them when I'm not using them. Supporting a whole team of mutant supers just to watch TV without commercials might seem extravagant, but as an evil overlord, I had already captured them. You know the rules, we evil overlords can't just off our super powered foes, we have to keep them in captivity so they have a chance to escape. Hey, I know its stupid but I didn't write the rules. So anyway, I have them around, I may as well use them. You should see what Mr. Flame does for a barbecue!
I read an interesting study recently that showed that women like to fuck men who are muscular, but prefer to partner with less muscular men. The tentative conclusion was that women know that muscular men are going to screw around on them because they are so desirable, and so don't make good partner material, but they make good father material. So the wimpy guys get stuck raising the beefy guys kids.
And I was not talking about morbidly obese women, but as you say, pleasingly plump, which our culture now call fat.
Well, I'd guess that the definition of "healthy" is hardwired, but not as important as "high status" which is cultural. I think I agree with your main point, which I believe is that much of attraction is cultural
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You do not understand psychology. Only a very small percentage of people who were born lacking empathy can ever find criminal activities 'fun.' For most criminals, being so is a terrible choice, but the best they feel they can do. I really don't understand where you even got that impression, it sounds like something you made up. Have you ever studied criminology, psychology, or sociology in any form whatsoever?
You have a very sick and twisted view of human nature. The world must look like a brutal, vicious place to you. I wouldn't wish your world view on my worst enemy. That kind of self made hell is difficult to escape from. You must have been brutalized into accepting such a negative world view as a defense mechanism. I'm sure internalizing such a destructive way of looking at the world seemed like the best choice at the time, just like a criminal's poor choices seemed like the only thing they could do, but like criminals, you can unlearn bad habits and see the world as the loving, cooperative, and fundamentally supportive place it really is.
If hearing me describe the world that way fills you with rage and a desire to stamp out that belief, that's a sure sign that you have been infected with the control/judgement/punishment memetic virus, and it is trying to defend itself. It makes you feel that its kind of thinking is necessary, and it won't let you rationally consider other world views. But it is not you, it does not control you, you let it in, and you can kick it out. Do so or live in your own self-made hell for the rest of your life.
You insult the intelligence of your readers, attempt to smear a run of the mill and fairly ethical politician by comparing him to one of the worst crooks in the system, repeat a lie that has been debunked countless times, and THEN try to take the high road because you can't back up your original position? Classy.
Why are you reading this? Why are you posting here? You do care about politics, obviously. You are completely partisan but trying to appear impartial. It's not working.
News flash. It's not the middle ages anymore. We don't need peasants farming the land in order to claim it. Who is going to take it from us, and how are they going to do it without risking a war with a superpower? If the resources are so valuable, the companies extracting them can afford to pay people enough to live there. We don't need to subsidize Alaska.
I had a roommate who was a paranoid schizophrenic model. No lie, one time she said, "Do I look pretty? Stop looking at me!" Another time the electricity went out in the middle of the night. She shrieked like a banshee and came running into me and my girlfriend's room. Normally when a hot model comes running into your room in the middle of the night wanting to sleep with you because she's scared, that's a cause for celebration. Not this time.
So there's your rough rule of thumb. If a totally hot chick is just being a bitch, most folks would still sleep with her if given the opportunity. If the idea of sleeping with her gives you the heebie-jeebies then chances are she's not just being a bitch, she's fucking nuts.
Genes don't work solely on the level of the individual. They can and do code for cooperative behavior between individuals and between species because cooperation, as a strategy, works better than strict selfish competition where there are often local scarcities and surpluses. Which characterizes much of the natural environment, and so the history of evolution is as at least as much about the development of cooperative strategies as it is about competition or parasitism.
Modern economic, sociological and psychological research has shown some interesting facets of human nature. People, by and large, are prone to cooperation where their society fosters it by punishing free riders. Where people are allowed to benefit from the advantages of cooperation without contributing, the majority default to a competitive behavior so as not to be taken advantage of.
But people are born with a drive to love and to contribute. In Maslow's heirarchy of needs, competitive motivations really only come to the forefront when cooperative motivations are satisfied. Just as cooperative motivations only manifest when basic needs such as food and shelter are met.
Modern sociological surveys have shown that only three things correlate unfailingly with happiness the world over. Assuming again that basic needs are met, a strong family, belonging to and contributing to a group, and practicing a religion. Conventional success does not correlate very well with happiness at all.
Modern economic experiments have shown that people would rather cooperate, and in fact go against their own self interest to do so, even when the equivalent of two months salary is on the line. This basic fact underlies much of modern management techniques and corporate structure. If competition is such a great motivator, and really brings out the best in people, why do no corporations organize themselves internally into multiple competitive units? Because it has been tried and failed miserably. People were de-motivated and the multiple competing units performed worse overall than a single unit had.
In short, I think that your theories regarding cooperation and competition are misguided at best. I think that your attitude will not only get in the way of having close relationships with others, but cause you to claw your way to the top of something before checking to see if you are clawing your way to the top of a pile of shit. You've been beaten into believing that oppression, competition and control are necessary and primary facets of nature. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Joe Public is also more likely to do arbitrary and inconvenient things those in authority tell him to do in the future.
Yeah, you fed the troll a little bit. But I was more over-reacting than really trolling.
Making money is okay. Sure, I made a big leap of inference there. Something about the attitude pissed me off. It's not just you, I've seen it before and I guess I took it all out on you, sorry. It really feels like some people have a knee jerk reaction towards people complaining about commercial things, like the only legitimate way to express one's dissatisfaction with a commercial product is by not buying it. Complaining about it to others is too much like collectivism, and we can't have that! I don't know if that's what you really think or feel, but it's the impression I get whenever anyone makes those kind of anti-free-speech, shut-up-and-just-don't-buy-it arguments.
So, okay, maybe I over-reacted. I'd love to hear your explanation as to why people complaining about something they don't like is so bad. When people complain, they are providing free information to the producers of the goods being complained about, who would otherwise have no idea exactly why people aren't buying their product. Maybe we should charge for our complaints.
I think paying for advertising is bullshit and I want to convince others of the same. When I don't like something, I do more than not buy it. Depending on how much I don't like it, I may tell a few friends about it if they ask, I may post something online, I may call the BBB, or even write a letter to my representative.
I don't think you really find that amusing. I think it pisses you off. I think maybe you are even a little put out by the idea of anything being free, and relish the commoditization of everything that was once cooperative and social. It all smacks of hippie liberal activism, doesn't it? All these tiny, unimportant people, talking amongst themselves and screwing with the God given right of important people to make a profit, it's horrible, isn't it?
Smart people need stupid people to do all the boring stuff that has always worked. Stupid people need smart people to think up new stuff that might work better. Isn't it a lovely coincidence that evolution has provided humanity with an optimal mix of smart and stupid people? The inferiority complex comes from society's over-valuation of the innovator role, and the undervaluation of the support role. If we valued according to the excellence of a person's contribution in their natural role, people wouldn't try to inhabit roles they were unsuited for. People wouldn't be jealous of others with differing abilities, because of the acknowledgment that all contributions are valuable, and that a system can't function optimally with the wrong mix of parts.
Because we over-value the leadership role, for instance, people who aren't leaders try to be leaders. This makes people suspicious of leaders. As people have no access to leaders who are part of the dominant cultural group, only their own leaders, they try to tear down the leaders that are accessible to them. As real leaders absolutely need the support and approval of their followers in order to lead, the real leaders can not inhabit their natural role. Instead, talentless fakers who are not inhibited by a natural leader's need to actually lead people where they want to go become the leaders of society. And they hate the rest of for "making" them be leaders. Noblesse Oblige, why is it an obligation? To a real leader, it feels like a motivation, not an obligation. And real leaders never feel superior to those they lead.
Similarly, real smart people do not feel superior because of their brains or ability to think logically. That need to feel superior is just a defense reaction to being put down all the time.
Your argument is valid, but I think you have to aim it better. The person you are responding does not appear to be an irrational USA hater. You can't use your argument to quash all criticism of the US. Affixing blame to any single entity is usually less valid than looking at systemic causes, but it isn't always completely invalid, either. And even your logic is flawed. Sometimes we do discuss blame not because we want the "guilty" party to make amends, but because we want them to stop. Not looking at or thinking about a problem does not always sap energy from that problem and make it go away. Sometimes it lets it fester.
Now, sometimes the USA haters motivation really is along the lines of, "It wasn't me! I'm not that kind of American, really!" Sometimes it comes from political naivety, the first blossoming of political awareness coming through in childish overreaction, as if the person is the first to discover these truths or take these actions. Sometimes it comes from the "rah-rah!" sport booster mentality that seems to have infected our political discourse. But sometimes it is legitimate.
Wow. What did I blame on you? I said you were a jackass, and that you demonstrated so yourself. I never blamed anything on you. You are obviously experiencing such deep cognitive dissonance that you are incapable of thinking rationally. Your "arguments" are getting more and more deranged. Your original post is derogative towards me, and towards homosexuals. You are obviously incapable of looking at yourself, your motivations, and your behavior rationally. You amuse me.
You are not doing anyone a service by continuing this, least of all yourself. You should really just admit defeat at this point, continuing only makes you look more and more irrational. But I don't think you can stop. I think that if I keep responding, you will be compelled to respond. I own you. I own your emotions. I own your brain. I control you. It's disgusting, like owning a pile or raw sewage.
I don't blame this on you. Here's the deal: YHBT. YHL. HAND. There's one surefire way NOT to respond to a troll, especially a troll that makes legitimate points, as all good trolls do. Don't be an ass. As soon as you get emotional and come across as an ass, you have lost and the troll has won. Now, if I was trolling against crippled children or saying Osama is a great guy or something heinous like that, you might have a point. But I was trolling people who have a problem with fat chicks. Totally legitimate target. And you responded exactly as someone who has internalized our culture's hatred of fat women and homosexuals would be expected to. And you don't even know enough about Slashdot culture to know when a troll is legitimate. Did you notice the UIDs of the people who responded? Notice that only one person with a UID under 700,000 responded, and he didn't take it as a troll. I may have gotten marked troll and flamebait, but I have pre-cap karma, I'm never, ever going to drop under excellent. It's kind of a badge of honor for us old timers to say inflammatory stuff and take a karma hit now and then, just to show how we don't need to pander to the masses. So, I took an unimportant karma hit, but you had everyone who knows better laughing at you.
So tell me, why exactly did that post push your buttons so hard? Are you closeted, are you a fat hater, or do you just support oppression in general? Maybe you're a conservative and you hate hippies and liberals because you know we have more fun than you. Who knows? All we know is, you let your buttons get pushed. You didn't "call me" on anything. In your first response, you question my masculinity in a way that is derogatory to gays, and that reveals a profound discomfort with anyone who call our society's definitions of masculinity and femininity into question. Look at crabpeople's response That's how you "call someone" on a post like I made.
Your response would shame an emotionally mature 8th grader. You also let Doc Ruby get you so upset that you have to link to a post of his that actually doesn't even prove he's a bigot. Anyone with a high school reading comprehension level knows he's using the term 'dirty queer fantasies' to show how closeted republicans feel about homosexuality, not how he does. He's saying something similar to what I'm saying, and it pushes your buttons in the same way. Look, it's okay to be queer. What's not okay is to be a closet case and a anti-gay bigot at the same time.
You have to ask yourself, why do posts mentioning closeted homosexuality push your buttons so hard?
The layout of each city and the NPCs will be unique for each city. While some quests might be activated from any shady bar, other quests might only be activated when talking to the mayor of North Rend, and still others might be activated in any building in North Rend if you've done any of the Mayor's first five quests and an orc is present.
You see, I've been thinking about the best way to have certain scripted elements interact with the simulation and the NPC AI. You know that the AI in Oblivion had to be turned off because the AI would do something wacky and the story would dead-end. So I thought about ways of having a multi-branching plot that could use whatever elements were available.
As for your bandit example, well, in a simulation the value of removing bandits would depend on the number of bandits present. It seems like you are still thinking in terms of static content with static spawn points. That is not what I'm going for. In a sim-driven game, once you killed enough bandits near North Rend, there wouldn't be any more bandits near North Rend! This would have knock-on effects in the sim, more goods would flow in prompting lower prices, while bandit hunters would leave, perhaps leaving an opening for some PC banditry. With no more bandit hunters in North Rend, eventually the bandits would move back in.
In a situation like this, it would be much more difficult for players to find the optimal strategy for a given situation because all situations would be unique. Instead of reading a FAQ and doing exactly what it says, players would have to think on their feet.
If each shard is a simulation, they will develop differently. And by generic, I mean not specific. In the example I give, instead of using the same exact NPCs for each quest, the game would look for existing NPCs that fit the criteria for the quest. The game play is not generic. Get it?
So what if only one guy can overthrow the king? In a system like I describe, someone else could then overthrow the PC who overthrew the king. Or an NPC could. Not everyone will ever get a chance to play out all the quests. You won't even know the specific quests from stuff just happening because of the simulation.
Every time I bring this concept up, people reply, "Eve-online." I am seriously going to have to give that game a try!
MMORPGs need more interactive elements and less static content. I would love to see a game where you could start a merchant empire, overthrow a king, or build a village, as well as delving in dungeons and hacking monsters. Everything outside of combat skills is relatively useless in most MMORPGs. With elements of simulation included, skills such as diplomacy, leadership, and acting would become important. Every server would develop differently. Developers wouldn't write static content, but would instead script dynamic content that would draw from the present game world instead of shoe-horning new plots into every instance. For instance, rather than making quests that use the same NPCs, existing NPCs with the right characteristics would be used every time the quest was given. Rather than use the same locations, generic locations such as "any lower class bar" could be specified, and the quest might be activated any time the PC went into such a location.
Irony is generally black. You want leady or aluminumy, they are lighter colored.
The Super-8 are a group of mutants with various super powers. One of them has an eidetic memory, another one is a telepath who reads his memory and beams the images into your head. The darkroom is where I keep them when I'm not using them. Supporting a whole team of mutant supers just to watch TV without commercials might seem extravagant, but as an evil overlord, I had already captured them. You know the rules, we evil overlords can't just off our super powered foes, we have to keep them in captivity so they have a chance to escape. Hey, I know its stupid but I didn't write the rules. So anyway, I have them around, I may as well use them. You should see what Mr. Flame does for a barbecue!
5.9 points ought to be enough for anybody.
You kids and your newfangled electronics. I point my Kodak Super-8 at the TV and develop the film in my own darkroom.
On the flip side, zombies can't use their main attack, as lawyer brains are toxic. So it's kind of a stalemate.
I read an interesting study recently that showed that women like to fuck men who are muscular, but prefer to partner with less muscular men. The tentative conclusion was that women know that muscular men are going to screw around on them because they are so desirable, and so don't make good partner material, but they make good father material. So the wimpy guys get stuck raising the beefy guys kids.
And I was not talking about morbidly obese women, but as you say, pleasingly plump, which our culture now call fat.
There's nothing wrong with a little minor trolling, when you're trolling jackasses. You've demonstrated why with aplomb. Thanks you.
Well, I'd guess that the definition of "healthy" is hardwired, but not as important as "high status" which is cultural. I think I agree with your main point, which I believe is that much of attraction is cultural