They could charge additional money for the content if they wanted to, and you're still paying a monthly fee even if they don't provide content updates.
In what parallel universe do you live in? Terrorists target civilians deliberately, as a matter of policy. A terrorist isn't going to be "punished quite severely" by his superiors (if he has any) for doing what he's supposed to be doing. US military personnel have been court martialed and sent to prison for misconduct, such as murder and rape. Why? Because it's not allowed. They don't get promoted or decorated for doing it.
Collateral damage is a fact of warfare, and always has been. Even with modern technology it's impossible to avoid it. I'm no expert on US military technology, but I'm fairly certain their bombings are far more accurate and controlled than they were during World War II. You are holding the US military to unreasonable and unrealistic standards.
You don't seem too bothered by terrorists deliberately killing civilians, though. I guess it's okay when valiant freedom fighters are sticking it to The Man.
What I love about American culture (I was born and raised in the southeast) is the inability to try and comprehend why otherwise reasonable people engage in ultra-violent activities en masse. Sure, there are some sociopaths, but when your average citizen starts to follow sociopaths, there's likely a reasonable explanation. I think it's more likely that they live in perpetual poverty and are subject to random acts of violence directly by US forces or those who are backed by the US, rather than they "hate freedom."
Muslims act the way they act because they're Muslims. It's their culture. Wars and foreign policies are good pretexts for Jihad (holy war against infidels), but they've been doing that shit for 1400 years, all over the world. The poverty is their own fault, and its the more affluent and better educated Muslims who are more likely to become terrorists.
And yes, they do hate the Western concept of freedom, which includes things like freedom of speech and inquiry, and gender equality.
You think Hezbollah and Hamas are evil organizations, and I'll assume because they kill people and advocate violence towards their enemies.
They are terrorist organizations that deliberately and specifically target innocent civilians, use them as human shields or sacrifice them for propaganda purposes. They also raise children to become suicide bombers, or at least Hamas does. Hamas is a group of genocidal Islamofascists with zero redeeming qualities. You obviously have some kind of romantic visions about valiant freedom fighters sticking it to The Man, but that's just your lack of knowledge talking.
Is that any different from statements from the Pentagon? We threaten "the use of force" and they threaten "death to American infidels," but is there, in fact, any difference in those statements?
There's no difference between the two if your entire world view is absolutely dependent on the fantasy that everyone is morally equal. You are willing to make up all kinds of crazy shit to keep the fantasy alive. The difference, aside from what I said in the first paragraph, is that Hamas targets infidels because they are infidels (Jihad).
We are far more dishonest than terrorist groups because we pretend that we don't kill people, when in fact, we're responsible for more civilian death than any terrorist group that has ever existed.
You think terrorist groups are honest? They present themselves as morally upright freedom fighters who could never hurt an innocent person or do anything wrong. It's of course completely true that the US military has killed civilians, but not on purpose. If you're claiming that there's no difference between collateral damage and outright terrorism, you may as well claim that there's no difference between a car accident and murder. Another thing: these days it's kind of hard to tell who's a civilian and who's not. Terrorists do not wear uniforms, and in the 2006 Israeli operation in Lebanon Hezbollah deliberately got civilians killed so that they could exploit the deaths are propaganda (which worked perfectly).
There have been cases where US troops have deliberately killed civilians, but it's not like they can just do it with impunity, or that they are following some kind of official policy. Many soldiers have been given prison sentences for misconduct. Do you think Hamas court martials its fighters when they kill civilians? No, because killing civilians is par for the course, and completely sanctioned.
This was all perfectly realized recently on the news. I laughed out loud when I saw the video about Iranians "harassing" the US Navy. When you look at the video, you have five off-the-shelf speedboats versus multi-thousand ton US warships. I really can't believe the Pentagon are taking themselves seriously anymore.
Just because you're in a speedboat doesn't mean you can do whatever y
No, I think you're the one who's being incoherent. The grandparent opposes fascist thugs who attack free speech, yet you seem to be accusing him of doing the opposite. Or something? Everything in his (perfectly coherent) post indicates that he supports freedom of speech and opposes fascism. His post is very consistent and very clear, but I'm having a really difficult time understanding what you're trying to say. It's almost like you're replying to an imaginary post you just made up.
It appears you are suggesting that the kind of fascist thuggery practised by leftists is somehow some kind of valiant struggle for freedom. That's why you became hopelessly confused when the grandparent said that he opposes fascism and supports freedom of speech. Maybe it all makes perfect sense in your leftist alternate reality where war is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength.
In any case, you did an excellent job of proving the grandparent's point about leftists.
Anarchy is juvenile, and anyone who believes in it is juvenile. There's probably more evidence to support the existence of ghosts and telepathy than there is to support the idea that anarchy works or has any chance of working.
You're making this way more complicated than it is. All you need to do to adapt a game into a movie is find a game with a good storyline and setting, and then adapt it. There's really nothing more to it. You're assuming that an adaptation must be a literal translation of the game, but that isn't true. Doom was very close to the original game, but as anyone can see they made a lot of changes. Resident Evil wasn't directly based on any of the games. You're also assuming that video games are 100% player controlled, which isn't true either. Even if you play through Max Payne perfectly, he's still going to lose his family and screw up in a variety of other ways, because that's how the game's storyline was written. You could easily adapt Max Payne into a very good movie. Just take the story and replace the gameplay with action sequences.
If you delve a little deeper into the ideas that this game half-mentioned and then forgot to actually implement you might get the idea that this closed fist talk about making people stronger seems an awfull lot like excuses. A load of bullshit to cover up their selfish actions. Oh yeah I stole from you and killed your family but really I wanted to make you stronger.
The game actually gives you the choice of not saving a town in order to "make it stronger" (which requires you to actively do something, and not just sit by and watch). Yeah, I'd say it's all a big load of bullshit. Closed Fist could have been an interesting and nuanced philosophy, but for one reason or another they never bothered to go anywhere with it.
I've never particularly felt that my privacy is threatened in Finland, and I don't see anyone else complaining either. I don't know what the fuck this report is on about. I suspect these people value privacy with such singlemindedness that they ignore everything else, like security. The study even seems to be hinting that border surveillance is somehow wrong (1984 ALERT: CYPRUS IS MONITORING ITS BORDERS WITH CAMERAS!!11oneone). It's kind of hard for any government to keep the nation safe if they have no information about anything.
Virtual reality permits the soldiers to contact each other *in virtual reality space using MUDs and other on-line multi-person games) regardless of what 'side' they are on (sides don't matter in the new permanent war) and arrange separate peace micro-treaties on a neighborhood or local basis. Virtual reality is one of the few tools that soldiers have that allows them to win the war (returning home intact). Virtual reality allows the soldiers of each side to identify each other side's gung-ho psychopaths and to ensure that these guys are the ones that get killed in the meat world.
What are you smoking? This doesn't happen. You're just making shit up. I won't even ask you why you believe that sides don't matter.
Islam does not teach that you can't kill. On the contrary, Islam allows and demands its followers to kill in many situations. A good example is killing an infidel if he/she does not convert or submit. Jihad is another example.
What puzzles me about TFA is the complaint about Live Arcade not providing enough "quirky" independent games. There are too many people who believe that a quirky indie game is good simply because it's being quirky and indie, whereas polished and professional games are oppressive capitalist dogshit. These people are, of course, no different from their movie and music counterparts.
Oil, water and turrets aren't scripted. Setting a splicer on fire and then electrocuting him in a pool of water while a hacked turret is shooting at it has nothing to do with "scripting."
A Houdini Splicer appeared behind me and tried to hit me with a fire attack. He missed and ignited a puddle of oil that was in front of me. I turned around and started attacking him, which caused him to teleport away. Unfortunately for him, he teleported right into the middle of the oil puddle he had set on fire moments earlier. There's lots of stuff like this in BioShock, and while it's usually enough that you just zap and wrench the shit out of splicers, it's occasionally useful to get more creative. When fighting Big Daddies you have to do all kinds of clever things unless you enjoy wasting a lot of ammo and taking frequent trips to vitachambers.
The asshole quotient is actually many times higher than that of other online games, because Valve officially supports assholes. When your team loses a round, the winning team can freely frag you and there's nothing you can do about it for some arbitrary reason. This is in complete violation of fair play and sportsmanship, and just because you can do it doesn't mean you should. TF2 is otherwise a solid game, but this idiotic feature completely ruins it. I got fed up with that bullshit weeks ago, and uninstalled the game.
The fact is that the overwhelming majority of gamers are complete and utter fucking assholes, but most multiplayer game developers are smart enough to realize this and implement rules that keep the assholes in check. Valve decided to take a "different" approach.
Another thing that's completely bewildering about TF2 is the nemesis system, which promotes deathmatching in a game that's supposed to be about teamplay. What does dying matter if I get shit done? I'm hardly being "dominated" if I consistently disrupt the enemy team's actions, but I guess teamplay doesn't matter to Valve. Deathmatching is clearly more important.
As an illustration of how far downhill that went, when Tomb Raider decided to have a woman as the main character (IIRC because a guy there thought it would be more fun to stare at a woman's arse in third person, than at a guy's arse), it was something almost revolutionary. It had become that much taken for granted that the player or the hero must be a guy, and the women are just the rewards he gets. And even that franchise eventually became an excuse to show Lara's... assets.
There were female protagonists and main characters in games long before Tomb Raider was released. I don't know what you mean by women being rewards, and I think you're blowing things way out of proportion. The situation is not nearly as dramatic as you make it seem.
A lot of games which grudgingly offered women as playable characters, gimped their stats in various ways. Just because, you know, in a game where you shoot fireballs, ride dragons, and generally rape the laws of physics, chemistry and biology with a vengeance, it would be _so_ unrealistic if a woman (even a rare, exceptional, non-typical one) could possibly have the same strength or constitution as a guy.
Alternate explanation: it's not an evil conspiracy, it's just a way of making gender choice more meaningful, or a realism issue.
Slashdot Mirror
They are expansions. What is your point? It's a fact that WoW has had many, many content updates that do not need to be purchased.
They could charge additional money for the content if they wanted to, and you're still paying a monthly fee even if they don't provide content updates.
Maybe technically, but not really in practise.
In what parallel universe do you live in? Terrorists target civilians deliberately, as a matter of policy. A terrorist isn't going to be "punished quite severely" by his superiors (if he has any) for doing what he's supposed to be doing. US military personnel have been court martialed and sent to prison for misconduct, such as murder and rape. Why? Because it's not allowed. They don't get promoted or decorated for doing it.
You must be smoking some good shit.
Collateral damage is a fact of warfare, and always has been. Even with modern technology it's impossible to avoid it. I'm no expert on US military technology, but I'm fairly certain their bombings are far more accurate and controlled than they were during World War II. You are holding the US military to unreasonable and unrealistic standards.
You don't seem too bothered by terrorists deliberately killing civilians, though. I guess it's okay when valiant freedom fighters are sticking it to The Man.
Muslims act the way they act because they're Muslims. It's their culture. Wars and foreign policies are good pretexts for Jihad (holy war against infidels), but they've been doing that shit for 1400 years, all over the world. The poverty is their own fault, and its the more affluent and better educated Muslims who are more likely to become terrorists.
And yes, they do hate the Western concept of freedom, which includes things like freedom of speech and inquiry, and gender equality.
They are terrorist organizations that deliberately and specifically target innocent civilians, use them as human shields or sacrifice them for propaganda purposes. They also raise children to become suicide bombers, or at least Hamas does. Hamas is a group of genocidal Islamofascists with zero redeeming qualities. You obviously have some kind of romantic visions about valiant freedom fighters sticking it to The Man, but that's just your lack of knowledge talking.
There's no difference between the two if your entire world view is absolutely dependent on the fantasy that everyone is morally equal. You are willing to make up all kinds of crazy shit to keep the fantasy alive. The difference, aside from what I said in the first paragraph, is that Hamas targets infidels because they are infidels (Jihad).
You think terrorist groups are honest? They present themselves as morally upright freedom fighters who could never hurt an innocent person or do anything wrong. It's of course completely true that the US military has killed civilians, but not on purpose. If you're claiming that there's no difference between collateral damage and outright terrorism, you may as well claim that there's no difference between a car accident and murder. Another thing: these days it's kind of hard to tell who's a civilian and who's not. Terrorists do not wear uniforms, and in the 2006 Israeli operation in Lebanon Hezbollah deliberately got civilians killed so that they could exploit the deaths are propaganda (which worked perfectly).
There have been cases where US troops have deliberately killed civilians, but it's not like they can just do it with impunity, or that they are following some kind of official policy. Many soldiers have been given prison sentences for misconduct. Do you think Hamas court martials its fighters when they kill civilians? No, because killing civilians is par for the course, and completely sanctioned.
Just because you're in a speedboat doesn't mean you can do whatever y
No, I think you're the one who's being incoherent. The grandparent opposes fascist thugs who attack free speech, yet you seem to be accusing him of doing the opposite. Or something? Everything in his (perfectly coherent) post indicates that he supports freedom of speech and opposes fascism. His post is very consistent and very clear, but I'm having a really difficult time understanding what you're trying to say. It's almost like you're replying to an imaginary post you just made up.
It appears you are suggesting that the kind of fascist thuggery practised by leftists is somehow some kind of valiant struggle for freedom. That's why you became hopelessly confused when the grandparent said that he opposes fascism and supports freedom of speech. Maybe it all makes perfect sense in your leftist alternate reality where war is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength.
In any case, you did an excellent job of proving the grandparent's point about leftists.
Anarchy is juvenile, and anyone who believes in it is juvenile. There's probably more evidence to support the existence of ghosts and telepathy than there is to support the idea that anarchy works or has any chance of working.
Yes. Yes it is.
You're making this way more complicated than it is. All you need to do to adapt a game into a movie is find a game with a good storyline and setting, and then adapt it. There's really nothing more to it. You're assuming that an adaptation must be a literal translation of the game, but that isn't true. Doom was very close to the original game, but as anyone can see they made a lot of changes. Resident Evil wasn't directly based on any of the games. You're also assuming that video games are 100% player controlled, which isn't true either. Even if you play through Max Payne perfectly, he's still going to lose his family and screw up in a variety of other ways, because that's how the game's storyline was written. You could easily adapt Max Payne into a very good movie. Just take the story and replace the gameplay with action sequences.
You may or may not have realized this, but sarcasm doesn't work particularly well on the Internet, especially when it's done poorly.
Uh, what? Norway, Sweden and Finland are wealthy countries.
I have completed Jade Empire about four times, and I don't really understand where you got those ideas from.
The game actually gives you the choice of not saving a town in order to "make it stronger" (which requires you to actively do something, and not just sit by and watch). Yeah, I'd say it's all a big load of bullshit. Closed Fist could have been an interesting and nuanced philosophy, but for one reason or another they never bothered to go anywhere with it.
How the hell was this a flamebait? What the fuck...
I've never particularly felt that my privacy is threatened in Finland, and I don't see anyone else complaining either. I don't know what the fuck this report is on about. I suspect these people value privacy with such singlemindedness that they ignore everything else, like security. The study even seems to be hinting that border surveillance is somehow wrong (1984 ALERT: CYPRUS IS MONITORING ITS BORDERS WITH CAMERAS!!11oneone). It's kind of hard for any government to keep the nation safe if they have no information about anything.
What are you smoking? This doesn't happen. You're just making shit up. I won't even ask you why you believe that sides don't matter.
Islam does not prohibit murder, it encourages and even demands it. Jihadists aren't going against their religion by killing infidels.
Islam does not teach that you can't kill. On the contrary, Islam allows and demands its followers to kill in many situations. A good example is killing an infidel if he/she does not convert or submit. Jihad is another example.
What puzzles me about TFA is the complaint about Live Arcade not providing enough "quirky" independent games. There are too many people who believe that a quirky indie game is good simply because it's being quirky and indie, whereas polished and professional games are oppressive capitalist dogshit. These people are, of course, no different from their movie and music counterparts.
By shadow boxing do you mean real shadow boxing or Wii Boxing? Shadow boxing is quite exhausting.
I seem to remember that they executed a corrupt government official this year or in 2006.
Oil, water and turrets aren't scripted. Setting a splicer on fire and then electrocuting him in a pool of water while a hacked turret is shooting at it has nothing to do with "scripting."
A Houdini Splicer appeared behind me and tried to hit me with a fire attack. He missed and ignited a puddle of oil that was in front of me. I turned around and started attacking him, which caused him to teleport away. Unfortunately for him, he teleported right into the middle of the oil puddle he had set on fire moments earlier. There's lots of stuff like this in BioShock, and while it's usually enough that you just zap and wrench the shit out of splicers, it's occasionally useful to get more creative. When fighting Big Daddies you have to do all kinds of clever things unless you enjoy wasting a lot of ammo and taking frequent trips to vitachambers.
The asshole quotient is actually many times higher than that of other online games, because Valve officially supports assholes. When your team loses a round, the winning team can freely frag you and there's nothing you can do about it for some arbitrary reason. This is in complete violation of fair play and sportsmanship, and just because you can do it doesn't mean you should. TF2 is otherwise a solid game, but this idiotic feature completely ruins it. I got fed up with that bullshit weeks ago, and uninstalled the game.
The fact is that the overwhelming majority of gamers are complete and utter fucking assholes, but most multiplayer game developers are smart enough to realize this and implement rules that keep the assholes in check. Valve decided to take a "different" approach.
Another thing that's completely bewildering about TF2 is the nemesis system, which promotes deathmatching in a game that's supposed to be about teamplay. What does dying matter if I get shit done? I'm hardly being "dominated" if I consistently disrupt the enemy team's actions, but I guess teamplay doesn't matter to Valve. Deathmatching is clearly more important.
There were female protagonists and main characters in games long before Tomb Raider was released. I don't know what you mean by women being rewards, and I think you're blowing things way out of proportion. The situation is not nearly as dramatic as you make it seem.
Alternate explanation: it's not an evil conspiracy, it's just a way of making gender choice more meaningful, or a realism issue.