Seattleite

Interesting thing is, Kane isn't really evil, but just does some really stupid cult-like shit that makes him seem evil. He is really selfish, though. But then, his age might be a part of that. (Also, his immortality must be rubbing off on Joe Kucan. Dude hasn't aged a day in over twenty years.) As for me... Would it be cheating to name a game I'm involved in making?

Fair enough, though I am unaware of any exceptions and will look into that example.

So basically, you're saying you're a one-issue voter? I'm not going to debate with you the ethics of abortion, but is that really the most important issue to you? More important than all other domestic and foreign policies? You understand that Trump will be the republican nominee. Judging by your statements, you really don't like him either. Wouldn't the reasonable thing be to abstain, then? Or maybe protest with a write-in candidate? I'm sure Rand Paul wouldn't mind getting votes despite not being in the race, he might even use it as a talking point in 2020.

I didn't say Username was stupid, I just don't think he/she realises that guy's a troll. It can be hard to tell sometimes, there's no shame in it. EDIT: Boy, did I ever misread that? No, I'm not calling you stupid. I don't believe you are. Why you'd think that, when I've already said my piece on the matter in PM, I don't know. Maybe you didn't read it. But this isn't the time or the place, and I should have kept that comment to myself anyway, despite its veracity. I have now retracted it. So I'm going to stop talking about this now in this thread, and if you want to talk about it, PM me, but I'd prefer you didn't. I DON'T want to talk about it, I've already said everything I want to on the matter. OT: Basically right now we have one guy who wants to bring the US up to date with the rest of the civilized world (Sanders), one self-serving sellout who only cares about her career (Clinton), one billionaire who uses reality show tactics and wants the position to further the powerful (Trump), one right-wing religious lunatic who wants to turn us into a theocracy (Cruz), a glitchy corporate robot (Rubio), a boring old man who wants the status quo because he can't take change but otherwise is the most reasonable person on his side, if only he wasn't more painful to listen to than Joe Biden on Ambien (Kasich) and one loony tune who thinks the pyramids were biblical grain silos and Vladimir Putin "is a one horse country, oil and energy" (Carson). Only the first three are still relevant, though. Seems like an easy choice to me.

Username, please. While I agree with you politically, I would ask that you please not feed the blatant troll. I don't want a flame war in a thread I'm posting in.

...You do realize where that economic crisis came from, right?

Well, I wasn't getting that in depth. If I did, I would have been talking about the Treaty of Versailles, the primary reason the Nazi party was able to rise to power, which was the fault of all the allied nations in the great war. I was only talking about Germany breaking its end of the bargain and then going after all of Europe.

Probably less angry than that. (I mean, that doesn't look motherly at all.)

I watch EC more for the perspective on video games from a design standpoint than history lessons. You can't really put the blame of WW2 on any one country, since it started out as several smaller conflicts rather than just one person or country. I think you just had a slight typo... You can definitely blame the *second* world war on one country, at least in the European theatre. (In the pacific, it's WAY more complicated.) But as for the first world war, it really just started because the Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, the Austrians got a blank check from Wilhelm to act as long as they did it fast (as to keep it a small, regional conflict) but the moron went on vacation right after saying that, the Austrians gave totally unreasonable demands to give themselves an excuse instead of just acting and largely sat on their hands for two weeks, Wilhelm returns to find they STILL hadn't acted, the Russians mobilized towards the German border and guaranteed the war would involve them (therefore their allies in France, and their allies in Britain), and the Russians refused to back down, forcing Germany to mobilize against them to defend itself. So really, one conflict. And several mind-numbingly horrific gaffes on the part of Europe's leaders made mostly because the rulers involved were complete fucking morons.

Hey, on the subject of guns, here's a simple thing to anyone purchasing a handgun: Never, EVER buy an extended magazine. EVER. I don't care if the gun's default capacity sucks, don't do it. And not because of the reliability issue, though that is real, but because of something even more fundamental: Ergonomics. Extended magazines protruding from the bottom of the weapon doesn't just look awful, it directly interferes with the way you hold the weapon. Normally, when shooting, you put your off hand directly underneath your shooting hand, supporting it and helping control the weapon. This keeps it from shaking as much as it would in one hand, and helps compensate for recoil. Extended magazines protruding from the bottom of the weapon keeps your hand from going underneath your main hand, so it provides less support and less control, and the greater distance between your hands means that when the weapon recoils it has a longer lever and the effect of your second hand is diminished. You can compensate by putting your off hand in front of your main hand, but that's a dangerous position with shorter pistols, and isn't as effective anyway as the weight of the weapon is no longer resting on your hand, it's resting on your shooting hand's wrist, which is exactly what you don't want. There's no making this issue go away. Extended magazines are just god-awful, even if they come standard you should buy a standard magazine that fits flush against the bottom of your weapon, otherwise you're going to ruin your accuracy. For rifles, though, they aren't so bad. Just don't but double or triple stacked magazines for rimmed ammunition, it's horribly unreliable. And don't buy drums at all, for the same reason. Double or triple stacks for rebated or rimless ammunition are perfectly fine.

Maybe next time keep it a surprise, so if you back out nobody knows?

^None whatsoever.

You from one of the mentioned states? Maybe even also from Colorado?

Warning! Surprisingly enough this is my opinion! Don't get your mushroom war in a twist! (Especially since I've only watched enough of the show for it to get on my nerves.)

While I agree it doesn't fit their formula very well, and I know they will insult both the subject matter and the player's intelligence, the point in my mind isn't for the Battlefield game to really fit the war or vice versa. After Battlefield shits on the subject matter, lies about the history and insults their players' intelligence they won't have done any damage because no force on earth could make Battlefield fans worse at history. Then when another company is inspired by this horrific debacle to create a game that will respect the subject matter, tell an actual story or even teach actual history to players who have no idea what happened in the war other than "Germany must have done it, because... Uh... They must have"*, they could actually have a significant positive influence on these people's knowledge. Personally, I find that to be an overwhelming net gain. *For the record, the war was not Germany's fault, they just took all the blame because they lost. But there's about a 50/50 shot you already know that, Extra Credits did a decent series on the matter and clearly you watch them. Crash course also did several excellent episodes on the matter, which I personally think are better from an educational standpoint, but that's neither here nor there.

Alright, so a basic breakdown of tonight. Trump won in an absolute landslide, but less of one than I thought. I didn't think he'd lose *any* states, but he lost three. Two to Cruz and one to Marco Roboto. Still, this was an absolutely crushing display, and Cruz is right on one thing: Carson, Kasich and Rubio should drop out and stop embarrassing themselves. On the democratic side, it's a wash. Hillary won most of the southern states, and more states than Sanders. Who the fuck CARES? Those states were all a foregone conclusion, we called them back in November, we knew no amount of anything was going to change the minds of those voters. Furthermore, those states are a bad sign for electability on the democratic side, as they all lean conservative and will vote republican in the general. It's a lot like winning Iowa on the republican side. So, what were the three most important states tonight? The states that were up for grabs, and awarded the most democratic delegates? Colorado (BTG, say hi), Minnesota and Massachusetts. Bernie won Colorado and Minnesota in an absolute landslide, and Hillary was only two points ahead in Massachusetts. So then, is this a Hillary win or a Bernie win? Well, neither, really. Overall delegates aren't that differently split, it's slightly towards Hillary overall, but looking at the polling in the states coming up... It's not enough. This wasn't a decisive victory for her by a long shot, and she needed one. Bernie is ahead in Michigan, he's ahead in Washington, he's ahead in Ohio and Florida, every state in the next two weeks he's ahead in, if there's any exceptions please let me know because I can't find *one* poll where she's ahead in the next two states. He also has a comfortable lead in national polling now, and as he was down 60 points last year that's a tremendous gain. That isn't to say she's out, she's definitely not, she still has the anti-democratic super delegates to override the actual votes and put her in place anyway, but it's not only in question if that'll happen, but if his lead will even be small enough to BE overridden. Keep tuned for the next two weeks. The republican race may be over, but the democrats are neck and neck. This is getting interesting.

I did not say it had no positive effects.

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Not to mention stupid, pointless and destructive. It erupted right the fuck out of nowhere, killed a million men in the first month, everybody shares a little bit of the blame for its development (especially Austria and Russia), and directly lead to the second world war, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire (thus instability in the middle east), the rise of the USSR and pretty much every single other geopolitical issue of the 20th century, earning it the nickname the "Seminal Catastrophe". Most of the reason I want more attention drawn to it is because it was so massively important in shaping the modern world, and it was a complete travesty that happened for no real reason and killed millions upon millions of people who wanted nothing to do with it. And a game that treats it with the proper respect such a tragedy deserves would be appreciated, even if we need a few big name companies to shit all over the subject matter first in order for that to happen.

I am, for the most part. I'll be tuning in around 3:00 Pacific Time, two hours before the counting starts. The polls say pretty strongly Trump on the Republican side, and it's too close to call on the Democratic side.

Depends on the character. Everybody you meet in the Sanctuary is pretty well fleshed out, but the player interacts with them a LOT. But the same cannot be said for every random villager, though giving them more personality than most games would *is* a goal of ours. And a lot of them end up being particularly unhappy with you, really fast. Well, once you're in combat, when I say it's "defensive" I mean you'll be keeping your distance and dodging a lot while you look for opportunities to get hits in without being re-purposed as a scabbard. Stealth isn't out of the question, though. And opening a fight with a sneak attack is a great way to make sure it isn't much of a fight, so using it that way makes sense even if it would usually make more sense to avoid the fight entirely. As for hit and run tactics, the game has crippling and bleed systems. And those systems combine well with hit and run tactics, indeed they do. I assure you, the characters being little is used to enhance the darker atmosphere to the game, rather than take away from it. Them being brutally murdered in the opening cutscene is pretty jarring, for one, and certainly not something that screams light and fluffy. (Lots of red pixels.) And even if you were to skip the intro the combination of their small size and the strength of the enemies you go up against definitely does a lot to make the player feel dis-empowered, which reinforces that atmosphere. The second boss is literally just an adult human (well, an adult human spirit, all the major realms you go to are after-lives) with a spear and some deep-seated emotional trauma. Granted, he's the second easiest boss in the game, and the difficulty spikes after each world are pretty huge, but in most other games he'd be a momentary distraction and here he's enough of an obstacle throughout your time in that world to allow for significant character development. Uh... This *is* an action-RPG, so I'm just going to assume that's a typo. Anyway, the thing that makes the combat so defensive is that taking damage can be extremely meaningful in ways it just isn't in a lot of other games. The opening cutscene had both characters being killed by a single sword thrust through the chest, and I assure you that is not a case of gameplay and story segregation. This game handles injuries very realistically. There's a crippling system, and you can be crippled, just for one example. There's a bleed system, so you could be run through and start bleeding health every couple seconds. There's also a poise system, and you can be staggered or knocked down either by hits or by bleeding caused by those hits (which is especially nasty). And while it doesn't always seem so on paper, attacks deal a relatively large amount of damage, meaning hits can and often will cripple you and a hit that bleeds will drain your health quickly. So getting run through the chest like you do in the opening cutscene will lead to a lot of bleeding, and said bleeding will swiftly result in death. Healing is also limited, so even if you aren't crippled or mortally wounded in a fight, losing health or especially limb integrity is not going to be pleasant. Dodge if you can, block if you can't, and failing that have some good armour. The characters also don't have set roles. They have slight statistical differences, but when I say those are slight I mean it. You can build either to perform any role you wish, and some mixture is a good idea in single-player, since you can't take them both at once if you're not in co-op. The game is a LOT easier with both of them, though. That much is for sure. (Not just because of combat. Their extremely minor regeneration is boosted when they're together. This is insignificant for everything but stamina most of the time, but has a HUGE impact on how much they heal by resting.)

The machine has a point...

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In yet another dreadful morning meeting.