Dogface

[ QUOTE ]
This is due to the fact that most myths were passed on by word of mouth. Time would fog up the memory, and each teller would have their own take on it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not necessarily. Egypt was long literate and underwent several mythological revisions to suit the political fortunes of various cities and regions.

[ QUOTE ]
I think people do feel attracted to the idea of a kind, non-judgmental psychopomp...


We also have the Western mentality molded by the Christian idea of one [censored]-up and it's straight to Hell unless you prostrate yourself before God and beg for forgiveness... wait, forgot about Original Sin, there is no one [censored]-up rule... it's straight from birth to Hell unless you beg and swear eternal servitude and every [censored]-up henceforth requires more begging, pleading and swearing

[/ QUOTE ]

But you have no problem at all being extremely judgmental, yourself, right?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
..but not judge us is very attractive, especially since people in general tend to be very judgmental... We also have the Western mentality molded by the Christian idea of one [censored]-up and it's straight to Hell unless you prostrate yourself before God and beg for forgiveness... wait, forgot about Original Sin, there is no one [censored]-up rule... it's straight from birth to Hell unless you beg and swear eternal servitude and every [censored]-up henceforth requires more begging, pleading and swearing

Kind, non-judgmental psychopomps rule!

[/ QUOTE ]

thanks for pointing out how judgemental people are ANd providing an example "tolerant" people are often the most intolerant in practice when it comes right down to it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd say that you have him pegged quite nicely. "Tolerant" people are very often the most extremely intilerant.

[ QUOTE ]
That brother is a character I play on City of Heroes. His name is Ephemetheus.

[/ QUOTE ]

Is he a bit of a doofus who only thinks after the fact, hence the name?

[ QUOTE ]
I was not trying to denigrate Judeo-christian values. I was merely pointing out that absolute values of good and evil are an inherent part of this value system.

[/ QUOTE ]

They are not unique to this system. The Classical Greeks also had them. They also had relativists, just like we do, and the relativists were, oddly enough, fairly popular among the educated and wealthy, except for when they made convenient scapegoats (see also "Apologia").

[ QUOTE ]

And the reason the Vikings became especially villified in the literature that came out of the time was that they were one of the last remaining pagan civilizations with any strength.

[/ QUOTE ]

The word for this is "rubbish". The Persians were still strong, and still pagan, for example.

[ QUOTE ]
For all known facts, Judaism adopted the idea of the good/evil duality during the time of Babylonian captivity. There, they were exposed to Persian Zoroasrianism which centered around the duality of light/good as embodied by Zoroaster (Zarathustra) and dark/evil as embodied by Ahrimaan.

[/ QUOTE ]

Which drew from the same Indo-European sources as did the Greek material. The ancient Greeks had very highly developed sense of virtue and of evil. They were not a society decaf sugarfree-sweetener soy-milk latte sipping, ricecake-nibbling undergraduate "intellectuals" who congratulated themselves on their moral relativism. They might have had a different moral code than did we, but they had one, and it could be quite strict in some matters, quite un-enlightened and absolutist.

[ QUOTE ]
I believe that The Monocle was speaking in regards to "the masses"...and not the scholars. Scholars are educated people, they would understand such differences between societies & cultures. "The masses" may not.

[/ QUOTE ]

So, then the presumption is that MMORPG players are, by and large, very far from being "the scholars" and simply to be presumed an undifferentiated part of "the masses"?

[ QUOTE ]
Yes, very true. What many modern folks have a hard time understanding is that the ancient Greek and Roman gods were not assumed to be "perfect". To my knowledge, this is a Judeo/Christian thing more than anything else.

[/ QUOTE ]

It was long a Greek concept before Christianity came along The Stoics, for example, tended to insist that a god had to be a perfect being, thus the Olympians could not be gods. This was also true of the epicureans and some of the schools that came from Aristotle's students. Of these, Stoicism had the greatest influence. Likewise, various mystery religions seem to have taught that the very anthropomorphic stories of deities were simply "dumbed down" for the masses and that the actual gods were far more transcendent.

[ QUOTE ]
One of the things which is truly challenging to the judeo-christian mindset to grasp about the ancient Greeks was that they did not really believe in good and evil as absolute values as we do.

[/ QUOTE ]

That is a complete load of codswallop. I've read a sufficient amount of Victorian-era antiquarian classicisists' work to know quite certainly that those very "judeo-christian" scholars had no problem at all with such concepts. You are merely projecting your own narrow prejudices regarding those who happen to be either "Judeo" or "Christian".

[ QUOTE ]

Likely hades inhabits the body of Lord Recluse.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why Hades? Hades was never the enemy of Zeus, never, not even once. Poseidon was more likely to oppose Zeus than Hades, but the closest Zeus had to an ongoing enemy was his own wife. All of his other enemies had been conclusively defeated before humanity existed.

[ QUOTE ]
But in broader terms, classicists are superior beings who are capable of doing anything.

[/ QUOTE ]

I expect your quantitative northern blot by morning, in that case. Likewise, you had better have a non-fudge-factor replacement for the Cosmological Constant in the margins of your notes, right under your cure for AIDS. Likewise, you will be happy to sign a legally-binding document to eschew any sort of services from any mere "medical doctor" at any time, henceforth, in your life, since they are far more likely to have a mere "scientific" training than be classicists.

I'm only holding you to your word.

[ QUOTE ]
Viking mythology certainly glorified battle, but their actions simply glorified the acquisition of wealth. (Hmm.. sounds kind of familiar actually. )

[/ QUOTE ]

Like "heroes" who powerlevel and/or whine for influence handouts?

[ QUOTE ]
In the US, we use the 'statesman' to refer to revered politicians, but the word really means something different.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wrong. A word only REALLY means what people use it for. Do you call all children under 12 years of age "girls"? After all, if you look at the history of the word "girl" it would "really mean" any child older than a toddler but younger than a youth/maiden.

[ QUOTE ]
Paragon City-- probably a fictional counterpart to Providence in the same way Gotham corresponds to NYC or Metropolis corresponds to Chicago-- does have a fairly large Greek population. It also has some very prevalent RL Greek influences, such as the various Gyro (pronounced 'yee-row') shops around town.

[/ QUOTE ]

How many of those Greeks still worship Zeus and how many instead are much more likely to celebrate the Orthodox Paschalion the same nights I do?

[ QUOTE ]
I think that the most likely avenue for Mr. Emmert and the writers at Cryptic to go down is that the Statesman was created by Zeus as an Earthbound, but not mortal container for his powers. He would have more in common with Hurcules (who proved to be immortal) than the deities themselves.

[/ QUOTE ]

Herakles was not merely an earthbound but not mortal container for the powers of Zeus. Likewise, Herakles DID DIE. Indeed, his mortal soul is found in Hades later, although his immortal portion is in Olympus.

I wanna be Coyote!!!!!

[ QUOTE ]

I live on an island that's so far out at sea that noone, not even Manannan mac Lir, can find it while living! Who am I?

[/ QUOTE ]

Manhattan--it's the right direction, after all.

[ QUOTE ]

I, for one, noticed that during the Halloween Event... Fir Bolg? Most people probably think it is some kind of designer lunch meat.

[/ QUOTE ]

They're the bag people (trouser-wearers), of course! (Yes, another translation would be "spear people", but either would work from a cultural perspective.)

So what were the Halloween Fir Bolg? I missed that event. Were they neolithic, pre-Paragon-city inhabitants of the region who alternatively fought against and allied with the Native American tribes of the region who were themselves displaced by Paragon city's current inhabitant culture but were nevertheless later credited (in legend) with being the ancestors of a few prominent Paragon families?

[ QUOTE ]
Random nitpick, don't know if anyone's mentioned already, but Spartans -are- Greek Sparta was one of the Greek city-states.

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course, Spartans were Lakonic while the culture we look upon today as "Greek" is primarily Attic. There were some significant diffeences. It's like lumping the French, Spanish, and Italians all together as "Latins".

So, is there word on making jetpacks more readily and permanently available?

[ QUOTE ]
But I don't see how the bases fit there... Having a cool base would (arguably) grant you prestige instead of costing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Depends. I'd say that it "costs" prestige to get the city to provide that FREE base, and consider the property tax exemption, free use of city-owned teleporters to and from...

[ QUOTE ]
Power levels, so imagine you have Uber PVP SG 'L33T L00T D00DS!' and you have a RP Based Villian Group, now the PVP Hamidon Farmers are going have all +3 HOs and player killing optimised builds, the others are going to have interesting concepts and maybe a few of whatever the CoV equivilent of HOs turns out to be. Who do you think is going to win?

[/ QUOTE ]

Irrelevant, because the roleplaying villains wouldn't consent to the raid, nor propose one to the l00T l00zRz. Instead, like-minded players would be free to associate as they wish.

[ QUOTE ]
To be fun, a base raid has to feel exciting -- and fair. That means fair to both sides.

[/ QUOTE ]

Does that mean that coalition raids would be possible, so that a few small groups could ally to take on a bigger group's base or vice-versa: A coalition alliance to defend a small base from a big group's attack?

[ QUOTE ]
As far as I can see, there aren't too many heroes in Striga trying to take on the Councel Base's defenses solo -aka- suicide!

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not suicide. It depends on your level, among other things. By the time it's no longer suicide, it can become rather tedious.

How embarassing can that be for the Striga base, to know that the ONLY reason they haven't been taken out permanently is that the heroes who could do it think of them as too piddly to be worth the effort?

[ QUOTE ]
so you're arguing that PvP base raids are a good thing or that Hamidon enhancers are a bad thing?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm saying that either are equally defensible from any sort of rational perspective.

[ QUOTE ]
This is why MMORPG PvP is stupid.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's no more stupid than l33T l00T. Isn't it all just a matter of taste, and everyone's opinion is just as good as everyone else's? If l33T l00T is a good idea in this game, then PvP is a good idea.

[ QUOTE ]
I really don't care what they do. The Base raids are a silly idea to begin with.

[/ QUOTE ]

No more silly than what has happened with Hamidon enhancements.

[ QUOTE ]
They sound really cool on paper but what will happen is that a few hardcore PvP guilds will dominate

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, just like Hamidon enhancements are essentially "dominated" by a few hardcore farmers. If l33T l00T like Hamidon enhancements is good for CoH, then so is base raiding on a schedule.