Thany144

Originally Posted by Not_Rhino

I think if you're expecting a simple, mature argument you're expecting a bit too much from me given the circumstances of this thread. I gave up on rationality ten pages ago, as it's become clear to me that farming is wrong because Golden Girl and others have repeated that it is so many times that it must be true. Everything I've said since has mainly been sarcastic and carrying the intent of a humorous jab at the opposing nonsense, er, "viewpoint". Including this post.

Originally Posted by T_Immortalus

"Those who would give up essential liberty"

There is a reason Benjamin Franklin(as far as I know, according to your post as well) chose carefully those words, especially "essential".

Liberty is an extreme term.
There is the "I'm not at liberty to say" statement which prevents free speech about certain topics due to legal reprisals, even if the speech isn't harmful. There is "liberty" to kill others, either if there is no legal recourse or it is legally sanctioned as in wars.

He chose "essential liberty" to recognize and differentiate the liberties that are essential from those that are not. The liberties of the people that they need from those of the king who had liberties he did not deserve nor did anyone deserve, such as the liberty to tax without representation because of no consequences until the revolution.



It's funny how the meaning of words, which determine the meaning of an entire phrase and point of view, are lost to many people.

Benjamin Franklin knew the essentials. His colleagues knew. They tried to secure them in the Constitution, such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and the right to life and the pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence.

It's funny that they wanted to make George Washington the king of the USA even while maintaining the liberties that people need and deserve, which Britain eventually adopted with an elected leadership while still retaining a royal family.





This is why I say "it is not bad so long as they have the essential freedoms" and make ti a point to cite "the freedom to harm" as a freedom nobody should have.

If nobody is free to harm another without consequence then nobody would have reason to fear harm from another human.
They could live life with "freedom from fear of other humans", which I would consider an essential freedom.


If you look at things from the proper perspective of a normal average person....Praetoria looks far from bad.
Given the fears and evils of our real world, that we know about, and the fears and evils of Praetoria....it's easy to see that Praetoria is closer to "heaven" than our real world has ever been. Sure, it's not perfect, but it is a lot closer than the real world.
In fact, Praetoria probably exemplifies our "essential freedoms", that the founding father's of the USA wanted for us, much better than out own country, especially these days.






But anyway, I don't want to get into a political debate, and I shouldn't post here anymore on this topic. It has gone too far.

Originally Posted by Golden Girl

It's just cosmetic - costume parts that give any kind of bonus seems to be something the devs want to avoid, as it'd lead to less creativity in player cotumes.

Originally Posted by Issen

So...by doing the pigg file copy and what not, how much time will that save me? I left my computer running while I went to work and it's in the middle of downloading the "patch", which still has about 4 hours left in it before it finishes (150 kb/s download limit, yes I know that sucks).

Should I just cancel the install and try to workaround or will I still be stuck downloading the entire patch anyway?

Originally Posted by Gunbunny

It is going to take longer then planned.

Seems that I won't be playing issue 21 today.

Originally Posted by Zemblanity

You didn't get my point.

Here's an example of democracy at its worst: "The crops have been terrible ever since that old woman moved into town. She's obviously a witch, and I say we burn her! Who's with me?"

Now, if the town's sheriff stops the villagers from burning the woman alive, he'd be opposing the majority and protecting a minority. That, my friend, is the basis of a modern free society, not blindly following a popular show of hands. You have the right not to be burned at the stake even if you're an old woman with a crooked nose and everyone else in town wants you gone.

Cole was (apparently) elected by popular vote and given free reign to do whatever he deemed necessary to ensure the survival of the human race in Praetoria. Unfortunately, no one bothered to put restraints on what he could do, and we see his lieutenants abusing their power every day (not Cole himself, though).

Opposing Emperor Cole's regime because it allows psychic women into bondage, that's laudable. Saying Cole's martial law should have been abolished by now is debatable (because we know the devouring earth are still a threat). But accusing Cole of being evil simply because he hasn't scheduled a new round of elections is just plain demagogy.

Mother Mayhem is evil. I've seen it myself.
Michael White is evil. I've seen it myself.
Justin Sinclair is evil. I've seen it myself.
Praetoria is evil. I've seen it myself.
Marcus Cole? Probably, but I'm not sure yet.

Originally Posted by Zemblanity

I think the basis of a free society is a constituition and a bill of rights, not democratic elections per se. Whether an election happens every 4 years or 10 or 100 is irrelevant, as long as the ruler in power isn't allowed to squash the rights of his citizens. It's all about economic politics and minute applications of the law which, if unpopular or unconstitutional, won't get past the supreme court of justice or risk perpectual jury nullification (ala euthanasia and anti-abortion laws). Your vote doesn't count for much, anyway, all you ever get to choose is blue or red, since it's always either Democrats or Republicans that get the seat.

On the other hand, unhindered democratic elections (the majority vote) have given rise to some of the greatest atrocities in history. I seem to recall that Hitler was elected by a majority, it's not like he conquered Germany. In the US slavery was only abolished in 1863, and miscegenation only became legal in 1967 (!!). Ancient Greece was a democracy, though only free male citizens could vote. The Inquisition in the 16th century was very popular in Spain, similar to parades we see happening today. And when did women start to vote in most democracies, anyway? Why aren't people below the age of 18 allowed to vote today, when they're bound by adult laws by the time they hit 16? Why do people in Nevada get arrested for failing to pay their casino debts? Why does the federal government get to try murder cases in Massachussets and ask for the death penalty when the death penalty was abolished in the state? In most cases, these leaders were empowered by popular vote to specifically oppress minorities, and had there been laws to prevent it, such abuses would not have taken place.

Marcus Cole might be a tyrant, perhaps even an evil tyrant, but he is a dully elected one. Too bad there's no Praetorian constitution or bill of rights to protect its people from him and his goons.

Originally Posted by Lothic

Pretty much depends on how much "on schedule" they stick with the 9 hour maintenance period.
There isn't going to be set time down to the hour, minute and second.

Originally Posted by Golden Girl

Because they're on the West Coast, and they probably don't want to get up any earlier than 4 in the morning

Originally Posted by T_Immortalus

1) Those aren't in game canon, even the ones that appear to be are possibly from a biased source(written from the perspective of Resistance for one).

2) The developers did a crappy job then.
I seriously don't see Emperor Cole as a villain and certainly not all the Loyalist moral choices as villainous.

In fact, there are quite a few moral choice options that point to the Resistance choice clearly being evil and the Loyalist choice clearly being far better.

Take the choice to kill Cleopatra or Interrogator Washington for example. She tries to have your character killed, after you just kept trying to prevent crimes and brign in criminals, and your choice is "let the person who just tried to kill you go free and kill the witness"(Resistance side) or "give her the death penalty for murdering that PPD officer and attempting to murder you"(Loyalist option).

Obviously, that choice makes the Resistance look like the evil group.


therefore, the developers either did a horrible job or maybe you and many of them are misled to believe that the Resistance are "absolute good" and Loyalists are "absolute evil"(when they also said Praetoria was all moral gray)....

....or maybe they just say what you quoted to mislead people so they are surprised by future story twists, like the story that started this thread.





The devs are messing with your mind. They ARE Nemesis.(not even joking)

Originally Posted by Cuppa_A61Sun

So yeah, bugs are all squashed then? Accessing the store on a mac doesn't cause a complete lockup and reboot needed, eh? OR, quarter profits are more important than putting out a working game?

I suspect the latter!

Originally Posted by Dark Sweater

I think that's the reason they didn't provide forum access to free and Premium players: there's a percentage of the subscriber base who's prejudiced against "free" players and would disrupt any attempts by them to post legitimate concerns and questions.

A solution to this would be a forum where only Premium players can post, and VIP's aren't allowed.

Originally Posted by T_Immortalus

They gave me the perfectly valid, by design, choice to unsubscribe.

Also, that doesn't really apply to the new players who start because of the "no subscription" option.



So, do you want to try to appear more elitist or more like a snob?
Or, would you like to finally admit that they need to treat all customers like their money is worthwhile and like they matter so that maybe they will "want tio subscribe"?



You don't get people to want something by restricting them from it. They just resent the restriction and leave if they have a choice.

Good luck getting people to become VIP just for forums access, especially with all the types of "grumpy old man" posts saying things like "deal with it" and "subscribe or GTFO".

LOL
I'm done with this little argument.
They need to give at least some limited forum posting access for free players or they can kiss a lot of money goodbye.

Originally Posted by T_Immortalus

LOL

How CAN you communicate with the developers if you can't post on the official forums which are the only sure place to be heard, and have no ability to use petitions to suggest things in game due to the new system as well?


They CAN'T listen because they made sure you have no avenue to communicate, other than not buying anything which doesn't send so much of a signal anymore without an "account cancellation" anymore.

Originally Posted by T_Immortalus

What is the point of becoming a VIP if they don't listen to your suggestions that would make you want to be a VIP?



"I'm only going to listen to my current customers and hope new customers want to become my customers, but I will never ever listen to those potential customers because they aren't already paying me. I don't care that they would pay for this thing I could sell them; I'm not listening to them."

It is stupid to ignore potential sources of income.

If they completely cut off free players from forum access, players who obviously didn't think CoH was worth subscribing to, then they just have to hope and pray they get lucky putting what they want in the store, while subscribed players don't want to buy it in the store and argue for it to be included in the subscription price(meaning less money for the company).


How do they know how to entice free players into spending some and more if they never see any feedback from them?

How do you know how any "voters" feel if they can't communicate? You just have to hope you come up with a good idea that they "vote yes" to rather than a "vote no" with infinite possible reasons why and no clue which reason they had.



Seriously, no feedback is never good for business.

Originally Posted by T_Immortalus

Actually, they would be absolutely stupid to not at least have a F2P forum section where free players can post to make themselves heard and ask questions, and probably allow them in suggestions.


It's not a smart business decision to only allow communication from the customers who pay the most and most reliable while not listening to those saying "I would pay more for this" because you never see that if they can't post.

If they want more customers paying more then they need to listen to the reasons they have for paying money and what they want to see that they would pay money for.


Also, the "fanboys" tend to be subscribers and won't provide good objective feedback. You need some "cheapskate" type free players in the mix to balance out the "devs can do no wrong" people.

Originally Posted by T_Immortalus

It all depends on whether you find the exclusives worth it or not.


I personally have a hard time justifying the exclusives, as well as I like not having a recurring payment so I can control my finances better.
Also, I don't like paying $5 more for content I may or may not like. I like to pay for good content.

I didn't call you an idiot either.