DiabloFans

Sounds like you're thinking outside the closet. That said, I think the KFC guy is probably a poor choice of first male companion.

Quote from Nekrodrac

At this point, the question is- Are all the extra costs a result of our morals and we condemn much more easily if the punishment is life sentence?

Yes, and why would that not be the case? You can release someone who's been given the longest prison sentence if it's later found he is not guilty. You cannot raise a dead man who was executed because the real criminal was found. One innocent person executed also makes one real criminal get away with it. Frankly, i'd like to think justice is more important than the barbaric blood-lust that drove our ancestors to view the gallows as a spectator's sport.

The baby boomer generation (my generation) literally robbed our kids blind and put them into a debt that will outlast the lives of their grandchildren. And if that were not bad enough, we're now pushing draconian cuts on education and social welfare programs that help young workers, students, and parents get by in tough times all the while letting our roads, dams, and various other infrastructure decay into oblivion. IF the republicans have their way, you'll literally be debt slaves for our retirement programs with nothing to show for it.

The young should be mad. They should be mad as hell.

Quote from Nekrodrac

Oh yes, making society a safer place is so inhumane. Gotcha.

Making society safer is not one of the "benefits," of the death penalty, nor was it in your analysis. I like this game where you make up a new reason each post and each one falls flat.

Quote from Nekrodrac

When you consider society as a whole, it has much to gain through filtering out those detrimental to it even if the process isn't 100% reliable- security and money-wise. That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

This is still absolute jargon that has nothing to do with justice or the efficacy of the death penalty. Further automation doesn't magically create better data, nor does it eliminate the politics and bias that historically made capital punishment synonymous with racism, classim, and political manuvering. Sorry, but this argument has no weight either.

Quote from Nekrodrac

The computer will try its best to be impartial, fair and avoid being over-zealous, I promise.

Oh, you promise, well that clears that up. Perhaps you are privee to some kind of superior AI i've not been made aware of, but unless your computer can literally see events of the past and future, it's in no position to dictate wether or not a person should be put to death.

Quote from Nekrodrac

At this point I feel rather worried that you might have some issues with processing what you read. Is that like the straw man argument you mentioned in that other thread- making something out of nothing and actually using it as a point to refute on?
Anyway to help you-
I said there was no indication I was empathic towards these issues because...I was presenting the state of matters and nothing else. Read, re-read several times if need be. Eventually you will get it(I hope).
I know, quite condescending but you leave me with little choice with your continuous baseless assumptions. I haven't divulged any of my actual feelings towards starving children or prisoners forced to live like animals nor is there any need to, to back up my point.

You're waffling on the issue and attempting to create a "have it both ways," political position on the matter. The point is simple and just as clear as the first time I made it: Prisons can be reformed, lives cannot be given back. Your argument has no merit. No amount of re-directs changes this and I simply pointed out the irony in your statements.

Quote from Nekrodrac

It can be compromised yes, but only by humans who fail to synthesize or analyze strong or weak evidence. The thousands you mentioned are an excellent testimony to that.
About 'barbaric' capital punishment...Meh..I did say that I was vouching for it in a specific context. Also I did talk about hypocrisy(or humanity, whichever you prefer), so I won't go at it again.

I must have missed the part where these magic machines transcended all problems of human input error and had perfect data to work with. Sorry, it doesn't exist, and I doubt it will in our lifetimes. What I argued was never couched in your contextural pleas. I made the, rather obvious, statement that capital punishment is not a deterrent and that it's enaction is tantamount to killing innocent people since no justice system is perfect. I further argued that it is quite ineffective as a fiscal-reform to the penal code since the vast majority of inmates are incarcerated because of minor drug laws that should be repealed for much greater savings. Anyone with a modicum of ethical self-awareness can see just how flimsy the arguments for the death penalty are once the finality of the action itself is considered.

Quote from Nekrodrac

Most importantly- I AM SKYNET!!! YOU WILL HAND OVER YOUR COOKIES TO ME.

Is this the part where you loose the argument and pretend you've been trolling the whole time?

:golfclap:

Quote from Nekrodrac

Affirmative with respect to what? To your morals? Definitely not. To society's benefit(financial and security-wise)? Then yes, since I think I made a pretty good case.

So we've abandoned the "most humane," approach and we're now looking at it from the numbers. I suppose that makes a better case for your argument, but imo it's still terrible. Personally, i'd rather not do the math on teriminating human lives. All the best.

Quote from Nekrodrac

I am not ignoring this concept at all. My proposition comes from a broader point of view- from individual to society/group.
Furthermore you should have read my earlier posts more carefully. A computerized system has all the merits of incorporating the death penalty if it managers to seriously lower the odds (like it most probably will as compared to a man-driven pathway) of convicting an innocent.

Which goes back to my original standpoint- death penalty for repeat offenders.

Broader point of individual to society.. you realize that's literally gibberish. Can you expound upon that? A computerized system? Are you fucking kidding me? How does a computer account for evidence that has yet to enter the record? How does it account for false testimony that may be overturned? It can't, it won't, and that's an awful suggestion. What's more, repeat offenders are more likely to be wrongly convicted (along with legitimately convicted, of course) than the rest so I don't see where that's supposed to be a positive.

Quote from Nekrodrac

Surely, you can appreciate the fact that a person convicted MULTIPLE times for molesting and abusing children has a very low probability of being innocent.
Or a gang member racketing/killing to gain higher rank within his group to then pass through prison and go back on the streets to target innocents again to push further up the hierarchy?
I am not talking about that possible passion crime where some guy may or may not have killed his wife after the woman had been cheating on him. You would think that was clear enough when i mentioned repeat offenders in my original post.

That kind of emotional appeal is what kills innocent people instead of seeing justice handed out fairly. If someone is a violent repeat offender, they should go away for life. Killing them only opens the door for wrongfully convicted and actually reformed persons to be murdered by an over-zealous D.A.

Quote from Nekrodrac

Empathy is empathy- be it starving humans or convicted ones. It is no re-direct at all. It is a valid parallel in illustrating the hypocrisy of self-righteous folks.
Now you seem to be under the impression that I am empathic towards prisoners…or even the children in Somalia? Read my post again. There is no indication of that in any of what I said. Once again- you’re putting words in my mouth. My point remains- most of the world doesn’t care. That IS reality. What I have been doing is merely presenting the state of matters and comparing it to my proposition. You are inferring from your rather biased perception of the topic and not my actual arguments.
Not to mention that equating the death penalty to murder in an attempt to degrading my point was a rather shallow and poor effort. I am sure you can understand the subtle difference between the two, so let’s leave aside the semantics apt at provoking distress for the religious zealots, shall we?

So you're not empathetic, at all. That would explain your position on the death penalty.

Quote from Nekrodrac

Nothing is perfect- the reason why I proposed a computerized system which is closest to the perfection that we are trying to achieve. This in tandem with the complacency and unwillingness of society to invest in prison reform makes death penalty a valid alternative to eliminate the true dangers (repeat offenders). Providing for food and accommodation for these individuals while producing for them other, much less dangerous prisoners as their victims behind bars is I believe a terrible mistake on top of being a financial burden. There is no distortion unless you are letting your feelings about capital punishment cloud your cognitive means to understand the logical precept I am proposing.

If nothing is perfect, why are you in favor of a punishment that is absolute and cannot be un-done? You have to realize that justice isn't a function that you can computerize. It's data from a plethora of sources that is quite likely to be compromised in some way. That is the nature of the beast and the reason why thousands of people are wrongly convicted each year. Much as I can understand the need to cut costs in a poor economy, I think this is far and away the worst method. Like I said before, a massive majority of our prison costs could be avoided by legalized drugs. There is no need to put barbaric capital punishment laws in, compromising our humanity for the sake of pinching a penny.

Quote from Hpnot1Q

Quote from Kayzer

Yes seriously, people need to stop posting dumb topics.

Quote from apples

Quote from AegonIII

Quote from apples

ive heard bad things about it.

I don't think George Locus would let something of sub-par quality come out.

see:

star wars episodes, 1-3

and anyways, they added new dialog and original fans have already shown their distaste.

I will never forgive Lucas for episodes 1-3. Had I known just how abyssmal they'd be compared to the originals i'd have saved hours of my life and prescious bits of my sanity that i'll never regain. The only franchise he embarassed more was indiana jones and the lolalienskull.

Yes, "haters gunna hate" and all that stuff. Most of my star wars inclined students have disagreed with me, but since most of them grew up on the blockbusters of the last decade and a half i'm not giving them any credit as critics.

Quote from Groanan

I'll give a more detailed response later, but I can summarize all I am trying to say with this hypothetical:

Two kids are sitting in a backseat
One is older and a lot more vocal and witty
The other is younger and quick to using fists

The older kid starts chastising the younger, baiting him
the younger kid blows up in anger, and hits the talker
If you say that younger kid is violent, I agree.
If you say that the older kid is peaceful, lol.

Yes, he is peaceful. He is not the one who resorted to violence. I would have thought that was obvious? Try using an incitement defense in a murder case, it won't get you very far. International and US law are quite clear on this.

Words and thoughts are always provocative. The moment you blame the speaker for the physical violence visited upon him: you leave free speech behind. Violence must be punished, but freedom of expression cannot and should not be compromised in order to make sure the violence doesn't occur. Civilized people should conduct themselves as such and realize that if they cross the threshold from words to fists, they have commited a crime and there is no excuse for it. Democracy is not for those with a thin skin. We debate devisive topics on a daily basis. What keeps the society going isn't being nice or avoiding offense, it's adressing taboos and ensuring that nothing goes undiscussed.

Nobody has an objective opinion on offensive speech. Nobody has the right to censorship in the public square because it will vary WIDELY based on who's opinion you take. Free speech is absolute, it is uncompromising, it is the right of every human being to say what they think and debate it with anyone else, regardless of how offensive it is. If it is a truly disdained point of view, I think you'll find it very unlikely that people will pay credence to the speaker.

Quote from Groanan

You are not even reading or comprehending my posts, you are just spouting knee jerk reactions.

If defending your right to speak openly about anything, without taboos isn't a knee jerk reaction for you then I suppose I can't convince you otherwise. I only pity that very odius point of view.

Quote from Groanan

I am talking about the concept of peacefulness.

Peace should be kept, but that should not be pre-empted by censorship. If the only thing keeping someone from killing you is the understanding you'll never insult that person, there is no peace. That person will eventually find something that they feel is offensive and kill you anyway. There is no relativism when it comes to free expression.

Quote from Groanan

If English is not your first language, I apologize, but I never said that hate speech should not be protected constitutional speech necessary for a free society.

You insisted on that very point. I invite you to clarify.

Quote from Groanan

I fully agree with you.

I am saying that hate speech is not peaceful.

FFS, if someone can translate please do; I'm done trying to communicate with Proleteria until I see a semblance of comprehension.

I don't know what you're trying to qualify here. You either think censorship is good or you think that speech is necssarily free from censorship. Peace and Conflict are entirely diffirent, they are physical manifestations and have nothing to do with expressing the opinions of the mind. A peaceful protest can blast the most offensive ideas they like and still be peaceful. There is no objective person to decide what is offensive. If you decide to say that anything offensive negates the "peaceful," aspect of the protest I think you'll find nothing is absolutely not offensive and thus no discourse is peaceful by your definiton.

There have been a number of good debates recently on the subject. The point being, in recent days there is a fairly strong left (ultra-masochist and apologist relativeism) and right (fundamentalist religion) movement toward self-censorship and retarding free speech. While the nexus of this is certainly a fear of islamic reprisal, governments everywhere are becoming complicit or simply complacent. What the world needs now is precisely more people exercising these basic rights, letting the leaders of our governments know that we continue to demand free expression and human rights in general.

Here are a few pictures I found elsewhere. I have not seen them (after searching around) on this site, and I thought they were good pics, so here ya go.





4th difficulty reveal/confirmed


Below is a Wizard armor spell breaking up...unsure of what it is


Below is the Monk's Blinding Flash skill


Below is the Wizard's Blizzard skill






























Below picture is of 'Slaughtered Calf Inn'

So while passing the time.. I tried somthing kind of fun while playing TorchLight. (Im sure its been done before)

In TL, there are 3 skill trees for each class. There are 5 "active skills" in each tree for each class. That makes 15 active skills per class.

What I just did was level up a Vanquisher to level 30.

I Saved up points to put a new point into each skill when it became available. There are generaly 3 new skills ( 1 in each tree) to grab every 5 levels. In all, there are 15 active skills ( about 8 less than D3 will have per class )

By level 30ish go for somthing like this:
I put 5 points in each of the level one skills (15 total)
4 in each of the level five skills (12 total)
3 in each of the level 10 skills(9 points)
2 in the level 15 and 20 skills (12 points)
and 1 in each of the level 25 points (3 points) TOTAL (51 points)

**Important: make sure you have enough points (at least 3) going into each 5th level. So at level 5, make sure to have 3 unspent points, at level 10 make sure to have 3 unspent points (so you can get all 3 of the new skills). In between, use your fame points to keep the lower level skills viable. Play the game on Hard (instead of very hard) so that the lower level skills stay viable.

Basically I ignored the passives, and it kind of simulated the way the skills will unlock in Diablo 3.
By the time I had all the skills unlocked I started expirimenting trying to find fun combinations and "limited" myself to 6 skills (left, right Mouse Buttons and 1-4).

So really not a brilliant idea or anything, but it was alot of fun. I found quite a few fun combinations of skills that made the Vanq play totally differently.

So doing this was a blast, even with just 15 skills to chose from, its alot of fun swaping them in and out. Now, when you think D3 has 23 active skills (instead of 15) and 5 rune changes for each skill.. the same thing that is really interesting / fun in TorchLight is going to be insane in D3. Can't wait.

Doing this from last night till this morning some how (didn't think it was possible) hyped me up even more for D3.

I've got a good idea. Let's all pretend that Diablo 3 is going to be a brand new game that never existed before. Let's pretend for just a second that no one has ever played the complete version. Now we--- oh, wait. I've just been informed that Diablo 3 IS a brand new game that never existed before and no one HAS ever played the complete version. Okay, um...

Alright, um. Okay, let's pretend that players can't "miss" features of a brand new game since a brand new game never had them. Let's pretend (just pretend, mind you) that a brand new game can't really be expected to have every feature that every gamer wants. Let's just PRETEND that if all brand new games were expected to cater to the needs of everyone, then every new game would be the same as every new game. So that means----- oh, no, I've been informed that all that was actually reality as well.


Look, people, Diablo 3 is an online game. I guess if you're not an online gamer, whatever reason may be fueling that, you won't be playing Diablo 3, because it's an online game. The game's architecture isn't so "box-o'-legos" that Blizzard can just slide in an offline mode. It's not like they have an on-off switch. "Okay, D3 team, looks like about 14% of the internet is angry. Better flip the offline mode back on." I daresay that implementing an offline mode would push this game back 3+ months. That's even optimistic. Because aside from rewriting the entire game engine... aside from rewriting the game so that all the important data that is kept server-side can be kept client-side... aside from rewriting their ENTIRE security system to account for the reality that everyone can possibly access every bit of information that they got from their client-side game... Now Blizzard has to atmospherically rework the game so that it accounts for the fact that now everyone is not necessarily part of the D3 world if they're playing D3.

I'm sorry. I understand that you hoped it wouldn't be an online game. But it is. It's a game you must get online to play. I know, I know, reality sucks. I guess a particular video game has been proven once and for all to NOT be an inalienable right of soldiers, people with crappy internet, and people on the go. I don't know about the rest of you, but MY whole world is crumbling in the face of that revelation.

Hardcore isn't for pussies, if you can't handle it, don't play it. HC duels = Loot duels. Anything less than that is unacceptable.


The last thing we need is Blizzard tainting the last piece of diablo we have just because some carebears wants some risk, but not too much risk.

When D2 was released over a decade ago, one of it's cutting edge features was the client-server online protection. At the time of release this was top-shelf security and it took quite some time before any real cracks appeared in it. However, with enough time and effort everything can be cracked and now we have to current botfest of D2.

Now they wish to make D3 as secure as possible at release. If to get a high level of security so that bots/hackers/dupers/asswipes don't ruin my gaming experience I don't care if they force you to breath into a tube to get the program started. If it can keep my playing experience fun for as long as possible I say do it.

Whats even more ironic/moronic is that I bet 90% of the people who played D2 did so online or at best played offline only when forced to. Lets get real, in todays broadbanded world will being connected to play really be a problem? The only time I'm not connected is during a power outage, which tends to cause a serious degrade in gaming experience by itself. Get real and find something realistic to bitch about...

I just love the way the new resource orbs look. They are highly detailed and aren't one solid color. In some videos you can see it swirling within the orb. My favorite is easily Arcane Power. It's simply pure awesome in energy form.

Spirit (Monk)


Fury (Barbarian)


Arcane Power (Wizard)


Mana (Witch Doctor)


Hatred & Discipline (Demon Hunter)


Compare to D1/D2 orbs:

Hi guys

Not sure if you guys have already seen this, but.. yeah

http://pc.ign.com/articles/118/1186681p1.html

IGN interviews Jay Wilson about the 5 classes.