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*i

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Everything posted by *i

  1. *i

    Direct Democracy

    Agreed. It's tough to measure the return on investment for many government expenditures. For example, one cannot easily evaluate the value of having a military deter an attack from an aggressive neighbor. The value of educating citizens is also difficult to calculate. We know that these are necessities for a modern society, but there's no good way to quantify how much they're worth. Often times we're left with looking at measures like gross domestic product (GDP). So long as a nation's GDP is growing faster than its debt in the long run measured by several years to a few decades, there really is no problem. The US incurred very large debts fighting the Second World War. These were never really paid off as the GPD grew rapidly over the next twenty years and rendered them insignificant.
  2. *i

    Direct Democracy

    National debt is not the same as the debt you or I would owe. Trying to equate the two is a fallacy. In large industrialized nations like the US, the debt is mostly owned by domestic interests and the actual value of assets owned by a country are unfathomable when you consider all mineral reserves, intellectual capital, etc. Nations incur debt by printing money, and this leads to inflation. How much depends on both the amount of debt and the economic conditions at the time. Some inflation is actually a good thing, as it encourages people to invest money or incur debt to buy homes, go to college, etc. because the value of the principal decreases with time. Taken too far, hyperinflation is certainly a very bad thing, but that rarely ever occurs in the modern era and almost invariable in places with large political instability. As for the current economic climate, the recession is in effect demand driven. In other words, we have a problem because money and the ability to make it is perceived to be scarce, and therefore people who would otherwise invest are holding on to it in safe investments like *drumroll* US treasury bonds, which have essentially a zero rate of return. In other words, the US has an effective national interest rate of zero. The interest rate would be negative if it could, but is limited by zero because you always have the option of holding on to cash. Therefore, until demand picks back up, there is literally no harm of the US printing (borrowing) money.
  3. *i

    Direct Democracy

    I used to believe in direct democracy when I was younger. Then I went to school and became a scientist/engineer and gained the appreciation for how much science and technology is involved in modern society. It took nearly a decade of training just to become expert enough to offer well informed policy advice in my area of expertise: nuclear technology for energy and defense. There's no way I can offer anything forming an intelligent opinion on issues of economics, biotechnology, medicine, climate change, etc. I'd be little better than the randomly chosen person off the street. The best I could do is trust in the scientific consensus, but it would hardly be my own opinion, and very tenuous on controversial and unresolved issues. In other words, much of the time, I'd be voting blind and most likely for suboptimal things out of ignorance. By unleashing the torrent of direct democracy, it would basically hand over control of policy to whoever has the ability to advertise the most effectively. Whoever can hire the best advertising firms and buy enough time and placement. There's no way we can have truly informed debates on complex issues, especially those involving science and technology, when the winner will go to whomever can come up with the pithiest slogan and plop down a bucket of cash to buy television slots, billboards, etc. See "clean natural gas" plastered everywhere? No coincidence that's been the main build in the US in the last decade. Truth is its not so clean (except when compared with coal), causes dozens of deaths from explosions each year, and enriches entrenched oil business interests. That's one of many examples. The current system is certainly subject to this as well, but it would only make the problem more acute. We all like to think of ourselves as free thinking minds in the enlightenment tradition, but even the best of us is subject to the lure of effective advertising campaigns. We're also quite busy and therefore time limited. Even if I didn't have to work and sleep there is no way I could learn enough to make informed decisions on every issue that I would need to vote on. I don't like it, but that's reality. As bad as the current system is, at least it allows (in theory) representatives to solicit the advice of experts to help in making informed decisions. Perhaps we can come up with a better meritocratic/technocratic system that allows people who know the most about their fields to guide the policy process while still having accountability to the governed. Either way, I don't think direct democracy will solve anything and may even do more harm than good.
  4. Rather than making it random, the +AP bonus could be staggered. For example, with one item you could get +1 AP every three turns, with two items +1 AP every other turn and +2 AP every fourth turn, etc. This way the bonus is predictable without being an effective constant battle frenzy.
  5. One can create the original idea for a meme, but cannot make it a meme by themselves. An idea becomes a meme when enough people within a community or culture spread it to the point where it continues to spread by its own inertia. In this case the meme is the boardroom suggestion comic template, and the meme is being spread into this community by an instance of it. If people here like it, they may use the same template to make new instances, perhaps spreading it to other corners of the web.
  6. The "Boardroom Suggestion" comic is indeed an internet meme. http://knowyourmeme....room-suggestion That said, I don't think Jeff is clueless about what a majority of his customers want, and the sales of his recent titles speak to that. Granted, we can all argue about things we like or dislike (I agree on the level cap in Avadon, btw), but this is a matter of opinion, not a matter of obvious business blunders or oversights, which is what the meme is going after. EDIT: One more nitpick. A meme is a broader idea that passes between cultures. The comic that was posted itself is not, strictly a meme. EDIT: See Slarty's comment below. Just beat me to it, and it's a better explanation.
  7. At least her return in Avernum 4 had been predictable. I think in many ways, it was too predictable. At least she didn't return in Avernum 5 or 6. She had cultist followers, but it was pretty clear she was dead.
  8. The market conditions certainly changed dramatically in the last few years. The rise of online distribution mechanisms such as Steam has simultaneously granted an unprecedented way to advertise while lowering the expectation of what the price per game should be. Thankfully, Jeff has been able to find a sweet spot and come out ahead. Also, I suspect the distribution costs are much lower. Things got easier and cheaper when you didn't have to do most of your business by mail as it was in the mid to late 1990s. Nowadays, other services like Steam handle all of that, and I there's a nice economy of scale there such that I speculate Jeff comes out ahead.
  9. True. Miranda may never be able to die, now that she is effectively part of the Corruption. So theoretically she could return. However, since the forces of the Corruption have made it clear they have no interest in dealing with the Pact, I'm hoping we don't see her again.
  10. I'm guessing the most likely candidate for Keeper is Callan, who is politically weak and beholden to Hanvar's Council. Redbeard will probably reappear--Jeff has invested too much in developing his character to just throw him away without fanfare. Dheless will almost certainly be back before the end of the series as a primary antagonist or even ally, but when and how depends on how many Avadon games Jeff plans to make and what roles the character is intended to play. Gryfyn is also almost certain to be back in the next game. Miranda, well, I hope she stays dead.
  11. This is the real old school kind of leveling: Don't see what's so confusing about it.
  12. So are you saying he should grow his company as an end to itself? That would imply that there is an inherent value in larger company versus a smaller one. I find this notion rather odd. If you want to increase your sales, and think that expanding will increase your profits, then expanding makes sense. If either is not true, he'd be doing it for the sake of doing it, and that makes neither personal nor business sense. Furthermore, there are risks with growing a company. You can hire a professional manager, but this person is expensive and a risk. I know someone who tried this and it bankrupted his company. His error was that he spent too much time out in the field trying to get investors, and not enough paying attention to the manager back home. By the time the mistake became apparent, it was too late to save the company. It's unlikely he'll ever be able to do it again because potential investors do not look too kindly at such a failure, and he's going to need millions to design and deploy his product. So I'm very skeptical you can ever just hire someone for doing something where you bear the ultimate responsibility. Jeff has a much lower capital hurdle than my fellow colleague, but I doubt Jeff could simply go back to writing games the way he did. If his company does end up bankrupt (a very real possibility), then he'd have to start over. This is not too bad for a single person in his 20's. When you're in your 40's and have a family, getting started from scratch is not easy at all.
  13. As others have pointed out, there's a risk of expanding. When you're appealing to a niche market, you really need to consider he capacity of the market you have. But I think you're missing one key point here is that Jeff seems to be happy with his life situation as it is. Bigger does not necessarily mean better. The amount of profit is not the only thing that matters. If Jeff grows his company, he'll have to spend more time managing people. I can't speak for Jeff in this regard, but based on some things he's said in the past I suspect if he had to be a full time manager, that would sap the enjoyment Jeff gets out of producing games. Sure, more money is nice, but if it comes at the expense of happiness and life fulfillment, did you really come out ahead? Point is everyone has different goals. Some people want to change the world and leave a legacy. That's fine; we need some people like that. Others want to raise a family and have an enjoyable job while doing it. That's perfectly okay too.
  14. *i

    Miscellaneous

    Miscellaneous is like Avernum. It's where we send misbehaving members, or simply ones that don't fit in. Once you get there, there's no escape. You literally can never post anywhere else on the internet again, ever. There's a rumor that a party of members did manage to do it once and are hiding out in dark corners of the web, but those are all lies crafted by terrorists in a pathetic attempt to delegitimize your ever faithful and benevolent board moderators.
  15. The options are all pretty obvious. Always take the most pro-rebel/Farlander response that you can, and never offend Dheless when given the opportunity.
  16. Have you done everything for Heart Protus? Take a look and see if you see any stars on the map. This tells you where you need to go next.
  17. Yes, I did simplify a bit because I didn't want to have a three-page long post detailing this and why they are comparatively minor. We can spend all day pointing out differences between the colonies, but my point remains that the US colonies themselves were quite culturally homogeneous (French and Spanish colonies were not part of the original US) sharing a fairly common ancestry and lacking any major bloody conflicts between them compared with those displayed in the Pact and, in the real world, many other attempted governmental unions throughout history. Picture trying to nit together Athenian Greece, Celtic Britannia, France during the Ancien Regime, Feudal Japan, and (insert culture most like the Kva) into a coherent central government.
  18. Alberich, I think you are missing the fact that cultural differences matter a lot. The 13 colonies were all culturally alike without major historical baggage all being British in descent. Massachusetts was not too unlike Pennsylvania, which was not terribly different than Georgia. No major conflicts had been fought between the states. The one major issue that the early US had to deal with was slavery, which was temporarily resolved by the 3/5th compromise allowing the federal government to achieve its initial legitimacy from the South, and ultimately by the US Civil War after that legitimacy had temporarily failed. Even today, the South is culturally dissimilar from the rest of the nation and there is still animosity about the Civil War and Reconstruction, but not inasmuch that there are widespread, serious questions about the legitimacy of Washington, DC. A better modern day example is the United Kingdom (UK) or even Canada, where you actually have major cultural fault lines. The various members of the UK have distinct cultures and fought bloody conflicts. Scotland is due to conduct a referendum for independence that actually has a credible chance of succeeding. In Canada you have Quebec, which has a distinct and ingrained French heritage, and also periodically holds similar referenda. For other modern examples, the USSR failed because the member states never really accepted the legitimacy of rule from Moscow. Never mind that Latvia and Kazakhstan have very distinct histories going back centuries. The EU appears to be succeeding because it is about economics and trade, and does not directly threaten the sovereignty of its members. I doubt the EU could hold together as a unified government because the cultures are too distinct (France, Germany, and Italy are vastly more different than New York, Michigan, and Oregon).
  19. Born out of defensive necessity generations ago, the Pact has serious legitimacy issues today, if it ever really had legitimacy among its members to begin with. The five member states are very distinct cultures, some of whom have a fairly entrenched and irreconcilable animosity toward another member over some grievance or another. Avadon, serving as enforcers of a police state, was its own necessity to keep the pact from tearing itself apart from within as much, if not more important than, protecting from existential threats from the Farlands. I fail to see, going forward, how the pact can be something more than the fairly loose NATO alliance in the real world, a pact of member states, many of whom share mutual dislike, but bonded together in response to aggression by (at the time) the Soviet Union. So my prediction is that if the Pact can be preserved, it will be solely a military and trade alliance with little, if any, power over the internal workings of each of the member states.
  20. While I have no in-game support for this, the way I saw Tinkermages is that they employ a different kind of magic than do sorcerers. It is not too dissimilar from the kind employed by the Shapers in Geneforge for crafting life, except that they can use magic abilities to summon mechanical constructs into existence or manipulate existing ones. The Tinkermage needs to have a working design for something, and more complex designs require greater focus on the part of the Tinkermage.
  21. Yeah, the D&D alignment system is pretty useless when you have morally complex characters with morally justifiable motivations for their actions. The Geneforge games, by design, make the sides of the battles morally ambiguous with both sides having their own good works and atrocities. Certainly, some individuals on each side can be judged on the good/evil axis based on if their motivations are predominantly self-serving or exist to support a greater cause, but that's about the limit. It's a lot easier in fantasy like LoTR -- from which D&D derives much intellectual material despite claims to the contrary by Gygax -- being a classic good/evil conflict where Sauron, et. al. are both evil in their motivations of dominance as well as their tactics.
  22. *i

    Fort Foresight

    Even large and seemingly well developed unexplorable areas. In Exile III you had the center of Erika's Tower and a whole Vahnatai-themed area in the Dragon Lair.
  23. *i

    Fort Foresight

    I misread then. Sorry, there is nothing that does that. As far as I can tell, it's a red herring.
  24. *i

    Fort Foresight

    Yes. There's a hidden switch in the room to the north.
  25. Right now probably a vacation and dealing with sales of Avadon 2. The next project has yet to be announced. If he continues with his current pattern, he'll remake Avernum 2. Then again, he may surprise and make Avadon 3, or something completely different, or even decide to retire. No point in speculating really.
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