Alorael at Large

I have long been a Septuagenarian/54 year old Korean-Eskimo businessman and pedestrian-sniper who swills skribbane. It's only recently, however, that I've also become a doctor. I'll be around and posting (invisibly) until I collapse under the weight of the memes. —Alorael, who could probably cram a few more memes and in-jokes in there.

Title: Sidequests —Alorael, who's still favorably inclined towards your doodling.

The endings all fit the Geneforge world. Nobody comes away completely happy, and the winners either have internal conflicts or are so repugnant that you should probably feel pretty conflicted about working with them. —Alorael, who felt satisfied with the Astoria ending. You're working with a Shaper for the good of the shaped. The immediate aftermath to the game is better than the present, and there's at least hope that things can still improve. Or at least room for another game or two!

That's the traditional response to a goodbye topic. I've only had one before, I believe at 10,000 posts, and it was a joke when I posted it. —Alorael, who was seen tomorrow. And the next day, and the next day, and the next day...

I actually am going into psychiatry, but probably not with a focus on gaming. I am happy to field general medical questions, but specifics should probably go to your doctor. —Alorael, who initially stuck with a daily name change. He's been lax about that for a year or two now, but he still has a new name more days than not.

And what do you think I'm going to be doing in the dead of night when the crisis has passed and I'm hopped up on eighteen cups of coffee? —Alorael, who has no intention of going anywhere. He just might have to adjust his gaming and posting to follow the call schedule a little more closely. He also has the slight advantage that he's losing over 2 hours of daily commuting time. Resident hours are long, but an extra 15 or so hours freed per week actually makes a big difference.

I think historical guilt and complicity and all that just muddies the water. At this point it doesn't matter whose ancestors did what. I think it's equally ludicrous to say Americans are collectively guilty of war crimes because of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Leaving beside the question of defining war crimes, many Americans argued against the wars, voted so as best to not engage or continue the wars, and demonstrated against the wars. Yes, they paid taxes, too, but not paying taxes is not a reasonable choice. It's not an effective way to bargain and the personal cost is high. In any case, let's take an example: reparations for slavery. I think even the name is a red herring that gets everyone tangled up in history. Is recompense owed for the crimes over a century ago? That's a knotty issue, but also irrelevant, because we can also look at the need for repair for harms done on an ongoing basis, societally and systematically. Amelioration of segregated housing, reparations for racist policing, we have all kinds of active issues that require redress. Once we're on an even current footing we can examine making right the wrongs of the past. —Alorael, whose family was mostly being oppressed elsewhere while blacks were being oppressed as slaves. He still has an advantage right at this very moment because his ancestors came from Eastern Europe and not Africa. That is the problem.

I've been on Spiderweb for over 13 years. That's longer than I've known anyone but my family and one friend. When I first posted I'd lived in one town my whole life. Since then I've lived in eight towns and cities in three states. I've graduated for the first time, and then a few more times. I've gotten my first job and my first pink slip. I've pleaded guilty in court and I've provided testimony. I've seen death up close and, in a completely unrelated turn of events, I've gotten married. Most recently, I've taken my first steps towards the goal of letters after my name and gotten my M.D. Residency follows, and maybe a few more letters eventually! —Alorael, who gives up his cloak of secrecy on repeated urging from the aforementioned spouse. Also maybe as a required professional disclosure. He's not entirely clear on the legal issues.

I'm on a quest to maximize the number of letters I can put after my name. —Alorael, who has hit something of a roadblock. Anyone have an in with Queen Elizabeth?

There is a difference between Chiefs, Braves, Indians, whatevers and Redksins. Only one of those is actually explicitly a racial slur. If the Redskins became the Piscataways, with the permission of the Piscataway Nation it would be a nod to local Native culture. It would not raise hackles. Too difficult to coordinate? No currently extant tribe claims the name Chesapeake/Chesepian, meaning no negotiation, and the bay by that name is locally prominent even without a history lesson. —Alorael, who can't imagine anyone even trying to use other major ethnic pejoratives as a name for something. Somehow this one gets a historic pass? It's ridiculous.

Intent and alternatives matter. The problem with the Redskins as a name is not only that it's perceived as offensive by some. Not everyone, obviously, and I have no idea of the breakdown by numbers, but some. The problem is that it's easy for a team to have a name that isn't offensive to anybody. The offense, whether or not it is intended or justifiable or historical or whatever, exists, and it could be stopped. Yes, there are some costs to changing a team name, but in a vacuum it's quite clear that choosing Redskins as a name, if it were done now, would be a terrible idea. —Alorael, who thinks a similar quick litmus test works on a lot of things. Could what you are saying offend? Could you say it in a way that does not without losing the meaning you intend to convey? If the answers are yes and yes, you really ought to.

If you still enjoy the Exile series, by all means continue to play Exile! No one's taking that away from you. In fact, it's now available for free to anyone who can get it to run. It's also disingenuous to talk about the remakes being graphical updates. That's certainly part, but there are huge mechanics changes too. You don't like them and think they're moving towards simplicity. You don't have to like them to acknowledge that they may be to someone else's tastes. I prefer Avernum to Exile and have since its release. I still prefer Avernum's stat system, honestly, but the Avernum remakes have better combat. —Alorael, who also notes that you praise the writing and worldbuilding. Well, that quite literally hasn't changed in the remakes, for the most part, and new Spiderweb games still run more on the strength of Jeff's writing than on anything else. The more things change, the more they stay the same?

And that's of interest because African immigrants and descendants of slaves have markedly different sociological trajectories. The former mostly follow the generally expected immigrant curve, with increasing assimilation and upward social mobility over generations, while the latter do not. Skin color and racism are certainly part of the story, but they're not the whole story. Africans often come from a background of dealing with the vestiges of colonialism, but they didn't live through the crushing legacy of America's centuries of slavery and intensely racist policy. —Alorael, who agrees that a major part of America's history can be seen not as a lessening of discrimination, exactly, so much as an expansion of the white in-group. Yes, German and Irish and Jewish immigrants only became white after discrimination had died down a lot, but still, it says something sad that acceptance has been so tied to being subsumed into racial hegemony.

Apple believes in dragging customers kicking and screaming into their bold future. It's paid off for them. Microsoft believes in making sure customers aren't forced into giving up anything. It's also paid off for them. —Alorael, who sees both as valid corporate strategies. And both of them have costs. Apple loses people who want off the treadmill. Microsoft loses people who don't want to deal with all the quirks of archaic stuff hanging around forever. And the stereotypes of Apple-loving hipster vs. corporate Windows drone derive in part from just these differences.

April 16 was a big day! —Alorael, who suspects that a botnet or similar massive, mindless internet phenomenon came through. Either that or Jeff got some massive publicity somewhere.

Only speculative ones, but Jeff says sales are low on iOS. Getting A2 to work might be a lot of work for those few sales. One possibility is that he's just avoiding the sunk cost fallacy. Better to write off the work done than to spend more time with poor earnings. His work time is precious. The other possibility is that Apple has been so frustrating that this is a rage quit. —Alorael, who suspects the true reason is a bit of both. It's only questionably worth fixing and Ape is really unsellng the idea.

Shadowrun: Dragonfall is actually a great game. I wouldn't say it has huge tactical depth, but it has some, and it has a solid plot and good characters. I played through it (on a bigger screen, with a keyboard) just last week and enjoyed it thoroughly. Its predecessor, Dead Man's Switch, is okay. I wasn't impressed, but I enjoyed it. I'm a Shadowrun fan, though, which helped. Both are not quite like Spiderweb games; they're much more linear, for one thing. They're turn-based, but they use XCOM-style cover-based squad shooting. Their selling point, particularly for Dragonfall, is getting through missions based on the skills and attributes you have. Use hackers to get stuff via computers. Take Charisma and talk your way around problems. Other skills have their moments too. There are also a ton of old JRPGs, particularly Squaresoft ones, on iOS. They aren't Spiderweb-like, but I do hold a special place for them in my heart. —Alorael, whose final recommendation is even further afield. King of Dragon Pass isn't an RPG, really. It doesn't fit neatly into genres. It's somewhere between RPG where you play a tribe instead of a party and a 4X game where you have no units, the map is of minimal importance, and you're mostly building up your side and dealing with random events. With roguelike elements? It's an amazing game in a rich, unique world. It's the only one he's ever purchased for iOS and it's the only game he's taken out his iPhone to play with other devices available.

Premium games are no longer cash cows. The cost is, well, premium. They don't always recoup that. In fact, they often don't recoup that. Microtransactions and adds are apparently the way to rake in money hand over fist, and if you launch something that flops it probably doesn't matter. Make another thing! They're cheap! But we said the same thing for TV when reality TV exploded. As best I can tell TV is no longer reliably on actual televisions but serial shows have undergone a renaissance and we've now got shows that are really, really good. My prediction: the life of the big game will be straitened. There will be fewer. But maybe they'll be better. If each one really has to be good to succeed, then there'll be people making good games and nothing else. And more companies will be honing in on niches. Jeff's been living in his for a solid twenty years. There may not forever be the money for the AAA game release (although GTA V argues otherwise), but the Kickstarter successes like Shadowrun, Wasteland 2, and Pillars of Eternity (and, hopefully, Torment) will show that even relatively low budgets can find what people want, make it, and make money off of it. —Alorael, who would imagine the same is true for iOS. If Apple made the marketplace less user-unfriendly no doubt it would still be full of trash but there would be gems in there for the people who were looking. Where Apple's going wrong is making just existing on the platform difficult and expensive. Big budget games aren't going to fit on an iPad; Spiderweb's actually perfect for it, but if Apple just techs and prices the Spiderwebs off the platform then there's nothing but smaller, casual games. Which is all fun and nice, but some people want something else. Like everyone posting here, for instance.

Premium games are no longer cash cows. The cost is, well, premium. They don't always recoup that. In fact, they often don't recoup that. Microtransactions and adds are apparently the way to rake in money hand over fist, and if you launch something that flops it probably doesn't matter. Make another thing! They're cheap! But we said the same thing for TV when reality TV exploded. As best I can tell TV is no longer reliably on actual televisions but serial shows have undergone a renaissance and we've now got shows that are really, really good. My prediction: the life of the big game will be straitened. There will be fewer. But maybe they'll be better. If each one really has to be good to succeed, then there'll be people making good games and nothing else. And more companies will be honing in on niches. Jeff's been living in his for a solid twenty years. There may not forever be the money for the AAA game release (although GTA V argues otherwise), but the Kickstarter successes like Shadowrun, Wasteland 2, and Pillars of Eternity (and, hopefully, Torment) will show that even relatively low budgets can find what people want, make it, and make money off of it. —Alorael, who would imagine the same is true for iOS. If Apple made the marketplace less user-unfriendly no doubt it would still be full of trash but there would be gems in there for the people who were looking. Where Apple's going wrong is making just existing on the platform difficult and expensive. Big budget games aren't going to fit on an iPad; Spiderweb's actually perfect for it, but if Apple just techs and prices the Spiderwebs off the platform then there's nothing but smaller, casual games. Which is all fun and nice, but some people want something else. Like everyone posting here, for instance.

I laugh every time I read this thread. —Alorael, who hopes you do too.

—Alorael, who actually had to put some work into finding that image. Turns out it was on TVTropes. There goes his evening.

I reject this game on the grounds that any situation in which I do not have my sniper rifle is obviously too far-fetched to be worth considering. —Alorael, who can only assume he had it and therefore had no reason to hang out around the cornucopia.

Which is why a diagnosis of ADHD requires dysfunction in more than one setting. School alone doesn't count! But what also happens quite often is that kids pay no attention, get angry and act out. ADHD, right? But those are also symptoms of depression in kids. —Alorael, who again sees this as an area where the "fuzziness" of diagnostic criteria and the lack of hard lab values makes it more important for someone with time and training to do the diagnosis, not less. Everyone has symptoms of all kinds of mental illness. Most people aren't actually ill, but sometimes the distinction between disease and symptom gets lost.

Most prescribers of psychopharmacological medications are not psychiatrists. They're overwhelmingly primary care doctors, and they have very varied background in psych, from rock-solid training to basically no training at all, and very short visits with which to make a diagnosis and prescribe treatment. As you might imagine, the results therefore are also quite varied. And this article, too. The "not otherwise specified"/"unspecified" categories in the DSM are related to the problem, but they aren't the problem. Those categories exist for a reason, but they're an easy lazy shortcut for "I think there's a problem but can't be bothered to do a proper diagnostic workup. I'll just pick the category that kind of feels most applicable, stick NOS on the end, and write the prescription." That seems kind of reasonable; after all, the DSM is full of subjective assessment rather than hard number cutoffs used for a lot of medical diagnosis. But there's also some evidence behind a lot of the DSM, and "just eyeballing it" does not lead to good outcomes. —Alorael, whose opinion is that antipsychotics and antidepressants are simultaneously underused in those who have the illnesses for which they are intended and who would benefit most and widely overprescribed for either the wrong problems or for normal life. Which is also how he feels about medications for ADHD, incidentally.

In the re-re-remake, the caverns in which the Kingdom of Avernum is established will be referred to as The Clickhole. —Alorael, who can't wait to face 227 clickrachs.