@lukeweizer: The TvTropes page on Shadow of Mordor Uruks mentions Uruk medicine is very effective, but very painful. They can be brought back from near-death, but they're likely to be very pissed about it.
Our expectations of what everyone should know is probably getting a bit high. I've noticed a couple exasperated comments about what Dan doesn't know where I realized I didn't know that either. Eventually everyone here will be as ignorant as Dan about something "obvious".
I've read a few reviews about it, haven't played it myself yet. They say it's an interesting albeit flawed take on 4X; sounds like it's worth checking out, at least.
There can be power progression without making it a hardcoded barrier to entry. For instance, I just got enough Skill Points to start flying Interceptors in EVE; that's power progression. But there's nothing in EVE that states I can't enter Location X until I can fly Interceptors.
To me the "RPG" part of "MMORPG" is just as important as the "MMO" part, if not moreso, so taking out the level and gear progression removes a significant amount of appeal for me. I see where you're coming from, but I don't think that could be a universal solution. At least not without alientating people like me.
Honestly, if people want to talk about corruption or voices being silenced where were the mobs when Jeff got fired? Where were the gamers when an actual problem was occurring? That was a time when this outrage would have been justified. But certainly not now.
I ask the same questions, and I think that's why Giantbomb has kept so silent on the matter. They've put in plenty of discussion on ethics and games journalism in the past (see their 50-min discussion of it on the podcast, or the frank discussion Jeff had post-GiantBomb buyout about why he was fired from Gamespot) when there was blatant corruption, like firing reviewers for giving bad scores or rewarding journalists for retweeting favorably about products. I think they're downright irritated the "corruption scandal" that blew up has its roots in games journalists defending a female developer against a smear campaign.
It'd be like if you spent years talking about police corruption, officers getting fired for whistleblowing while others abuse their power, trying to educate people about that, then you learn the one thing that gets people really riled up is accusations that a female officer slept her way to the top. And that the public's way of dealing with that is to harass the policemen that actually give a damn about that stuff until they leave the force.
I can see them screaming, "You're going after the wrong targets!" and silently thinking the corruption accusations are just cover for a nastier agenda. After all, if people really cared this much about corruption, where was the outrage against the other, nastier corruption accusations earlier?
Don't forget Dan Ryckert's part in this: he provides plenty of opinions for Jeff to react to. His exuberant opinions act as the perfect foil to Jeff's snark, and I don't know anyone that can incite Jeff better than Dan.
@brodehouse: Good point, but I was talking more about external groups more interested in advancing their own agendas through the crisis instead of resolving said crisis. Simply arresting the officer, or even punishing the police force, might not be enough for them.
Can't say I disagree with that sentiment though. The shooting of Michael Brown and subsequent transformation of Ferguson into a police state are just symptoms.
Perhaps, but if outsiders insist on keeping the protests going in Ferguson after the residents want things to calm down, then something's gone horribly wrong. They could at least move it to a different site in St. Louis and let them clean up the mess.
@brodehouse: Good point, but I was talking more about external groups more interested in advancing their own agendas through the crisis instead of resolving said crisis. Simply arresting the officer, or even punishing the police force, might not be enough for them.
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