@Morrow Anytime, it's what I do- I'm a psychologist, not the fake "I studied Freud once" ignorant type, the real scientist type. And I wouldn't say that you aren't weird, you're just human, and being weird is the norm for humanity. So you're perfectly weird in a normal way. I think looking down on others for only concerning themselves with physical attraction largely stems from one's own importance placed on personality traits and intelligence; everyone values and rates traits they're looking for differently so things you consider important can be completely overlooked by others in a way which may appear thoughtless or nonsensical when held up to your ratings.
@TruthTellah Intelligent analysis? Don't threaten me with a good time. I truncated that bit from my blurb but I'm glad you brought it up, I agree that going for optimal genetic traits for offspring as the basis for sexual attraction is optimized for a heterosexual model, but I think it's just as applicable to homosexual and paraphilic models as well, with one very important caveat: deviancy from a standard model i.e. differential selection is an important part of the evolutionary process in every successful species. While paraphilic and homosexual behaviors don't inherently seem to serve the success of the species they're merely specific products of the differential selection process which is incredibly important to survival of the species. That individuals within the species have and develop cognitive biases towards traits they find attractive in all sorts of variations serves to optimize genetic diversity within the species. The mechanisms behind homosexual and paraphilic sexual attraction are the same as those in heterosexual models, these individuals have however deviated cognitively from the heterosexual model in their attractions. Whether or not one can or will actually produce a viable offspring with an individual isn't even a part of the mechanics of sexual attraction, it's entirely driven by the recognition of those specific traits you value which produces the desire for sex and thus in the heterosexual model reproduction is merely the product; a product it's worth noting we completely prevent and remove from heterosexual relationships. You aren't any less sexually attracted to a woman who is on birth control and thus unable to perpetuate your genetics than a homosexual is to their counterpart or a paraphilic is to a stick of butter; assuming that's their thing.
Sexual attraction is a physiological process entirely occurring in the brain which has an effect on your genitals; not the other way around. Granted your genitals play a vital role in hormone production which then influences your mental processes, it's still an entirely mental process and as such largely influenced by one's cognitive biases. Attraction to non-human characters would have varying degrees of deviancy, obviously, but attraction to humanoid characters specifically styled after human traits which are attractive is hardly deviant. Sexual attraction at its base serves as a device by which we are attracted to genetic traits which are indicative of good genetics and thus want in our offspring; this isn't limited to only physical traits but also includes behaviors which are indicative of social, emotional, analytical intelligence etc. Naturally it serves that sexual attraction goes beyond just physical attraction. Even if the character is technically non-human it's displaying all of the markers of good genetics in humans, it only follows that one reacts to that.
The DA:O narrative was much grander in scale and characters had good narrative reasons for following you; they all had their own motivations and strong personalities. In DA2 they scaled down the scope with the premise of attempting to create a strong character piece, but instead failed miserably. I mean the game reveals how stupid and contrived it will be right out of the gate with the appearance of Flemeth just for fan service and deus ex, and that's really all there is to the game, it's just lazy and stupid in a way that people used to expect from amateur studios and fan projects; but lately big name studios have been pulling this kind of lazy, thoughtless approach left and right after they build any sort of brand loyalty. I think that's really the heart of what has gamers upset and acting out in all sorts of odd ways against Bioware and game developers in general lately. The backlash is going in all sorts of weird directions I don't necessarily agree with, but I think it's completely deserved.
My first time drinking I was with some buddies and ended up playing WoW, luckily WoW requires no skill anyway. When I drink, I usually drink hard liquor, often straight; I've never been a beer drinker. Unfortunately, I have a high prevalence towards blacking out (not unrelated to the fact that I drink hard liquor, sudden spikes in one's blood alcohol content can cause the hippocampus to stop performing its important duties, i.e. memory formation). In my earlier years of drinking these blackouts were fairly frequent and I would have to have to stories of what had occurred the night before retold to me, usually by my asshole friends with shit-eating grins on their faces. Luckily I've never gotten myself into any trouble while blacked out (not to say that I haven't been an absolute drunken ass on occasion, and had sloppy makeouts with all sorts of random women) and only ever had drunken sex which I can't remember with girlfriends and not random women. I retain most of my typing, texting, and gaming ability until I hit the rock bottom end of drunkenness where it all unsurprisingly falls to shit.
Am I among the minority that thought the writing of DA2 was crap? I didn't enjoy the story at all. Granted I never finished the game I got well past the TRAGIC TWIST. The characters were paper thin and their interactions with the main character felt so cheap and forced and I was totally uninterested in their personal stories. I'm all about dialog in RPGs but I hated talking to the characters in DA2 because I felt like a drunk chick at a bar past last call, characters were throwing themselves at me in desperation for no narrative reason; I was playing a male character too. The main plot had some promise, but in the end my dislike for the characters ruined it for me. Nevermind the reused assets and gameplay issues. Took all the compelling gameplay right out of the game and replaced it with boring action rpg elements, also those damn monster closet encounters that made it impossible to play the game with any tactics, because hordes of guys would zerg you down and ruin your positioning on any high difficulty, the only way to play it on hard or above was to cheese encounters and pull like it was an mmo. Awful.
I can't help but feel suspect when I see how much of this is passed off as the users' faults: claiming they fell for social engineering, really basic and transparent phishing methods like his example provided, and malware. I think its being vastly overplayed in a way that completely undermines what is important here; it isn't ever alright to blame your customers for being exposed to having their personal information and finances compromised through the services you as a company are responsible for and provided. It is your responsibility as the company to protect your customers from these threats, if customers are able to have their accounts and information compromised through using your services that represents a flaw in your services, not your customer's usage. This isn't complicated, Microsoft, you're a company act like a successful company: do not blame your customers, recognize that there is a problem in your system which is exposing your customers to risk and allowing attackers to exploit the system to an obviously high degree of success, change the system. Providing additional links and steps for some to take is not how you do it, either require those steps outright if that's your security solution, or increase security within your system some other way. There's an obvious right way into handle situations and it isn't by enforcing a combative relationship with your stakeholders when there's a problem.
I don't really get the assertion that there's some new style of TNT, to me it seems TNTs go in different directions entirely based on the games they pull out to play on them. You aren't going to get one singular experience when you swap to play different games every week, but that's the whole point as I understand it- to show off different multiplayer games and the communities that surround them, in a way you can't delve into in a quick look and is actually impactful. Yeah, it's about the giantbomb community but it's also about each game's community too and throwdown implies the competitive aspects, but I still think it's moreso just providing a glimpse of an expected multiplayer experience with each game, and to that end I think it does its job well and on top of it they manage to be entertaining. It's not about playing the same game or exact gametype every week. I think its great they are pretty diligent about showing different games and different multiplayer modes. What a lot of you people are seemingly asking for is literally just bad content, them rehashing the same games and the same genre every single week with the same members on the couch. What I'm saying is essentially that you're bored because you're boring.
Also Kessler is great, when he gets friendly ribs from the staff its one thing, but when community members attempt to jump in on the bandwagon like they're part of the joke but dripping with negativity it's just sad. It's like watching a rehashing of a legitimately funny comedic routine, except it's being rehashed by a self-serious, abusive alcoholic. He always brings energy to everything he's in and takes the abuse from the staff in stride and rolls with it.
My visceral reaction to this is abject horror, while the merging of the two services makes sense since Games for Windows Live never amounted to anything, I don't enjoy the prospect of having my computer look like a windows phone. I don't even want my phone to look like a windows phone; I've always been on the iPhone side of that competition. In terms of being able to control multiple windows on screen and performance this seems like a step back, I'd expect an option from day 1 so I can disable all that clutter from ever starting up, I don't want to have to load what I perceive as a performance-eating eyesore from start-up every time just to go back to my normal desktop and controls. Personally, less is more, especially in the PC world; give me a customizable work and game-space with as little restrictions and extra "features" I'm forced into (and forced to load).
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