clumber

To be honest, I LIKED the soapbox. When it was completely unmoderated. Was it ugly? Yes. Was there regular massive arguments and did discussions regularly descend into all-out flamewars? Yes. Where there also some very interesting and completely calm discussions in that section? Also yes. To be honest, I think the politics ban on this site is an utterly misguided attempt to make all of the members always happy all the time, and it is failing. The fact that this ban exists on a site which is political in its very nature is ridiculous. The Unmoderated Soapbox was a wonderful thing, as far as I'm concerned. Yes, the discussions got out of hand but...does it matter? The place had a warning saying it was unmoderated, so anybody who entered did so at their own risk, it didn't (or at least shouldn't have) taken up any of the moderators time and... to be honest... I think the forums are worse off for not having it.

Well, first... @Graeme: "As for politics ... the last decade?" Looking back at old political arguments (right back into the 1800s)... no, it isn't worse. I'd say if there has been any difference, then it is that the last couple of decades have been unusually calm in terms of political stuff. (This is from a UK perspective, I know but.... here at least it has been said there is not a single period of modern UK history that couldn't be represented with images of police horses wading into a rioting crowd.) I will also say I really, really miss the soapbox and think this current total ban on "political issues" is utterly misguided, especially since this is a political site. And now for the main point of my post... Predictions for Scotland: Bad shit goin' down. If the Independence vote fails, the nationalists will insist that no true scots would ever have voted against it, and start throwing around conspiracy theories about english vote-rigging. Considering how ridiculously fanatical a lot of them are, I see that turning very violent, very quickly. If Independence succeeds... well, for a start Im not sure how the country will manage economically. Most of the SNP's outlines of an Independent Scotland seem to be based on expectations which have been repeatedly and publically shown to be impossible. Scotland will not be an EU member, will not keep Pound Sterling, will not have the bloody BBC... Also, I suspect all the crazy nationalist racists will come crawling out of the woodwork, because Scotland is scary in its level of flag-waving, blue-faced William Wallace-y bollocks. (to quote Markus Brigstocke).

So, you admit that there is a massive gap between men and women, but you refuse to talk about it because...reasons? Women were only mentioned in passing as part of a list of examples of inequality in the writing industry. You threw a wobbler at this mention because you thought it didn't exist. Now you see that it does exist but it is irrelevent anyway? Why is it irrelevent? Because you say so? Because you took massive offense at a passing mention, felt the need to stamp down on it and were then informed of your mistakes? I find it interesting that you say it is irrelevent, but only after being told you were wrong. Clearly it wasn't a topic to ignore when you typed your first response, or you wouldn't have gone to the effort of writing an entire post simply to complain abut a single word. As it is, Persinette's post - which was about how a community shouldn't feel the need to send out the 'correct' image, especially when that image is defined by those who are opposed to the community - is completely on-topic. It fully applies to the queer community. She just also mentioned that it applies to other cultural minorities as well.

For the people who weren't here, what.... 6 years ago? 7? Something like that. Well, There was a member on GA called Kitty, remember her being pretty prominent. Drama happened (don't know all the details but certainly pretty dramatic) and she and another member broke away from GA to start their own writing forum called The Hub. This then kicked off a massive bloody flame-war between the two sites which left neither side looking particularly good and only sorta settled into an incredibly uncomfortable situation where mentioning the others existence was a banning offence on either site. That ended when The Hub itself collapsed due to its own special brand of drama. To be honest, I think the fact that it is still being mentioned is quite odd and including a reference to it in the scoring system like this looks.... pretty bitter. In my opinion, I think remove all references to real members and events because they are almost all heavily dated. The Kitty Incident was years ago, 'cheat so good' is (apparently) a reference to an exploit that doesn't exist and Domluka... well, he hasn't been around for years. I appreciate an in-joke as much as the next person but rankings are not a place for time-specific jokes. They become dated.

So you agree with me that, according to your own argument, real-world fiction is automatically less creative than fantasy fiction? Or is that calling your fiction uncreative, which makes it different? No, I meant roaming. Hence the legs. It's what it roams on.

But that would be like me saying that your Modern Real-world fiction is inherently less creative than, say, Sasha's fantasy because you are using a pre-existing world and as such are just not creating in the same way. And while maybe setting stories in the modern world is a way to learn, true writers create a fantastical setting. Which would be utter bollocks. Let's get something straight... creating worlds is not difficult. Creating characters is not difficult. Lets give it a go, shall we? There is a small island-kingdom. The population is tiny, the island is remote. While the world at large is fully aware of it, they pretty much ignore it and everything to do with it. The current king is old and bed-ridden. While he disagreed, his wife insisted that their eldest son be sent out into the wider world to travel and learn. Now, his wife long-dead and he himself feeling his life slip away, a message has been sent re-calling the Prince back to his home, to take on his responsibility as the soon-to-be-ruler. The Prince has almost entirely forgotten about his home. He is young, excitable and often in trouble. He has spent most of his life travelling from town to city to royal court, meeting great rulers and, occasionally, causing scandals with their close family members. Now, a letter from a home he barely remembers has arrived, forcing him to return back to the drab island he hoped to never see again. Shenanigans ensue. Or how about...say...a roaming city, mounted on a wild assortment of gigantic legs, slowly marching its way across a half-ruined landscape. The Upper-classes bicker and plot against eachother in the gleaming palaces of the high levels while, down in the machinery and engines, a mass of half-shacks and squalid shanty-houses nestle between the churning cogs. The individual neighbourhoods form tight-knit clans who often wage war on eachother for the right to control certain elements of machinery and earn the attached wages from those above. The Upper-classes don't care who they pay, only that the work gets done. Still, crime is at least relatively rare, if only because the Neighbourhood clans strongly enforce their own individual forms of mob justice. One woman has been working for many years as an enforcer for various Clans. Her talents are always in demand, and it is understood that people like her are loyal only to money. However, her most recent job is something different. An assassination contract on an Upper-class visitor. The money is good, but this will spell trouble for everyone, and the repercussions go beyond what anybody could imagine. There. That's two. Maybe...what? Ten minutes? Tops? Setting, character, plot. It's really, really easy to churn out stuff like this. The actual creative skill is in writing them, and just because a story is fanfic does not make that skill easier.

But you aren't actually presenting an argument here. In your opinion, fanfic isn't creative....because.... just because? That's it? There have been a lot of reasons in favour of the creativity of fanfic thrown at you, but you haven't responded to any of them. You just keep stating your opinion that it's uncreative. You don't actually present anything to back it up.

One place I remember being really nice as a starting ruler: Duke of Gwynedd, Wales. (Think its Gwynedd... basically, the ruler of the northern half of Wales). Gives you a reasonable-sized starting location, a few vassals to rule over but few enough that it's easy to remember who's who. Also, you start independent, which gives you quite a lot of freedom and although England is right next to you, you generally have quite a while before they even look in the direction of Wales. (If you start just after Hastings, then england will probably spend quite a while stuck in civil wars as the remaining saxon lords try to rebel against William the Conqueror. If you start just before Hastings then...well..I've seen England break up into 3-4 seperate Petty Kingdoms before now .) Also gives you a pretty nice goal to aim for... becoming King Of Wales.

Why don't you set Steam to offline mode? The ads / storefront doesn't load, updates don't download or any of that stuff - you just get the menu for launching games. Yeah, the DLC is basically opening up different types of noble for play. With the basic game you can play any of the Christian lords. Then, say, Sword of Islam opens up Muslim rulers for play, Old Gods opens up pagans ect ect. If you buy the DLC, then you probably want to start with Sunset Invasion turned off. It is an alternate history scenario where the Aztecs hit on trans-atlantic colonialism first... Basically, at some point in the mid-to-late game a massive invading Aztec army rolls up on the atlantic shore and proceeds to cut everyone hearts out.

Yeah, one of the DLCs for CK2 is the Save Converter. Basically, you play to the end of the CK2 timeline, run your savegame through the converter and pick it up where you left off in EU4. Apparently they put a lot of effort into making sure that things transfer over really well, including a bunch of stuff for a Re-formed Roman Empire or an Order of Norse Pagan Knights CK2 is also just ridiculously fun. You will feel like a terrible person by the end of any game because...well, you will have been a terrible person by the end of any game. ...And even if you make all of your decisions completely ehtically sound, you can guarantee your Heir is currently plotting something demented. I once had a Welsh Duchy go through 3 generations of rulers within about 4 or 5 years. It all started when the first guy decided to bone his Daughter-In-Law... and sorta went downhill from there.

I noticed 4 is out, will probably pick it up when I have the cash. (By which point Steam will have probably decided to stick a big sale sticker on it for a day or something ) I think the stuff they did for linking up up with Crusader Kings 2 is pretty cool. A bunch of the hidden countries which have their own traits and things but which are only available if you manage to have them exist in a CK2 Save which you then transfer over. (The Roman Empire is really bloody hard to create.... but if you do, then its apparently ridiculously powerful in EU4 as a reward for having created it. )

And if the author is aware that this beta reader considers the story inherently low-quality due to its nature as fanfic, then I guess that is the authors choice.... but that beta reader still isn't really suitable. It's the same as someone asking me to beta their Hard Military Sci-Fi.... I don't like that genre, it bores me and many of the genre tropes and tendencies are things I personally associate with bad writing. (Within the genre they are probably perfectly fine, or even desireable... but thats the point. If I don't like the genre I don't see that.) Could I beta that story? Yes. Should I? Sod, no. My ability to beta it well would be severely impaired by my own biases and would prevent me from giving suitable feedback.

EU3.... Like, Europa Universalis 3? Cos I burnt a ridiculous amount of time in that game for a while at one point. I've now moved onto Crusader Kings 2, though. Apparently marrying a 16YO son to his 33 YO Aunt is considered a 'bad thing'.

I agree with pretty much all of this. Also, yeah, if somebody doesn't like fanfic, they really shouldn't Beta for it. That's just going to result in either no feedback or bad feedback and is utterly unfair on the author.

Is it possible to swear cancer out of your body?