Testing Chat IV: A New Hope

[Stofsk]

So just as a joke, I've been considering making a "Star Wars vs Star Trek: MMO Edition" pitting TOR against STO.

But I don't know if that's considered trolling or not.

Just do something like a general SW games vs. ST games with multiple catagories

FPS: Elite Force I and II vs. Republic Commando and Battlefront (SW wins due to more games of higher quality)

Haven't played many of those games. But I think SW would win by default simply due to having more games.

Strategy: Armada I and II, Starfleet Command, Bridge Commander, and lots of others vs. Rebellion, Galactic Battlegrounds, and Empire at War (ST wins because Galactic Battlegrounds drags down the SW quality average)

Starfleet Command and Bridge Commander falls under strategy? Why wouldn't it fall under simulators?

Birth of the Federation though is better than Rebellion. Rebellion has some really terrible game design problems. While Birth of the Federation comes across a little like a MoO sequel it still succeeded at what it was trying to do.

Never played the other entries for SW. I didn't like Armada though.

Flight Sims: X-wing series, Rogue Squadron series, and Starfighter series Vs. Um, Star Trek Invasion? (SW wins hardcore)

I'd put Starfleet Command here, and Bridge Commander, and also the Academy games even though I never played them.

I don't know who'd win, but I'd enjoy playing all the entries.

RPGs: Kotor I and II vs. ok I don't think ST has any RPG games (SW wins by default)

It had adventure games though, which is kinda sorta equivalent. A Final Unity and the old TOS games would be competitive with KotOR 1 and 2. Especially how 1 sucks and 2 is awesome. A Final Unity in particular comes across like an extended episode of the series. One of these days that game is gonna go on sale on GoG and I will be happy.

MMOs: Star Trek Online vs. TOR and Galaxies (Close, but ST might win due to post-NGE galaxies being a festering pile of rancor shit)

I'd say STO wins because it does the free-to-play thing a lot better than what I understand TOR does. STO also has fun space combat, some great storytelling, and ok ground combat.

I'd like to play TOR at some point, but I'm not really there yet. A lot of the things I heard about TOR really rubbed me the wrong way. STO seems like a game that's growing, which is not the impression I get from TOR.

[evilsoup]

the star trek generations game was pretty good
I may only think that because it was the first computer game I played (or one of the first anyway)

[Veef]

Starfleet Academy for the SNES was the shit! Super FX chip enhanced 3d graphics!

[Crazedwraith]

I have been playing starfleet command recently. and by playing i mean setting the skirmish mode to give me stupidly easy fights.

i seem to recall never really getting the hand of the story mode of the campaign, when you join the special taskforce.

[Flagg]

I loved playing as the Borg in armada II. Especially since you could build the hyper cube.

[Straha]

Do any of these Star Trek games simulate Riker sitting down? Because I would play that for days.


http://youtube.com/watch?v=lVIGhYMwRgs

[Losonti Tokash]

sometimes i wonder if i'm absolutely insane for bothering to talk about really simple social justice concepts

[Flagg]

sometimes i wonder if i'm absolutely insane for bothering to talk about really simple social justice concepts

You are.

[evilsoup]

no you're not

[Aaron]

sometimes i wonder if i'm absolutely insane for bothering to talk about really simple social justice concepts

Depends where you do it.

[Infinity Biscuit]

sometimes i wonder if i'm absolutely insane for bothering to talk about really simple social justice concepts

The fact that Flagg says you should stop should show that it's a good thing to do

In more seriousness, I get disheartened trying to do that sort of thing a lot and what brings me back each time is seeing people I respect like you keeping it up.

[Veef]

Do any of these Star Trek games simulate Riker sitting down? Because I would play that for days.

mounting the steed that is the enterprise with every sit.

[Straha]

sometimes i wonder if i'm absolutely insane for bothering to talk about really simple social justice concepts

You have to. The only way to change the world is to start a discourse and make people think/internalize these concepts. It's frustrating and hard, but c'est la vie.

Brave heart, Los.

[Flagg]

Brave heart got gutted, beheaded, and split into four pieces.

[Straha]

It was a Doctor Who reference. About Tegan. Who ends up being possessed by a snake being who warps her mind and gives her PTSD and eventually leaves the show after witnessing multiple massacres and just not being able to take it anymore.

[Flagg]

It was a Doctor Who reference. About Tegan. Who ends up being possessed by a snake being who warps her mind and gives her PTSD and eventually leaves the show after witnessing multiple massacres and just not being able to take it anymore.

So Tegan was emotionally gutted, beheaded, and cut into 4 pieces?

[Glass Fort MacLeod]

sometimes i wonder if i'm absolutely insane for bothering to talk about really simple social justice concepts

Its hard to expect any change from people, especially people who have held to a certain set of beliefs for a long time. People don't like uncertainty, and asking them to change or challenge their beliefs (or simply their perceptions) always generates uncertainty. Thats why absolutes are always so comforting (like in religion) because they're simple, straightforward, and offer a great deal of certainty even if they are wrong.

It can be frustrating to know something you wish to convey to others so they understand the way you do, and not have them understand that (because they aren't prepared for it, they don't wish to understand, or they refuse to accept the truth of what you say) but you really can only persuade someone through talking about things and presenting that opposite view, and hope that some people will eventually get the idea (sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.) All I can say is I didn't change/relax my viewpoints without being repeatedly exposed to different people's attitudes/perceptions.

[The Spartan]

Do any of these Star Trek games simulate Riker sitting down? Because I would play that for days.

*video snip*

HOLY SHIT! I did that exact move in a school play when I was (I think) 10!

[magic princess]

I think that plants are as capable of feeling and communicating as most animals, and making yourself a vegan is to preferentially choose less anthropomorphic victims of your need to consume as an animal for essentially emotional rather than ethical reasons, and that sustainable and spiritually respectful consumption of all things according to the best interest of your environment (there are lands and ecoregions only suited to grazing of food animals, for instance), is far more ethically important than any kind of ideology which can be constructed around the idea that plants don't have responses to injuries and pheremonal communication with an enormous level of complexity, which they do, and also are actually at the cellular level more complex than animals, which they are. In short I think that Straha's veganism is, even if subconsciously, part of an animal supremacist ideology, rather than one that is universally respectful, which would be the way that indigenous and traditional cultures incorporate respect and honour for their food in the consumption cycle.

[Zod]

Don't the Jains specifically make it a point to avoid plucking up plants that are still alive for just that reason? (Also, paragraphs! Paragraphs!)

[RogueIce]

FPS: Elite Force I and II vs. Republic Commando and Battlefront (SW wins due to more games of higher quality)

What, no Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight?

Also I've never played any of those. Well maybe Battlefront a little bit, but it wasn't very fun to me.

Strategy: Armada I and II, Starfleet Command, Bridge Commander, and lots of others vs. Rebellion, Galactic Battlegrounds, and Empire at War (ST wins because Galactic Battlegrounds drags down the SW quality average)

Rebellion is awesome. EaW was kinda meh but the potential was there. If only I could merge the two...

Never played the others.

Rebellion has some really terrible game design problems.

Do not speak badly of Rebellion!

Well okay I'll admit it has plenty of shortcomings in the UI department and the tactical battles aren't very tactical. But it's still really fun in that simplistic play-it-like-Civilizations kind of way. There is quite a bit of strategy to it. Which doesn't matter too much because lol AI, but against a hew-mon...

MMOs: Star Trek Online vs. TOR and Galaxies (Close, but ST might win due to post-NGE galaxies being a festering pile of rancor shit)

I'd say STO wins because it does the free-to-play thing a lot better than what I understand TOR does. STO also has fun space combat, some great storytelling, and ok ground combat.

I'd like to play TOR at some point, but I'm not really there yet. A lot of the things I heard about TOR really rubbed me the wrong way. STO seems like a game that's growing, which is not the impression I get from TOR.

TOR has some decent story behind it, not great but serviceable. A Light Side Sith Warrior is a pretty awesome character though. More replayability than STO because each character has a unique story, unlike STO where one FED/KDF is the same as any other (we'll see how the Rommies go, and the new KDF story that's also coming out with them...and supposedly a revamped Feddie storyline as well, eventually; this one could easily change to favor STO more). But it gets bogged down by combat that's not terribly exciting and a really terrible F2P model. So STO wins this one handily, I think.

[Straha]

I think that plants are as capable of feeling and communicating as most animals, and making yourself a vegan is to preferentially choose less anthropomorphic victims of your need to consume as an animal for essentially emotional rather than ethical reasons, and that sustainable and spiritually respectful consumption of all things according to the best interest of your environment (there are lands and ecoregions only suited to grazing of food animals, for instance), is far more ethically important than any kind of ideology which can be constructed around the idea that plants don't have responses to injuries and pheremonal communication with an enormous level of complexity, which they do, and also are actually at the cellular level more complex than animals, which they are. In short I think that Straha's veganism is, even if subconsciously, part of an animal supremacist ideology, rather than one that is universally respectful, which would be the way that indigenous and traditional cultures incorporate respect and honour for their food in the consumption cycle.

Oh no, I have been slain! Truly every Vegan lives in terrible fear of this argument, for it is both the most novel and well thought out explanation I have ever heard! A masterpiece, in every sense. Excuse me, I must abscond to the nearest steakhouse.

Sarcasm aside, there are a number of points to be had:
1. I've always advocated for a Jainist approach to consumption, one which seeks to avoid all killing even of plants, as pointed out above.
2. By only consuming plants I am avoiding the support given to the consumption of plants as feed for animals, which accounts for the most massive plant slaughter in the country. On a purely utilitarian basis I'm doing everything I can to reduce plant consumption as much as possible.
3. Independently even if you're right (and, you're not) why is this a reason for me to eat the flesh of animals? There's no offense against my position, and if anything you either advocate a Jainist identity or starvation. Both of which are positions I'm comfortable with intellectually. (This is especially true in context of point 2.)
4. Serious question: You trolling now? Because I'm glad to have this conversation at a limited length regardless, but if you're actually serious about this I have opinions to share about Plant Studies and everything that goes with it.

[evilsoup]

please assume she isn't trolling. I'd like to hear your opinions about plants

[Bakustra]

either way there's going to be trolling in this thread by the time i'm through

i eat the flesh of animals because i'm in intensive supervillain training and it helps me not only with expressing contempt for the sanctity of life and kryptongeoisie morals, but also provides lots of protein for acquiring a muscular-but-not-statuesque figure

[Zod]

I think that plants are as capable of feeling and communicating as most animals, and making yourself a vegan is to preferentially choose less anthropomorphic victims of your need to consume as an animal for essentially emotional rather than ethical reasons, and that sustainable and spiritually respectful consumption of all things according to the best interest of your environment (there are lands and ecoregions only suited to grazing of food animals, for instance), is far more ethically important than any kind of ideology which can be constructed around the idea that plants don't have responses to injuries and pheremonal communication with an enormous level of complexity, which they do, and also are actually at the cellular level more complex than animals, which they are. In short I think that Straha's veganism is, even if subconsciously, part of an animal supremacist ideology, rather than one that is universally respectful, which would be the way that indigenous and traditional cultures incorporate respect and honour for their food in the consumption cycle.

Oh no, I have been slain! Truly every Vegan lives in terrible fear of this argument, for it is both the most novel and well thought out explanation I have ever heard! A masterpiece, in every sense. Excuse me, I must abscond to the nearest steakhouse.

Sarcasm aside, there are a number of points to be had:
1. I've always advocated for a Jainist approach to consumption, one which seeks to avoid all killing even of plants, as pointed out above.
2. By only consuming plants I am avoiding the support given to the consumption of plants as feed for animals, which accounts for the most massive plant slaughter in the country. On a purely utilitarian basis I'm doing everything I can to reduce plant consumption as much as possible.
3. Independently even if you're right (and, you're not) why is this a reason for me to eat the flesh of animals? There's no offense against my position, and if anything you either advocate a Jainist identity or starvation. Both of which are positions I'm comfortable with intellectually. (This is especially true in context of point 2.)
4. Serious question: You trolling now? Because I'm glad to have this conversation at a limited length regardless, but if you're actually serious about this I have opinions to share about Plant Studies and everything that goes with it.

So what you're saying is you really don't have a problem killing things for survival as long as it's done in ways that don't make you uncomfortable.