Zasplach
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Posts posted by Zasplach
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7 hours ago, Jedi said:
I wasn't aware this was a Serious Discussion thread that required applied philosophy.
Sorry, I wasn't attempting to be flippant, I guess I was just saying let most anyone think what they're going to think. You have the right to feel however you like about his opinions.
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1 minute ago, Jedi said:
It's not an actual opinion without experience. Therefore it doesn't count.
I mean, I've never played college football, but I can have an opinion on who's good and bad, the legitimacy of the opinion may be lessened, but it's still a valid one. Observation of a phenomenon is how many humans come to an opinion; action isn't necessarily required.
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4 minutes ago, Jave said:
But it does sadden me to see so many people voting F on the 3DS games. To me an F is a game with no redeeming qualities, and I don't think any FE game deserves to be called that.
It's the difficulty with a subjective rating system, what one person means when they rate 'F' and what another person means can be completely different. I didn't give any 'F's, but I do think I gave Revelations a 'D' because I don't think I'll play again just due to the sheer number of eye-rolls during my play-through of the game.
And to be frank @Jedi, let @Levant Mir Celestia have his opinions on Fe4's maps. It's not like there is any great subtlety to their design, I wouldn't call them a flaw, rather a design decision, but it's pretty obvious what they are. The maps are huge and there is quiet a bit of empty space, anyone can see that and have a reaction to it. My opinion is they make the game feel like a real world battlefield and that's fun, but you know what they say about opinions; they're like assholes, everyone has them and they all stink.
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42 minutes ago, Rezzy said:
Has there ever been an enemy dancer in FE before?
FE5 has them, if memory serves.
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The net neutrality decision seems like a dumpster fire waiting to happen, but it's the issue with having a highly bureaucratic system whereby decisions can changed on the whim of a new administration. I suspect when history looks back at the Obama administration and this one, whatever conclusion each person draws on the policy issues, one of the critiques will be the lack of concession drawn to create legislation and the tenuous nature of their accomplishments.
My favorite news story of the holiday season though has to be one man-baby doesn't want to say thank you and the other man-baby wants more thanks. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-slams-ucla-players-dad-lavar-ball-ungrateful/story?id=51320968
This feels like a WWE story-line and if this doesn't drive me to the bottle because of the nature of 21st century American life, I don't know what will.
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1 hour ago, albert said:
So, do you guys think it's worth it trying to play every single FE out there?
I only ask because I've only played a handful of them over the years and, well, I really want to do this just for the sake of doing it.
I think I can do most of them except for maybe the Wii titles but, has anyone done this, years after they've all been released and you didn't have a chance to play them?I'm sure there are quiet a few people on the site who have played all of the FE games, most of them playing at least several after the title was released (heck, fire emblem turns 30 relatively soon). Personally, with the release of SOV, I've now played all of the Fire Emblem stories (I haven't attempted to play FE1 or FE2, but FE11 and FE15 is basically those games and I've never had access to FE12, but I've played FE3). It might worth it to try playing all the titles, but I don't have the patience for slow the NES is and FE12 is a pain to emulate. In terms of playing POR and RD, it's probably easier to do if you have access to the physical copies, I was lucky enough to buy them when they came out so the problem of scarcity wasn't present for me.
I think playing every title is an interesting goal, but not one I'm probably going to pursue.
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1 minute ago, Thane said:
Thanks bud. Wasn't logged in so I didn't get that option - I realize I should've tried hat first, but I'm lazy.
I know the feeling and no worries.
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1 hour ago, Thane said:
Where are people seeing the results, again?
Once you've done the survey you go to the original link and it tells you, you've already done the survey and lets you hit another link to see the results. Here they are right now.
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1 minute ago, Slumber said:
They're not loans that are being taxed, but they're help for costs. The waivers are essentially the school paying you as a TA or assist on campus in some other way(I think one of my lab partners got waivers to be a lab assistant at the University of Colorado). These waivers are essentially being taxed as income, and it's something a LOT of grad students do to pay for grad school, meaning they'll essentially have to pay what's being taxed out of pocket or through loans.
Keep in mind, these waivers pretty much only count towards tuition. Cost of living and everything else? Still on you, on top of these dozens of thousands of dollars you now have to pay for school for the next 2-7 years. You're now basically forced to work two jobs, go to school, and still probably end up 100k in debt at the end of it all.
If I am understanding correctly.
It's not like I'm suggesting that they're taxing loans, but they're taxing a resource that keeps many students in grad school, and they're taxing it HEAVILY.
Not inditing you, just trying to understand the situation. I see, so those who are getting a waiver for tuition based on rendering services to university will be getting taxed like that service is an income, rather than a scholarship. I agree that is pretty heavy handed; the nice thing about the legislative process is that people tend to get to air out their problems with the content of the bill. I can't imagine something like this making it out of conference, taxing something like income that isn't income seems rather punitive.
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8 minutes ago, Slumber said:
Given how expensive grad school is, even being in the upper-middle class wouldn't really be a sustainable background for it. 2-7 years of schooling that's pretty much in the ball park of $50k/yr? Even if my parents made 5x what they make, I wouldn't feel right asking for $350k for school. Or even low-balling it, $250k. I'm pretty smack-dab in the middle class, too.
All of my friends(Which at the moment, is actually ALL of my friends) are going to grad and med school on their own money. I think maybe one or two are getting help from parents, and they're definitely not getting full backing for grad school. I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few of them came home or postponed their plans because of this. And this isn't an obscure or small group of friends going to college on nothing but their hopes and dreams. I went to a pricey university(Which was already a strain on a good chunk of them) and I was in a pre-med field.
I understand that grad school is expensive, I think that is part of the whole student debt crisis issue the country has, but are you even eligible for tuition waivers if your family has take home income in the 80k's? I understand most people take out massive loans to offset the cost, but I don't think the loans are taxable in that they aren't actually making the money. I think what is affecting @Lord Raven is that they are counting the waiver of the tuition he doesn't have to pay as income. Am I wrong about that? Is the way the tax law is being rewritten make it so that loans taken out for college will be taxed like income, because if so, that sounds even more unreasonable
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17 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:
That's what I'm hoping and that's been a trend this entire past year, but it is something worth pointing out.
It's a disastrous tax plan all around, though. It's very easy to have a view of "no" until you're governing, and that's what the Republican party is showing. I'm hoping that 2018 and 2020 shows a Democratic party with charisma as well as strongly pushing policies... because the purpose should not be to rake your opponent over the coals but to inspire people to vote from the Democratic side. The Republicans have their demographic in lockstep.
Fair enough, knowledge is power, but it doesn't much matter. Despite the fact that information is available to everyone, most people just listen to their echo chamber, so Republicans are going to spin this the best they can as a HUGE tax cut for everyone and it will save the country etc..
13 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:A graduate student strike is being suggested for this purpose -- the universities would basically shut down without grad students, given that they do the majority of teaching and grading.
Strikes can be successful, just be mindful of the spin that a "bunch of 'spoiled brats' who already have a degree (something lots of people don't have for a variety of reasons) are crying about their already cushy lives", obviously the truth doesn't much matter with spin.
14 minutes ago, Slumber said:Lawyers. Doctors. Politicians. CEOs, CTOs, CFOs, COOs and most any other letter you can think of. Most people in the science world who are allowed to do anything beyond working in a lab.
Obviously having your doctorate or masters isn't the only way to gain power, nor does it mean they'll have direct power over your average Joe. But it does basically mean a much larger world of opportunities is open, and these are the people managing most things that our society deems "important". Plus, a lot of people who make lateral moves into politics come from these sorts of backgrounds.
A good chunk of these people are now going to have a chip on their shoulder over Republicans essentially taxing their best means at paying tuition. I can't see it being a good long term plan for the Republicans, not that they really ever plan beyond 4 years.
Politics is basically all about the now, planning for a nebulous future is fruitless. Not having any data in front of me, I can only speak in generalities, but I don't know many people in grad school are really in Raven's situation, maybe I'm wrong, but people who are in higher economic brackets don't tend to have tuition waivers (am I wrong?) and lots of people in grad-school come from families who are either comfortably in the middle class or upper-middle class.
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1 minute ago, Slumber said:
I didn't so much mean that their numbers might be an issue, but post-graduates tend to have more power and influence.
Where and with whom? Those with post-graduate degrees are only really influential with those who have post-graduate degrees. For the vast majority of people, those who have influence with them are their friends and family and maybe celebrities or sport stars, maybe their spiritual leader. I don't see those with a post-graduate degree having vastly greater access to the bully-pulpit.
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4 hours ago, Slumber said:
I wonder how this will affect the political views of people who have to go through grad school and weren't born with a silver spoon up their ass. I imagine that while the college educated have started leaning more and more to the left over the last few years, the people who make it through grad school probably lean a little more to the right. I can't see that being the case anymore.
Eh, those who have post-graduate degrees have never been a significant percentage of the electorate so alienating them isn't any great concern for the Republican party and like you stated, those with a college education have increasingly voted Democrat and those who get post-graduate degrees divide into two camps, those with considerable financial packing from their family who likely hold conservative views and ergo they remain conservative and those need either scholarships or loans or have to work or some combination of the 3 and those people tend to lean liberal anyway.
And @Lord Raven, I'm sorry you're at the mercy of our wonderful Congress and illustrious commander-in-chief, but whenever I'm worried they may pass something I think will sink the country, I remember how it's been with this gentleman in the White House and I take solace in that they have been ineffectual, partly due to his lack of discipline. Besides that gentleman has been MIA for almost two weeks, he's brimming with enthusiasm to display his character, I hope you can take solace in that.
Besides with the madness that is the senate adding a partial repeal to Obamacare in their bill and the mess that is the Al Franken groping picture and ethics investigation and Bob Menendez's ethics investigation for bribery and the whole Alabama senator election I don't see how the congressional body can function. The weight of their own inertia will be too great.
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None of the results seem that terribly surprising to me, my votes were mostly based on how many times I've replayed a game or will replay a game if the game is pretty knew (like Echoes) because I generally like all the games so it probably skewed some of my results.
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She's just very okay. Now take this in context because when I play fe7, I always play Lyn mode to get levels for her and Florina and one of the cavs and I often times throw one or both of the statboosters at her whenever I'm playing Fe7 for fun and I always use all 3 of the Lords because I always use every lord lot in all Fe games because I'm strange. But in any run where you don't do Lyn mode and you want to use optimal units Lyn will always be locked out of your group. Lyn comes underleveled and with poor bases, she has no 1-2 range in a game with weak enemies and she is forced into a late promotion. Along with that if you're playing Hector mode, you probably want to give the Heaven seal to Eliwood because he gets a horse and access to javelins. She just doesn't contribute that much to a group that is mostly dominated by 4 cavs a couple of flyers and a valkyrie, unless you bend over backwards to make her useful, which I do.
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11 minutes ago, Jedi said:
Ah yes, you caught me red handed! I'm looking for crooks who happen to play FE games
With some of the acrimony I've seen maybe it's more than we suspect...
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6 minutes ago, Jedi said:
I like my Data and numbers so lets do this all over again!
We're gonna basically rank all 15 mainline games (Fates divided into 3 different games here), and see how the Serenes Forest opinions go for them all.The sheet is here https://goo.gl/forms/QYHTrw4FXS6KK98V2
If you haven't played an FE then don't answer that particular one, since I don't want skewed data. I'm not sure how long i'll have this run, but probably a week or so at least.
So you collecting data on us for our FBI files or what, eh :p?
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40 minutes ago, Harvey said:
Can you honestly think of a way to defeat ishtar without a Forseti user whose skill is high enough to kill her?
Febail or whatever his name is now with Ichavil tends to be a pretty popular choice for killing her.
And the question about how to buff skill is a tough one. As long as individual weapons have such an important correlation with actually hitting the target. Either skill is the least important offensive skill because weapons are more important in determining hit or skill becomes the most important stat because it plays a greater role in hitting than weapons and if you don't hit your other stats don't matter.
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4 hours ago, Slumber said:
It just happened to be that the electoral college did a better job in the past at representing the country as a whole. I believe both Al Gore and John Kerry were screwed by it, but Hillary was where the disparity was most noticeable, hence why it's a bigger talking point these days(Though if I'm remembering correctly, there was a big stink about it with Gore because it was so close and Jeb Bush in Florida). As the country gets more urbanized, and small towns in the middle of nowhere don't boom nearly as much as cities, the disparity will continue to grow, helping only the republicans.
The electoral college results and the popular vote have only ever differentiated 3 times: 1872, 2000 and 2016. Is the disparity a problem, yeah it's a minor one, but it's a problem that is constitutionally mandated. Considering it would take 2/3 of Congress and 3/4 of states to change it, it won't leave. And I can't imagine a situation where any state gives up its own agency to vote for the overall nation's choice, maybe I'm wrong, but I can't see it. The Democrats have a clear map to what states to win and how to win them, Obama had well over 300 electoral votes only five years ago. The electoral college only ever goes away if federalism goes away and if that goes away, might as well rewrite the system.
In 1872 Democrats got what they wanted from the election, the end of Reconstruction was what they traded for the Presidency and 2000 was so close they had to have a supreme court decision to parse through the problem, like 2000 votes changes the whole thing. So basically 2016 is the only year that had a large disparity because Mrs. Clinton did so poorly in middle America.
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2 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:
@Zasplach When I say “suppression” I’m referring to a demographic too indifferent to or against both candidates to vote. However the goal of the propaganda — straight from Purim himself — was division and to delegitimize the process rather than trying to get Trump elected. Him saying he wouldn’t accept the results of the election if he lost in the final two debates would’ve ensured that in the case of his loss it would still create heavy pushback against Clinton.
The Russians have been trying really hard, since it and the US became 'mortal' enemies in the 40's, to delegitimize the whole American system. It's hard to pin down, but there's a general belief that the Soviets attempted to enflame racial tensions in the 60's by trying to make it seem to middle-America that MLK was a communist (clearly a lie) and make it seem to the Civil Rights protesters that the US government had a hand in King's assassination. Now the means of getting out misinformation are so much more readily available (draw backs to the internet), but the real difference seems to be the American people's willingness to believe that the system is broken. The fact that we all seem to be living in a 'post-factual' world where anything that contradicts your beliefs can be shucked aside as 'fake news' seems to play into this problem. Both sides seem to be stuck in their own echo chambers and there seems to a hardening on both sides.
I feel sorry for Americans who were fooled by tweets that told them they could vote on the internet or convinced people that there was no real choice in the election, but those things weren't and aren't true. There was a choice, a choice between two flawed candidates, but ultimately there was a choice. Maybe I'm just too much of a cynic or maybe my beliefs are too esoteric and stupid, but the lesser of two evils theory will always apply to my vote. I held my nose and voted for Mrs. Clinton, if others couldn't do that, then they made their decision by not participating.
Our country seems to be at breaking point, both sides seem in a feverish pitch to destroy themselves and each other, if we can't come to some agreement about how we're all going to get along, I don't see much hope.
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8 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:
I’m not gonna lie; this is a really crappy argument. Clinton had shady dealings that absolutely pale in comparison to Trump.
It’s more complicated than that. As it stands now, it looks like a great part of the reason for the loss is a targeted propaganda campaign that suppressed voters and ultimately bred an “us vs them” mentality that Trump was more than happy to groom and Clinton didn’t participate in nearly as much as Trump.
I mean, this narrative is pushed around a lot but she beat Bernie in the primaries quite fairly and by a significant margin.
It's difficult to draw conclusions about an election without a least some measure of time and research. There has been a movement on both sides to polarize into separate uncompromising camps, of that I think there can be little argument. But I think I could make as just a much an argument that Trump won the presidency because of the pendulum nature of the American political system. Basically the 20% of the nation who decide elections (about 80% of people seem to be pretty entrenched in terms of party support) figured we had a Democrat President for eight years, so the appropriate response is a Republican president. The reason why the country feels so screwy right now is because Democrats as party have done an inept job at winning local races and contesting for governorships and control of state legislatures, allowing Republicans to gerrymander districts and limit liberal's relative political might(doesn't help that many are concentrated in cities). On the positives for Democrats, it looks like they will start contesting better for those seats if Virginia is a template.
But on the other hand, we may just be in a cycle where the only national power the Democrats can have is the Presidency and Republicans will basically control the house and the Senate. Remember, the Democrats basically controlled both houses of Congress unimpeded from 1954-1994,
5 minutes ago, Slumber said:I really, really just want Clinton to go away. If she tries to run again, I'm pretty certain we'll have to suffer another 4 years of Trump. As much as all this information is good to shed light on the scumminess involved with this past election, I also fear that it will embolden Hillary again. "I've finally got my chance!" she'll say once again after 12 years of saying it.
Democrats really need to get rid of the "corporate democrat" image. They'll keep losing middle America.
Eh, she's too proud to go away, but she has no chance of being the Democratic candidate in 2020, that so rarely happens in American political history, I can only think of 3 examples in American history (Henry Clay 1824, 1832, 1840 William Jennings Bryan 1896 and 1900, and Addlai E Stevenson in 1952 and 1956 and Stevenson was a sacrificial lamb offered at the alter of Eisenhower). The Democrats have a difficult line to walk though, the corporate part of the party is what I suspect draws in many of the new converts to the left, upper-middle class Americans with college degrees that had classically been a swing group with a slight lean to the right. They need to run candidates that can win in individual districts. The national elections just need to run a middle of the road candidate that excites the base because of personality and can win middle-America with moderate policies.
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46 minutes ago, Tryhard said:
It would be nice to see a real upset like Doug Jones winning in Alabama and taking Sessions' prior seat, I think.
Edit: Not just because it would prevent Roy Moore who is pretty terrible, but from what I know of Doug Jones, he seems sane.
You might as well start hoping for it to start raining money. Democrats have about as much chance of winning in a statewide Alabama election as I have of being President in four years (I'm 25, so yeah). Democrats need to focus on winning middle America state elections, the deep south is too red. Winning Virginia is a good start, but Democrats have to win elections in states like Wisconsin, Detroit, Ohio, and Iowa. Let the deep south do whatever they are going to do.
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37 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:
What makes me disagree with this is that it breaks the tempo of the game (basically, it requires a drop in difficulty to compensate for being stuck with a whole different set of units), and frankly, Genealogy's implementation is no better than that of Fates - hell, I dare say it was even worse.
I think it's fine to dislike the pacing of the FE4 gen change ( I personally like a narrative to have a drop in tension, I kind of like it for games too, but to each their own), but I think it's taking the argument to a pretty extreme place. The kids in Fates have literally no relevance, they are born, in this nebulous time(is there even enough time in the Fates narrative for the 9 months of human gestation to occur?), they go to their hyperbolic time chamber and then they come out. They don't serve a purpose in the plot, outside of supports they don't interact at all, and they don't seem to really do much in terms of in-game contribution, Fates is mostly a Corrin and royals run anyway.
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3 hours ago, Raze2000 said:
Dew/Lachesis
That post-Phinora conversation between those two is the funniest bit of dialogue I remember in a Fire Emblem game. I think I was sitting in a class and had an outrageous outburst that I couldn't explain...
1st Gen Story vs 2nd Gen Story
in NES and SNES Era
Posted
Basically because the 1st gen's story is better. The second generation has several flaws, I still enjoy it, but I think it can be summed up in three parts. First, it isn't very unique (obvious spoilers coming), it basically has a generic FE plot. A prince(Seliph) has been disposed from his kingdom, his parents have been killed and he sets out on an adventure to reclaim his rightful throne, there are some twists, but it's basically Marth's FE1 quest 2.0. Second, characterization is pretty weak for everyone gen 2 minus Leaf, Seliph and Julia, this is partly due to the generic lines of the character due to the necessity because subs basically share lines with the kid characters and because every kid has to have lines not unique to fathers, basically unlike the first gen where all the men and women have flushed out relationships with both allies and enemies due to their station or birth gen 2 characters aren't really set in stone in how they relate to the world or each other. And lastly, the villains in gen 2 while still interesting aren't as well fleshed out. Arcs like Thracia, which feel like they could be a whole game (evidenced by Thracia 776) is really only one chapter and great characters like King Travant aren't blown through quickly because of that.
You can basically contrast all those points with Gen. 1 where gen 1's story is unique for FE, Sigurd is basically the bad gays pawn for 3ish chapters and then traitors, the characters are well fleshed out, if sparse, due to their established relationships within the world, and the villains feel well fleshed out, like Chagall, or Eltoshan or even Langbolt.