f13.net

http://www.roma-victor.com/news/press/showpr.php?pr=060323a

I like it.

I second that ^^

As Cynewulf probably said to the new players he ganked...HAHAHAHAHAHAHA   :evil:

There should be some form of humiliation for the people in WoW who bring their 60s to the starting areas and do /chicken emotes to level 1s.

/Cue protests by Amnesty International and/or Christian/religious groups in 3...2...1...

Neat.

Xilren

A nice way to handle griefing, one I wholeheartedly support.

It's unfortunate I couldn't last more than 5 minutes in the bit of beta I saw.

One of the punnishments used when I was a MUD admin was to stake cheaters in public.  Much more common when deleting accounts was just to have them bolted from the heavens, leaving a pile of ash ("ashes of Roac" or such), if they happened to be logged in at the time.

I'm all for public 'executions' in MMOs.  Lets the public know that the support staff is doing something.  Witnessing the guy you're talking to get nuked out of the blue tends to have an affect on witnessess, too.

I don't get it.  Jesus was a griefer?

To the Pharisees he was.

EDIT: He pked their flax.

I think this will backfire badly.  Many griefers grief for attention and often don't differentiate between good/bad attention.  Sticking them up on the cross for all to see feeds this desire for attention.  I see this as a carrot for many griefers and not as punishment. 

This is a really cool idea.

Jesus was banned for the sins of man.  But then he resubbed in three days, so it was cool.

So what?  As long as they're crucified, they're contained.

I love public punishment in mmgs. Not only do they give the other players amusement, but they serve as examples.

Zapping people in muds was very effective - the ultimate punishment (deletion of account).  I would approve if this occurred in mmgs.

They aren't contained, they're advertised.  The more silently you dispose of griefers, the less public notariety and the less attention they receive as positive reinforcement.  What we have here is a marketing tool that employs bad psychology.  I guess everything is still all about the bottom line.

Well, we'll see, I guess, once Roma Victor goes live.

We can revisit then, and see who is right.

I don't see it as "who is right" so much as "what is right". 

Here's where selective punnishment works.  Not everyone gets the public treatment - the majority of nukes (zaps) I did were silent (non-public).  Almost no throw-away accounts got a public treatment for that very reason.  Older, established accounts on the other hand, typically did.  Very rarely, we'd make a spectacle of it - a series of nukes preceded by some sort of ominous announcement, normally reserved for 'crime rings'.  When a half dozen guild officers get blasted mud-wide, it gets people's attention (this level occured *maybe* once a year at most).

But it's always about fitting the punnishment to the crime.  If someone is spamming the comms, last thing you want to do is give a public nuke.  My preferred method of dealing with that kind of criminal was something like a stealth-silence.  From the offender's POV, everything they said, /tell'd, or said over the comm went out.  But it never did - no one else could hear what they had to say.  Pissed the hell out of them, and they'd just quit out of frustration and confusion.  Or we could cut off a player's hand; a serious handicap since they could now only hold one item at a time instead of two (no two handed weapons, no sword+shield, etc).  Or force them to spend x amount of time in jail, usually several hours.  With idle-kicks and a guaranteed nuke if they used bots to stay online, that one crimped a lot of players.

The trick is to figure out what the offender is after, and NOT give it to him.  If they want attention, deny them the ability to ever get it.  If they want power, assault their character.  If they want to make a dramatic exit ("screw you guys, I'm going home!"), just show them the exit.  If they want fame, make them infamous.

Even if just a 'game', it will be seen as tasteless. Lets not forget that this isn't like a public humiliation in the village square stocks; crucifixion was out and out torture till death. Even without the trivialization of the most sacred of Christian symbols (trivial because its a video game, not because the video game 'mocks' anything), it still is a sim-torture. If there was a medieval Europe MMO, I wouldn't expect burning at the stake of heretics/women/muslims, no matter how historically accurate. Some things are untoucheable.

As long as a guy is on the cross, he can't grief anyone. Give him all the attention he wants for all I care.

What?  I'm terribly confused.

Are you describing the way things are, or the way you think things should be?

You asserted that griefers long for attention, hence public punishment will backfire.  That is an opinion which may indeed be a fact, or may not be a fact.

Like the cartoons that sparked the Cartoon War?

Crucifixion is perfectly in context in this game.  Christians do not own the rights to portraying crucifixion.

(If it offends you, don't play!)

Setting aside for the moment any argument of historical accuracy, I can't possibly see what good could come of this. There are a million different ways to make a public spectacle of a griefer, if thats what RV wants to do.  Like it or not, to the mind of the average American there is no difference between a crucifixion and The Crucifixion.  So right at the time that WoW is pushing the genre into the consciousness of the popular culture, we now have screenshots of players gloating over The Crucifixion of Christ Our Lord.   Technical arguments (It's not Jesus, relax!) or worse, arrogant dismissals (Fundies suck lol!) mean nothing.

Like the GTA series, its a developer pushing the industry into the line of fire for no reason other than attention.

I'm not saying it offends me! It doesn't. I'm just saying that they are needlessly limiting their audience. Try to de-politicize it for a moment. Do you think Blizzard or SOE would consider public dismemberment of player avatars, no matter how much of a griefer they are? Its essentially the same thing.

The claim of historical accuracy is spurious. Imagine if WW2 online created concentration camps with a playable class being 'the escaping jew'. There's no need for that type of accuracy to create a good historical MMO based on Imperial Rome.

This is because the average American is a fucking moronic dipshit, who far too easily gets their panties in a bunch.

The point you put forth is valid, but I just don't care. Besides, thousands of people were crucified before and after Jesus of Nazarath. Big deal.

People objecting to something for Purely religious reasons is something that just Grinds my Gears.

It's pretty fundamental psychology.  Griefers by and large grief for the attention.  Most of them have personality traits that cause them to seek this attention as to them, negative attention is nearly as valued as positive attention.  In essence, giving them ANY attention for their misdeed serves as positive reinforcement.  The process outlined in this MMOG gives game-wide recognition to greifers by making them into a spectacle.   I'm saying that while this may be a good marketing strategy, it's not the best way to handle a griefer.  It may very well be great for the game (who is right), but it does nothing to discourage griefing in the bigger sense (what is right).

Agreed.

If you assume a child like mentality is involved - any attention whatsoever is good.  Hell, I think most people on these boards - myself included - would settle for being nortorios :P

Thats a perfect example of the accurate but useless counter-argument.  If this gets into the general public (unlikely), the dipshits will raise an uproar.  Then the dipshit congressmen will harangue and legislate against "virtual hate crimes" or some other convoluted shit.  Then you can have the special joy of being "right" while we all play squeeky-clean, hand-wringing-housewife-approved games.

Hm. That game is ugly. Oh, and this is the kind of thing griefers want. It's much better to silently mock them, like stealth changing their names to things like WindUpNutsack and WhatWouldJesusDo. If you can't grief them somewhat quietly it's better to ban outright.

Speaking as an ex-griefer and someone that ran in those circles for quite a while: griefers grief because it's fun/funny to them.  I thought trapping someone in the bottom of a dungeon with flour bags was hillarius in UO.  Killiing some guy's pack horse and then killing him when he retaliated was a riot. It's just a different way of playing the game.

Getting stuck on a cross for 7 days isn't fun.  You can't PK someone's flax while being crucified.

Well, in the culture, there really IS not counter-argument where Jesus is involved.

Arguing against religious ideologues (not directing this) is exasperating.

Yes, but you can emote urine rain.

Ok, as for the Christian symbology and the religious right's bunched panties in AMERICA, keep in mind this game is built in BRITAIN. So what Americans get all pissy about means fuckall.

Secondly, Roma Victor takes great pains to be historically accurate, and as such, crucifixion is perfectly in keeping with that. Romans did it a lot, especially as a public spectacle to deter further crime. I could certainly see WWII Online allowing Americans to liberate a concentration camp, except that that game isn't about the full spectrum of the war, just the fighting. If it was a roleplaying game about the war, I could see their inclusion. It'd be fucked up, but if you are trying to be historically accurate in other than the armor stats for Tiger tanks, you can't gloss over that.

Thirdly, the game isn't even released yet. This is a beta thing. I've no idea if the accused will be let into retail.

And finally, what this kind of public punishment does is create good public perception of the community. It makes the members of the community feel that the makers of the game are actually making a conscious effort to control the fucktardery rampant in anonymous gameplay with PVP. Had UO tried this, we might not have had quite so many defections of non-PKers because they would have felt that complaining about unfair PK's would have accomplished something. As it was, they didn't and left the game, which led to Trammel. It isn't about punishing the griefers so much as it is showing the public that yes, we do care about you and we are doing something.

Had there been some public floggings in EQ1 over ninjalooting, it would probably not have been nearly the problem it turned into.

I think they should write a short poem making fun of the griefer as well and put it at the foot of the cross.

Must be on the special England internet then.  You're right, no Americans will ever see it.  Also, there are no Christians in England.  So this is a great thing for the industry.  Your argument is air-tight.

There are plenty of Christians over there....but they're mostly not as fanatical as the kind of American we are talking about, and thus, not as likely to go into a fit over something in a game the may not even play.

So there are no plans to market this in the US at all?  When people unfamiliar with games see this, they will understand and appreciate the difference between Roma Victor and WoW?  Or hell, even Roma Victor and Quake?  And at a time when the industry is being scrutinized by legislators, this is a good thing? 

Sure, they have the right to put crucifixion in.  But is it responsible?  And by that I mean does it help or hurt the games industry and the average gamer?

My money is on the first griefer being named...

Jesus or some variant.

Next?

StopLookingatMySack
ALittleHelpHere
ChiropracticSession
ThisAllYaGot
TisAFleshWound
CantReachMyItch
WallHanging
SplintersHurt
WhatNoFootRest

 :-P

I agree with your logic here and that the spectacle, while it may be ineffective in stopping griefers, may have a positive effect on community building.

Griefers are going to be griefers regardless.  I won't argue that some do it for attention, but some are like Rasix said and just enjoy messing with people.  Whether you nail them on a cross, silently ban them, or ignore them completely they will do what they feel like as long as they are having fun.

Haemish is right though, at least the community sees results.  Think of any situation where you or others reported someone.  Did you get a reasuring response? Nope, the official policy is to not talk about punishments or if any were even handed out.  "We are aware of the complaint and looking into the situation."

Sure, Americans will play it, they just won't be able to do fuckall about it seeing as how legally what Americans think has no bearing. If their panties are bunched, they can just stay bunched and not play the game. Much like my panties have to stay bunched over the religious conversion thing going on in Afghanistan now, because I'm not a citizen of Afghanistan.

On the griefers-want-attention argument, I think basically it's right to say it's a case-by-case basis, and moreover, that Haemish is right that all communities want to know that community standards exist. This is one of the things I tend to go on about when I get wound up about the problem of sovereignty: when all enforcement is done privately, behind closed doors, many people tend to assume it's not going on at all. When a developer says, "Yes, we just got out the ban stick", but there's nothing tangibly visible in the gameworld that shows the sign of the ban stick having been used, many players simply tend to think it's not happening.

However, locking up a griefer's character, whether in this form or any other, does tend to be a distincentive only insamuch as the particular character is needed to grief. If a level 1 character can grief just as happily as a level 60, then griefing is a disposable function. It's only when you get the peculiar combination of a need for high-level power to grief effectively and no social consequences for griefing that you probably have to resort to many such suspensions/crucifixtions/what have you. In WoW, a level 60 who has any ambition at all to join the endgame isn't going to ninjaloot or get a reputation for being a serious assmunch because it may cost them endgame access. If on the other hand they don't care about the endgame and they're bored, then a level 60 essentially has open skies for griefing, with the only limit being that you can't be much more than a nuisance to lower-level characters on a PvP server due to the lack of a serious death penalty.

------

I am on the other hand seriously unconvinced that Roma Victor is making a mistake because crucifiixtion will somehow disturb the tender sensibilities of American Christian gamers or cast gaming into wide disrepute. Anybody who responds that way hasn't bothered to go take a look at the game's design specifications. They didn't just pull this punishment out of a hat; this isn't just the usual gamer-dork thing of looking for the most absurdly over the top hyperviolent representation to communicate badassedness. You might not care for the whole idea, but they're making a pretty serious run at setting this game in a quasi-realistic historical context. Anybody watch HBO's series Rome? It didn't exactly pull any punches on similar matters, and I don't recall a long line of fundamentalists calling for boycotts of HBO over the series. I actually think this is misjudging many Christians, in fact: quite a few of them, even fundamentalists, actually have an interest in historically grounded representations of Roman civilization; it's deeply imbued into their religious scripture. If this was a futuristic first-person shooter where one of your special combo moves was "crucify", yeah, sure, many people would squawk that this trivializes Christianity, with some justification. But it's not, and the appearance of crucifixtion in the game is wholly consistent with its declared aesthetic sensibility, which I take to be basically modelled on the series "Rome" and the film "Gladiator" (it's actually set in same time period as "Gladiator"). Actually, I can't find anything on the site, but given the time period, it's entirely possible that players could actually BE early Christians, or encounter early Christian communities as NPCs. So there potentially could even be a draw to Christians rather than something negative.

It comes down to whether in-game consequences of any sort will actually deter griefers.

The answer, of course, depends on the individual griefer.  Some will care.  Some won't.  On the bright side, that's at least some that will be deterred.

I think Roma Victor is actually set in the time period BEFORE Christ.

So you didn't catch the time when the game is set in your 5 minutes of beta? :wink:

Nope, it's set in 180 AD, under the Emperor Commodius. (The guy played by Joachim Phoenix in Gladiator).

EQ2 added snowballs. Roma should let players fling cow dung, eggs, rotten fruit, etc at the crucified.

Roma Victor should add vomitoriums and lots of orgies. This crucifixion stuff is too softcore.

I was under the impression that the player is banned for 7 days, so while you can look at the avatar on the cross, the player will not be able to login and "play" on the cross after the initial crucifixion RP.

I'm 27 years old and live about 15 minutes from Flint, Michigan.  Crazy.

Are you hanging from two wood planks, by chance?

I think after the game comes out, Jesus should spawn and you should be able to pwn him and become the new Savior.  I mean, we all hate it when the storyline of a game is locked up by being taken from an existing IP, right?

No, but I may have to try this Roma Victor thing now.  I can not think of anything I'd like to do more in an MMO than get crucified and watch PCs chuck garbage at my rotting corpse.

"Sure, you have the _right_ to do it.  But's it's not the _responsible_ thing to do."

I had problems with this argument when I was first presented with it back in high school and I have problems with it today, 30 years later.

First, not every game needs to help The Games Industry.

Second, not every person - indeed, many persons - will not be offended by this.

Third, consider this:  it is actually a selling point for some.

I'm way more likely to buy a game about Rome that publicly punishes griefers by crucifixion - which is both historically accurate _and_ makes sense in that sitting on a cross for 7 days just isn't fun - than one which silently disappears them.

Maybe I'm perverse, but it appeals to me in a big way.  If nothing else it will provide amusement.  Frankly, most mmos tend to lack amusement, which is interesting considering they are supposed to _be_ amusements.

I'm so going to roll a toon named Jesus to PK newbies with....

How about this for a punishment: allow the griefer to be attacked by level 1's and not be able to attack back for an hour.  Or, better yet, flag the griefer for a period of time to the griefee, again not being able to attack back. 

Any Christian who gets upset about crucifiction in a Roman game needs to crack a history book. Hell, even just read the bible closer. Jesus wasn't alone on that cross in those final days.

Mohammed had a face, too.  That argument didn't seem to work, though.

I'm guessing you start the game as a Roman citizen, and as such, you shouldn't ever be crucified.  That was considered too cruel and humiliating a punishment for a Roman.   That's also why St. Paul was able to get whisked off to Rome for his trial, and when convicted he was beheaded rather than crucified.

Soon as you find where the Bible bans historical representation, let me know.  And since there appears to be confusion, Christianity != Islam.

When I mentioned this in Ventrilo, every single person wanted to know what game it was so they could look it up.  Bad publicity my ass.

You guess wrong.  From the FAQ (http://www.roma-victor.com/faq/) it sounds like you start the game as a barbarian or a slave, and have to work at it if you want to become a bona fide Roman citizen.

Nifty.

To be fair over here MMORPG's are still pretty niche so those this is most likely to offend are those probably least likely to find out about it. Until someone tips off our tabloids about it in which case _everyone_ would suddenly have an opinion about it (we do bandwagons really well over here)

Wow, way to not understand wtf we're talking about.

There is an Islamic mandate, per the Koran, against showing the Prophet's face.  There is no such mandate in the Bible against representing history (or crucifixions).  Llava was comparing apples and oranges.


Edit:  Oh, another thought.  It's not like hordes of fundamentalist Christians play MMOGs anyway.  Devil's toolset and all that.  Sort of like asking whether Rockstar is hurt because the Southern Baptist Convention doesn't play GTA, I think it's a nonsensical question.

Doesn't SL do this already with a cornfield -- warp the naughty person to their own instance for a time-out? 

Gemstone III/IV use to warp you to "Consoulation Lounges" or lock you in jail cells.

Hell, some of the more petty crimes in the game, such as pickpocketing PCs/NPCs, would result in either being locked up in jail for about an hour, or being put in the stocks at the bank (a VERY visible location).

Llava was speaking generally about the tendency of religious fundamentalists.

And I have no idea how many fundamentalist Christians play MMOGs, but I know that its irrelevant.  All they have to do is see it or hear about it.  Its another kerosene-soaked log on the fire.  We're talking about the people who honestly thinkthat Doom caused Columbine.  Facts are useless. 

So, yay!  Roma Victor gets press.  Grats.  What do the rest of us get?  Another "example" of gamer deviance.

So... you're worried Christian fundies are going to start bombing KFC when they hear about this?  Is that how this is relevant?


If they hear about it, then you *might* hear about it on the news.  And that's it.  So some people protest a game they weren't going to play anyway.  So what?

Edit:  And that's assuming they care.  The point of my response to Llava is that there's not much reason for them to care, unlike Muslems and the cartoons.  Because it's not like crucifixion has EVER been portrayed in movies/games/books before.  It's totally new and original for RV.  Yey for RV for breaking the silence on Roman torture techniques.

...

What it means is that more and more politicians will get on the "video games are evil" bandwagon and when enough of them do we're fucked.

Are you really this simple?  Is that your definition of fundamentalism?  Fires and riots?  Our fundamentalists don't riot, they get on TV decrying a lack of "values;" they write to their congressman.  Then laws get written limiting the sale of violent games.  And games get blamed for real life violence. 


They may not hear about it; if they hear about it it might not hit the MSM; if it hits the MSM it might not cause any long-term harm.  I just fail to see the good in it, aside from a short-term PR coup for a small game. 

And I didn't realize that there was a silence on the nature of Roman torture techniques.   

They're not going to take RV to task for historical representation.  They'll wait until the next GTA-esque game comes out, where the player is raping hookers for points, and which actually has a broad userbase, not the niche that RV will.

...which is the worst that happens in the US, and nothing at all like the Islam fundies.  Which was my point.  Apples and oranges.  They're nothing alike.


There isn't, sorry you missed the sarcasm.  Nobody has gotten up in arms about representation of crucifixion before, no religious reason for them to have, and therefore no expectation they will start now.

Now we're getting into a much larger issue.  If this was the time and place, I would argue that they are very similar.  Different methods, same goal.

Requesting change using an existing political process is identical to what secular political parties do, and worlds apart from using terrorism to attempt to motivate political change.  Stop being a twat by trying to confuse the two, merely because you happen to disagree with their argument.

Hmm, let's see.

Fundies get upset, write their congressperson, hold peaceful demonstrations, and lobby for a change in the laws (which usually does not come to be).

Islamists get upset, participate in violent demonstrations, advocate the death of those with whom they disagree, and bomb KFC.

I'm an atheist.  I strongly believe in a person's right to his or her opinion, and the peaceful expression of that opinion. It boggles my mind when people compare Christian fundamentalists to Islamic fundamentalists.  The fundies have become The Giant Big Boogeyman.  This is insane.  The comparison is completely bogus and unrealistic, and I can only imagine those who perpetuate this myth know very little or nothing about Islamism (which is different from Islam; look it up if you don't know the difference).

I'm not at all worried about the Christian Right in the US and what they will/can do to video games.  The Christian Right has, in the past, been upset since dime novels, through comic books, rock n roll, D&D and now video games.  Big deal.  Slap a label on video games, fine.  Music, fine.  I don't care.  It's not restricting my right to buy it.

But could I even walk down the street in Afghanistan or Pakistan alone, to go into a store to purchase a comic book, cd or video game unmolested?

Apples and oranges is right.

You can play as a Roman citizen or as a Gaul.

EDIT: The Apples and Oranges being compared here should NOT be Christianity and Islam. It should be Western fundies vs. Middle Eastern fundies. The problem isn't the religion, the problem is the culture of the people's who hold that religion. Western Muslims in say, the US didn't burn down KFC's over the Muhammed cartoons, but Middle Eastern ones did. Middle Eastern Christians cause just as much chaos as Middle Eastern Muslims... see Beirut in the mid-80's for an example.

The Middle Eastern culture, no matter the religion, seems to put less value on life there, IMO.

Some Christian fundies blow up abortion clincs and gun down doctors....

They just don't do it en masse, filling their streets with their brand of arsontardery.

Libertarians have blown stuff up.  Liberals have blown stuff up.  Exceptions in all three cases do not do anything to describe the whole, however, and it is immature and irrational to continue to try and do so.

If we were to stop adding things to games because we are scared someone will object to the content... then we can just shut the gaming sites down now.

Despite all the legislation only a few bills have been successfully passed, most of which were struck down as unconstitutional and the rest have injunctions on them.  The more the politicians push this, the more the courts side with video games, and the more our case becomes unassailable.

This idea is cool and all, but the game's not live. Given that the people they'd want to "punish" with this system are the very same ones who would be the most interested in such narcissistic public recognition of themselves, I can see the system breaking under that strain alone. You don't solve this problem by calling even more attention to people who do this shit to call attention to themselves.

They should just go the Free-man route. Instead of crucification, their entire account is full PvP+ for X number of days (progressively grown until banned) with debuffed statistics. Won't solve everything, and certainly not possible in companies worried about their PR. But it could work for games that aren't even dreaming at old EQ1 levels, much less GW/WoW ones.

I beileve you are ALWAYS PVP+ in Roma Victor.

I like the idea that the PvP system is based on 'weak spots' - it opens up a lot of opportunities for situational treachery, lurking in the shadows, that kind of thing.

Happily, ever since the whole Life of Brian fiasco, any christian in Britain that tries to complain about something as ridiculous as this gets pointed at and laughed at.

A)  It's an indie MMO.  The mainstream is never going to give a shit.  It could have you raping Jesus in the ass with a chair leg for XP and nobody outside of boards like this would even notice.

B)  Even if someone did notice, the mere existence of crucifixion in a depiction of Rome isn't likely to raise many hackles.  Shit, if any fundamentalists do take note, they'll probably subscribe so that they can play at being around in the early days of Christianity.

C)  Thus the cross-section of people who notice, people who give a shit, and people who are offended is likely to be vanishingly small.  Does anyone else remember the "OMG HOLOCAUST" predictions of controversy that preceeded WW2 Online?  How about the preposterous hand-wringing some even did before the release of DAoC, about the notion of fantasy pseudo-Brits fighting fantasy pseudo-Irish?  Throw this crucifixion crap on the same pile of manufactured  MMO controversies that the real world doesn't give a shit about.

Actually, I was just making a joke.  I wasn't making any particular political statement, I just thought it might get a laugh.  Instead, you humorless fuckers started debating the differences between Islam and Christianity. :dead_horse:

This accomplishes two things:

1) Exactly the same stuff that a regular ban would do.
2) It gives more attention to griefers.

#1 is fine.  But WoW, EQ2, et al, already ban people for being idiots.  So it's not like it's something new.  #2 is partially self-defeating because it gives attention to people who really, just wanted attention in the first place.  Where it helps is that it also releases, to the public, direct recognition of the fact that #1 is taking place.  WoW may silently ban twice as many people as this game will but they do it in a tidy, quiet manner such that public perception may be that they rarely or never ban.

That said from what I have heard, current MMO's would love to publicize more info about who they ban and why they ban them but don't for legal reasons.  Gordon Walton told us at a meeting that he would love to spill his guts about nasty things that some players who had banned had done but that legally it was important for SOE to keep all that stuff confidential.

Thus something like this can backfire in a completely different manner.  The player who is banned on the crucifix will sit there talking about how unjust the banning was and how the Nazi devs banned his character because they didn't like his name or because he pkilled one of their characters, etc., and the devs will be legally prevented from saying, "no dipshit, we banned you because you duped 1,000,000 gold and here are the logs to prove it".  Etc.

In general I only see this causing problems.

I think the best way to do this would be to have a crucifixion field where banned players were crucified.  However just add a random model to the field when you ban someone.  Don't let them actually play the character, communicate with others, or recognize the crucified victim as them.

This is a cool in-game demonstration that idiot players ARE being banned and yet it doesn't give specific attention to the particular griefers for their exploits and avoids the problem of having to bicker with griefers about whether the devs were justified in banning them.

I cannot imagine the character on the cross will have access during this period, or at least not allowed to interact with others in any fashion.

US Muslims also didn't hold up signs saying, "Behead those who call Islam violent", British Muslims did.  I don't think that speaks so much to our Muslims being assimilated as it does to our Muslims not being as numerous and knowing that Americans will shoot their asses if they try that.  These people are not to be trusted, period.  They'll push things as far as they feel they can comfortably get away with, but the pushing won't stop.

They're flat-out, irredeemable savages.

If somebody posted a picture of it on Fark, it must be true!

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v490/spaeschke/20060203BritishMuslims01.jpg)

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v490/spaeschke/20060203BritishMuslims02.jpg)

Funny, I didn't know the AP swiped photoshopped images from Fark.

(http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/pictures/20060203BritishMuslims-ps.jpg)

Surely you can see how I thought you were referring to the above photoshopped image rather than either of the actual photos you posted above.

I have to think that last guy has a strong sense of humor.

So....what, you're saying all fundalmentalist Muslims (which is a stupid title anyway, with stupid conotations) blow stuff up? I don't understand what you're trying to say...


Well, really I do, but it's a stupid fucking argument. Stop pulling this shit, you're trying to make a point where there's no point to be made. Why do you even bother?

Heh, yep.  I wasn't directly quoting in my first post, I was just being a smartass, but it looks like someone else beat me to it.

As a side note which the photoshopped image reminded me of, I've always loved the "be-" prefix.  It really makes any word into an interesting word!  "Head", "stride", "side", "dazzle", "jewel", "spectacled", etcetera.  The first usages of the words must have seemed especially witty at the time.

"What if a man was beside his [/i]head[/i]?"

"He'd be... "be-headed!"

"Sheer brilliance!"

Of course, the word "dazzle" is kind of fun to begin with ("Spirit fingers, guys!") so the be- prefix is just the icing on the cake.

Not all.  Fundamentalist Islam, however, has a philosophy of inhumane, intolerant, anti-west,  hardline, and most of all violent approaches to the world.  Organizations such as Al Quaida, the Hammas, Taliban, Hizballah and others like them are all considered social manifestations of this view.  And yes, they tend to support blowing stuff and/or people up as a mix of punnishment, retribution, and visiting God's wrath on Infidels.  I'm sure there are some very pleasant people in these groups, or out of them.  Generally though, they're not.

Christian fundamentalists don't do those things in that sense.  There are some bad apples, but the philosophy isn't geared to blow things up or kill people.  That doesn't mean it's better than Islam; it wasn't so long ago that it was Christians going around burning people, and Muslems treating others with respect.  It has far more to do with secular culture than religion, and my feeling is the religion is being exploited by political forces in the region instead of the other way around.  Still, it is what it is.

For the sake of clarification, define "Fundamentalist."

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=fundamentalist

Damn, I keep forgetting that regardless of where we live, we mustn't offend the religious Americans. Because that would be impolite.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?board=23.0

Dictionary.com has gotten better over the years. I just put in some oddball terms, like Reification, and the definition pretty much works.

As a religious American and, arguably, a fundamentalist, I could care less about someone being crucified in game.  Fortunately, most educated Christians realize that the Romans used more than one cross during their history.  As far back as Kirk Douglas and Spartacus, most Americans, including religious folk, learned that the cross on your church steeple was not the only one in existence.

But, just as a precaution, I am going to email this thread to my super secret religious right list serve.  After that, I will check my stock of bottled water and dehydrated food before I load my car with fertilizer to go out and blow up a computer parts store.  Damn infidels.

Make sure they're Dell parts.  :evil:

Trimmed off the last page of religious debates. Continue with game discussion here.

"Doctor," begged the lady thread.  "Is he going to make it?"
"I'm afraid not, ma'am.  Thread separation is a very risky procedure, and it's extremely common for one or both of the resulting threads to die in the process.  I'm sorry."
"Oh... oh dear god.  I can't believe it's gone."
The forum was silent, except for the lady thread's sobbing.  Off in the distance, someone, somewhere, began to fag up another thread with politics.

/snicker