Bay 12 Games Forum

Yeah, the damage ramp is pretty significant, heh. Expert mode may add some extra AI stuff, but from what I've seen so far the primary issue is just that it makes things hurt like hell. You can still sorta' tank some things, but you don't have much leeway with others anymore. Still need all the defense and health you scrounge up, but there's a lot more of "Don't get hit." with expert. Which is, uh. Good? Sorta'.

Hhnnnooo... anything below hard mode bosses are scrubs to someone decked out in the top-tier stuff, even in expert. The initial hard mode bosses aren't even that hard, especially with some very limited arena construction and potions. Still haven't reached plantera and beyond, yet (though I could kick awake the golem pretty trivially, at some point), but you don't really have to exploit for most of the bosses in expert hard mode. Maybe the very high end ones, but most of these things are still pretty much getting casually pushed in by a character with top-tier kit. And in my case, that's with significant performance issues making dodging and whatnot a complete crapshoot half the time.

E: And hell, the character I'm using isn't even genuinely kit out for this stuff -- I'd be doing a lot better with a different armor set and some accessory rejiggering, as well as some extra potion farming and whatnot. It's still roughly shroomite-etc. tier stuff, but even without full optimization things are going pretty well in expert, so far.

Most were, even the so called peaceful ones like buddhism, however, islam is special since it was spread by violence by design. Holy war/jihad is a concept thats very much accepted and inherent to Islam, as it was spread through violent at its very root, in agressive moves that wiped out entire african and middle eastern cultures and even ethnic groups.

You're displaying an incredibly profound ignorance of the islamic basis for jihad, here. Even my own very cursory understanding of the concept can tell you what you're attributing the concept is boils down roughly to bupkis. Its basis for being used to justify wars of aggression is very much sketchy from a theological perspective, on top of other aspects. Jihad is not a concept that really tracks one to one to the western concept of holy war, even remotely. It's very much a nuanced thing, and doesn't really equate to simply being a theological acceptance of violence. The violence perpetrated by islamic nations over history would be considerably lesser if they actually stuck to the core of their tenants. Which, hey. They don't, just like everyone else.

It wiping out ethnic groups is pretty irrelevant, though -- that's also something most of the other major religions have indulged in. Christianity itself was a major player in destroying or near-destroying entire continents worth of ethnic groups in the Americas, on top of what they helped to manage in Europe and other areas. I'd hate to do a comparative study of genocide or ethnic cleansing headed by forces predominately of a single religion simply due to how goddamn depressing it would be, but it would not paint a particularly pretty picture, in the least.

As for the terrorism in fairly peaceful areas, well. I rather imagine if the middle east hadn't been quite so thoroughly shat upon, and wasn't continuing to be thoroughly shat upon, you'd see a considerably lesser amount of that, more in line with what you see in predominately christian (or whatever, really) countries (and hey, yes, that happens, just to offer one example -- there's very much nastier shit in parts of south america or africa, as well.). Go figure, when you have a massively destabilized area that's predominately of a particular religion (or any substantial ideology, really), the effects of that can have influence beyond that immediate area.

The new testament marks the key difference between judaism and christianity. Its where Christianity becomes its own thing and God stops being treated as a militant god of the jews and more like an actualy benevolent god.

And on Islam, yea, I never bought the idea of Islam somehow being a religion of peace. The only reason Islam even exists is because of war (Islam is one of the only religions that was almost exclusively spread through war).

... if by "One of the only" you mean "like every major religion". Seriously, check your history -- every single major religion in existence spread primarily through conquest, coming on the back of an invader, or backed by very substantial degrees of force. Christianity did, hinduism did, buddhism did, freaking Jainism experienced one of its largest propagation points on the back of an expansionist government. Saying that Islam is particularly unusual or egregious in the extent it was spread by the sword strikes me as incredibly ignorant of human history.

As for the rest of this painfully standard and desultory anti-islam spiel, y'all are welcome to continue to say the vast goddamn majority of Muslim practitioners have no idea how to follow their own religion and are just one "proper" interpretation of the Qu'ran from running out and murdering everyone. About 1/3rd of the human population will continue to prove that bullshit as bullshit.

Though I don't know that any of those activities are unique to same-sex couples, and the problems seemed minor and victimless.

It's... pretty close to impossible for any act of that nature to be unique to same-sex couples (though there are some people that like to think pegging and whatnot in a heterosexual relationship doesn't exist. _{Protip: They're wrong.}). Without going into details, I can think of only one thing that even comes close (well, without getting into some really weird shit that mostly doesn't actually happen, now that I think about it... that brings the count up to two or three, maybe), and that's non-penetrative. Everything else, well, we have the most amazing peripherals these days that cover any possible gaps in capability a heterosexual couple may encounter. Which aren't exactly many. Homosexual relationships don't exactly cause the participants to sprout new limbs or unusual organs, no matter what the more insane naysayers babble.

Few decades/centuries ago, there were some (still not exclusive to homosexual couples) medical issues, but, you know. We have easily accessible and effective lube now, and that and a few other things makes pretty much every sexual act that's not notably extreme (and some that are) more or less as potentially harmful as any other, provided the appropriate precautions are taken.

And yeah, the other argument against it that's not total bupkis (just mostly) is procreative. The primary problem with that, above and beyond the ones already mentioned, is that the homosexual population is simply not large enough to make or break a population's growth levels, even if methods to compensate aren't involved. You might as well have a moral scare over lifelong bachelor(ette)s or sterile couples. Which... I guess we sorta' do over the former? There's somewhat of a social stigma against that, at least in most cultures I'm aware of.

And @ Tiru: The reason those arguments are still in circulation is because some of the people advocating against homosexual relationships lie. Constantly, irrepressibly, and heinously, to the extent their twisted fabrication of reality actually starts to gain traction. That's where the pedophilia accusations come from and how they're maintained, as well as most of the arguments out there that have been thoroughly debunked. There is an incredible amount of straight up invented character attacks floating around against homosexuals (among others), and they're often propagated by people that are entirely aware their accusations are false, and do so pretty much entirely out of hate -- most of the rest comes from folks that are indoctrinated by those sorts, and those who just don't bother to investigate and give cursory adherence to whatever position is most vocal. It's some nasty stuff.

Online CYOA could fit, too. It's basically what those things are, just internet'd.

Explaining stuff like that to someone that doesn't have much exposure to the net is an effort and a half, though. I think the closest I've been able to get that gets the point across thus far is "Collaborative writing session".

Any degree is better than none.

As for the second, the word you're looking for is can be, not is. I'll take misguided action and legalized same-sex marriage over inaction and jack-all any goddamn day, just as an example. Similarly, pile those gorram fines on companies that shit on the environment -- if it takes forcing them to care about their pocketbook instead of actually giving a damn about the world around them, go for it. Their actions may not be guided, but they're happening instead of not.

If it gets shit needed done, done, I don't give a frig why people are doing it. It damn sure can cause problems -- road to hell and all that rot -- but it doesn't take an ideologically pure activist base to achieve desired goals.

S'better than sitting around doing fuck-all.

And I think it helps, yes. I've actually bloody seen stuff like that help make inroads -- when regular reminders aren't fucking everywhere fucking always, it's notably easier for minds and hearts to change, or at the very least for the next generation to not be quite so goddamn indoctrinated. It's not a silver bullet or some shit but every little bit helps make the fight that much more possible.

Though honestly, a lot of the "campaign", so to speak, doesn't revolve around reform. It revolves around making sure the latest generations aren't as stuck on sucking racism's teat and waiting for the older generations to goddamn die already. Frankly, alienating that certain demographic from the mainstream works just bloody fine for that.