Do you really care about video games?

[Inazuma]

USA is a self-absorbed country filled with arrogant people convinced their country is "number 1". They're generally uneducated, racist, extremely homophobic and the further south you go the more stupid, racist and homophobic they get. They seem to think communism is evil, even though most of them have no idea what it is. All the working class vote Republican even though that party clearly stabs the poor in the back. They're ignorant of foreign cultures and customs, obsessed with an isolating USA only mentality and they're extremely xenophobic. They prop up sports like Basketball, Baseball and NFL which no-one outside USA gives a shit about whilst ignoring international sports like Football which they simply don't understand. They disrespect other peoples media, expecting us to buy hollywood blockbusters but remaking every foreign film and TV show because they're convinced they can do them better, which they never do. To top it all off, they're rediculously, even offensively Christian saying things like "God bless America" as if they're the only people in the world who are worth considering. They're rediculously ignorant, they deny evolution, refuse sex education and insist on inserting God into everything. They treat Atheists like they're cultists and treat other religions like they're delusional yet expect us to always respect Jesus. Lastly USA is filled with liars. They have universities devoted to "creation science", psychics, alternative medicine and endless superstitions and conspiracy theories. Everyones opinion is expected to be treated as though it's "equal" and science if given no respect, unless your opinion is "liberal" at which point your ignored and labelled anti-American. Their scientists are never reliable, their politicians are always scapegoats and their news-media is purposefully dishonest to the point of propaganda.

Wow, you really do understand the USA. For someone who doesn't live here, I am very impressed. You are totally right on with everything.

[BoringSupreez]

USA is a self-absorbed country filled with arrogant people convinced their country is "number 1". They're generally uneducated, racist, extremely homophobic and the further south you go the more stupid, racist and homophobic they get.

You've never been to the US, have you?

They seem to think communism is evil, even though most of them have no idea what it is.

I don't know about other people, but I hate it because I know what it is.

All the working class vote Republican even though that party clearly stabs the poor in the back.

Oh, like the welfare state that the Democrats want to create is so good for the poor. The Republican goal is to help the poor help themselves, rather than create parasites leaching off of the rest of us.

They're ignorant of foreign cultures and customs, obsessed with an isolating USA only mentality and they're extremely xenophobic.

British Literature is a required course in our high schools, at least in Missouri. And we are far from the most xenophobic nation out there. Multiculturalism has been getting more and more popular here with time.

They prop up sports like Basketball, Baseball and NFL which no-one outside USA gives a shit about whilst ignoring international sports like Football which they simply don't understand.

What's wrong with liking what we have the best? No one's forcing you to watch our version of football anyhow.

They disrespect other peoples media, expecting us to buy hollywood blockbusters but remaking every foreign film and TV show because they're convinced they can do them better, which they never do.

Hollywood creates the best movies, from what I've seen. If it weren't so, foreign countries wouldn't buy our movies, they'd watch their own. And we don't remake every good foreign movie. And remakes are not exclusive to the US; Thailand has their own version of The Fugitive (or maybe it was the Philippines), and then there's always Turkish Star Wars.

To top it all off, they're rediculously, even offensively Christian saying things like "God bless America" as if they're the only people in the world who are worth considering.

Americans are concerned first and foremost with their own nation. Pretty much every nation is like that.

They're rediculously ignorant, they deny evolution, refuse sex education and insist on inserting God into everything. They treat Atheists like they're cultists and treat other religions like they're delusional yet expect us to always respect Jesus.

I have never met a single Christian who expected non-Christians to respect Jesus, although I admit that doesn't have to be representative of all of them. And it's inevitable that Christians and atheists will collide; their ideas about life and how it should be lived are in direct opposition.

Lastly USA is filled with liars. They have universities devoted to "creation science", psychics, alternative medicine and endless superstitions and conspiracy theories.

So it's wrong that we have schools that cater to every group of thought? We should only teach one viewpoint? Who's even qualified to decide what the absolute truth concerning science and government anyway?

Everyones opinion is expected to be treated as though it's "equal" and science if given no respect, unless your opinion is "liberal" at which point your ignored and labelled anti-American.

Liberals do the exact same thing to conservatives.

Their scientists are never reliable, their politicians are always scapegoats and their news-media is purposefully dishonest to the point of propaganda.

You are wrong about the scientists and the politicians, but I actually agree with you about our news-media. In fact, over 50% of people here are distrustful of it.

[jfrost]

If I hadn't just watched Stephen Fry in America, I think TornadoCreator would've given me a very bad opinion of British people.

[Jmustang1968]

...

He is just taking the worst aspects of various social groups or people here and applying to everyone as that is the model US citizen. Every country has their share of assholes, criminals, intelligent people, and people of varying religious beliefs.

He is blaming the US for having racial stereotypes but falls into believing and perpetuating a stereotype he has of the US.

[TornadoCreator]

yes, ignorance isn't an insult but a description of someone's lack of knowledge. What angle are you trying to take with this?

What if someone was a complete fucking idiot? Would it be OK to call them a complete fucking idiot?

Same thing for someone who is evil, selfish, foolish, deceptive, etc. Is it OK to call someone these things if they are true?

What is an insult anyway? If it's untrue, why would it bother anyone? It's not true, so it should have no power, no weight behind it. If it's actually true, then why is it so horrible to say it? Regardless of it is said or not, it is still there.

It is called a level of respect and behavior expected in social interactions. It is the meanings behind them. You are also making the mistake by equating facts with personal opinions. If someone is truly ignorant, than he is, he lacks knowledge on a subject. Calling someone a fucking idiot is personal vehemence meant to anger, insult, and shame the other person based completely on a personal opinion and the sole point of it is to insult.

The insult is true because the other person thinks it is true as they have that opinion of you.

Now I am not going to dig down into the elementary details of social interaction, you know this shit already. Now you are just being pedantic.

You implied that Socialism leads to people sitting around doing nothing, claiming benefits, unwilling to work and not caring about others, out for what they can get. Not only is this inaccurate a really insulting to those of us forced to claim benefits, but it's so hypocritical as your main objection against social programs is that you don't want to pay for them, you earned your money and you don't care about other people, you're out for what you can get. The most ironic thing is, USA is the country with the massive swathes of unemployed living in trailer parks watching TV and living off welfare unwilling to work if TV is to believed. In my experiences, and I've lived in multiple working class cities, the lower classes in Europe actively seek work and many of them consider it a point of pride to not claim benefits, even when they can. I have mutliple friends who could claim weekly income support cheques but don't because they "don't need it".

This implication was subtle, probably just a throw away comment in your mind because in USA it's parroted so often. The thing is it's a deeply offensive and extremely ignorant comment that shows you have no idea how the working class mentality works and how socialism works. You don't understand the situation and you're simply parroting fears I've heard from places like Fox News which honestly is the least reliable "news" source I've ever seen. This is why I reacted as I did. Your throw away opinions, the very opinions you seem to take for granted are the standard, I find offensively extreme and lacking any compassion, and I felt the need to speak up.

[MrPopo]

What rule are we talking about? The rules of the game? Those aren't broken by real money transactions. The rules allow uneven trades and out-and-out gifts. The rules of the EULA for Battle.net? Sure, but that is so easy to get around that it's meaningless. I just give you some money and then at some point later you gift me the item in game.

I have stopped to think about it. And I do think it is important to not allow players to simply be able to purchase power. However, that is not the case here. The Sword of Badassry will drop every 100 game hours. That might be 100 people playing for one hour, or one person playing for 100 hours. People trading that item for real money does not change the fact that 100 game hours have to elapse before it exists. Now, if Blizzard was willing to sell the item to you by conjuring it out of the electrical ether when you send them money that would be a problem. But that's not the case here.

Before game companies started doing RMT themselves, it was against the rules. They didn't care about friends giving or even selling items to each other. The rule was there to prevent the Chinese from infesting their game with spammers, hackers, bots, etc. It could easily start to affect the game's economy as well, to the point where you have to buy gold to keep up with it, eventually making the game into pay to win. It could have a massive negative impact on the game for everyone.

You dodged the question. What rule was it against?

And economic wise, Diablo II and III don't suffer from the same problem that Final Fantasy XI does (which is infamous for gil farmers). In Diablo II and III you can roll an MF character and farm items til the cows come home and no one can stop you. In Final Fantasy XI the farm spots were in the open world and professional farmers could easily keep you from being able to even attempt to get the items you need. That is the key difference here. Similarly, with World of Warcraft all the best gear was from instances, which, again, you cannot be prevented from doing. This keeps the economy from going too crazy; the farmers can't corner the market.

[Jmustang1968]

It is called a level of respect and behavior expected in social interactions. It is the meanings behind them. You are also making the mistake by equating facts with personal opinions. If someone is truly ignorant, than he is, he lacks knowledge on a subject. Calling someone a fucking idiot is personal vehemence meant to anger, insult, and shame the other person based completely on a personal opinion and the sole point of it is to insult.

The insult is true because the other person thinks it is true as they have that opinion of you.

Now I am not going to dig down into the elementary details of social interaction, you know this shit already. Now you are just being pedantic.

You implied that Socialism leads to people sitting around doing nothing, claiming benefits, unwilling to work and not caring about others, out for what they can get. Not only is this inaccurate a really insulting to those of us forced to claim benefits, but it's so hypocritical as your main objection against social programs is that you don't want to pay for them, you earned your money and you don't care about other people, you're out for what you can get. The most ironic thing is, USA is the country with the massive swathes of unemployed living in trailer parks watching TV and living off welfare unwilling to work if TV is to believed. In my experiences, and I've lived in multiple working class cities, the lower classes in Europe actively seek work and many of them consider it a point of pride to not claim benefits, even when they can. I have mutliple friends who could claim weekly income support cheques but don't because they "don't need it".

This implication was subtle, probably just a throw away comment in your mind because in USA it's parroted so often. The thing is it's a deeply offensive and extremely ignorant comment that shows you have no idea how the working class mentality works and how socialism works. You don't understand the situation and you're simply parroting fears I've heard from places like Fox News which honestly is the least reliable "news" source I've ever seen. This is why I reacted as I did. Your throw away opinions, the very opinions you seem to take for granted are the standard, I find offensively extreme and lacking any compassion, and I felt the need to speak up.

I am apart of the fucking working class. I see the amount of tax dollars taken from my paycheck and go to people to sit and do nothing.

But in socialism, what is to motivate people to work hard, and be productive? When they see they can do the bare minimum and get by? Where is their reward? Everyone ticks differently and have different things that motivate them. Money is that currency that can be a reward for work and thus can be used by that person to give them what gratification they see fit. Be it collecting video games, financial and family security, given freely to charity, or to go on vacation seeing the world etc... I dont want to force someone to be charitable by the government, but to be given of free will.

See I am not a republican, I am most closely a libertarian, but not necessarily adhere to everything they generally believe in, but that most accurately describes me. Keep the government out of my personal life and dont make moral decisions for me.

There are some people who genuinely need help or a little help to get back on their feet to recover from a major event. However, there are those swathes you talk about who are lazy and stupid and take advantage of the system.

The more people think they are guaranteed things, the more entitled they feel and expect everyone to take care of them when they dont prepare. There is a lack of accountability in this country I will agree. Instead of using money to secure things like health care, saving for a rainy day etc, they want to spend it on luxuries they cannot afford and then expect others to pay for their emergencies. They do it because they know they can.

People with debilitating illnesses like you do get treated over here believe it or not. One of the big problems we have with healthcare cost is medicaid and medicaire and how it is implemented and with the ridiculous cost burden of malpractice lawsuits. A person on medicaire can go in for a procedure and it will cost the Dr. say 200$. When they submit it to medicaire, they are told that you will get 100$ for this. How do you think they recover their money? They charge those that are insured more to cover their losses.

Universal healthcare is good in theory, but you do have things like long waits (maybe for organ donors and such which is understandable). You wouldnt have to wait til Nov 9th over here to get your next physician visit.

[Inazuma]

You dodged the question. What rule was it against?

If you read the the TOS for any of the older MMOs, most of them should have a rule against RMT. Obviously the modern MMOs who do it themselves wouldn't have a rule against it.

[TornadoCreator]

But see this is all way off base. Some things are true in some instances but not as a whole. I would argue that not over 50% deny evolution.

1999 Fox News Survey -
Believe Just Evolution: 15%
Believe Biblical creation: 50%
Believe Both: 26%

2005 NBC News Survey -
Humans came to be via evolution: 33%
God created the world in 6 days: 44%
God was a divine presence: 13%
Don't know: 10%

2005 Pew Research Poll -
Existed in present form only: 42% (Creationist)
bullet Evolved via natural processes: 26% (Naturalistic evolution)
bullet Evolved via God's guidance:: 18% (Theistic evolution)
bullet Don't know: 14%

2005 Gallup Research Poll -
Existed in present form only: 45% (Creationist)
Evolved via natural processes: 13% (Naturalistic evolution)
Evolved via God's guidance:: 38% (Theistic evolution)
Don't know: 4%

I can provide links to sources if you'd like. I personally find these statistics terrifying when you consider than USA does a large percentage of the worlds medical research... yet most people don't accept evolution. That's like having the country that builds all our airplanes deny gravity.

And dont even get me started about racism and the UK...

Oh yes, we've had a horrible resurgence of neo-nazism in UK over the last 10 years and it sickens me, but groups like the BNP, EDL and UKIP account for less than 3% of the country. They're a national embarrasment and I'm very happy to say that in the last 18 months the BNP membership figures have fallen by a little over 40% which I hope shows that our country is improving.

And actually, I dont give a shit what you think about me or my country really. I know of our shortcomings and our good, and from what you say, I can tell you are uniformed and are baseless on a lot of things from actually living here and experiencing life here.

Good for you. I knew most people would say that, but at least one American on here seems to think I've got it dead-on bullseye, so do you really not care and think I'm uninformed... or do you just wish I was uninformed?

You talk about civil liberties... the UK is a nanny state. The government digs into your personal freedoms and tries to control so many aspects of peoples personal and every day lives.

Really? When?
The government hasn't dug into my personal freedoms at all... ever.
I'd love to hear which personal freedoms they're digging into and which aspects of my daily life they're controling because one thing I can say is you actually are ignorant of the UK and have no idea what you're talking about, evident by this statement.

[J T]

Man, I make one passing remark about republicans and teaparty views on deregulation and it sparks a whirlwind shit storm of political rage. I love though that buried within that politically enraged tornado that someone created is Mr. Popo and Inazuma still trying to have a discussion about Diablo III microtransactions. :p