Congrats in order to Illwinter & Shrapnel:

[LordArioch]

When I said people today were interested in stealing cars and shooting people, I never meant to imply my interests were more ethical. I just meant to show how young people today set such low expectations for themselves.
Anybody with a gun can shoot people and steal cars, but genocidal holy war and human sacrifice are only practiced by the foremost madmen. I have high hopes for myself in the future, as I plan to become leader of a xenophobic nation devoted to world conquest. No minor street crimes for me.

[ywl]

Originally posted by LordArioch:
When I said people today were interested in stealing cars and shooting people, I never meant to imply my interests were more ethical. I just meant to show how young people today set such low expectations for themselves.
Anybody with a gun can shoot people and steal cars, but genocidal holy war and human sacrifice are only practiced by the foremost madmen. I have high hopes for myself in the future, as I plan to become leader of a xenophobic nation devoted to world conquest. No minor street crimes for me.

I hate to see my Bush question has elicited so many off-topic answers. But well, I was not the one who started it.

Now back to LordArioch. Just for argument sake - but you can still say that GTA is a simulation of violence while the abstractization of war and violence in Dominions is so remote that it's more like solving a puzzle (comparable chess). You can also argue that the gameplay GTA (though I've *never* played it myself) cater to satisfying violent emotions while Dominions is more a cerebral game. It's perfectly understandable even if you felt uneasy that people like GTA.

Of course, you can also argue that Dominions' way of trivialize war casualties nothing more than statistics is way worse...

But let's don't get too serious or we won't be able to play or even do anything.

[vanedor]

[quote]Originally posted by Arryn:

One just has to consider that even if Dom was as fancy as Knights or Call or any of the other popular games, and bug-free, and had a huge (expensive) manual, and anything else that people may feel is lacking, then Dom would still not be popular simply because it's in a niche genre.

I disagree. I think a game like Dom 2 has enough potential to become very popular. Games like SimCity, Civilization, Age of Wonders... are all fairly complicated and popular. It's not as if this game was a hex based hardcore wargame.

Dom 2 got potential, a lot. I only wish the crew behind it could invest more time on it and hire a few more people to handle wa they can't do themselves. For this to become reality, Dom2 needs to get good sales(which, with all the publicities it received, it would not surprise me at all). More importantly, it requires that the developpers wish it to.

"Edit: On the other hand, let's all hope it's not "Total Annihilation". "

Indeed.And let's all hope, for world security sake, that the americans don't pick him(I would say 'again' but during the Last election, more american voted for Al Gore).

[LordArioch]

I doubt Bush is playing total annihilation, as he doesn't have enough taste. I think he's faking us out by pretending to play starcraft (Mars anyone?)
He's really playing counterstrike and the warcraft IV alpha.
Let's just hope he's at least playing counterterrorists and not terrorists.

[licker]

HEH!

I hope Bush is playing Postal or RedNeck Rampage with the idea of actually taking it to all those whiny, underachieving, lost in the woods Demorats who would rather drown the US in the sex blood and violence of hollywood then stand up for something, ANYTHING!!!

LOL at anyone who actually thinks Demos are interested in protecting free speech, they're only interested in protecting their own speech, no different than the Republicans...

Well someone had to stand up for the GOP, pity its a Libertarian like me

[ywl]

Originally posted by licker:
HEH!

I hope Bush is playing Postal or RedNeck Rampage with the idea of actually taking it to all those whiny, underachieving, lost in the woods Demorats who would rather drown the US in the sex blood and violence of hollywood then stand up for something, ANYTHING!!!

LOL at anyone who actually thinks Demos are interested in protecting free speech, they're only interested in protecting their own speech, no different than the Republicans...

Well someone had to stand up for the GOP, pity its a Libertarian like me

Seriously, I guess people are more against Bush than against GOP in general . Afterall, we own much of our deficit deduction and balance budget ideas from the conservatives.

[moodgiesanta]

People, people, Bush is playing Barbie goes Shopping for the Game Boy Advance.

Dominions has some pretty heavy themes, but you're not put in an everyday situation by playing the game. I'm not about to become a centimeter high tga graphic that has control over thousands of people and can cast spells. I am likely to be in a dangerous city at one time. I'm familiar with cities. In GTA3, I shoot people and they bleed. I see all of this, and it is very visceral. Whether this is a healthy outlet of violent urges or an injection of unhealthy ideas into the subconsious is up for argument. But Dominions doesn't appeal to the carnal. It appeals to the strategic mind. Surely, a lot of the issues dealt with are fairly heavy-duty, and it could be very discouraging for many people I know to kill hundreds of virgin girls in order to summon demons from Hell, or that having a fellow enslave population actually counts as a *good* event. But these are dealt with at a conscious level. We know that we aren't going to kill virgins and enslave our neighbors. A game like Grand Theft Auto 3 plays to our subconcious. We don't deal with it on an entirely conscious level. We, in our in-game avatar, take part in the killing of hookers. Whether this is a beneficial, benign or malignant thing, I do not know. But I do know that a game such as Dominion does not provide that questionable input.

My three cents.