I say it's debatable because a debating agent is not expended and removed from existence. You may not think it is acceptable, but after it happens you can still talk about it.

You're totally right about the difference, obviously. There are so many intricacies to this that you could probably go on forever, heh. I just found his objection to this one thing so surprising in light of all the other things that will happen over the course of a game like this.

The reason I find it backwards is because of the fact they value their personal adherence to a non-factual endeavor, over factual harm done to others (to put it generally). It's a matter of what you believe in, of course, but even in my own case I make a very strict differentiation between varying degrees of reality…

His earliest post on the project was in 2010, so I guess it's possible if he'd spent a very large amount of time on it, given it's not just the build work, but research into what to do and how and collection of the required components and such. But yeh, sounds high... Maybe he wasn't alone?

I don't doubt it. I sometimes lament the fact that you rarely find discussions anymore that remind of the ones that I think Socrates wrote about (perhaps they were relayed from Plato though), where people vehemently disagree but are still able to argue sensibly. (call me crazy for looking for that kind of thing on the…

Some people might be more inclined to believe they are becoming the character in question, but in my case I have no illusions about identification between myself and a fictional character I choose to portray. I usually play something I'm not, to get away from who or what I am, which makes it much easier to separate…

I may be able to comprehend it, but I can't believe it indeed. That's what it basically comes down to. My agnostic nature makes it so that however mighty God may be, I refuse to allow my perception of him to change the course of my existence. This mostly in light of the terrible things that are done in his name,…

I didn't see this post before, hence why I replied after. I would argue it's the opposite. In my view my comment makes it so that it's not about me. The fact that blasphemy condemns your eternal soul is a personal consequence, and is thus about you and your relationship to a deity. Murder is not a personal…

Could you elaborate on why it would be mixed up to think this way, even if I was religious? Granted, my personal relationship to a deity is non-existent, but the central tenets of my beliefs, religious or not, are that people are more important than gods. The bible itself also confirms this, at least this is my…

Yeh, power to him. If he wants a refund and Valve thinks he deserves one, who am I to argue with that? Just that I find his personal reasons flawed and would not be able to take such a position myself were I in the same situation.

Yeh, I doubt I'd be able to get technical, since I'm not a christian. I was raised a christian but am mostly an agnostic in that I personally don't care about God or any deity. I'm more offended by the very concept of sin itself, and the practise of damaging the act of living for some imperceptible goal (the afterlife)

I didn't actually know the word for the other type of sin. Good to know, and here it definitely appears to apply. The baptism in the game is forced, which by definition makes it venial. And actually, according to some other comments here, the killing is forced as well, essentially giving it the same treatment.

But it's not necessarily the mockery he is offended by. It's the fact he has to commit the act that is the problem, which is just as imaginary as the violence and should thus be treated similarly in my opinion.

I find it amusing that he would find a mock baptism more of a problem than the countless acts of murder he would have been very willing to cope with. This is personally something I find backwards about some people's religious beliefs. In my eyes murder is many times worse than blasphemy. The one is a breach of…

As far as I understand it, it's a matter of money and infrastructure. Publishers have a social infrastructure that connects them to investors, or they have the funds themselves in which case they are the investor. These two types of people are usually of a like mind, which is very unlike the developer (which is a big…

Didn't the original Grid have cockpit?

Boom Blox comes to mind.

Apart from light maps (unless it's all realtime, but yeh why would you?), particles and light cookies, it looks like this game doesn't use any textures. Looks very clear because of it. Kind of has that "clay render" feel you get from a 3dsmax skylight. I like it.

To be fair, it's not just the technique they stole. It's everything. The angle, the extras, the activities, everything. When I read about the technique being stolen, my first thought was "Oh come on, I've seen this before", but when you compare the videos it's pretty obvious they did far more than just copy the…

Anybody else notice that when you climb with the pick in Tomb Raider, if you lean one way she's hanging back from the pick, if you lean the other way she's hanging back from... nothing. Magic!