VOLRATH'S PROFILE

Yeah, that was awfully nice. Thanks!

Debating religion is tough because it's easy for discussions to slip into people saying "your feelings are wrong" back and forth to one another. But I do think it's valuable to share different perspectives and experiences as a lot of people here have done. In the long run, I think that stuff is more worthwhile than arguing about it.

My mother was raised Catholic and my Dad didn't have any religion until his mother was suddenly taken in by the Jehovah's Witnesses (you know, the ones that come to your door and annoy you). Dad was old enough to be like "Yeah, no thanks" but had no issues with mom's Catholicism even if he never bought it himself. Still, I was baptized, went to CCD (we used to call it Central City Dump) and even had a First Communion. Then my little sister died when I was five years old. The local priest came to our house, ostensibly to comfort us, and wound up not-so-subtly urging my mother to make a donation to the church. That was the end of our little adventure with Catholicism. No more CCD, no more church on Sundays, and I can't say I ever really missed it.

In my first year of college at NYU, I saw a plane crash into the second World Trade Center building. Shortly after, the Rev. Jerry Falwell blamed it on gays, feminists, athiests, secularists, basically everyone except the assholes who flew the plane into the tower. What a douchebag. I wasn't in any hurry to reevaluate my religious stance, or lack thereof.

Then I met my future wife, who was a pretty faithful churchgoer. At first, I ignored it but then I got a better idea of what her church was like. They never talked about people going to Hell for their sins, all they ever wanted to do was raise money to help poor people. When my wife was going through her ordination process to become a reverend, she had to discuss her faith in detail with a panel of other clergy. She told them she didn't believe in Hell and felt that everyone would go on to the next world together. They told her that was "unrealistic." Really? More unrealistic than a talking snake? I remember that pissed me off a lot. Still, she was ordained and has been for quite a few years now. She's even married some gay couples, including a pair from North Carolina who wanted to be married shortly before one of them died from a terminal illness (and no, it wasn't AIDS). She would later use that story in a sermon, telling the congregation about the couple without revealing that it was two men. Once everyone was all teary and emotional, she dropped the bomb. Very interesting way to get people to think differently about the issue.

There were a few times where our differences made things a little tricky. In the wedding ceremony for instance, I didn't want to personally mention God in any of my vows, because to me God had nothing to do with it. The pastor could say whatever he wanted, but I wasn't going to be something I'm not. Similar situation with the baptism of our sons. Typically, parents promise to raise their children within the faith but I wasn't about to make a promise I couldn't keep. If they adopt those beliefs of their own free will, that's that, but it's not my decision to make. In both of those circumstances, we worked things out and tailored the events to make everyone happy.

I eventually came to be more charitable towards religion in general. I realized that even though the American media puts the spotlight on jerks who want to use their faith as a weapon against others, for a lot of other people it simply served as inspiration to do good in the world. The days of using religion to explain the origin of the Earth are over, made irrelevant by science. However, it's power as a motivating force for people is still alive and well.

It all sounds so harmonious and yet the world still has such issues with religious conflicts. I tend to think it's because so many people refuse to accept an obvious truth: that the standards and rules of any religion only hold sway over those who choose to follow it. Something like the Bible has no tangible authority except to those who have chosen to impart it with that authority. Everyone has the freedom to believe what they want in the privacy of their own homes and their own minds. But if you think that gives you the right to dictate the actions and choices of others, you're in for some serious disappointment.

Gay marriage, for instance. No church will ever be forced to marry a gay couple if the clergy there feels uncomfortable with the idea, regardless of what some hyperbolic bigots may tell you on TV. They will always have the right to say "Sorry, we don't do that here, find another church." And there will be another church available somewhere that will do it. The government recognizing same-sex marriage only applies to the bureaucratic elements, i.e. record-keeping, taxes, etc. It is not making a statement on the religious validity of the marriage one way or the other. Frankly, as a married hetero guy, I was getting a little sick of hearing that the "foundation" of my own marriage was in danger from this. Seriously, what does that even mean? It's not like I was home with my wife and all of a sudden our house is shaking. "Oh no! The foundation of our marriage is in trouble!"

Not even the Christians can all agree on this issue...expecting EVERYONE to avoid gay marriage is quite a stretch, don't you think?

Another example is the idea of drawing the prophet Mohammed. It's fine if Muslims want to avoid it for whatever reason. But come on, you can't expect the entire world never to draw something, that's just ridiculous. Right now, I can draw a stick figure, make an arrow pointing to it and write the word "Mohammed." According to some people, I have just committed a major taboo. I'm sorry, but that rule only applies to Muslims who have chosen to follow it. We have to let go of this idea that we can expect the entire world to change in order to satisfy these little preferences with no legal ground to stand on.

I think when we talk about banning something or making something illegal, the question we should keep in mind is "does it make people suffer?" So, with that in mind...
-Murder? Yes.
-Gay Marriage? No. Being grossed out does not constitute harm.
-Rape? Yes.
-Drawing Mohammed? No.

I've found that hasn't steered me wrong.

If anyone actually read that whole thing, thanks!

Ah, Arc II. I have a tough relationship with this one. It's pretty important to the story as a whole of course, but in terms of re-writing dialogue, this is where we'd need it the most.

-Auburn's intro is fairly forced, I just didn't know much about the character yet and it kinda shows. It would be different and the music would obviously be different too.

-Of the few scenes that have been written for a new MotW, several are discussions of Equipment King. I suppose that's the part I really want to nail down this time. I figure Violet will have a similar role.

-Not sure what we're doing with crafting. The fact that the characters are armorsmiths basically forces us into it, but I have a feeling AB would want to do something much different with it.

-The bit with the children is just sloppy. At the time, I thought I was being clever and referencing Wal-Mart's reliance on goods from countries that use child labor, but it doesn't really make sense with The Hand's mission. In a new version, I suspect they would be sitting comfortably with Dican maybe reading about Gallian history.

Keep it coming!

Ah, good stuff. Few quick thoughts.

Cade's attitude towards Andau changes a few times. When they learn his backstory, he's sympathetic since he also lost his loved ones...but once Gabriella gets brought into it, that sympathy is gone. By the end of Andau's arc, he regains some respect for him and realizes that they really were similar in some ways. You could even argue that Andau's warped viewpoint about his revenge is a twisted version of Cade's ideals about justice.

My brother enjoyed making insane NPCs and he was the original mastermind behind the baby and the clown (and also the cat that used to say "better bring your wallet or you're gonna PAY A FEE"). We knew they were too ridiculous to be wandering around but at the same time didn't really want to get rid of them so we tossed them in that shack. I doubt we'd have any NPCs who were that silly in a new version, but hopefully a lot of them would at least be funny.

AB disowned Terr Mountain a long time again. I suspect that scene would be more of a chase sequence than a full dungeon.

author=Liberty
It was an era of exploration and innovation. A time when people pushed past the boundaries of what they thought could be done and experimented, sharing their knowledge with their fellow creators. A time of expression and thought, when mapping wasn't all that a game should aspire for, when graphical consistency didn't matter so much, when you made custom menus just to prove you could. It was a time of discoveries; an era of moving ever-forward with design and forging rules and ideals that we now take for granted.

That's so interesting because I have very similar feelings about RM2k, in addition to the satisfaction of being able to make an entire game just on my own. Obviously, I've had a lot of success with collaborations but there's still appeal to the idea of the one-man show. I don't think I could manage to pull of a whole game by myself in the newer engines (at least not one that anyone would be interested in).

These are really good, keep 'em coming!