"Better dead than red!"

Kotaku has a good little piece on Diablo III, if anyone's interested.

I'm getting ready to go to New York City for a week, so I'll not be updating. I'm looking forward to doing the tourist thing and getting my second glance at the Big Apple.

Travel is something I love to do. While I was living in Japan, I visited both China and Vietnam. I was very interested to see these communist nations, and was surprised to find that there really wasn't a huge difference in the city life compared to Western democracies. The lives that these commies lived actually seemed very similar to my own.

Nonetheless, this article is a good example of the potential downside of a "communist" government. (The article is from Game Politics, which is a really cool website if you're interested in that type of thing.)

If you are like me, a video game maniac who can literally play games for eight hours straight, then the article represents a horrible alternate reality. Vietnam's authoritarian government imposed limits on how much of one's free-time can be spent gaming.

I've heard of similar practices in China, as well. I can understand that they think its best for people to be productive and not waste their time on games, but it sure chafes me to imagine the government getting in my business.

Freedom truly is precious.

What does the future hold?

On October 29th, 1929, Wall Street was shocked by a complete collapse of prices on the stock market. The plunge continued for a full month, and thus began the world-wide Great Depression.

This directly led to the rise of extremism throughout Europe, with fascist groups taking over in Spain, Germany, and Italy. It also was responsible for the military coup that took control of Japan.

The rise of extremism in various countries eventually resulted in World War II.

Now we have the so-called "Great Recession". It certainly has created a great deal of unrest, some of which is dangerously reminiscent of the past. Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, gave a very stark warning about the potential for the democracies of Greece, Spain, and Portugal to collapse under the current economic strain.

Revolution can occur when people lose faith in their government. Kinda like what happened in Okaloosa County, Florida. The county commissioners voted to take action without regard to the red-tape filled chain of command that exists through state and federal governments. They're saying that the government isn't working; it is neither efficient nor effective for their needs. And they're willing to go to jail, if that's what it takes.

I wonder if this isn't an isolated case. It certainly seems like a lot of people, all around the world, are fed up with what they see as government that just doesn't work.

May we live in interesting times, indeed.

Thoughts on GalCiv2's tax rate limit

Periodically, I'll be ranting about any topics that bug me. This is one of those posts.

Let me start by saying that Galactic Civilizations 2: Rise of the Dreadlords is a pretty damn good 4x game.

It has solid gameplay, is very well supported by the developers, a lot of customization options, and overall is exactly what I would want from a space 4x game.

However, I do have one bone to pick with the game design: the tax rate can't go past 80%. The game's lead designer, Brad Wardell (who is also the CEO of the game's developer & publisher Stardock), has stated that the reason for this is that nobody would put up with a tax rate of higher than 80%.

I've always been irked by that reasoning. In a game that supposes technology sufficient to destroy solar-systems, it is too far of a stretch to believe that some civilizations would be willing to work for the Greater Good of their species? I find it frustrating that in a game set so distantly in the future, Mr. Wardell still has to apply his modern-day capitalistic world-view on the entire universe.

Maybe I'm just weird, and I shouldn't be so bothered by such a minor detail, but it has literally bugged me for years. Off the top of my head, I can think of a few reasons why a tax rate of 100% would be plausible:

1) Robotic communism. If robots do all the labor and provide everything that people need, why would anyone care about the tax rate? "Bar-tender bot, call pizza-bot for me will ya?"

2) Tribal mentality. In the history of civilization, there have often been political organizations in which all the produced goods would go to a chief, and he would then allocate what was necessary for each individual family while keeping the rest for himself, and presumably using it for the good of the tribe. It isn't realistic for modern day capitalists, but it has happened in Earth's history, and therefore I think it shouldn't be so easily ruled out by Mr. Wardell.

3) Space Ants. There's even a race in the game based on insects. Yet they have a tax rate, and it can't go past 100%? Ants don't even get paid, but they work their butts off for the colony day in and day out! Space Ants!

In general, I can go along with weird gameplay functions so long as they are well explained in the context of the setting. Final Fantasy VII's materia.. rocks that allow people to cast magic spells? It was well explained, though, so I could go with it.

I have a hard time accepting game mechanics that aren't adequately explained, though, and this is one of those cases. An arbitrary limit on the taxation of galaxy-spanning civilizations, just because the game's lead designer had to force his politics into the product.

Mr. Wardell is rather outspoken about his political beliefs, in any case, and has caused controversy more than once by expressing his views through official Stardock websites.

I suppose if you make a computer game, you can make it however you like, but nonetheless I would hope you'd strive for well-reasoned or believable gameplay mechanics.