http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-34592186

https://qz.com/519737/all-chinese-citizens-now-have-a-score-based-on-how-well-we-live-and-mine-sucks/

So I thought about making this topic a year ago due to most of us having a shared interest in gaming as a hobby and due to the fact that I generally find it to be an interesting subject, but just never ended up getting around to it. For those who don't know (and can read or watch more about above) China has instituted a system where all of their citizens online activity is monitored and rated on their purchasing habits and political opinions they've expressed. People with higschores can get things like better loans from the bank or discounts on hotels when they travel while people with lower scores will face more scrutiny and will likely end up finding it harder to things like loans or insurence and could find it harder to secure jobs due to having a low "trustworthiness" rating.

Even if the information on this is outdated due to being a year old we can still discuss the concept, or idea of a system like this being put in place. So what are your thoughts on the above system that people of criticized as being Orwellian? Do you think we might see these kinds of systems popping up outside of China in the future?

I've been thinking about bringing them back for a while now. If so what would you want to see?

https://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/introducing-clone-states-and-the-future-of-access-to-eve-online/

There are restrictions on what f2p accounts can train, but honestly the restrictions aren't that bad since most pvp outside of large sovnul engagements only involve t1 frigs destroyers and cruisers anyway. The only thing that has me kind of "eh" though is that f2p accounts are limited to only flying ships of their chosen "race". I mean every faction has good ships in it, but it makes it hard to f2p people to reship for different kinds of fleet doctrines and kind of forces them to kitchen sink everything. I suppose f2p people do need an incentive to subscribe though, otherwise people would never do it.

Regardless I think this will be a good thing for the game as it will inject a lot of new blood into the game in November.

Notice: I will be leaving for Hawaii in a couple days so this wont happen until after I get back


So I've been playing and loving Stellaris lately, a game in which you craft your own interstellar empire and try to forge your way through a randomly generated galaxy (of your type choosing) with however many other alien empires you chose to spawn in with you (up to a max of 40 empires including your own). While playing it I came across the console command of "observe" which takes you away from the control of any empire and situates you in a spectator seat while an AI takes control of whatever empire it was you chose to play as. This gave me an idea. What if I placed a whole bunch of sep7 created empires and set them loose in a galaxy with each other?

So this is where you guys come in. I'd like each of you to craft a single empire from the options I give below so I can let this happen. When I'm back from Hawaii I'll start up this thing and give periodic updates on it (basically leaving the game up and running in the background while I do other stuff) so you guys can see how your empires are doing.

For those of you who don't want to make your own and just want to do everything either post saying you want to be part of it and I'll randomly generate something in your name, or post the stuff you care about and I'll fill in anything you didn't post for your race/empire myself. Priority will be given to those who put more work in the unlikely event that this fills up.

Now lets get crafting.

Step 1: Choosing your race

http://www.stellariswiki.com/Species Wiki's don't normally let you embed stuff from them so just post the race type and portrait id if its giving you trouble.

Note: I do not have Mammalian Massive #16 and Anthropoid Massive #14.


Step 2: Naming your race
Self explanatory

Step 3: Picking your traits
http://www.stellariswiki.com/Traits
If you don't want to do any sort of number crunching you can post an idea of what you'd like your races traits to be and I'll try the best I can to represent it with the options available to me.

Step 4: Picking your first ruler
The first ruler will be named after you.

Step 5: Pick and name your Homeworld + star

Pick from one of 7 Planet types and name it. The planet types are as follows.

Continental, Ocean, Arctic, Tundra, Arid, Desert, Tropical

Step 6: Pick your city type
This is just aesthetic and offers no gameplay bonuses. Choose from Mammalian, Avian, Reptilian, Anthropoid, Molluscan, and Fungoid.

Step 7: Pick your government and ethos

Now we can do this a couple different ways. You can either build one with information gained from the wiki. http://www.stellariswiki.com/Government_types http://www.stellariswiki.com/Ethos#Militarist_-_Pacifist

Or you can describe the kind of government you want and I'll try to work with it.

For reference here are the categories. You can either pick from the left or the right side in each category and can have a total of three points allocated to ethos. Fanatic ones are worth two and regular ones are worth one.

Fanatic militarist - militarist ———-- pacifist - fanatic pacifist

Fanatic collectivist -  collectivist ————- individualist - fanatic individualist

fanatic xenophobe - xenophobe ————-- xenophile - fanatic xenophile

fanatic materialist - materialist ————— spiritualist - fanatic spiritualist


Governments are dictated by ethos so if you just want a specific government type and don't want to dabble in ethos you can just post that and I'll try to ascribe the necessary ethos to have it.

Military Dictatorship
Divine Mandate
Despotic Hegemony
Enlightened Monarchy
Despotic Empire

Military Junta
Theocratic Oligarchy
Science Directorate
Peaceful Bureaucracy
Plutocratic Oligarchy

Military Republic
Theocratic Republic
Direct Democracy
Moral Democracy
Indirect Democracy

Step 8: Pick your flag
http://www.stellariswiki.com/Flag_modding
post color and flag ids

Step 9: Pick your starting weapon

Mass drivers, missiles, or lasers

Step 10: Pick your FTL meathod


Warp, Hyperspace, or Wormhole

Step 11: Pick your ship aesthetic
Mammalian, Avian, Reptilian, anthropoid, Molluscan, or Fungoid


You're done.

So during my daily beat down on spambots I came across this.

Just what is this?

When XCOM 2 comes out on the 5th I feel like making a run with Sep7 members as my units. How many of you would want to be included?

If so post ITT with what class you'd prefer to be.

For those of you who are unfamiliar I'll post the classes and what they have.


Might stream it too in case any of you want to watch yourself die horribly fight valiantly against the alien oppressors.

So I'll be starting up a stream of the first Gintama movie in about thirty minutes. Join if you want, link will be posted when its actually up.

https://livestream.com/accounts/12179472/events/4592480

its up

Tru wants to do the older raids in Destiny because he's not a high enough level to do the Kings Fall one.

So who's up for doing Vault of Glass and/or Crota? Gears not good anymore, but you can still get ships, shaders, emblems, achievements, and sparrows.

We're playing on the Xbox One.

It's called The Jew™. Pre-order The Jew™ class today and become Legend™ ! !

What level do I have to be to beat the money midget in clock city?

Everyone is level 15-16 right now and he's still kicking my ass.

Last December, we conducted a poll to choose the style of moderation that our staff would follow. The three types that were up for a vote were:

• Strict System - Under this system of moderation, all rules will be enforced more heavily with a clear, concrete moderation process when it comes to warnings and bans (This process would be shared with the community once it is developed). While we will not become Waypoint and just ban without letting you know ahead of time that you are breaking the rules - there would be far less verbal warnings being given out before we actually take moderation action. Essentially: You know the rules, you follow the rules, or you lose privilege to post on the forums.
  
• Lax System - Similar to what we have now, this system would take a more relaxed route to enforcing the rules, with moderation decisions less concrete. While there would be a suggestion moderation process, any punishments would ultimately come down to the Moderator that is online and handling the problem, along with the severity of the rule break, and whether or not there are alternatives to bans available
  
• Hybrid System - This would use both the strict and lax systems, and apply them to different rules for the website. For example, Personal Attacks/Graphic Content/Harassment would fall under the Strict System - you know that it is not allowed, and the moderation process for handling them is concrete and clear. Issues like spam and shitposting, however, would fall under the Lax System - it comes down to the moderator's discretion as to how it is dealt with*
  

In the poll, Hybrid won with 61.4% - Since then, it has been how we wrote our rules and defined the moderation.

Recently, it has come to the staffs attention that this system may not be the best for our site, and that the punishments that accompany it are too relaxed, especially for repeat offenders. In light of this, we are once again polling the community on how they want their moderation to be. The three poll options will be as followed:

• More Strict Moderation, with Harsher Punishments
• Moderation as it currently is
• More Relaxed Moderation, with Lesser Punishments

This poll will run until Thursday, alongside the Community Feedback thread.

Thank you for your input.

Since FE: F is going to have online multiplayer we'd actually be able to do something like this. How many of you that are getting FE: Fates would be interested?

http://gematsu.com/2015/06/fire-emblem-fates-online-multiplayer

FE tourney after this thing releases in the west anyone?

http://store.steampowered.com/

Just a friendly PSA

Something may come of you being your opposite gender in the future. I want to get a general pulse of who would and wouldn't be ok with this.