Lothic

I don't have a quibble with the folks who earn their billions on the market only to buy stuff for their builds.
I don't even have a problem with the folks who like to horde 100s of billions just "because they can".

The people I don't quite understand are the "Crazy 88" types who like to earn countless billions for the express purpose of (as far as I can tell) bragging about how many of those billions they've burned through the Influence to Prestige conversion. Some of them even claim that they are on some kind of crusade to accumulate as much Influence as they can for the sole purpose of "removing" it from the general marketplace via their destructive efforts.

Unlike a real economy this game simply creates Influence via the actions of its players. There's absolutely no way you can "reduce" the total amount of something that's infinitely renewable. I couldn't really think of a more pointless activity if I tried - but then again like many other things people enjoy doing in this game maybe it doesn't really matter if there's a "point" to it in the long run.

Notes about Dale: While I honestly didn't expect to see him to check out during last night's episode it almost made sense for him to get killed at this point. Of the entire group I think he always represented "the past", the time before the ZA when there was law and civilization. Clearly the group has been slipping away from that as more people die and the truth that things are never going to return to "normal" is finally driven home.

Dale, as a character, served his purpose. He made his point known to Shane, Rick and the others that the world as they knew it was over. In order to "prove" his point he really had no where to go character-wise other than to get killed in a senselessly sad way. His death verified that the world has in fact changed and that the group is broken. It'll be up to the others to pick up the pieces and recreate a new world that Dale could have never been a part of.


Notes about Carl: Opposite to Dale we have Carl who represents "the future". He's growing up in a world where things have literally become survival of the fittest. He's learning that individual human life is almost meaningless, where random friends or strangers can end up dying at any moment. He's now even learned (or at least feels guilty about) what it's like to let someone die due to his actions. I suspect Dale's death may be the tipping point that'll crush any last ideas about him just being a carefree innocent child.

Some may think that he'll turn into some kind of maladjusted sociopath, and if the world was still in pre-ZA mode that might be one way to summarize it. But I think that given the circumstances of the post-ZA world that he's learning exactly the kinds of harsh lessons he'll need to survive. He won't be able to afford the luxuries of second-guessing and compassion that got Dale killed (at least indirectly).

In a weird sort of way I see Dale's death almost akin to that classic scene when Luke Skywalker watched Obi Wan get killed by Darth Vader. It was a pivotal scene in Carl's life that'll galvanize him into becoming the kind of man he'll need to be in order to survive.


Notes about Randall: I'm fairly convinced that he's completely full of crap and a definite threat to the group. First off he didn't really seem that innocent when Daryl was beating him. Sure he was whimpering and begging Daryl to stop, but he was acting more like a captured enemy soldier rather than a purely innocent kid. He only told Daryl things -after- Daryl beat he more. If he was truly innocent/repentant he'd be telling Daryl everything instantly instead of trying to keep his mouth shut.

Also there was that scene where Carl snuck into barn and Randall was trying to get him to let him go so that he could "go back to his group". Why does Randall have so much loyalty to that other group which supposedly did all those evil things that he tried to claim he didn't do himself?

Let's just say if Randall actually ends up being an innocent kid that's true to his word then I'll be surprised at this point. I think Shane's assessment of Randall's threat is spot-on.

Add me to the group of players who wouldn't mind the game doing something better to give me the exact height of my characters but leave off doing anything about weight because that value is completely subjective.

Think of it this way: I can SEE the relative height of my character on the screen but I can't SEE how heavy my character might be due to any roleplay rationale I might be able to come up with. Therefore the game shouldn't bother to try to "guess" my weight for any reason. If a weight value is important to you then record it in your bio.

P.S. I noticed that Intussusceptor noted his "forum location" was Sweden. Like most of the rest of the world I suspect he's used to using the metric system for heights and weights. Ironically for him if this game started giving us calculated heights and weights it'd probably be in feet/inches and pounds. That would probably be almost as annoying to him as not having that info at all.