Ilithios Liebknecht

From here we can go round and round on it I guess, but I do have one question. Earlier, you pointed out Brag as a non-poker game. I agree that Brag is not poker as does pretty much everyone who is aware of both games. I contend it is not poker because it does not use poker-style betting. The betting is similar but significantly different than poker betting. However, I wonder why you say Brag is not poker. Brag fits exactly your definition of poker. Curious on that one. As to strip poker, as far as I'm aware, it is not a standardized game and therefore does not have a consistent set of rules. It's just a good excuse to get people naked :-). Most times it's hardly a real game at all but just a laugh that is rarely played for more than a few hands. Here are the ways I have seen strip poker played that are or resemble real poker: 1) With chips like normal poker but but how many chips you have determines how many articles of clothing you are allowed to wear. In this version, people can win back their right to wear more clothes and put clothes back on. 2) People's clothes stand in for the chips so people bet and raise a number of articles of clothing. In this version, it is usually not possible to win clothes back as the winner of a hand doesn't win the actual clothes, they just win the right not to remove any themselves. To this point however, it should be noted that there exist games with the word "poker" in their name which are not poker. As an example there is Video Poker. This is just a glorified slot machine. It does not fit either of our definitions of poker since it does not have poker style betting and also hands are never compared with any other hand. You just win (or not win) an arbitrarily set amount of money depending on what cards you have. And yet this game is called Video Poker so it's important to realize that just because a game's name contains the word "poker" doesn't mean it actually is a game of poker and most varieties of Strip Poker probably fall in this category.

Yep. Poker is not a single game. It is a family of games, and the defining thing games of poker have in common with each other that differentiate them from other card games is the betting style. Some mistakenly think of poker as being the "poker hands" like flush, straight, full house etc, but there are plenty of poker games that don't use those (Razz and Badugi being two very popular ones) and many non-poker games that do use them. I suppose it's time to put my cards on the table (pun intended :-P). I was a professional poker player for a few years and then later developed, coded and ran an online poker site as well as having developed my own game of poker that got some regional popularity. So I'm a bit more knowledgeable on this subject than I let on. I was just kind of curious to see if it was at all possible that Phil Deakins could admit to being wrong before I pulled out the authority card.

Sounds like fun. That game is, of course, not poker in any way, but sounds like a good time :-)

The betting in Brag is not the same as poker. It is somewhat similar though, unsurprisingly since Brag is considered by most to be an ancestor of poker. In fact, the only difference between Brag and Poker is the different betting style. If you were to play Brag with poker style betting, you would be playing poker. I agree that it is certainly not a topic worth getting any more deeply invested in than the casual conversation we are having. I do find your view a bit confusing, though. Let's take the simple poker game I described before. The game is simply that each player at a table draws one card from a deck. Betting progresses around in poker fashion. This is clearly a game of poker, but what makes it a game of poker? By my view, it is a game of poker because it employs poker style betting. In your view it is a game of poker because... cards may be compared to determine a winner? I don't understand it. By the way, the poker game I described without the betting is almost exactly the card game called War, the simplistic child's game in which cards are drawn and compared and the winner is the one with the highest card. If you believe that poker is still poker without betting, you must therefore believe that the card game War is poker, a conclusion very few would agree with.

I can tell you have not played much poker if at all. I'm afraid you're incorrect here. The betting in poker is unique to poker, no other game has the same kind of betting, and if it did, that game would be a variant of poker. If you think that "dealing the cards and the highest hand wins" is poker, you must think that a game in which two players turn over the top card of a deck and the person who turns over the highest card wins is a form of poker because that is an equivelant sort of game to the one you think poker is. If this game were changed slightly so that both people drew a card and then employed poker style betting with the ability to fold and so forth then this game would be poker. It is indeed entirely the unique poker-style betting that defines a game as being a game of poker. While poker also involves cards, a game that used, say, dice but utilized the poker betting style would still be much more a game of poker than some "game" in which you just deal out cards and compare them. In fact, in a game of poker very few hands indeed ever get to the point where anyone shows their cards. Maybe 1 out of every 10 hands in a game with at least reasonably decent players, and often far fewer ever get shown down such that the values of the cards held mean anything at all. The game is entirely played through betting.

That would be a bad bet for me to make since even a child figures out very quickly how to make every game a draw. :-) Noughts and crosses, of course, does not have a chance component, so that game you outlined would actually fall within the definition of the "skill gaming" policy even though no one very bright would play it. but yes I do understand and always have understood what you are saying. I'm simply pointing out that it is rhetorical tomfoolery when applied to the gambling games in SL. There is a fee to play the game, but as was pointed out by the originator of this thread, whether you win or lose is largely dependant on chance. Therefore, it is no better than a slot machine. I often laugh at the people who play those skill-based slot machines in casinos. You don't stand the chance to win any more because they are skill based. You just now have the ability to win less because you didn't play perfectly. Same thing here.

Oh you are certainly right that poker is contingent in material part upon chance and definitely does not fit the "skill gaming" policy. Of course neither does any other "skill game" in SL, but you are right that poker does not. I was simply saying that poker is more, or at least as much, a game of skill as the "skill games" currently in SL, not that it fits within the scope of the current policy as written. On a completely different note, you cannot take the betting out of poker. Betting IS the gameplay of poker, not just something to make it more interesting. The betting IS the game. That's why even free to play poker games contain fake betting because poker is not "just deal the cards and turn them over. The one with the best hand wins."

Yes, I saw the legal opinion section, I just mean that the specific legal terms like "hazard" and whatnot are not in the document, but that's really unimportant anyway. All that about fee + bonus sounds like a bunch of hooey to me. Even most modern slot machines can claim that. "Oh yeah it's not a gambling game... we just charge you a fee to play... and take money that we'll give back if you win... but you don't know how much the fee is... and also it gives bonuses sometimes... but yeah totally not a gambling game. It's a game of skill!" haha what a bunch of balogna. Sounds like the kind of nonsense a gambling company's PR people might put together to get around gambling laws. Wait, that's pretty much exactly what it is. In any case, I don't really care if there is gambling in SL. I'm not against gambling; I just don't usually do it myself except poker sometimes. My point is that right now the gambling that exists in SL is all completely against LL's own gambling policy. Yeah they call it a "skill gaming" policy for legal reasons but it's a gambling policy, let's cut the crap. II. SKILL GAMES MAY NOT BE CONTINGENT, IN WHOLE OR IN MATERIAL PART, UPON CHANCE Regardless of anything else, those words are in the policy which makes No Devil and its ilk against the policy. No matter if they want to try to call it a fee plus bonuses and all kinds of other wordplay, it doesn't matter. It is still contingent on chance in material part. From the same section of the policy: "gambling occurs even if skill is the dominant factor, as long as chance is a material element." So it all doesn't matter how it's rationalized, every "skill game" in SL I have ever seen is against the "skill gaming" policy. Like I said, I don't care if there is gambling or not, but the hypocrisy by LL is a little annoying.

I hadn't really looked into it that much since I'm not much of a gambler, but you convinced me to go look up the actual policy. It doesn't mention the legal distinctions you talked about, but I did happen to notice this part: It defines a skill game as one in which the "outcome is determined by skill and is not contingent, in whole or in material part, upon chance." That means that not one single "skill game" I have ever seen in SL is a skill game by the policy's own definition. Every single one of them is very much contingent upon chance. What that tells me is that SL's skill gaming policy is completely meaningless. They say one thing and then arbitrarily allow whatever they feel like. If they stuck to their own rules, every "skill game" in SL would be gone. I've never seen people in "skill gaming" regions putting money down on actual games of skill like chess or go.

I hear ya. LL's determination of what games of skill are could use some work. They ban poker (a definite game of skill) and yet allow No Devil and gambling Greedy machines which, while there is some skill invlolved, are primarily games of chance. You just have to throw your hands up and accept it. And of course don't play them if you don't like it. I don't. If they'd allow poker back, though, I'd be all over that.

Yes the state of events is horrible. Almost all events are just ads. When you post an event, there's a long speil you have to read and part of it tells you that just posting ads instead of actual events "will not be tolerated." What a huge joke. That's what 95% of "events" are and they are very clearly tolerated. It's maddening. I do still list my events though. And people do show up from the event listing sometimes.

/me waves

There are lots of things that exist with lots of people using them. The landmass of SL is huge and of course there are not people covering every inch of it at all times. there are popular places and deserted places. It has been 8 years since you have been here. You're just going to have to take the time to find the places where people do the things you like to do. Unfortunately, not being into combat all that much, I can't help you much in that respect, but populated combat HUD places of various different genres most certainly do exist.

Number 2. No question about it. The graphics card is much more important than processor for running SL and the GTX 970 is way better than the GT 730.

Phil Deakins wrote: You mean because me saying that it's self-evident that SL is not a game proves that I'm not always able to prove my points? That's the only understanding I can come up with from what you wrote. If that's what you meant, you haven't understood it at all. Saying that something is self-evident is not offering a proof. For the proof, you need to go back and read the whole discussion. In other words, I didn't offer "self-evident" as proof of anything. I proved it in earlier posts and threads. I'm glad you think it's funny though. Your lack of understanding when you made your judgement certainly got a big smile from me. Perhaps you need to learn the basics of good debating before taking on masters in the art I'm reminded of something an old regular here posted in the other forum, when someone from there decided to take me on over here. She suggested he didn't try it. She told him that I will wipe the floor with him without breaking a sweat. Words to the effect of 'wipe the floor', anyway. I was so proud And whilst I'm writing a post, I'll point out that I'm not always right in my posts. I argue when I'm right, if people want to argue, because I can prove it. At other times, I discuss and debate, and I'm open to being persuaded one way or the other. At still more time, I start out by saying something like, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but...". But when I believe I'm right, I am right, and I'll enjoy the argument. In other words, I'm pretty much just like everyone else, with the possible exception that I will continue longer than most people, because I'm usually enjoying it. With such a glowing review by Something of an Old Regular Here, you have to be quite a master debater indeed. I have only been reading the forums a short time and have unfortunately thus far only come across debates you have lost, such as this thread in which Theresa has "wiped the floor" with you. I do greatly look forward to seeing you in fine form once you recover from what must be a rare slump.

... I am always able to prove my points ... ... (that's self-evident) ... That's pretty funny. It's rare to see someone claim something and then inadvertently disprove their own statement in the very next sentence. It's especially funny when that person thinks they're good at debate.

Congrats on getting off Facebook. I was also in the same boat for a while, spending too much time on facebook. It seems to me spending too much time in SL is a big step up from that, but maybe I'm biased :-)

It is certainly true that there are lots of areas of study within philosophy and differing sides within each area, but no more so than science. But yes to bring the conversation back on topic, it is also well worth reading Wittgenstein's notion of "family resemblence" since he used the word "game" as the primary example of such a thing. Here is the text and you can find the discussion on page 19, paragraphs 65-71: http://danielwharris.com/teaching/394/WittgensteinInvestigations.pdf Here's also a wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_resemblance

If philosophy was the same, we wouldn't have people holding such a wide spectrum of different philosophies. One would be proven to be the most "logical." This simply isn't the case. Oh but this is very much the case with philosophy as much as it is with science. In philosophy, as with science, progress is constantly being made, older theories being discarded in favor of better ones. While, just like in science, there are often debates, people who follow philosophy don't hold all that wide a spectrum of beliefs. The problem truly arises when people use the term "philosophy" to mean something it does not mean. For example, you say "we wouldn't have people holding such a wide spectrum of different philosophies.' but this sentence makes no sense. There is no such thing as a philosophy. You would not say people hold a wide spectrum of sciences would you? No, because people don't have their own science just like people don't have their own philosophy. Science and philosophy are areas of study and their associated methods, not belief systems in and of themselves. People do, of course, say things like that, and in that case they are just using the word "philosophy" as a synonym for "belief" but that is no more related to the discipline of philosophy than a "bank" where you keep your money is related to the "bank" of a river. People are often unaware of the advances of philosophy because they are not well reported on, but they most certainly do exist and just because people are unaware of them and therefore believe ludicrous things anyway does not mean that philosophy is more loose; it means people aren't using it.

Philosophy is not a hard science though, and rules of logic are much looser to interpretation than science. I didn't watch the video being mentioned in this post but just popping in to point out that this quote above is not true at all. Logic is most certainly not loose or open to interpretation. Also one cannot compare science to logic. Science uses logic. Both science and philosophy use logic although science is much more empirical than philosophy which one might argue makes it a good deal more loose and open to interpretation than philosophy. In any case, the only real difference between science and philosophy is the subject matter being dealt with. In fact almost all of what is now called science was once called philosophy. There was simply a change in labeling at some point along the way.

There are plenty of ways orb owners and creators can make orbs less of a nuisance, some of which are discussed in this thread. However... If the orb owners who are a nuisance actually cared about not being a nuisance, this wouldn't even be an issue. It is already easy enough to keep your orb off when you're not there and to set the warning to a reasonable level, and many orb owners do this. The orb owners who are the problem are not a problem because the technology doesn't exist to do things better. They are a problem because they simply don't care that they're a nuisance. So they wouldn't bother to get the orbs that have these non-nuisancing features.

Rarely ever use forks any more. As someone who grew up using forks, it was surprising to me when I discovered how much more effective chopsticks are for most things forks are used for. use spoons farely often though, and knives if I need to cut things, although sometimes scissors.

As one can see by reading through this quite lengthy thread, SL is most certainly a game by any definition that does not exclude other things which are clearly games, for example Minecraft, The Sims, and even GTA V. Some people may try to argue that the fact that some people make their RL living from it makes it not inherently a game, but this also does not hold up. There are people who make an RL living from other computer games as well, notably Starcraft competitors and MMO gold farmers among others. Instead of reclassifying the game as no longer a game, we call these people professional gamers. I suspect that certain people have a vested interest in convincing themselves that SL is not a game because they don't want to feel like they have dedicated so much of their lives to something that is "only" a game. However, if you see games for the wide spectrum they are, understand that gaming can be and often is a worthwhile pursuit during which people develop real skills and real relationships, and not just a waste of time, this should no longer be an issue. In the end discussing whether or not SL is a "game" is nothing more than an intellectual exercise of course. Calling it a game or not calling it that won't change anything about it.

First of all, do not get a laptop. I can't stress this enough. laptops are for portability, not performance. So unless you go on a lot of business trips or something and need to move your computer around to different places constantly, cross laptops of your perspective new computer list right now. Second, the thing that is going to be the most important to your performance with 3D applications like SL and Blender is your graphics card. 50% of the price of my computer was just the graphics card. The other 50% was everything else. I make 3D games for a living though, so you probably don't need to go that extreme. Just know that the first thing you should be looking at is the graphics card if you want performance with 3D applications. Next behind the graphics card is memory. Make sure you have at least 8 gigs of memory. Memory just isn't that expensive. There's no reason to have less memory than that. After those things are taken care of, pretty much any decent modern computer will do the trick.

The HUD is automatically attached as part of the Experience. There is nothing you need to have to play Linden Realms.