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[John Gaden]

I only read about half of the first page, so im not sure where in the discussion ive come in. But, i'd just like to point out that Liberty Crime Squad allowed you to set hundreds of small children(who you kidnapped from sweatshops, of both sexes)to act as prostitutes and make thousands of dollars a day. So i dont think toady would probably even consider morality in adding dwarf prostitution. Personally, i'd love to see it. Dwarves arent really known as great, morally sound people anyways. I mean, we're all forgetting about the monsters in the cave. The dwarves did invade their home, slay them, take all their treasure and sell it to humans for more kittens to eat. *shrug* [/rant]

[Draxxalon]

Perhaps we should replicate the intelligent discussion part of this thread somewhere else, and get toady to delete this thread.

Since it appears nobody is bothering to actually read beyond the flames, and is just stopping by to crap on the thread (taking us back to page one).

[Capntastic]

quote:Originally posted by Draxxalon:
<STRONG>Perhaps we should replicate the intelligent discussion part of this thread somewhere else, and get toady to delete this thread.

Since it appears nobody is bothering to actually read beyond the flames, and is just stopping by to crap on the thread (taking us back to page one).</STRONG>

People sharing their opinions on the original subject of the thread (read: 'prostitutes and abortions') are being trolled by the person who started the thread in the first place.

You can't really try to 'control' a discussion that's all over the tracks like this, especially if you're just going to call everything that you don't agree with/want to hear 'unintelligent.'

But yes, you're correct in that this thread is a trainwreck in slow motion and should be left forgotten.

[Solara]

quote:Originally posted by Capntastic:
<STRONG>
People sharing their opinions on the original subject of the thread (read: 'prostitutes and abortions') are being trolled by the person who started the thread in the first place.
</STRONG>

I'm honestly surprised (and okay, kind of amused) that this has gone on so long...I thought was pretty evident that the person who started this thread was deliberately trolling right from the start. If not by the first post, than definitely by the time he suggested a 'Pimpmeister'.  :roll:

So we've got abortion, prostitution, STDs...did he throw heroin addiction and gay marriage and orgies and pedophilia and fanatical terrorist dwarves out there too? I stopped reading by the second page.

[qalnor]

I've been honest about my views throughout the thread, and I take issue with being accused of trolling.

The reality is on the first page most of the people interested in discussing the issue were only interested in talking about how awfully immoral prostitution is.

Was I aggressive towards those people? Yes. Because they were taking the thread off topic, I wanted to make them look like jackasses as fast as possible without room for interpretation that I was just trying to start a fight so that serious discussion could begin.

And it did for a day or so.

Now we've gotten to the point where new people are coming to the thread because it's gotten a lot of traffic, and they're reading 5 posts and saying "HA HA LOOKS LIKE ITS TIME FOR ME TO TALK BECAUSE EVERYONE SURELY WANTS MY IMPRESSION OF THE FIRST PAGE OF DISCUSSION HA HA"

Which is where we are now. And I agree, there probably is no hope of recovering the thread at this point, because it's not a matter of making an idea look stupid anymore, it's a matter of getting people to read, which if they're not reading is a pretty impossible task.

[Capntastic]

I actually read the thread all the way through since it was made, and never really found it that interesting, or worth fighting over.

[qalnor]

No you only found it interesting enough to quote two posts to make a retarded point that had nothing to do with what anyone said.

[20,000leeks]

I mean no offence qalnor, but the first post does read a little like it was intended to spark ferocious discussion. Then again, you've said quite a few things since then that give the impression you have actually put a deal of thought into the idea, so I'm not sure that claiming the entire post was simply to provoke reaction is entirely accurate.

That having been said, the flaming started because there are a lot of people who feel very strongly on the issue one way or the other. That's cool, too. Unfortunately, a lot of people forget that, as Umberto Eco once said "Just because I *believe* it is so does not make it so". In other words, it's alright to say "I disagree because A B C", but it's not alright to say "You're wrong because everything I believe is right". That's the problem with issues in morality - it tends to be a personal thing that's not really set by any benchmark, at least in semi-controversial issues like this.

Anyway. Back to the actual question at hand.

Prostitution is viable within the Fortress at the moment, although it probably wouldn't be that useful. Economically (and yes, this sounds cold, but there you go) dwarves don't really have the... extra push of having little or no means to support themselves, largely because even once the Bookkeeper arrives the dwarves seem to run under some strange form of socialism (when was the last time you met a socialist who supported the idea of a monarchy?). Socially, the dwarves *seem* to be monogamous. Once a couple are together, that's it. So far, anyway - coding that kind of social dynamic is probably a lot easier than anything else just at the moment. Ideally, then, the nobles would probably be the ones who would, uh, be involved in the issue.

This isn't without precedent in human society, though. Courtesans have been around for a long, long, long time. In a some cases, it's actually been a respected profession - courtesans have been people with quite a lot of political clout. It would be interesting to see a similar system for the Dwarves. Courtesans (male and female, of course) could arrive, attatch themselves to a noble, and then make demands through the noble. A Broker, for example, does not require much in the way of Dwarven comfort. However, if a Broker took up with a courtesan, maybe the courtesan would start demanding much more luxurious items. This could upset the other nobles - "Why's she getting all these fancy things? She's only a Broker, after all!", so you have to tread the thin line between upsetting the Broker and her courtesan and upsetting the higher-ranked nobles.

[Citizen of Erl]

You know, given qalnor claims to be all about discussion and forethought, he sure is eager to flame people; and let others argue for him.

Anyways, the downfall of this idea would be that, as described, would take dwarves out of one's control. As Capn said, nothing should get in the way of them destroying nature for profit.

[dav]

It's interesting - there doesn't seem to be a service industry at all in the fortress.  Want something to drink?  There are no walk-throughs or waitresses or bars.  Just a barrel somewhere.  My dwarves then stick their heads inside (no goblets here!) and slurp up their fair share, leaving behind beard hairs and a fine skim of oil from their unwashed bodies.  Gives a little extra kick to that swamp whiskey.  Mmmmm.

In a society like that, I expect sexuality to be pretty self-service, too.  Although in defense of what most people have decided is a giant group of prepubescent workaholics, just because there's not much pregnancy doesn't mean there isn't a lot of sex.  Granted, I never see it happen, so it may be invisible sex, but fertility varies widely depending on a bunch of issues.  Considering that dwarves live two or three times longer than people, it's unsurprising that they have fewer kids.  Replacement rate is only 2.1 for societies where there are no elephants.

A side note: many of the "icky" things that happen in the game are not a result of evil dwarves, but of evil you.  No dwarf volunteers to butcher kittens.  Evil spirits possess people to make dwarf infant boots.  Drowning the nobles?  Hey, all they did was flip a switch.  Hey! It IS like Nazi Germany.  And that makes you . . .!  It does crack me up that half the people are like - hey! We're down with including Nazis in DF.  I agree (sort of), but it does make you wonder who's on this forum.

There was a point in this post, but I think it got lost somewhere around the sociology lesson.  Sorry.

[Nobody]

Mm. Well, I'd be happier with having less control over the dwarves, but it's true that the dwarves don't seem to have much of a life outside of what you order them to do.

I guess it's all opinions.

By the way, Qalnor, calm down, I can see why most people'd call you a flamer or a troll with your humongously self defensive attitude to everything.

[John Gaden]

Someone brought up the idea of nobles being more inclined to visit a prostitute than a normal dwarf, perhaps there ought to be a sort of dwarfly geisha? If the nobles didnt already have a partner of the opposite sex they could begin to make demands for entertainment and start to feel lonely or something. Just a thought.

[Aquillion]

quote:Originally posted by dav:
<STRONG>It does crack me up that half the people are like - hey! We're down with including Nazis in DF.  I agree (sort of), but it does make you wonder who's on this forum.</STRONG>

Well, mainly, like you said...  at the moment, the game allows the player to act like a monster, but doesn't really acknowledge that they're acting like a monster.  I think that it should do both.

Another thought that occurred to me:  There are 'evil' areas in the world, and eventually there is going to have to be more detail for the 'evil' races.  For them, fascism and murderous xenophobia might be the norm...  goblins probably would cull the sick, weak and defenseless from their ranks through systematic murders, while engaging in violent wars of annihilation against all outsiders and non-goblinoids.

Hmm.  Somehow I have trouble picturing goblins as fascists, though...  fascism is usually described as 'lawful evil', while goblins are generally 'chaotic evil', so to speak.  OTOH, Dwarf Fortress goblins seem to manage organized raids in large numbers quite often, so perhaps they're more orderly.  Anyway, if anyone is going to have an evil system of government, it would be the goblins.

Kobolds are more of a nuisance race in DF.  I doubt they have any larger system of government at all.

Elves are usually described as racist, come to think of it...  the DF elves certainly seem to be, going by some of the things they say to you if you offend them in Fortress mode.  I can't see them doing anything really EVIL, though, except perhaps destroying the occasional fortress or town in a fit of radical environmentalism.

Does the evilness of an area influence the people who live there?  There could be enclaves of authoritarian humans or whatever in the eviller areas of the map.

What I'm getting at here is that although the opportunity to control an evil civilization in the Dungeon Keeper style has some possibilities, the main reason the game needs a concrete conception of evil in it is to give the player some "bad guys" other than just evil fantasy monsters that are evil because they are evil.  If we had strict authoritarian cities of evil humans with spiked obsidian walls around them, that would give the player all sorts of opportunities for adventure.

[dav]

I'm pretty down with "organized" evil - there are actions that are always bad and wrong and bad, and cultural relativism.  For example, the Elves, budding Tre Arrows that they are, feel that killing animals and using their remains for decoration is wrong.  And sleeping on the corpses of trees is horrifying.  So for an Elven civ, doing such things might tilt the balance.  For dwarves, trees are just fast growing stalagmites.  And it doesn't really matter if you're killing mules, purring maggots, or the puppies of your favorite companion for food.  But the destruction of a masterwork?  AAARRGHHGHIROKLJ!!!!

So many of the things humans (me) find somewhat appalling are normal dwarf morality.  (It doesn't have to be racial, but it helps clarify things.  It could be regional/religious/philosophic/ruler-based/etc.

I do think that feedback on player style would be excellent, but I'm not such a big fan of the Black and White II style of doing it, where voices whisper "evilevilevilevil" while you cut down trees.  The same is true with fascism, or communism, or police states, or democracy.  Democracy can cause all kinds of evil, and fascism can have some good results.  (If your trains arrive on time, your guide will whisper "goodgoodgood" in your ear.)

[Rooster]

if you agree about prositution and it will be implemented we still have choice not to choose it. I mean if someone would start prostitution and I didn't wanted it then i could just drown these dwarfs.