Calax

Because of the way that the primary's are set up... you have to fight to be the most extreme member and pander to the factions that'll give the most support within the party.... just to turn around and fight it out on a national scale against the current president, and trying to pander to the moderates. Basically, the way its' set up right now, the most effective leaders and bi-partisan/moderate people who could even think of running for the presidency, are weeded out before they can even try to act moderate/bi-partisan. I did have myself an internal laugh when my friends back home (when I said that Mitt was the only chance in hell the republicans had of ejecting Obama from the White House) said that Romney wasn't a conservative... he's a moderate, and thus they wouldn't vote for him. Then I ended up accidently tripping their mom's "insanity" switch, and she went off about how within a year we'll be eating our own dead and everything will become mad max.

Orange armor will "level" with the mods that are placed within it. So when you're using the dancers outfit as a woman on a consular, you can use that thing all the way up to level 50 if you keep the mods updated. And you can mix/match gear this way (so a jedi in armor isn't a big deal).

Ha HAAA! I upgraded my OS to Windows 7 X64 (or maybe x86, not entirely sure...) and now have my full ram back! *sets about customizing everything again) Oh, and it cost me all of 10 bucks!

THIS JUST IN: MPAA says that the internet shutting down in protest is an "Abuse of power" In other news, the Eye of Sauron called for sanctions against the Shire for the actions of terrorist Hobbits.

Paul is grate in most fields (willing to listen, legit small government, willing to compromise) but there are a few points that make people just flip out (like wanting to go back onto the gold standard for example)

That continues on into Revelations I'm sad to say. I think it's more because of the short dev times (there's only been a year or so between releases) leading to most of the focus being on mechanics upgrades rather than the story.

I am now a Founder... apparently

You really think that Gingrich, who is rather notorious for being the guy who started the trend of attack politics, can bridge political gaps? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOPAC The memo that he produced said "For example, words to use against opponents include decay, failure (fail), collapse(ing), deeper, crisis, urgent(cy), destructive, destroy, sick, pathetic, lie, liberal, they/them, unionized bureaucracy, "compassion" is not enough, betray, consequences, limit(s), shallow, traitors, sensationalists" And to describe onesself use words like "share, change, opportunity, legacy, challenge, control, truth, moral, courage, reform, prosperity, crusade, movement, children, family, debate, compete, active(ly), we/us/our, candid(ly), humane, pristine, provide." Hell, Doonsbury referred to the bloody thing as the "Magna Carta of attack politics".

Probably the weakest was the Inquistor story, where basically the big "point" is getting your companion, while the lightsaber is sort of "Oh hay, you are the winner! Here! Have my old saber!" The ships don't seem to be a big thing... most of them are just kind of "Well, your big task on <insert capital planet> is done and you must chase your targets offworld, have a ship!" Did run into something REALLY annoying just now. Doing my Guardian questline and they take me to Qesh (I'm 37) which is fine... but instead of having a full contained questline, I get a single short quest and then am booted over to Hoth. SERIOUSLY? Probably one of the biggest issues I've been having with most of my characters is that there's SO much re-treading of the same style of quests at the lower levels for your story. The first four planets that get you to 30 are basically "re-do the same quest each planet with slightly different specifics". The inquisitor is finding artifacts on each planet, the Guardian is shutting down superweapons, the Agent takes out rebel/republic cells etc. .... [begin Calax Review brain] Basically, the class storylines could use an overhaul. They're great for tales, but the thing is that they're disjointed as you reach act two... admittedly I've only hit one act two (my guardian) but I'm getting the feeling that all of the classes are turning out to be effectively the same in terms of structure. If I were to re-do this I'd shorten the Act 1 so that it fits within the first "half" of the game, and then make the actions of that be the kick off to the larger plot that takes up Act 2 and 3. The Prologue => Act 1 transition is perfect for this. You start out as just a newbie, and earn a bit of notoriety by your actions on one of the four planets, and there's a twist that leads you to be drawn to the capital. At the end of the Capital there's an event that draws you directly into the primary conflict of the first act (well, either the end of the captial or the end of the starter planet). But Once that act ends... it just kinda stops. You literally get a quest on the guardian that's "Go back to the fleet and take a load off sport!". And then you get a phone call that brings up the second Act. The second act seems to have jack to do with the first, beyond the first just having been sort of "This is why you're being chosen!" Beyond that is just minor references to before. Again, I can only speak from the reference point of the one class I've made it past the Act 1 finale on, but it seems like some of Act 2 is being driven by Act 1 (there's a reference to the enemy of the second/third acts considering me his mortal enemy, I think for act 1) but it's not specifically mentioned. It would be nice if, during the finale of act 1, something happened that triggered the new conflict, or made what was sort of the background conflict more personal. That way you felt you actually progressed into a larger fight, rather than feeling like you'd just finished "The Old Republic" and are now starting on "The Old Republic: Shadow Ops!" or whatever. Lets say you're fighting a dark lord, and the villain for the next two acts shows up and gives a serious demonstration of power. Then, instead of (after you win against the Lord) just going to the fleet, getting drunk, collapsing, and waking up next to a Twi'lek girl and a droid with strange attachments, you were badly wounded and your companions all show up and rescue you (one dragging you away, while the other fends off your attackers and escapes themselves) and you recouperate while your mentor/boss comes in and discusses what happened and what the plan for the future is. [end Calax Review mind] sorry... I am way to loquacious. TL;DR version is that they needed to make the story move a tad faster and tie it together much better.

The build up to SOME of the lightsaber retrievals is good.... but not em all.

Those pics weren't from Foundry, they were from Maelstrom Prison. Where Grand Moff Kilran meets his end as the jedi bust out Revan.

well, he did get himself locked into a prison for 300 years

Just finished Balmorra. Also, he has pockmarks on his face!

By the by sir... my agent says "YOU SUCK MAN!"

That was God of War.

For the record, I do know that they were having trouble even ATTEMPTING high end testing, so it's somewhat understandable. What isn't understabdable is they should have known from the get go that if they provided that then there would be serious issues with faction balance (they have the numbers after all)

http://kotaku.com/5877245/star-wars-the-ol...ks-high+end-pvp Just... look at the screen shot/video. I'm guessing they were expecting it to jump to 1-2 million people or somethin. Kinda confusing to me.

Maybe... maybe not

the scary part about this is how many 'OMG IT'S DEAD! I SHALL FAIL SCHOOL!" notes there are.

I'm on a phone at the moment, and thus will have to write more when I get to a PC, but I've got to disagree with you as biological sex and socially-built gender are two completely different things. Sex does not equal gender, nor does gender have real meaning outside of labling and norm-setting. Yes, they are different things, but they are linked in the fact that biologically we are under different pressures and have different capabilities that formulate different psychologies. Removing gender would mean that men and women would have to come to terms with being able to stare at dangly bits or jiggly bits (not saying nudity would be the norm, but I'd expect that with gender eliminated, Lockers bathrooms saunas and other locations that are normally gender/sex separated would be uni). http://kotaku.com/5875690/these-might-be-t...s-on-the-planet Examine that, and the comments section.

Probably because people being sexy in anime are usually crying. Those wacky wacky Japanese.

I think people would be fine with just protecting the Intellectual Property of companies, but giving corporations the carte-blanche to eliminate websites and censor materials because they MIGHT be violating copywrite is... frightening. As it is, youtube is starting to swim into dangerous waters with their DMCA blockings. Basically anyone can file a DMCA claim and it's up to the poster of the video to prove that they didn't violate the DMCA. This is usually used by ideologues to eliminate opposing material (usually criticisms of the ideologues personal opinions being stated as facts) and has nearly led to Youtube itself being sued. Now imagine that, but on the scale of entire websites.

I'm guessing that there's gonna be a lot of players departing after the 30 days... but will come back and try it after a lot of the kinks worked out. Right now major issues are: Jedi Knights/Sith Warriors having animation issues and are just flat out insanely difficult to play Terrible customer support (particularly wait times) An animation bug or four "Unbalanced" I do see, however, the issue of longevity for the game. With the cutscene heavy style and story based gameplay, you can't easily and quickly power a new character up to the max. Seeing the same story four times does get REALLY old REALLY fast, and the fact that the stories are built such that you HAVE to do the planets in a particular order (and all the starting planets are the same) means that you're seeing the same six cutscenes every time you level up a new character. This is particularly bad on Coruscant and Dromund Kaas.

I think a guy on the colbert report had said that if you were to parody/lip synch to a song on youtube, you could get your ass dragged into court, while a lot of people are talking like it's the end of the 'net, I don't think it'd be entirely the end... Although seeing GOOGLE protesting (not shutting down because that'd kill the entire internet themselves) probably is going to make a big impact.