Mamoulian War

Sheldon, is that you? :-O

If it will be anything like other Paradox grand strategies it will have a broken or non-existent or woefully inadequate tutorial, have a brutal learning curve, and be totally worth it if you can get past said learning curve. That's what I love about Paradox :-D

After I came back home from my holidays, I have decided to take a small break from my Europa Universalis II game, and started NG+ on Hyperdimension Neptunia V after 2 and half year long break. This time, I have decided to go for the Normal Ending. Took me the same amount of time as the first playthrough, because I have decided to get few more trophies on the way there. The game is still pretty fun, when you get after longer break back to it, but compared to previous titles, at the start of the game, there are much longer cutscenes, which can be little bit tiresome. But after Chapter 2, it gets much better. I will have to play it in the future one more time for True Ending and the rest of the trophies, but first, I should finish my EU2 game and then go play again either Star Ocean 4, Tales of Xillia 2, Atelier Rorona or Dark Souls 1 :D Can't decide which game to pick while waiting for PS4K

Maybe in '90ies. In 21st century you are allowed to trashtalk only men. And only in the case that they are heterosexual and white, else someone might get offended.

Welcome to First World problems.

yeah but those responses... I am trying to imagine internet after when same words would spoken by male character about women. :-D

@hamskii, you might disagree with that, but that is your own oppinion. From what I have seen so far, it is the worst introduction of "nonstandard" character which I have ever experienced in any media. The writing of this character is on par with Vintage B Porn movies from 60-ties and not something what I demand from quality piece of art. I take also the opportunity to point as few others have before, to the depiction of Renly Baratheon in Game of Thrones... That is just one example, how I expect the depiction of any (and not only LGBT) characters in any artistic media... If your writers are unable to create character at least half that deep, you should hire new writer and not blame your customers for being ****...

Well, not every trans person has the same opinion on this topic either you know.. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/269735/Opinion_The_Siege_of_Dragonspear_drama_and_the_video_game_community.php Well, then why it is an outrageous surprise, that non-trans people might have different oppinions about this matter as well? *mind blown*

Dear hamskii, have you even bothered to read some threads on BD forums made by real Transgender people how they feel about such lame inclusion of this character? Or are you to busy to hate on everyone who has the "wrong" (ergo different than yours) oppinion?

I find it all rather odd. I've been watching this from the sidelines. Beamdog went back to try and 'fix' the original game as it's quite 'sexist'. Safana has been 'fixed' so she doesn't come across as a sex object and Jaheira has been 'fixed' so she doesn't come across as the 'nagging wife'. I thought Beamdog was making Siege of Dragonspear as an expansion that told the story between BG1 and BG2. Apparently, making a story between two games wasn't enough. They had to go back and 'fix' the original game. Did they really changed the original dialogue text of Safana and Jaheira in BG1? Don't care much about Jaheira, but Safana was with Viconia my favourite female NPC in the game, and changing personality of any of them is good enough reason for me, to not bother with Beamdog's games any more...

Is there any chance for GOG release?

And full story about one of the vulnerabilities. http://arstechnica.co.uk/gaming/2016/03/valve-steam-hacker-watch-paint-dry/ To bad, he did not put "Half-Life 3" for sale. I would love to see that ****storm happen :D

An article on about how much damn does Valve give about their Steam security :D http://arstechnica.co.uk/gaming/2016/04/steam-hacker-more-vulnerabilities/

Wouldn't they know about such plans already now? Or you think it can be still undecided? I would say they probably have an idea, how it will end up. But in so many month before release, it would be foolish to say anything from marketing perspective. Because in time, the decision could be changed, and it could end up in big PR disaster afterwards. Especially, if it is true, that Paradox plans to go public on stock market

Don't expect any answers before actual release ;-)

The newest FFXV news made me more hyped for Star Ocean 5 and Tales of Berseria though

OMG, this year, JRPGs have gone crazy... My wallet is already crying... Megadimension Neptunia VII - February 12 2016 (already on it's way to my games catallogue) Dark Souls III - April 12 2016 Fairy Fencer F: Advent Dark Force - Spring 2016 Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book - June 10 2016 Star Ocean 5 - Summer 2016 I am Setsuna - Summer 2016 (this one is inspired by Chrono Trigger and classic Final Fantasy titles) Final Fantasy XV - September 30 2016 Kingdom Hearts 2.8 HD - 2016 Tales of Berseria - chance to get released in EU/NA in 2016 as well And I still have no PS4... I am always waiting for release of slim version of console... Not many games for PS4 worth playing atm anymore... But rumors says, that in October PS4 will get new SKU (possible slim PS4 with 4K resolution support)

Especially if you can somehow find out if it is possible to play crossplatform with Steam players.

And Grim Dawn has been released today on GOG!

Is that position of the Paradox studio, because they can't handle developing for Steam and non Steam at the same time, or it's position of Paradox as a publisher because they don't see a point of releasing outside of Steam? Or it's really one and the same? It's the position of both Paradox (publisher) and Paradox Development Studio. They are the same thing, PDS is not an independent entity. While their blog post is 2&1/2 years old (and based near entirely on Steam's 'how to sell your move to steam exclusive' PR crib sheet as well) there's no evidence at all that anything substantive has changed from that time, as such their reasons and whether they differ from those stated don't really matter. So far Paradox's entire relationship with GOG is based on PoE, which they inherited, and releasing old already drm free games there which takes no additional effort. It'd be different if they'd released previous steam exclusives/ drmed titles there as Nordic or Deep Silver have done, but they haven't. It's a bit more complicated than that* but that is their current policy. *Bottom line is Paradox needs steam, steam doesn't need Paradox. It's funny reading Johan defending steam vehemently when I know perfectly well he said that the drm/ steam versions were the same, and his hating on steam over the Divine Wind, dlc, patching etc debacles they had with them. But end of the day they just had to suck it up anyway because the relationship is just so slanted. Paradox have released some of their previous titles on GOG. It is not PoE only relationship anymore.

Final Score: DANGEROUS Your brand of evil is bold and invigorating, like a fresh cup of coffee that someone may or may not have spat in. You’re dangerous, and you like to let that out once in awhile -- it’ll keep the rest of these peons in line. Looks like I have a soul mate here :-P

And I had tonight another session with Europa Universalis 2 This time, it needed to do a lot of micromanagement. War score raises and decreases only with defeating units and conquering provinces. And it is crazy hard to raise it enough, to acquire new provinces from war, when you can't see most of the map and your opponent's armies have superior Tech advantage. Thankfully most of them were part of more than one war, so I was slowly able to get more of it. I am happy, that they completely revamped War Score mechanics in EUIII and later games. Anyway, I was able to kick out Portugal from South West Africa and conquer Zanzibar as I have planned. I was also able to get one province from Persia, and now I rule over the whole Horn of Africa Unfortunately I am not able to get military alliance with Kongo. For some reason they always reject the proposal Even when I have Relation with them at +196. I do not think I will be able to vassalize them before the end of the game. We'll see how it goes. I have to say, that the game started pretty boring with one province minor country at the south of Africa, but the closer I am to the end of the game, the more is there to do. Lot of wars are happening around the globe, and a lot of time, some countries decide to attack me as well. Thankfully, I do not have borders with Portugal and Persia anymore, so it should be little bit easier from now on, but less than 50 years to go, and I still would like to have in my kingdom 50 provinces. Currently I have 43, so it will be hard as **** to get them, unless I will be able to vassalize Kongo with some miraculous luck on my side. More about the latest adventures of Kingdom of Xhosa, can be found >>here<<.

On Friday I was playing some EU2 again, but the next days I was super busy with Pathfinder RPG and I had to go on few day long business trip, so it took some time to finish my AAR/LP on my google sites page. But the session was pretty crazy. First I have got my Conquistador event, found some places in the northeast Africa and after discovering Ethiopia and trading explorations with them, they have declared war on me, right after that Portugal started war with me as well. This war took me 13 years O.o, but in the end I was able to sue for peace with Portugal and win two provinces from Ethiopia. Right after that, Oman declared on me, then Portugal again, then Oman again and Portugal again Well 50 years have passed and I am still in war with Persia. I had maybe two or three short peace periods in this time, but I was able to explore with my Conquistador a lot of Africa, win or built 8 new provinces and lose 1. Two of them was won from Portugal. I was lucky, they they are almost permanently at war, so they have very low number of troops available to sail to Africa. I still would love to get one more province from them, but we'll see how this goes... Truce with Oman will end soon, and I am curious how this will follow. I am already few hundred percent over my initial goal of survival in South Africa, and I still can't believe, I was able to grow so big Anyway, >>here<< you can find the more detailed description of the whole Friday session with a lot of nice pictures

I couldn't get into the 4th Star Ocean, and thats after absolutely loving 2 and 3 (need to boot up my emulator and finally play 1 sometime). I think I played it for a 2 or 3 hours and couldn't make it out of the initial crash site, and the CG character art was terrible. Saw they released an "international" version later that kept the original anime artwork. No idea why they thought the original western release needed to change it. Because Square Enix you know They have forgotten, that the reason, why JRPGs were loved in the west, was because they were completely different from what west could offer. I played all of them, but finished only 1 and 4. I played 2 during my business trip on PSP and had no internet, so I got stuck at the final dungeon, that place was crazy to go without drawing the map or without spoilers, and it was very uncomfortable to draw maps on airports To each his own. for me LR:FFXIII had the worst combat from all FF's. It was boring and repetitive and boring and repetitive and etc... The sales numbers speaks about how this game sucked... on two next gen consoles (at the time of release) the game performed almost the same as Bravely Default on 3DS!!! , which is Final Fantasy in everything but name. http://www.vgchartz.com/game/70939/lightning-returns-final-fantasy-xiii/ http://www.vgchartz.com/game/70938/lightning-returns-final-fantasy-xiii/ http://www.vgchartz.com/game/63395/bravely-default-flying-fairy/ And SE still thinks that making FFVII remake action game is a good idea... sigh

FF7 was so easy, that you never ever ever needed to do any XP grind if you didn't want it super easy or kill Emerald Weapon. @Ganrich. FF7 fans have kind of rioted, but classical FF fans are no longer target audience for Square Enix. The only game announced by them in last 5 years, which made me at least little bit excited was Star Ocean 5 announcement, which seems at least little bit true to their precedesors.