Rostere

Boko Haram, I remember those guys, they are the ones who destroyed invaluable ancient manuscripts in Timbuktu, much of which had never received a thorough look by Western historians and archaeologists. They probably receive their funding from Saudi Arabia though, and I don't think the US is about to stop leaking money into that place, so we will probably just have to get used to these guys destroying every symbol of enlightenment they can find.

They were not stealing anyone's property, they were using someone else's apartment for a routine arrest of a dangerous individual. I don't see how you can even begin to connect that with "evil" and "selfish". They were only doing their job. Sure, at a later point it does seem they overreacted, but that is another matter and beside the (my) point as I have stated earlier. I don't know? Where I live, the assumption would be that any citizen would let the police use their house, and if the citizen would disagree, that the police could politely do as they wanted anyway, of course recompensating for any inconvenience. Additionally, most people would rather go to the police than be bullied by any criminal. It's hard and/or pointless to threaten people if you know the stakes are against you, and we can only make this so by acting collectively in support of the law enforcement. I don't think you've actually had to deal with any "real" criminals in your time. In a fundamentally safe, liberal society like the nordic countries individual criminals and troublemakers can get away with a lot more than they would in a more repressed society. Truely, whoever wrote Ra's al Ghul's line ("Criminals thrive on the indulgence of society's understanding.") in Batman Begins was right on the money. I have to deal with the "dark side of the welfare state" on a daily basis. I wouldv'e acted as the plaintiffs did in this case. (including probably calling my mother when police start to force their way into my apartment :D) What? This is so upside down I hardly know where to begin. Criminals can get away with LESS if the society coöperates with the law enforcement against the criminals. The aspect of "safe and liberal" does not play in here. It has nothing with this matter to do. I am trying to say that it is harder for criminals to do anything at all if the public will inform of and testify against criminals, and in every possible way be helpful to the police. "Criminals thrive on the indulgence of society's understanding." Yes, but if this is even true, think about what this means. Society's understanding. Criminals thrive in a sick environment where people sympathize with crime, where individuals can be expected to work against the efforts of law enforcement (like this don't-enter-my-house dude). If you could use this as some sort of whimsical argument by Batman then it would be decidedly on my side. "The dark side of the welfare state" In the same way, I have no idea of what this means in this context. Are you trying to say you are paying high taxes?

Why the "LOL"? Is this funny in some way?

I'll reiterate what I said earlier: You should not be able to buy everything. I'd like the devs to just keep on creating uses for money so that money actually becomes useful. Skills whose only end effect is the accumulation of more money is pointless otherwise.

Well, obviously, but I assumed when I entered the discussion that the only thing preventing the police from entering the house was the "third amendment". If that was not the case, it is another matter entirely. It is not only useful but also responsible to keep the laws of your country up to date. If the police commited a crime unrelated to entering the building in itself then I think they should be punished for it.

I don't know? Where I live, the assumption would be that any citizen would let the police use their house, and if the citizen would disagree, that the police could politely do as they wanted anyway, of course recompensating for any inconvenience. Additionally, most people would rather go to the police than be bullied by any criminal. It's hard and/or pointless to threaten people if you know the stakes are against you, and we can only make this so by acting collectively in support of the law enforcement.

It's doubtful if another president can do things significantly better. The one thing another president could do better is to make better connections with the West, encourage investment and tourism and so on. Certainly, another president can make the people think things look better. I think the central issue is that the MB does not historically have an economic agenda. The emphasis has been on moral conservatism. So people watch their country slide further down into poverty, chaos and sectarian violence while it's leaders debate which clothes you should be allowed to wear, how much you should read the Quran in school, whether or not certain Western cultural phenomena should be banned or not, and so on. "It's the economy, stupid". Apparently we will see early elections, and a transitional government headed by the judicial branch :S You say that, but I think part of it is also that Morsi wasn't exactly what you would call... congenial with his population. I mean he did make an attempt to shut down the Daily Show's equivalent because it was poking fun at him. Morsi (From what I've seen) had rose to power by saying "Free speech and free politics for EVERYONE!" and as soon as he got in power he tried to turn the state into something akin to Iran with himself as the Shah. I don't think he made that kind of promises to begin with. You've got to keep in mind that this entire democracy business happened so abruptly. The common people were standing there asking themselves (much like we're told people did in Russia after Communism) "Who am I supposed to vote for?". The MB was for a lot of years truly a scapegoat in Egyptian politics, and also a symbol of the Sunni Muslim faith, a majority religion in Egypt. Mind you, they are not strictly extremists like the Salafis but their religious beliefs embody what is currently held to be true by the majority of the active belivers among the Egyptian Muslims. They are a rather old organization, focused on social work (much like Hamas was originally known for) and did not prepare to take over power in any particular way. The important judgement of this movement came when they got into power - although they would do certain things to try to improve the economy, they spent their time discussing the proper interpretation of Sharia, lots of small completely irrelevant stuff about conservative moral which would get the country nowhere forward economically. They also worsened the West's opinion and expectations purely by virtue of being Islamist. Tourism and foreign investments plummeted, in this you're right, but I think it needs to be emphasized that the MB was a very well known group critical of Mubarak and military fascism. They did not trick people into voting for them, people only tricked themselves that the best known symbol of resistance against Mubarak would be the best post-revolutionary leader. Clearly they know better now. (It's also awful to compare Mursi to the Shah - a more apt comparison would be one of the MB to the Ayatollah in Iran)

It's hard to say what was right or wrong unless you know more about the situation. I presume that they had authorization from higher level and that entering said dude's house was crucial to arresting the other person without anyone coming to any harm. If it was really unneccessary to enter the house in the first place, then of course they shouldn't have. But if that is the case, this is not a particularly interesting discussion to begin with.

So, somebody broke a now irrelevant rule from a document hundreds of years old? Seems like you need to update your laws. Those cops seems like they have made quite a mess out of this situation, but there is no reason they should not be able to enter an innocent person's house when arresting another individual. I assume this includes that they pay for any damage to the house.

This is very valid criticism. By choosing to invest into the repair skill, you only get "yay, I can have normal weapons!". It is therefore important that a Craft- maxing character gets unique opportunities for game/story content. Take for example a Crom Faeyr-like weapon which can only be forged together by a maxed-out repair character, or perhaps just letting the crafting character take the role of Cromwell in BG2. I'm for weapon degradation for reasons of realism, but that does not mean I would be guessing that I will have a fun playthrough with my Repair expert character, unless of course our Devs see to that

Making wealth meaningful is very important, and something which is not usually accomplished well in any RPG I have played. The most important thing is to create many uses for money, so many that the player will never afford to explore them all. This way, wealth will feel realistic. You will not achieve the feeling of a realistic economy if there are not things the player can't afford. Make it meaningful to hoard money. Often many skills in RPGs are more less directly focused on making/saving money, such as "Haggle" and "Repair" in Arcanum and Crafting in PE in the sense that it prevents costful equipment degradation and makes it possible to create items you could otherwise buy. However, these skills are usually meaningless in the sense that they don't unlock any additional story/content. I think many players will just instinctively invest in the Speech skill - or whatever it's called in PE - and disregard all the others, since they are pointless from a player's point of view. Gamers want skills, or in-game properties of their character (such as wealth) to affect story and allow access to different in-game content - that is the reactivity which is the core of what role playing means.

http://www.aljazeera.com/watch_now/ I think it's the closest you can get, they have live footage from both demonstrations in Cairo and journalists interviewing people at the sites.

Well, as you say in Swedish, "Up as a sun, down like a pancake".

It's doubtful if another president can do things significantly better. The one thing another president could do better is to make better connections with the West, encourage investment and tourism and so on. Certainly, another president can make the people think things look better. I think the central issue is that the MB does not historically have an economic agenda. The emphasis has been on moral conservatism. So people watch their country slide further down into poverty, chaos and sectarian violence while it's leaders debate which clothes you should be allowed to wear, how much you should read the Quran in school, whether or not certain Western cultural phenomena should be banned or not, and so on. "It's the economy, stupid". Apparently we will see early elections, and a transitional government headed by the judicial branch :S

...and how! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23173794 Morsi is gone. This is more like the start of a potentially drawn-out conflict. Remember we're talking about a democratically elected leader. Should people overthrow democratically elected leaders when their approval ratings reach 30%? Ugh, what a nightmare... I do hope the military sends their best and most loyal units to guard it.

You mean full Mubarak? We've already been there...

Clearly, Mursi's rule has consisted of one facepalm after the other. Recently, out of all the things the President of Egypt should do, he has been busy deciding over whether or not he should ban the Cairo ballet school, as a sign of goodwill towards the problematic Salafis. He has also chosen to side (primarily) with these Salafis (radical Islamists) over any of the other movements - leftists, liberals, secularists, (military) conservatives, and so on. The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party are like the worst kind of Conservatives among the Republican party - eager to tell other people what they can or can not do, resentful against minorities and secretly trying to push religion into the political discussion through the back door. Mostly they have been doing this inside the boundaries of democracy, although since there is no existing democratic framework, his opponents have been very vocal in criticizing his way of writing Egypt's new constitution. Imagine if the US should endeavour to write a completely new constitution under the presidency of Rick Santorum, who came to power much due to a more fragmented opposition. Because of the things at stake, the protests would be immense. What's interesting is that these Islamists, whether thay are Salafis or more moderate, were not the primary revolutionary group when Mubarak was overthrown (compare to the revolution in Iran!). The voice of the Muslim Brotherhood is the voice of the simple, rural, uneducated Egyptians who instinctively lean to Islam for guidance in this new political world of democracy. This is essentially the price paid in instability and economic decline for voting with your heart instead of your brain. During his rule, violence against Shia Muslims and Christians have intensifed, and although he has spoken out against this, it's clear that it is to no effect and constitutes no concrete effort.

So apparently, **** is stirring in Egypt again. President Mursi's approval ratings have dropped and he is now down to his core following in the Muslim Brotherhood. The same people who forced Mubarak out of power are now out on the streets again. Crucially, they now have the military's support. The military, which has a very prominent role in Egypt, stated (some 10 or so hours ago) that Mursi was forced to agree to the people's demands within 48 hours or else the military would step in and depose him. Tourism has plummeted in Mursi's Islamist Egypt which is still economically unstable. Indeed five ministers, one of which were the minister of tourism, has already resigned. On the other hand, Mursi was demcratically elected for a four year-term. Secondly, there is the question of to which degree the military is on their own side and to which degree they are on the people's side in this conflict. Their exact wording calls for "protests to calm down". This could also be aimed at opposition groups, if the military is just out to grab power themselves. Bring forth the popcorn, and so on. Is democracy winning or losing right now? What is happening?

Remember Pink Lightning from D2? I never died from it but I've seen quite a handful of HC characters who have went down that way

I wonder who of you guys have actually spent much time with W8? I hear a lot of complaining but it's really not a problem at all once you get used to it.

This, pretty much. "Science" is a series of increasingly accurate (by some measure...) theories which in turn describe a universe which we are able to ask increasingly difficult questions about. You can only ever say that according to certain (a certain type of) measurements, your theory will likely have a certain degree of accuracy. It seems also to be a fundamental truth that those measurements in turn are always influenced by your way of measuring. Really, the more you learn, the more questions you have. There are likely no "final" theories of physics (general phenomenological science), although sadly there have been significant movements in 20th century physics to suggest what can be interpreted as just that.

I would add "merciless" to that list of evil characteristics, in the sense that it means you inflict a disproportionate punishment/response. All too often in games you are not allowed (or at least not encouraged by dialogue lines) to be judgmental about characters who have been a pain in the ass for you earlier in the game. But I agree, they should think more about character traits in general to draw up a wider range of motivations and make them available when applicable.

If you try CK2 for the first time (or any Paradox game really) don't try to do everything at once, just chillax until you feel you know how things work. I also would not recommend starting as a (vassal) duchy since this can make things more complicated and specifically more arbitrary, since you will have the AI as your liege. Start out as King of Sweden, Poland or Hungary and you will be able to fight both against neighbour heathens/infidels (which is usually the primary expansion mechanism) and deal with some Christian countries. melkathi: There is a diplomatic option to "Offer to Join War", if you're not already engaged, that is. Actually, the King offering you a place in his court if you join a faction is actually sensible. The AI are tempted to join factions if they are disappointed with you (low relations). If you manage to raise their relation to you to 100, they will in most cases leave the faction. So as a player, if you have a high stewardship vassal in a faction with +90 opinion of you, it can be quite strategic to put him on the council as a steward since that will give him that little extra push to +100. Secondly, as a vassal you are ****ed. The goal as a vassal is ALWAYS to take over the kingdom or to break free from your liege (and in some cases, these are connected). It might be strategic to be under the protection of a liege in some situations, but that's pretty easy to resolve. Do you see any foes you can't match who are likely to conquer you? If not, it's not good to be part of a kingdom as a duke. That said, the primary threat is most often the kingdom you are a de jure part of. It's clear that the king in your game wanted to replace you with nobles of his own bloodline. If Scotland is not an elective monarchy, that is also strategically sound. What you describe is cuckoo politics - the king will always reward the malcontent vassals which are powerful enough to matter and disregard the already loyal ones, especially those who are not very powerful. On the other hand, he will seek to replace vassals who might pose a long-term problem, in this case non-bloodline vassals in a non-elective monarchy.

I just raid thread after thread and like all the posts I well, like. I think I like stuff more than I post. Generally I do this on the PE forums as encouragement for ideas. Did you guys know you can run out of likes to hand out? It's happened to me several times.

:'(