Rostere

Great, but everything is WAY TOO SMALL.

Our armors do have sex-based variants because we want people to be able to tell female characters from male characters. IRL, such armors are almost never shaped significantly differently, just sized and proportioned differently. Even our most cutting edge contemporary female body armor outwardly doesn't look much different from the male versions. In PE, they will be shaped differently to help the silhouettes read differently. Cadegund's concept reflects this as does the godlike concept Polina developed. It almost assuredly is not what an armorer would do IRL, but it helps distinguish the characters. It's the same reason why we marginally increased the size of war hammer heads. At the realistic size and proportions, they don't clearly read as war hammers, so a small amount of exaggeration was required. Oh well :/

Don't listen to the people who thinks the UI looks "dated" (whatever that means). I think it looks absolutely great, however I must say I prefer greyer colours over the brown colour in the current UI. Don't make a minimalist UI, I'm so tired of that bull****. Also, large portraits along the right side really would be charming

A few remarks, corrections and clarifications by the Obsidian board official representative from Stockholm: I wouldn't call any of this "protest" of "demonstration" in a classical sense. The guys who are out on the street follow no ideology and they don't have any political manifesto. The closest analogy to what is happening was what happened in London last summer. These are neither political anarchists or leftists nor radical Muslims as some people would have you believe. The people who are out on the streets are suburban youth who have nothing to lose. When they throw rocks at the police - yeah, that's just their way of being mischievous kids. They do it BECAUSE THEY CAN. Obviously no sane left-wing political demonstrator would set fire to your neighbour's car when you're living in a poor suburb. The central parts of Stockholm are completely calm, I can tell you. This is just an extreme case of what happens when segregation is allowed to run amok. Because of the combined effect of immigration and widening income gaps, these suburbs have become more and more dominated by poor recent immigrants. If you've ever been there, it's hard to not notice the "us versus them" feeling (82% of all people in Husby were born outside of Sweden). If you live in a tough situation when you're forced to learn a new language and fit into a new country, things will get worse if all you see every day is people in the same awful situation as you. Unlike those immigrants who want to be part of the larger society, the vandals have no ambitions and feel no shame when destroying property. Also note that those responsible for the vandalism is a tiny group of people. The thing which allows this to explode in the press and cause a vicious circle is basically that Sweden currently has a right-wing government. Since 2006, there has been some cuts in welfare but above all a different focus - the focus during the economic downturn has been on companies and not on how the lower-class citizen will get by with his daily life. While Sweden has not been hit particularly hard, what has lifted Sweden's economy a bit has been one-time money from privatization sales, so the "real" economy is bit worse than what the national finances tells us. It's actually true that for a lot of people, things look worse today, but it's nothing dramatic. Unfortunately, most leftist groups and commenters don't talk about segregation and the economy but whine about police violence and even sympathize with the pointless violence of angry kids by labeling it a conscious protest. This all makes it very easy to put the blame on someone. It makes for a great newspaper story. So the news agencies go there and pay the locals for "good pictures" and "good videos" of mayhem and destruction (no metal reference intended), causing more unrest, causing national news, causing the people to see themselves and their deeds on TV, causing even more trouble... If there had been a left-wing government in power, it would have been far harder to achieve the political narrative journalists and readers have been looking for. There is also another part of it: in the last elections in 2010, a nationalist party called Sverigedemokraterna or "Sweden Democrats" entered Swedish parliament for the first time in history. This is a party which gets about 10% of votes in recent polls, but it's hated with an almost undemocratic passion by the other parts of the electorate - it's really hard to find anything comparable in other countries. I guess self-described "socialists" during the McCarthy era in the US would face similar persecution. But they're nothing like other really extreme nationalist parties in Europe, like for example Jobbik in Hungary. If they were in a different country, the Sweden Democrats would fit in perfectly in the conservative part of the Republican party in the US (or with Vladimir Putin in Russia). Every other Swedish party refuses to cooperate with them, and even refuse to vote together with them, effectively denying them any form of political influence. This polarization has led to that issues regarding immigration are completely taboo - if you want to discuss segregation you will risk political suicide. Acknowledging that there are problems in the integration approach has been falsely equated with wanting to restrict immigration. Coupled with the fact that both the largest political parties are the ones losing the most voters to the Sweden Democrats, there is a standstill on all such questions. Since acknowledging that there are problems is necessary to take care of them, problem areas like Husby has been allowed to become worse entirely unchecked. Now as you know, I'm personally very much a fan of multiculturalism and the post-national society, but what is needed in Sweden, and indeed in Britain and in other European countries, is a better way of handling immigration. You can't dump all newcomers in a ghetto and expect it to become a nice place all by itself. It is needed a nationwide re-thinking of how to achieve integration, how to make use of immigrants rather than creating huge lawless refugee camps and waiting for things to sort themselves out. The laissez-faire approach has proven to be too slow to achieve integration, we need active measures to prevent segregation and unemployment/loitering.

PC gaming, dead? There are more games coming out now that I'm interested in than in ages.

"Terrorist" has become such a meaningless word nowadays. It pretty much seems to include everyone who is fighting and not wearing a uniform. I guess these recent events also give reason for servicemen to be armed while at home? In order to protect themselves from armed groups. Really, this would be the next logical extension of the "War on Terror".

It's always boring when you fail something in a trivial way, on the road to an obvious objective. Most players will surely reload. On the other hand, it's great to fail with things unknowingly - for example if you think you've "completed" a quest, you might have finished it but missed or botched several parts of it. To generalize the argument - it's boring with few outcomes. If the only acceptable outcome is success (like in most modern simplified games) it sucks. If there are two outcomes, success and failure, the game is made more interesting. Quests can the be interwoven so that completing some part of a quest will make you fail something else. Failing a quest might also have interesting consequences (see most old adventure games), where people become angry or disappointed with you, opening up new story possibilities. Best of all is of course if there are several more ways to complete a quest, and you will never know if you've completed a quest in the "best" way - "best" preferably being in the opinion of the player. There is only the beginning and the end of a story sequence.

Well, real Eastern often becomes very cheesy. We could definitely use some near-East inspired clothes and gear, though.

This is a very interesting point. Before, "terrorists" killed civilians in public places. Clearly, this is a crime from the point of view of international law and also from mainstream interpretation of Islamic law. Killing a uniformed soldier is an entirely different thing, however. Legally speaking, he is an enemy combatant. If he is dressed in the uniform of a country who has formally declared a "war on terror", the point is even clearer. From the other side of the spectrum, I guess this opens up for extrajudicial killings of confirmed members of "terrorist" organizations. Oh wait, that has already happened?

Exactly, and that's why I think that people would rather have a normal screen + PC or console rather than pay for "smart" stuff in your TV that every other device you have can do better.

The future? It's my present. I don't need a big TV bulking up my living space. Is there ever anything on it? For TV-series? Internet. Movies? Bluray/DVD on my PC. Why would I need a TV and console? Yes, those console-exclusive games suck (I look at you Heavy Rain or Red Dead Redemption), but they are seriously not worth over $1000 off additional tech one has to buy for them. Exactly my point! So, the question which remains is whether most people will choose a PC or some type of console...

What are you talking about? That's not even remotely true. It is. Why the heck would I want a "smart TV" if I can just buy a far cheaper "stupid TV" and link it to my normal PC? Or even my console. The only thing I would need then is an Internet connection and the subscription-based services of my choice. It's the future, I tell you. If that functionality would have existed, nobody would have thought of releasing "smart TVs". People are so used to think about their cable TV, stationary phone, mobile phone, console, computer and internet connection as being somehow fundamentally disctinct services. "Durr, why would I want to call someone from my PC?" "Durr, why would I want to watch TV on my computer?" Obviously this is an artificial construction. In the future, all of these connections will be merged into one while the different services remain. Why hasn't this thought occured to more people? Well, because you tend to associate for example the computer OS UI with all the "serious" stuff you do in front of a computer. If you could use basically the same UI/OS for all of these things, the articial separation of devices for these services become clearer. Even if true then it won't be the On3 in most cases, as it is a completely voluntary purchase. It'll be either a 'proper' computer or a device you already have like a phone or tablet- or the TV you already own. Is much of anyone, seriously, going to pay hundreds of dollars to get the On3's TV centric features plus pay additional monthly costs over what the cable/ channel providers charge when most of those features come bundled into your TV? Unlikely, gaming has to be the big selling point and it's been positively downplayed, and apart from WiiU the On3 looks to be the worst option there by a fair distance. And even worse, for all the emphasis MS put on TV etc at the launch they're US only features. No doubt they'll come to other places eventually, but as a launch item the thing you've gone overboard in emphasising doesn't even apply to 70% of the world market. It's the height of insularity- it's just moronic. MS: hey everyone! You should turn your computer into a smartphone! Everyone: If we wanted a smartphone we'd buy one! And it wouldn't be a Win8 one... MS: hey guys! Now you can pay extra to do stuff you can already do, just on our new Xbox! It might also play games, maybe! Everyone: ... It may be some sort of unifying strategy at work but its implementation is just baffling. If you want to use win8 across multiple systems and 'synergise' them then do so, but don't do a half arsed job, don't go off on tangents and don't throw out the stuff that is done well to tilt at the Android/ iPhone/ smartTV windmills. I'm not trying to argue for the XBox One really, I'm just trying explain why some of the stuff people have been complaining about are actually sensible from Microsoft's perspective. MS apps such as SmartGlass exist for Android as well, they're really evidently not trying to restrict the XBox/ smartphone cross-functionality. The real thing is about feeling at home in the device interface, and so on. Like you say, there are a lot of things to argue against, such as some features being US-only, I'm not trying to defend the XBox One overall but rather explain some of Microsoft's strategies.

This always cracks me up:

The Talibans were not the enemies of the USA at all originally. In fact, the US was backing them when they fought for Afghanistan's independence. The Taliban have only held a grudge against the US since the American invasion. The US government was in negotiations for Osama bin Laden's extradition when the invasion started. Although I've no sympathy for the Taliban regime, the whole idea of invasion was utterly retarded according to me. But then, the Bush administration actually had war in the Middle East as their stated agenda even before they were elected: http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf So really, disengagement from this endless, pointless brawl destabilizing the Middle East would be really great. The extremists draw ALL OF THEIR SUPPORT from people who are angry with these wars. Who would care about belligerent extremists if those complaints didn't exist? Good times is always good for democratic leaders. When the bad times come, the belligerent, crazy leaders who put the blame on someone else get their support. Now imagine instead a scenario where the US was instead a great investor and benefactor in the Middle East. Imagine if all of the money from the wars had gone instead to micro-loans to entrepreneurs, and to diplomatic efforts (and to strengthening the American economy at home!). I hope that Obama takes this approach to the new Libya. We need a Marshall program for the newborn and unstable democracies in that region, and especially the ones which are leaning toward modern liberal ideologies, like Libya. But of course I'm not proposing that the US should foot that bill alone. Indeed, a stable Libya is even more in the interest of the EU. Meanwhile, my condoleances go out to the British army who are unfortunately caught in the middle of this. That flag is not finnish SS division flag, but finnish air force flag that is older than natzi flag, party or ideology. Was just going to post that myself...

There's a lot of confusion going on regarding why MS did things the way they did. Even Jimquisition doesn't seem to understand just what the purpose of new XBox is. Online DRM but especially the transition to subscription-based services is here to stay. W8 also might get some of the new stuff. Remember how people say MS is not earning a lot from the XBox? Well, it's great for introducing people to their products. If you fell at home with your XBox, you will like W8 and WP as well. As much as possible is going to be made cross-platform. The argument that your smart TV can already do much of the "new stuff" (although much of it was actually in the XBox 360) is a bit misleading. Sure it might be able to (but of course not all people have smart TVs). The streamlining of merging all media to online services is definitely the future. And in that sense, it was retarded to put those features into a "smart TV" because your console or media PC will be able to do those things as well, and better (I don't get why Jim says that his "smart TV" can do the stuff better - how can he put any confidence into that statement at this stage?). The only reason smart TVs exist at all in the first place is because computers and consoles were far too slow to get the same functionality. I have no idea whether or not people will have XBoxes or PS4s or W8 gaming and media PCs or whatever plugged into their "big screen" in the future, but I can say for certain that it will have the same functionality. There are a lot of gamers who are very nostalgic and want their console to work essentially just like the NES, but in truth those were the same who years ago lamented the addition of Blu- ray and DVD capabilities to consoles of the past, and how this jacked up their price. Let's face it - in the future, you will have one entertainment computer in your home which does all of the stuff.

The argument that "only a dictatorial world government could do something against global warming" is rather stupid actually. I mean, right now we have the possibility to do something. If anything about global climate change is true, we WILL see a dictatorial world government if we don't do something. It's like if you know you're going to crash against a wall - you might try to slow down or at least not accelerate. It's crystal clear that we are changing the atmosphere dramatically by increasing the amount of CO2. What is up to discussion is exactly what effects this will have.

Actually I thought Sweden might lose right before the game, seeing how Switzerland played earlier in the tournament. That turned out to not be the case, though. Sweden did some awful games before the finals. In hindsight, I think it was a very fair win.

5-1. That's humiliation. Of course, not if you're not on the receiving end.

Micromanagement is good, I do it all the time in games like Jagged Alliance 2, TOEE, and XCOM: EU However, micromanagement doesn't necessarily makes BG2's mediocre combat any good. So you seem to think there's a fundamental difference between micromanagement in turn-based and RTwP games? Or are you saying that BG2's combat was just awful, regardless of the micromanagement aspect?

I saw nothing wrong with BG2's combat. Maybe you simply don't like micromanagement?

I don't mind nakedness, as long as it's appropriate and realistic.

Erm...no. Transistors don't use the so-called quantum state. Actually no computer does. Quantum computers are theoretical. What? Let me clear your confusion: try reading Seitz' original papers from the 1930s and 1940s. His research, building on quantum theory from the early 1900s (wave- particle duality was a central part of it, for example), was crucial to our understanding of semiconductors. Because of this research, it was possible to later construct transistors. No QM -> no transistors. Also, for your education: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics#Applications FYI there are also computers which ACTIVELY utilize these quantum phenomena: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22554494

As if by meaty magic:

I liked the "bigoted" parts of Arcanum setting. It had you thinking about solutions to problems most of us don't encounter often in everyday life nowadays. Also, it was very immersive, especially with details such as the dark elves - in any other game, the reclusive xenophobes probably inexplicably wouldn't have minded a dwarf moving about their premises. In Arcanum, their racism is very explicit and that's exactly how I would imagine it to be. I think ignoring issues such as racism, patriarchy, social differences and so on just make you seem naïve and stupid. Of course I don't want to force the player into any bigotry (for example WH40K with space marines...), I don't think we need that level of "grimdarkness", the goal is only to make the world feel plausible. I think it gives an extra layer to the setting: besides invented races, religions and cultures we also have invented social prejudices. A lot of fantasy worlds just lets us assume everyone is as tolerant as today. It's really a stupid convention. Things ought to be different. I think the right way to go about female characters is to have some prejudices, but not make it overwhelming. Again, Arcanum is good example. I've always been very irritated with fantasy worlds where females suddenly are more on equal terms with men than even in today's society, without any explanation.

I take "quantum theory" to mean the entirety of atomic and sub- atomic physics and chemistry (from the literal meaning of quantum). Most likely he's referring to quantum mechanics, though. It's pointless to say it's not proven, even if you mean it in a logical-philosophical sense. It's similar to saying that there are undetectable ghosts behind the moon, or that the universe is ruled by your imaginary friend. No one might be able to prove you wrong, but it's impossible to prove to anyone else and it's not a worldview that will help you in any way. Quantum mechanics, or quantum theory, has practically perfect predictive power to the extent of what our experiments can tell us. Of course you can interpret QM in several ways, but how it works remains the same, and it's really not up to opinion. Generalizing the whole of QM as one theory is absolutely awful. Then saying that it's "unproven" (more than any other theory...) is just misleading. How do you think transistors are made? Almost all modern technological devices utilize QM in some way. The physicists at Intel or whoever designed your computer parts would be ashamed to read your statement. No matter of your opinion, people use QM at all times of the day to make new advances.