Wrath of Dagon

I take it as more action and less spreadsheet. Edit: Good to see it's actually a single player game.

It was 10 km from the NK coast, a country that they're technically at war with and with which there had been multiple previous (and subsequent) incidents. If they weren't at heightened alert they should have been, and I'd have difficulty believing they weren't. I'm saying they'd have to be actively looking for the sub, which may be they were. But it being an ambush, the sub might have hidden itself in the reflections from the coast, or some rock. Edit: Btw, not everyone thinks US is declining, and China is winning : http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/the-myth-of-america-s-decline--152512864.html I think our main problem is the lawless Marxist government the sans-culotte have installed.

The destroyer being ASW would probably only come into play if it was expecting to be attacked.

You mean Zor doesn't know everything after all? The claim of Aegis destroyer sounded strange to me too, but unlike you I'm too lazy to look it up. Diesel submarines are very quiet btw.

And?

Putin often makes a ton of sense. Yet you wouldn't want to live under his rule.

Someone there seems to have a sense of humor. Tremble evildoers! Actually this reminds me of Oddworld : Stranger's Wrath. Edit: Just noticed the link is to a Russian website. Of course they would get their panties in a bunch. Here's an insignia from one of the Navy squadrons. Oh, no, it's a sinister looking werewolf with a bomb and lightning!

I can't make any sense out of this statement. They're supposed to be Christians, not Jews. They don't call themselves Jews. They call themselves Messianic Jews, which means "a Jew who has converted to Christianity". This response perfectly illustrates the lack of logic that your whole post possesses. An African American is still an American, no? I didn't say they were Jews, I said they call themselves Jews, which they obviously do, speaking of tautologies. Their argument is that you can be a Jew (i.e. follow Judaism) and still believe in Jesus as the Messiah. This is technically true, as most Jews believe in the coming of the Messiah and it's not specified who the Messiah is, except his name is supposed to be Joshua I think. There've been many candidates for the Messiah through the ages. Lubavitcher Jews for example believed that their chief Rabbi was the Messiah. But once you start saying that Jesus was God or son of God, then you have theological conflict with Judaism.

It still won't work unless you somehow got 100% buy in, which you won't. Some company somewhere will be presented with an offer that is excessively beneficial for not buying in, and it'd only be bad business to not accept it even if they were encouraged to do something else. Why would it matter what one company does in an economy as big as China's? Which is irrelevant as we aren't talking about a minor spat here. If things are serious enough that the US is seriously damaging China's economy then they would have no expectation that the US would pay back its loans anyway. And it wouldn't just be Chinese bonds being devalued, it would be everyone's. Good luck getting more money out of anyone if you've just proven that you will- effectively- default on your loans wholesale, and if printing money were an economic panacea Zimbabwe and Weimar Germany would be Nirvanas. Recipe for winning bragging rights over a pile of economic ash, that. I was talking about the current situation, where China is acting in an increasingly belligerent and arrogant way toward its neighbors. It's not open warfare yet though. And I was somewhat flippant about printing more money, although with the current government it seems to be a solution for everything. I actually wish others would stop buying our bonds to force us into some financial discipline before it's too late.

It's not so easy. Imagine telling an average American that his next trips to Walmart are going to cost $25 extra because America is taking issue with China's ADIZ. You think Americans are up for this? That they're willing to pay extra $ in everyday life to send a message to China about its ADIZ? Of course not. The bulk of Americans don't even know what an ADIZ is, much less care that China put one up. Economic sanctions are useful when the country is currently providing you jack, but with China, they're the source of income for a huge amount of American companies and of lower prices for the American consumer. Hitting China financially hurts them, but it also hurts us. That's why it doesn't happen over small issues. Just don't tell them, they'll never figure it out on their own, like you said, they don't know anything anyway. And small issues turn into large issues if not nipped in the bud. If they don't keep buying bonds, we'll just print more money instead, making their bonds worthless. Plus they can't stop buying US bonds, that would make the dollar fall against the yuan and make their economic situation even worse. I'm not proposing public action, that would only push them against the wall and make any crisis worse. It needs to be more subtle, like let American companies privately know in no uncertain terms they need to cut back on Chinese investment and start looking elsewhere.

Since we're China's biggest customer, it would be logical to make them suffer financial consequences every time they misbehave.

Here's an interesting article on the subject : http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/12/02/2013-the-end-of-history-ends/

I wouldn't say immersion is the same as flow, as you can be completely immersed in a movie or a book, but you have no control there. So flow is something unique to an interactive activity like games, and probably has a lot to do with dopamine release as you accomplish things and get rewarded.

I'm trying to play BG2 for the first time now. I got through the first dungeon, OK but didn't seem anything special. Now I'm in the city and kind of bored walking around, so not feeling it so far. Agree with you about RTS, although mine are a bit different. When you get into an exciting battle, you definitely get immersed and get that feeling, but I really wish more action oriented games or an RPG to be like that.

Ironically I got really frustrated trying to do all the available Skyrim side quests from the start, especially as most of them just sent you to yet another linear dungeon. I think Oblivion was actually much better in that respect. And when you say "unpronounceable" is well known, I assume you mean among psychology types, I've never heard of him before.

It is indeed outrageous that a Christian would go speak to a Christian organization, especially as converting non-Christians is a basic tenet of the Christian faith. I also didn't see where the article said the fund raiser was specifically for converting Jews. However, if you're going to call yourself Jews, at least try to keep Kosher, Jesus did after all.

From a link on RPS I came across this concept of flow http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/11/the-psychology-of-first-person-shooter-games.html I think I've seen this concept before, but now it struck me a being particularly important, since I don't seem to get that much from modern games. For me I got that state the most from KOTORs, so much so I that those are the only games I could play all day long without stopping, and replay several times, which I never do otherwise. There were also about 20 games of that caliber on the original Xbox, and all of the Obsidian games I played I got into that state to some extent, with New Vegas and expansions and Dungeon Siege being the most notable in that respect, but nothing else lately except a few strategy games.

Keep in mind this is still Beta and hasn't been balanced well at this point. I think most of your issues are being addressed as the developers are getting a lot of feedback similar to yours. Also just having the right combat skills isn't enough, combat is meant to be very hard and in most battles you have to figure out a good strategy first to have a chance of winning (battles that have been properly balanced that is).

That's no Floridian, that's Chris Christie without his makeup!

Good for Texas anyway.

Bernadotte. Not one of the better marshalls and he actively hated Napoleon despite, iirc, being his brother in law. Napoleon had said "I've made him a king but couldn't make him a general."

I purged my disloyal doctor.

The new stories in Maadoran are pretty much self-contained, as was the Teron demo. And the game is meant to be replayed many times anyway, to see all the different paths and events from all different points of view.

5/9 I finally figured out you're supposed to pick the most optimistic answer.

The extended demo (R4) is now available for those who preordered. This is about 60% of the game (2 hubs). http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,3493.0.html