Zoraptor

I'm surprised Ubisoft is in the running. Not like they're in the best financial position themselves. Also, the last time we had Arkane/ Ubisoft we got Dark Messiah out of it.

Top notch thumbnailing, now it looks like the game title is TESVI: Official Name Reveal. Which would at least be more distinctive than Sentinel.

If you don't count steam as intrinsic drm (which we should, but a lot of people don't due to steam = good --> drm = bad --> contradiction -->brian esplodes) then it's drm free there. Trivial to pirate either way. If only they'd stayed in Cyprus they'd have been able to vote a year ago.

His position is theoretically more moderate- or less extremist, really- but practically... Iran will retaliate, Israel will retaliate for the retaliation and inevitably decide that Iran's drone and missile program has to go too (impossible, without invasion or regime change) and you end up at the same point anyway. It is a far more internationally palatable way to frame the same policy though. It is, basically, the same policy Netanyahu had stated in 2025 during the first round of strikes. If Trump decides to resume the war Eisenkot ain't going to sit it out if asked to join any more than Bibi would.

Norway and Finland's leaders have had a phone call with Putin. First time that has (officially) happened for a Euro leader in a year. Seen a lot of speculation about why, especially since it seems to have blindsided some on the Ukrainian side- though not, by any account I've seen, Ukraine itself. There probably is a big dollop of wanting to avoid the status quo approach of just shouting catch phrases loudly into the wind to project strength for a domestic audience (hello, Kaja and Ursula; though that has certainly been Stubb's MO as well previous) for something more... constructive, in the lead up to a peace conference Europe won't be at and looks set to have negligible influence over. Though one which they can, should they want, ignore the result of of course. Ironic the European complaints about about Ukraine not being invited, must have forgotten the three conferences they held to set up peace conditions, without Russia. Looked stupid then, and born out being stupid now. Personally, I rather suspect it has a lot to do with Ukraine burning through cash twice as fast* as expected to, which means they have asked for a 70bn top up to the 90bn that was meant to last them two years. That's going to be next to impossible to get approved given how hard the 90bn was to get through, especially if there's no end in sight, and given that the 90bn was meant to give European taxpayers some certainty. They're going to need options. You'd also have to suspect that they bought into their own rhetoric and thought the economic attacks of the '40 day campaign' would be a big net plus for Ukraine, instead of the big negative they've turned into. *some imprecise wording gives wriggle room, but it's probably more than twice as fast. The extra 70bn is solely for next year, and the original 90 started disbursement in July, this year. So unless things change they'd need another 35bn for the first six months of 2028 as well, for an extra 105bn in total.

Yep, bravely ran away to join his brother in Texas. Another trait of the far right, no willingness to face consequences. All the mainstream Israeli parties are pretty similar to Netanyahu on foreign policy, at least. That's one of the reasons why I tend to laugh at people who claim Bibi doesn't really represent Israeli views: he's been consistently elected for 30 years, had consistent policies for 30 years, and his views are now completely mainstream even if someone somehow managed to think his consistent run as PM was fringe and niche. The only one much more moderate at all is Yair Golan and he's not that moderate for someone who is technically the political heir to Rabin. Otherwise it's Eisenkot, and Bennet and Lieberman who were Bibi's pals right up until they weren't. The only way you end up with 'moderation' is if Netanyahu's enemies hate him/ ben Gvir/ Smotrich/ etc enough to rely on the Arabs' seats. And that also relies on the Arabs not boycotting.

I'd suspect they'd have tried selling Bioware off (specifically to MS) if they'd been bought out a year or so ago, and may have tried selling them even now had Veilguard done better. That does after all free them from any severance payments and the like as well as generate some money. Given the current climate among almost all the big players- and the Mass Effect game not being very far along for all the time spent- there would not be a buyer though, now.

Hmm. Skeptical there. A decade or so ago, for sure. But the west was largely working fine with Vucic- eg he was selling them weaponry/ ammo to send to Ukraine. Given the state of things now though, I'd question whether the collective west wants a populist challenge to anyone nearby. Too much potential for contagion in distinctly pro west Albania. Or France. Or Spain. Gotta protect that neolib status quo; Euro Forbid we end up with Le Pen in France or even worse, Mélenchon instead of some slimy photogenic vacuum like Macron. Ironic though, all the assurances and assertions that Vucic and Orban were quasi dictators who'd do anything to hold onto power and... well. Both gone, quietly. Pretty much sums up the current state of media.

If the dumbing down/ mass market appeal was the ultimate problem* it most certainly started before EA were involved. Before Elevation Partners too. Jade Empire would be the poster child for that, and there wasn't really enough of the Bioware Magic- dialogue and story, their great strength, until it wasn't- to compensate for mediocre and repetitive gameplay in a setting that initially seemed unique but might as well have been Star Wars or Forgotten Realms once you scraped the veneer. Still, at least it was short. Sold badly, cracks papered over by MS paying a huge lump sum to get it made in the first place but the issues that killed them were there, 21 years ago. Bioware was well regarded within the RPG genre but the RPG genre was not 'big' enough for what was wanted for Bioware by either EA or Ray and Greg. Ironically, over the last decade the only 'proper' RPG to be a major hit was... BG3(?) A sequel to a Bioware game, using D&D and decidedly non (modern) Bioware in most regards. The other contenders are [other genre with RPG elemenst], such as C2077. *Not sure at all it was the problem, though it contributed. See Bethesda for the counter; the dumber their games got the more successful they were. DAO was still relatively complex compared to, say F4. Which was less successful than Skyrim, but it was always going to be. I'd argue it was the staleness that ultimately did for Bioware, and which is causing a lot of troubles for Bethesda as well- there is nothing quite as bad for killing enthusiasm as being 5 hours into a game and feeling like you've been playing 100. That staleness is also self limiting when it comes to market size: you're only appealing to those who already like Bioware (Bethesda) and those of them who aren't now turned off by the Bioware Magic. That's definitely not so much of a problem for Obsidian though.

His dad never conceded either; far right are hardly the most graceful losers.

Eh, that's clearly a load of bollocks though: did Musk really only work out that Ukraine was using Starlink for drone strikes last week? No, and demonstrably no. That's three years ago now, from Musk himself and for an incident ~4 years ago. He's known about it for at least 4 years. The tos thing is also rubbish. The 2022/3 incident was Biden Admin, and was what caused Starshield licensing to be split off from Starlink. The evidence for that is pretty incontrovertible, when Starlink got turned off for Russia in 2024 it was specifically the Pentagon doing it. For 'civilian' starlink. That, again, was Biden admin though. Critically, the current situation and the same issue last year were both after stoushes with, well, the notoriously thin skinned manlet that is Donald J Trump. The high speed (physical velocity) degradation that Ukraine suffered was a specifically military application under Starshield. The static terminals aren't, and weren't effected.

Not sure I'd actually blame EA that much. May not be a popular take, but IMO Bioware's terminal issues started before them. The trajectory was correctable, but the trend clear. Jade Empire was a flop that cost its main financer (MS) a lot of money. Largely due to people buying loss leading xboxs just to play one game, which is on MS, but all the later story problems were evident there. The characters and writing were still fresh enough for the Anoarth Sky(den, post ME1) jokes and observations of recycled plot to mostly be affectionate, and the sub Whedon banter hadn't completely outstayed its welcome. Dragon Age Origins may not have been a dev hell game by modern standards, but for the time took ages (heh) to develop and obviously went through multiple cycles and iterations. "Enslave nations with necromancy" anyone? And again, recycled characters and plot, whedonesque bants etc. Same with ME1. The trouble with that though is that eventually, it does get stale. Easy to blame the last games in the sequence for that, but they produced 4 games with essentially the same plot and essentially the same characters; that set everything after up for its staleness. And yes, ME2 failed utterly to progress the trilogies plot, except for the last dlc (and with it being dlc how many people actually played it vs the base game?), which put 3 into an impossible situation of trying to fit two games worth of plot in. There was also a fairly healthy dollop of games Just Moving On from the Bioware model, and Bioware taking so long to make the games- not unique to them of course- that where they tried to iterate they ended up being years behind the market and still feeling stale (both Veilguard and Anthem). That's certainly due to poor leadership from EA as well but EA were damned if they did, damned if they didn't there. Interfere with Bioware and get bad games --> EA's fault; don't interfere and bad games --> also EA's fault.

Everything I've seen suggests that the degradation is affecting Starshield, which is the specifically US military run part of Starlink while Starlink itself is working- more or less- fine. As with GPS, it does get jammed etc. Much as I may dislike him Musk is not going to do that without at very least the approval of the US government, and since it is US military if they tell him to degrade the system for basically anyone then he's obligated to do it.

You're supposed to run into Woljif again in a random encounter chain where he's ruling some cultists. Always seems to spawn around Wintersun. iirc both the Terendelev quest and the dlc one are reliant on clicking non highlighting interactive spots/ characters which is somewhat annoying, but both ought to be completable throughout C3. Terendelev's claw is on a wagon where you got Xachariah's (? lich boss) wand, but it doesn't register as being an object, just a flavour description so if you skip clicking all of them you can easily miss it. That might be important for a lich later on.

And he's still claiming this repeatedly, and it's demonstrably false. It's a particularly weird claim because not particularly well connected people on fricking Telegram (eg AMK- who is not well connected compared to the Ukrainian Government, for sure) still get the launch information from their sources in real time. Really don't see the point in lying about that at all; all it will do is get Trump's back up, and justifiably so on that matter at least. Zelensky may well have a point over Starshield being degraded and Patriots not being delivered. Though you'd have to suspect that the shortage of Patriots is due to the US near completely depleting their own stocks and having to replenish them, with a dollop of Saudi being willing to outbid everyone else for the dregs rather than any antagonism to Ukraine.