Zoraptor

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.

If you've multiclassed from/ to a class that gets the armour feats for free it can be useful, especially with armour that has lowered arcane failure anyway like elven/ mithril. Typical owlcat trying to recommend it all the time on level up without them though. (And it's ludicrously useful in the roguelike dlc (midnight isles?) if you get the tailwind which gives bonus damage with higher arcane failure since its description is completely incorrect and it adds arcane failure to base damage rather than percentage. Hello plodding mage(s) wearing plate mail chain casting 100+ damage per projectile magic missile)

"I agree(d), and that's the important bit" is quintessential Trump, really. Zelensky has also claimed that Ukraine got no intelligence on yesterday's missile strikes. While that is almost certainly correct it isn't related to the 'truce' and any 'retaliation' from Trump. Ukraine seldom gets intelligence on S-400 launches since the vast majority of them are anti air and there is no way to differentiate those from ballistic mode firings. They'd literally get a dozen warnings per day if they reported all launches and that is not sustainable/ practical. Positive is that S-400 are pretty useless as ground attack, they're mostly fired because they're cheap and soak up interceptors.

Trump has also announced an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine that it appears neither side had any idea about beforehand. At one point you'd have suspected market manipulation; but surely the market isn't stupid enough to fall for the same thing being tried dozens of times over the past six months or so. More Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia over the last few days too, the big one (reporting wise) being a direct hit (and another one today) on Riyadh's international airport. Strangely, no mention that the previous truce was broken by Saudi Arabia bombing Sana'a's airport a month or so ago in a single report that I saw. Same outlets mostly reported the fanciful claims about the Saudi backed forces retaking Dhubab and even Mocha (they didn't, and it's unclear if they made any consolidated gains at all). Far more important is the precarious state of Taiz, Yemen's 3rd biggest city, now well and truly surrounded and with the 'official' government forces collapsing in its rural surrounds. Trump may be annoyed about Saudi relaunching their campaign in Yemen since having the main overland oil route out of the Persian Gulf blown up twice- plus illustrating the general impotence of US air defence vs the Houthi's not exactly state of the art missiles- ain't helping prices; but he ought to be buying MbS a fruit basket for making Trump look relatively competent.

Only a woke beardo or weirdo would object to a public execution. True warfighters will be mildly aroused at the spectacle. Really though, for someone who supposedly hates performative acts being imposed on the military Hegseth absolutely loves imposing his set of performative acts on the military. And talking of performative acts: the US has imposed manly and virile* new sanctions on the ICC after one of them was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. A prize which was, of course, awarded last year to someone publicly calling for a US invasion of their homeland, in an attempt to pander to Trump. And who gave their medal to Trump in the hope he'd appoint her as Venezuelan Quisling. Way things have gone getting mildly trolled by an 85 year old judge might be the highlight of Trump's week. *or if you prefer and have functioning critical faculties, sad and pathetic

I'd be 'interested' in where they got the 25k/ kill cost from. Even using Ukrainian stats they've lost one plane outright to a Geran (most likely three, four if you count friendly fire while shooting one down) and even one F-16 is over half way to the 25k cost. Before you've paid anyone, fueled or maintained the plane, loaded its cannon or strapped on any missiles. By my estimate using 3 gives 40k/ kill, solely in plane losses. That's almost certainly more than the cost of a Geran-2, by itself- not the best measure of course, since it doesn't count damage prevented, but still. Way more cost effective vs cruise missiles, but the 650 shot down claim there is... fanciful. That's pretty close to the entire Russian cruise missile production over the time period Ukraine has had F-16s. Worth noting: one of the reasons Russia has partly switched to launching a few jet drones every few hours rather than mass attacks is that it wears out pilots and airframes far quicker. Though the more amusing thing given the wsj's propensity for Hegsethian over exaggeration is that while the F-16 is laid up regularly for weeks for maintenance, in the best case, the MiG 29s and Su-24s just keep on trucking. While being maintained in sheds and landing on roads.

Well, I'm fine. I don't really have to worry about financials, thanks to our preposterous housing bubble I could literally retire if I sold the house. In all seriousness, my dad was on a 6 figure wage and he made more in housing appreciation, tax free, than he made from his salary. Completely broken system. Haven't watched it yet, but if 'about to become' is the takeaway it's a more positive take than reality. 'Putting the N in cuts' is an all time classic and at the same time far too kind to the current government. (The litany of reheated right wing stupidities that have failed spectacularly and consistently elsewhere that they ran through as if they'd suddenly work here because it was them doing it and they sounded like they should work would be hilarious, if it were satire. Instead, they happened, and mostly as a way to siphon money to donors and lobbyists. Their competence can probably best be summed up by cancelling an extraordinarily good deal we got for new ferries from South Korea- ordered during COVID when no one else was- because they needed new ferry buildings. We are now getting smaller, more expensive, Chinese ferries. The buildings still need replacing. And everyone knows that if it'd been a bridge between the North and South Islands for 3bn they'd have leapt at it since they could award the project to one of their major donors; indeed they want to spend more building a tunnel in Wellington that will- coincidentally, no doubt- cut five minutes off the time from the airport to Parliament. Their nastiness can best be summed up by their relentless targeting of disabled people and trying to force their relatives to look after them permanently, with no help. Most of them are looney tunes 'Prosperity Gospel' evangelicals who believe God Just Hates The Poor. Good news; if God actually exists they ain't going to heaven)

You'd hope that the relevant example from Arkane for Obsidian would be Prey really. Not their IP- and I think it's fair to say that they really wanted their own System Shock equivalent as Dishonoured was a Thief equivalent, and not a Prey game- but very clearly Arkane's own take. And an excellent game too. Very meh on those rumours. Half the (substantive) publicity output when Obsidian was independent seemed to be about all the pitches for licensed games they'd made, including both TES and Fallout. They'd clearly have been happy to make them, the only difference is being 'forced' into them now.

The consequences of trying to take down Russia's economy have been far worse for Ukraine than Russia. They now need nearly the entire EU aid package which they had so much trouble approving last year- and projected to last for the next two years- this year. Economic activity is utterly paralyzed; no warehouse space, their main exports cannot be exported- agriculture- or have been destroyed recently (metallurgy etc). Indeed, it was particularly dumb to start the campaign when there was an interceptor shortage, and the Russians had increased capabilities like mass produced Geran4/5s Best indicator of how things are actually going on that front: Zelensky has been begging for an infrastructure/ maritime/ energy truce, for weeks, including today at the UN. The maritime one is particularly ironic, since Ukraine had one until they broke it; and we got a lot of people saying Russia could not enforce a blockade even if it wanted to. Well, that aged like milk. (In terms of Patriot production, even if it actually approved- and personally, I'd be surprised if it were- it's... The thing about the drones is that they can be manufactured in Birmingham or Munich, shipped in by train and then assembled, in a shed, by a couple of guys with drills. And that's only a slight exaggeration. You occasionally see people driving around with medium range drones literally on their utes (ie pickups), not something you can do with a Patriot type missile. The equivalent system to Patriot would be the Flamingo or their domestic ballistic missile (Grom) or their domestic anti ship cruise missiles (Neptune). None of whose production is anywhere near the levels required for Patriot production, because they need large production facilities, which are constantly being hit. Indeed, that will likely be worse for Patriot, because they will need a large volume of them and while you can fire off most of those other missiles from anywhere (well, within reason) in Ukraine most Patriots will be going to defend a static target in Kiev, and that makes tracing their source far easier)

Avowed 2 would surely have been a marginal call, in the best case scenario, since its predecessor didn't sell that well and as that quote implies. If it were to continue being made doing so as A TES Game (ie not 6/7) seems best practical/ realistic case, as much as it may not be what people wanted. As previous, I'd suspect they'll be allowed some leeway for experimentation given MS obviously think Grounded did well; but a TES like game in a setting that isn't TES, and has not sold well enough? That's a hard sell, in good circumstances. Even the more risky/ small scale/ experimental stuff is more likely to get approved is it's got a big IP attached to it. That is the current situation for sure, they're both effectively in limbo. The main positive- and it certainly is only a relative and circumstantial positive- is that they haven't been shut down, so the willingness to divest as working entities from MS appears to be genuine rather than performative. (It would be a lot harder than many people would think to divest, even if they're effectively being given away with IP and in some cases seed money as well. You still need someone who MS trust to take them on in a situation where most studios fail and do a job which is no doubt incredibly stressful. In a sort of magical hand waving world you'd probably return Arkane at least to Raf Colantino; but he already has a new studio. So does Harvey Smith, and you have to wonder if anyone else wants it)

Overall MS trying to solve the Arkane 'issue' is a positive, since the alternative is worse. I don't think there was a realistic probability of Arkane ever making a Prey/ Dishonoured (System Shock/ Thief, or indeed Alpha Protocol type) game again as a subsidiary since the leadership that wanted to do that are gone and big organisations don't do passion projects, especially ones that haven't made significant money. The realistic way that happens is if Arkane goes independent, and to be fair to MS that seems to be their preferred option* given it's happened with other studios they don't want, and they could have simply closed them down. I think we all know what option someone like EA would have already chosen... The released studios have also got most of their IP. Probably not so important for Arkane, unless you were waiting for Arx Fatalis 2, since Prey/ DMM&M/ (Wolfenstein) wasn't theirs and Dishonoured's main series is at least in theory done. The problem may well be that the two obvious people to release it to are already committed to other projects. *not because they're just nice that way, of course, but because it's better PR to be seen to have tried. And if they have negative value on the balance sheet giving them away is a financial positive too.

I'd say that's the realistic scenario, for most of their output, rather than worse case. It may not be particularly palatable to Obsidian fans, but if Avowed was TES: Avowed it would have sold a lot more even if you otherwise left 90% of it the same. While that is technically opinion rather than fact I don't see any realistic way it isn't true; and I don't see any way that people in MS management don't think the same. They will want maximum brand return etc etc and not BGS making Fallout/ TES with 16 years between the franchise titles. They did specifically mention Grounded as continuing, and it's a small project to get a specific mention; it's clearly been successful enough to get attention. I'd suspect that as long as their big ticket projects are successful they'll be allowed to do some more experimental stuff as well. The problem, now, is that their recent big ticket projects were not successful. (The wildcard could well be a D&D title, given BG3's success and it not having any sort of real follow up. At this point, a pretty wild wild card though. That would clearly be big ticket, and far more appropriate for Obsidian than BGS even if they had capacity. Not an Obsidian IP either though, of course)

Eh, does that really mean much of anything at all? Obsidian has already made one game under Bethesda*, after all, and it was fairly well regarded. Having one RPG label, one action label, one casual label etc makes sense**; and not just in the world of MBA speak. And yeah, if anyone thought they were actually going to get independent management for Obsidian under MS... well, I have some lovely sea side real estate in Arkansas to sell them, might even throw in a free bridge as a sweetener. I also have very few illusions about Xbox being an absolute disaster financially for MS over pretty close to its entire existence. It was basically never financially viable on its own and was always propped up, sometimes massively, by the profitable divisions. At some point someone was going to decide that was throwing good money after bad. *It is Bethesda Softworks, not Bethesda Game Studios **especially if the next step is selling it off in bits to the Saudis. Which might seem unlikely, but they bought EA and were going to buy Embracer. Buying a failed console in its sunset would be very on brand for their business acumen as well.