Zoraptor

? Bungie was bought by MS as a fairly minor entity, but bought themselves out (ie went independent again) later after the success of the Halos.

Yeah, I'd expect everything to be on xbox and PC (Windows Store time limited exclusivity, then at least steam) with no massive alterations to the games and style. I'd suspect that MS wants things more in the FONV vein from Obsidian than in the PoE vein, and maybe DivOS type games from InXile, which aren't massive departures.

I can understand timed fuses being default- they are in real life after all where you have more... permanent consequences for dropping or otherwise prematurely contacting an armed contact grenade- but yeah, contact grenades are just so much more useful in almost all games.

**** off. It's like 2000 all over again. For MS 'xbox exclusive' just refers to consoles, they've had xbox exclusives on PC before. May mean Windows Store exclusivity or timed exclusivity but I doubt that to be honest. For OEI and InXile there's not much point making either console exclusive just for the sake of it. May well mean no more Obsidian games for me given the attitude MS has to GOG and DRM free in general, but then I wasn't really expecting Outer Worlds at least to be anywhere other than Steam anyway and that's the only 'known' project.

Not enthusiastic. Yeoh's fine, but the writing for both versions of Georgiou was pretty average while the emperor version had hugely contrived plotting. I'd way prefer a Captain Malfoy series. Or just go full meta and get Tom Felton. Isn't that like 4 different Trek series either in production or under consideration now? Guess STD must have driven a lot of CBS subscriptions.

Deadfire and Tyranny I think both have an audience which is a... difficult one, in a world where blockbuster first weeks sales mean a lot. PoE/ Tyranny and games of their type require a decent amount of patience and attention to play, and the audience for that sort of game tends to themselves be more patient. PoE1 had a lot of hype around it as a kickstarter and a new beginning etc, the latter two nowhere near as much. And since the audience is more patient I'd readily believe that much of that audience is willing to either wait for a sale and especially wait until they will actually have the time to play the game before buying it. But also, to be honest, I found PoE1 to be turgid. Not that bad, also not that good, but just unnecessarily bloated in just about every respect and in the end a bit of a chore (albeit WM was consistently better). PoE2 on the other hand I genuinely liked, but if I went solely by the PoE experience I would not have bought the second game.

Gross receipts ought to include the distributors' cuts though- for example the box office gross of a movie is gross receipts from movie theatres, not the studio's gross revenue, and GTAV or RDR2 selling x billion $ on release is gross receipts from xbox Live/ PSN, EB, Walmart etc rather than revenue to Rockstar/ 2k as well. Having a quick look at the SEC filings and publisher/ distributor fees are definitely removed from the figure that the investors see, to whit: So multiplying it by .7 is giving the distributor two cuts as the reported figures are minus fees (what I would call nett revenue, rather than gross). I certainly should use the same nomenclature as the filing in future to prevent confusion, I suspect there's a bit of a definition difference between NZ and the US there.

Catapults? Those are trebuchets, a precision weapon using cantilevers and mechanical advantage not some useless catapult with their rubbish potential energy conversions. Catapults couldn't propel a 90kg man over a distance of 300m, for that you need a properly engineered siege weapon.

Finally saw the full season of Star Trek Discovery. I liked it overall and it might be my favourite first season of a Trek show though that's not saying much. The big negatives were anything to do with the mycelial network and the plotting of the war vs the Klingons being rather weird and contrived towards the end in particular and elements of the plotting being weird/ contrived throughout- budget was somewhat to blame in places no doubt, but you do have to work with the budget you have. The acting and casting was fine (especially Lorca and Sarek, and I'd give Tilly's actor a mention for making her mostly endearing when she could easily have been annoying), the progressive/ political stuff fits Trek's philosophy fine so is less out of place than when it's shoehorned and the vast majority of the episodes held my interest. The last two eps were a fair bit of a let down though, and I found the last segments of ep15 extraordinarily cringey. I did particularly like the way that they used one seemingly obvious and ham fisted reveal to run interference on the second, far more interesting reveal as well.

IIRC some of the people who won't talk to you after are quest givers so it is possible to miss out on a few quests by picking a faction early, but that is the only real disadvantage to choosing early. The main advantage to joining a faction is that you get their advanced quests and some free gear as well as access to faction specific gear and skills. And yeah, for the clerics in particular that's a massive increase in power. One of their powers is pretty close to enabling cheat mode after the hard start. Might be a bit late but it's probably worth saying that in Elex unlike most games of its type and just about every prior PB game being a bit of of a Jack Of All Trades at the beginning is rewarded instead of punished in the long term.

It will be paid out on nett revenue- ie revenue after relevant deductions- not the gross revenue. If that weren't the case I would be extraordinarily surprised and question whether OEI had got decent, or any, accounting and legal advice. It will be set up to minimise payments to investors, that's just the reality of being a company rather than a charity and the investment only being shares in a product rather than shares in a company. Exactly how that nett revenue is counted and what can be deducted about it will depend on the exact definitions and terms used, but I'd bet pretty much everything I own that the 4.5 million is after they've deducted every single expense and cost they can. Fig is a pretty bad investment for sure, though I do believe that OEI did genuinely think they would get those numbers and it would be successful, as they put a decent amount of extra money in themselves.

Revenue ought to be calculated after the vendor's cut though*, not before, ie on nett revenue after Steam/ GOG's 30% is removed rather than the gross sales revenue. By my calculation that gives ~161k sales if price average is $40. That's also far more consistent with the steam achievements leaks data. Not wholly so of course, but then $40 per sale is high and any cut/ costs of the publisher etc would count against OEI revenue as well. Potentially even things like ongoing support costs could count against revenue as well depending on how the investor agreement is written. *Steam/ GOG don't give OEI their gross sales throughput and then send a bill to get their 30% back from OEI; they pay OEI 70% of gross sales and keep their 30%. That 70% is Obsidian's revenue, not the full sale amount.

I drove behind a car with a swastika on today. Always nice to see the Jain community representing. IIRC nobody is quite sure what the original/ ancient Roman Salute looked like since the Romans never described it- but it was probably open rather than closed fist due to the threatening connotations of the closed fist.

WH40K and Starcraft are both dumb, and their fans are very silly people. Ah, yes, one of the few occasions when the movie is just so so much superior to the book.

Got any companions available? YThey won't beat a chimera by themselves but they'll help a lot with the lower tier enemies. Otherwise you can find (or brew, though I suspect you won't have the skills for that yet) Elex potions to give you some extra points to spend on stats. If you haven't found the domed city yet there are a lot of non combat quests there as well.

"He is also the one who wrote that was FAKE NEWS so he corrected his poor info." Didn't have much option other than to given that Justin Bell publicly said he was staying so it was obvious to everyone he was wrong.

That's a consequence of the 'flat' damage reduction system. If you're using a near starter tier weapon that does 20 damage a young wolf might have say 5 damage reduction, so most of the damage gets through and you might kill it in 5 or 6 hits depending on combos etc. An adult wolf might have 20 damage reduction though, so you get almost no damage damage even with any combo bonuses. That makes the young wolf manageable but the adult one disproportionately more difficult. But, as a consequence when you get to a low intermediate weapon that does 30 damage suddenly you're a lot more able to handle that adult wolf because your effective damage dealt increases ten fold- instead of doing 1 or 2 damage per hit you start doing around 10 per hit. However your effective damage against a young wolf doesn't even double so you still need 4ish hits to kill one so if you mess around with them too much they're still potentially dangerous; but instead of needing seemingly hundreds of hits to kill an adult wolf you 'only' need about ten. It's a pretty good system for keeping things interesting in a long game since only the weakest enemies become absolute walkovers, but it's certainly a hard start because you have to get over that initial hurdle of only being able to handle the weak versions of a few enemies until you develop a bit. As is tradition for Piranha Bytes games if you're really good or really patient you can kill just about anything with starter tier weapons, but it will take a very long time. (n.b. numbers are illustrative only, I don't know the real numbers involved)

Yes, there was, the facts were not in dispute only criminal culpability on the narrow basis of competence; there was not enough evidence due to the way the law was written as requiring deliberate malfeasance or gross incompetence. It's not a binary where there's either no evidence or automatic conviction by evidential inundation, it's a scale. You can have evidence but not enough to secure a conviction. In the vast majority of not guilty cases brought to trial that is the exact situation, same where someone is charged but not eventually put on trial. You're a smart guy, if you cannot grasp that most simple of concepts I may have to re-evaluate that opinion.

Doing his whining on the Codex is the least of his problems. It's about the only place he can guarantee a positive reaction, so fair enough. OTOH, someone who spent most of his last several years at Obs working for other companies, going to events, cosplaying with Brian Fargo and apparently when actually at work spent most of his time fighting literally everyone else in the company can't really complain credibly about someone taking a month off after a multi year project- and the credibility of his scuttlebutt is somewhat degraded by him getting his previous solid- see thread title- demonstrably wrong. (EP does tend to be a crap title though, half of them don't do anything much at all and it's a way to pad resumés and reward senior people who have hit a career ceiling. It's usually the bog standard producers who do the actual work)

Hillary wasn't guilty by evidence shown as it's impossible to prove that she did it deliberately or with gross incompetence; and one of those is required for conviction. That the potentially criminal act- using a private server, receiving classified information on it and deleting documents that were required to be preserved- was done is however not in dispute, hence there is evidence just not enough to convict. Even Hillary doesn't dispute the basic facts of what happened in her case, she just maintains she doesn't understand technology thus is not criminally liable. With Kavanaugh however every single thing is in dispute. There is literally no testable supporting evidence- specific times and locations; corroborating witnesses, physical evidence- the only evidence is that several accusations were made. Trump can't just charge Hillary, that isn't how the system works for good and obvious reasons.

It was definitely impossible under the circumstances to prove Hillary did it deliberately, but I find it very difficult to believe that someone as concerned with her image as Hillary was not trying to control access to information. In the end it was pretty much the same as having classified material sent to a gmail address (well gmail's security was probably definitely better) which would get peons fired or at minimum lose their clearance. Mostly though private servers are not really something a random tech illiterate grannie decides to set up, and not something a random tech illiterate grannie decides to wipe when convenient. No, there was way more evidence against Hillary since there was literally no doubt she did what she was accused of, the only point in contention was proving it was intentional and hence criminal. The only evidence against Kavanaugh was the accusations themselves. An accusation itself isn't evidence, you cannot use a "would he be accused if he weren't guilty?" argument because that applies whether or not the accusation actually is true, believable or even possible. "Donald Trump was born on the planet Krypton and thus is ineligible to be President", obviously there is evidence for this accusation, otherwise I wouldn't make it... As for the rest, until it's investigated it's 100% hearsay and as above, an accusation alone is not evidence of anything other than the accusation being made. That flies in the face of 1. Civic Duty 2. Ignorantia juris non excusat 3. Due Dilligence The law requires it either to be deliberate or to involve gross incompetence. As such, plain old garden style incompetence is an appropriate and proper defence, no matter how stupid that seems. I have to agree with Volourn, if her last name had not been Clinton I very strongly suspect they would have filed an indictment at least, even if the person eventually was found not guilty.

She used a private server to receive classified information and deleted emails that should have been preserved, that is not in dispute. The reason she wasn't charged is because- ludicrously- she had to 'know' what she was doing was illegal for it to be a crime. Practically she almost certainly did know because she isn't a drooling imbecile, but that is impossible to prove beyond reasonable doubt hence the befuddled grannie defence being accepted and no prosecution being offered. That's a million miles away from being no evidence, balance of evidence says she was absolutely guilty, beyond reasonable doubt says she could not be convicted. Is this the thing you earthlings call whataboutism? Nah, just kidding, whataboutism accusations are for pathetic wieners who can't argue for faecal matter. However, without any details of private server usage by those people it's impossible to say whether they transgressed any laws or guidelines. A private server is not by itself illegal, using ti to circumvent preservation laws and receive classified material in an insecure way however potentially is. Difference being we know Hillary did both of those.

That's not really equivalent at all though since, technically, there was a ton of evidence against Hillary and she definitively did what she was accused of in terms of using a private server and deleting emails that should have been preserved. The law was just written in a way that if she claimed to be a tech befuddled old grannie who thought wiping a hard drive involved Kleenex® brand disposable wipes etcetera then she couldn't be convicted. That's not the same as having no evidence. To be honest though, given the amount of voter suppression I wouldn't be surprised if people wanted a sniff around voter rolls and the like to see if voters of a certain type were 'spontaneously' or 'mysteriously' dropping off them around election time. (I'm kind of amused because of the apparent rigmarole required to register to vote in the US when the voting machines are ancient, unreliable andor insecure- yet we can register to vote literally on the day of the vote and all we need is a paper ballot which is still the most secure way to do things)

It depends a lot on perspective. His brinkmanship with North Korea was stupid, and the summit with Kim he got from his brinkmanship achieved nothing DPRK wasn't going to do anyway. So he's a fool. But, he's been able to do a good job spinning it into being a great success for taking hardline positions and a personal success for him. So he's not a fool. He threatens to pull out of NATO and antagonises his allies unnecessarily, so he's a fool. But he doesn't pull out and extracts more tribute from said vassals, so he's not a fool. Etcetera. He definitely sees himself as a great deal maker, and if you're leader of the US then the biggest leverage you have for said deals are military and economic power. Political power ('soft power') is what he ignores as it isn't quantifiable and that has lead to his many unmitigated failures in the diplomatic field. Even then he's at least tried to spin them to his advantage and they tend to play well for his voting base who like 'sticking it to euroweenies' and the like.

Witcher 1 Geralt was certainly the most book accurate look from the games. That screen test also looks a fair bit like- and apologies for triggering any PTSD- The Hexer's Geralt minus comical painted on stubble. I'm not a big fan of the Fabio hair for practical reasons ("I swear I was winning vs that Striga until she tangled my hair in her talons and scalped me!") and because it makes it look like a Rhaegar Targaryen/ Lucius Malfoy screen test instead but I can live with it. As for Triss... she doesn't look anything like Triss in either book or game and looks older than Yen rather than younger so there's not much right with the casting based on physical appearance. It's a slightly more significant change than going from chestnut hair to orange/ red as in the games. The casting overall is pretty trolltastic- apart from having all Geralt's love interests be coloured women they've also cast a Mikkelson, but not Mads and not as Bonhart. On the more meta side of things, unless they tone down other aspects of the world, characters, and Geralt a lot the kind of people who would applaud things like Triss's casting still won't watch the show because the source material fundamentally won't be to their liking*. So all they're doing is annoying some people who would watch the show to appeal to people who won't. Frankly, that's been a major problem with a lot of Netflix programming overall recently and a contributor to their spate of poorly received individual programmes. *Who am I kidding? Most of them are too busy looking for things to be offended by on twitter to bother actually watching stuff.