Zoraptor

They almost certainly leaked the second (well, extended bits of the first featuring Hogan dropping N bombs more than Macho Man dropped elbows) tape against a court order as well. That was probably why they ignored the order to take the original one down, because they thought Hogan would pull out of legal action under threat of the extended version being released. I have to admit to finding it basically impossible to feel any sympathy for any Gawker employee- their employers are just so over the top villainous and so transparently over the top villainous that I can't imagine working there and not being aware of it. They couldn't/ can't even tone it down during legal action when it's not merely sensible to do so but pretty much essential to do so.

They took their jerbs! Personally, I've always hated the rebels in Star Wars. First they blow up the death star taking a horde of perfectly innocent janitorial staff with it, then they blow up death star 2 before completion leading to the summary dismissal of millions of construction workers, those who weren't liquidated along with the station at least. Won't someone think of the working man Gawker and their moral stand against publishing sex tapes involving 4 year olds? Now, 5 year olds though... (Yeah, I know, extreme example and I should definitely tender my apologies for comparing Nick Denton to Palpatine and Gawker to the Galactic Empire. So unreservedly: Sorry Palps, please don't force choke me.)

Gulf countries don't take in refugees because Bangladeshi/ Pakistani/ Nepali/ Filipino slaves are cheaper, more malleable, easier to chuck out and less likely to revolt or cause problems. Seriously. Plus who is going to put pressure on them to take them, the US? Don't make me laugh. Yeah, one. The vast majority of these attackers do not need to wait in line with the refugees. They have the resources to get around that. Pretty sure he actually was a local though, using the refugee system to avoid being flagged as a returning jihadi. He wasn't Syrian/ Iraqi/ Afghan, he was French/ Belgian. Once he's in Schengen he doesn't need refugee status and can just go home without triggering anything.

[JoWood's contract post split with PB was a G3 expansion, farmed out to some Indians, and G4 plus expansion, with a set time limit after which PB could make Gothic games themselves and JoWood could not; Risen was so they could continue to do Gothic style games before that expiration. It did not involve reversion of published titles though, so Nordic still publishes G2/ G3/ G4] Trademark info per TESS/ USPTO (I bet the formatting will go despite wysiwyg [ho hum] so I'll end up spending ages fixing it then get bored and just abridge it). AP isn't registered with Euro version, Gothic is identically to USPTO. Trademarks value is highly variable, for a company name and the like it's of near absolute importance, for subsidiary items it's far less so. So something like 'Obsidian Entertainment' as a TM would be critically important, 'Pillars of Eternity' as a TM far less so. (Pluto13 is Piranha Bytes' holding company, PB's website is run via Pluto13 for example).

Quite out of date words- five months out of date. First thing to check on any article, especially any article posted by Bruce and in this case it's in the url. Well, it was a nice quiet few days. Now we just wait to see if oby mysteriously turns up again as well. My words were bit sarcastic as said deal that article spoke with Turkey has already failed and new one has been struck, which has been met with great skepticism I'd have used Meshugger's post but it wasn't there when I hit reply. I kind of assumed your reply wasn't wholly serious.

You wouldn't make an AP sequel anyway, not with Sega owning the rights and given the contemporary setting there's little point buying them out just for Mike Thorton (whose name everyone gets wrong anyway), Stevie Heck etc. Some sort of kickstarter funded spiritual successor- a sort of Fallout KS to PoE's Baldur's Gate one- using AP's strengths as a selling point would be better, less limited and avoid baggage. Trademark is not that important. Achtung Panzer Kharkov 43 has two sequels despite Paradox (laughably, since it's from Heinz Guderian's book) owning the trademark and not being involved in those sequels. JoWood would still be making 'Gothic' games (with that name filed off) under the Arcania trademark if they hadn't gone bankrupt, that was the point of calling Gothic IV Arcania, to get a trademark JoWood owned plus their own copyrighted world thus getting around Piranha Bytes owning Gothic's ip. It's probably, overall, the least important part of the IP, though still important- it's useful to us primarily because it's obvious and easy to check whereas contracts and the like are best part of impossible. To illustrate further, EA owned System Shock as a trademark but it wasn't much use if you can't use Shodan or any of the other games' plot because an insurance company owns them, otoh if you're that insurance company you can just wait for the TM to expire and re-register it. Plus Paradox does have a history of IP reversions, unlike most every other publisher, so there's substantial precedent. It's more likely that Paradox owns it wholesale than the alternatives, but it isn't certain by any means.

Quite out of date words- five months out of date. First thing to check on any article, especially any article posted by Bruce and in this case it's in the url. Well, it was a nice quiet few days. Now we just wait to see if oby mysteriously turns up again as well.

How come everyone is so sure the IP will belong to Paradox? Tyranny is a Paradox owned trademark. Pillars of Eternity is an Obsidian owned one. While that is not an absolute indicator, especially for Paradox*, it's usually a good one for how things stand IP wise, and the publisher owning the IP is most usual practice. *historically at least a lot of Paradox games have reverted to the developer- Penumbra, Mount & Blade, Elven Legacy, Lead and Gold; probably 6 years after publication since AKP'43 got pulled from GOG six years after its initial release. Whether that's still true or true for Tyranny is impossible to tell, as you'd have to wait six years to find out.

Probably genuine advisors/ trainers or air support spotters. Syrian tactics have improved immeasurably since the Russian intervention so they've definitely been advising and more effectively than the prior Hezbollah/ Iranian types- albeit the air support helps a lot- and it's a lot easier to call in air strikes to support advances if everyone speaks the same language and is familiar with the same procedures. There won't be regular forces fighting (excluding guarding the air bases) and it's very unlikely there would be special forces directly fighting either. If confirmed it would make 7 deaths for Russia in Syria; 2 from the shootdown (pilot, marine), one suicide, one advisor hit by a mortar, one indeterminate but he was awarded a medal posthumously yesterday and the two today.

2 Russian advisors (5 according to ISIS) have likely been killed near Palmyra. There isn't any official confirmation and some room for it being faked, but not that much less doubt than when the pilot got killed in Latakia- if it's faked it's pretty convincingly faked.

I had access to some of Steam's official documentation/ agreements and at that point there were no additional charges (except GL fee) at all. I doubt Bryy could say anything either way since the detailed agreement is confidential. They don't discuss specific agreements, so unfortunately none of us can prove anything - whether is expensive or cheap. I base my statements on market observations, which I'll happily admit is very subjective. And this is pretty much as close as we get to real information https://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/FAQ.php They don't dicsuss revenue splits, but are a little more forthcoming with marketing - they do not make deductions based on increased bandwith or general marketing, but there is a monthly payment for services. The monthly thing is for payments from Steam to the developer for sales there. There are two points dealing specifically with the issue and in both they're, well, specific: It's definitely self imposed, there's nothing contractual forcing steam exclusivity (possibly excluding some special cases; I was told that BIS pulled non steam versions of Arma because Valve bailed them out financially but have no way to verify that). Just a lot of 'soft' pressure from steamworks' lock in features. You've got people citing steamworks as being necessary for multiplayer and even mods (!) as reasons for going exclusive, and while they won't stop you having a non steam version isn't it just so much easier to sell steam keys when the whole market uses steam anyway? It's also a great way to make your competitors reliant on you, if most of their income comes from selling steam keys then GMG/ D2D/ Gamersgate etc aren't really your competition any more because if you cut them off they go out of business. Essentially it's the classic Microsoft EEE bundling strategy from the nineties, just from a company with multitudinous fanboys and better PR.

Understatement of the year, dude doesn't have a single fan outside the USA. Drowsy likes him and he's from Serbia so that's false. Not that I wouldn't believe Trump is largely disliked outside burgerland, but "a single fan" is a bit overboard.[/pedant] Yes, but while accepting that there are Trump fans outside the US (some of whom probably aren't trolling either) the spirit of pedantry compels me to note that Boo's political quiz results indicated he's actually a BernieBro, not a TrumPet.

Really? Should be easy to provide proof then. Dunno where this is coming from but this thread is literally the first time I've ever seen that said about either GOG or steam. If steam charged for being on the store there might not- would not- be so much crappy shovelware released. 30% is a huge cut, practically speaking. Indeed that 30% cut provides revenue the same (or more) as the PoE kickstarter provided, to steam/ gog from PoE and (theoretically at least) that's the same size as the budget for making the game gained for sticking it in a server farm and firing off the 1s and 0s.

Sure, no probs: [..] Developers pay for that announcement in GOG, but I think it is included in their regular fee. There is probably options to get more coverage in the store with additional fees. [..]

Amazon has far more in common with bricks and mortar stores than any gaming etailer has. Really though, you were pretty definite about a fee being charged, and explicit about GOG charging a fee so you'll have to come up with better evidence than that if you want to prove it. I can't even remember marketing fees and the like being implied for GOG/ steam let alone outright stated as happening. And let's be honest, I'm not steam's #1 fan so I would love them to be doing such things since I could then use terms like and 'Embrace, Extend, Extort' about them; but I very much doubt they or GOG are doing any such thing. PR nightmare and, as above, 99% of estore game marketing is pre order/ release/ sales rather than day to day marketing.

Not really, the US still wants (at least officially) the whole of Syria rather than a bit, though that is probably more due to them not having viable long term allies there than quaint notions of territorial integrity. The trouble for the US is that they can't have (Syrian) Kurdistan as that would antagonise Turkey- Iraqi Kurdistan is fine though, since Barzani is a Turkish puppet much as he was Saddam's puppet, and while he's a gross embezzler and about as democratic as Saddam he stays loyal to his patrons until someone stronger comes along- and don't want Jihadistan as that would be ISIS under a different name; nor do they want Western Persia. US allies are quite keen on balkanisation if they can't get the whole thing though, but that requires having their Jihadistan stretch from the Turkish to the Jordanian border, and the Saudi border in Iraq. Not much point otherwise, since their ultimate goal is to cut the shia crescent in half. As such the Syrian Kurds are their direct enemy since they want the ISIS border regions and the rebel pocket around Azaz and partly (anarcho marxist quasi atheists being anathema to salafi nutbars being the other) why even Saudi and Qatari aligned groups are helping the direct Turkish proxies attack the YPG. Absolutely hilarious watching women in western clothes being trotted out by the opposition for the peace talks, meanwhile a CNN reporter is trotting around actual rebel territory in a Niqab.

The GOG wishlist is counter productive, hardly anyone uses it. And the problems with PoE on non steam are all constructed problems. Why no upgrade paths? Paradox thinks there's no demand; of course Paradox thinks there's no demand for a drm free version so of course there's no demand for upgrades to those not in demand versions. Why late patches? Because they're rolled out to steam preferentially. Etc. Etc. They're not inherent problems or advantages, they're problems because Paradox favours steam and closing everything off into the steam ecosystem- which is, of course, the whole point of the steam ecosystem. Like Workshop, you'd think that mods didn't exist before that when all it really is is Embrace, Extend, Extinguish Extract Do you have any evidence that digital stores do that? I know that high street physical stores of the E(lectronics)B(outique) or Walmart ilk did but then the model there is distinctly different and involves physical stock with handling costs and physical locations and staff with significant day to day costs, with everything taking up limited space. 99% of marketing at estores like GOG/ Steam consists of pre order/ launch day/ sales; and there is no physical space to take up, physical billboards that need fabricating or someone to put them up etc etc. The only thing that even approaches a store fee I'm aware of is steam's charge for Greenlight, and that was mainly to stop joke games being entered. I did look myself, briefly, but if there's anything about it it's buried in a million 'dota 2 marketplace market fees' type stuff.

Doubt it will work out well for them. Nobody else except perhaps for Russia- and they may just be paying lip service to annoy Erdogan- wants it and if it comes to a choice the US will pick Turkey and Russia will pick the government. It also doesn't help that Kurdish territory is overall the sparsest populated and least strategically important areas of Syria held by any faction. It's fine as a negotiation ploy though, and to remind the parties at the peace talks that it isn't just ISIS and Al Qaeda that are missing from them.

Being forced to be evil is fine if done well, though there will definitely be people fundamentally put off by the mere concept. It would certainly make a change from the default forced to do good press F to pay respects paradigm; as with most stuff it's implementation that is key.

Is that position of the Paradox studio, because they can't handle developing for Steam and non Steam at the same time, or it's position of Paradox as a publisher because they don't see a point of releasing outside of Steam? Or it's really one and the same? It's the position of both Paradox (publisher) and Paradox Development Studio. They are the same thing, PDS is not an independent entity. While their blog post is 2&1/2 years old (and based near entirely on Steam's 'how to sell your move to steam exclusive' PR crib sheet as well) there's no evidence at all that anything substantive has changed from that time, as such their reasons and whether they differ from those stated don't really matter. So far Paradox's entire relationship with GOG is based on PoE, which they inherited, and releasing old already drm free games there which takes no additional effort. It'd be different if they'd released previous steam exclusives/ drmed titles there as Nordic or Deep Silver have done, but they haven't. It's a bit more complicated than that* but that is their current policy. *Bottom line is Paradox needs steam, steam doesn't need Paradox. It's funny reading Johan defending steam vehemently when I know perfectly well he said that the drm/ steam versions were the same, and his hating on steam over the Divine Wind, dlc, patching etc debacles they had with them. But end of the day they just had to suck it up anyway because the relationship is just so slanted.

Sigh. There are two issues here. Paradox's policy is steam only and that is unlikely to change for this game. PoE was only on GOG due to the kickstarter promise (and Origin presumably due to the limited no cut policy) and while it would be nice to think PoE's sold well enough there to get a version of Tyranny it isn't likely; far more likely Paradox will simply decide that people will buy on steam if that's the only option. But, that is obfuscated because Paradox's forums are full of misinformation as Paradox is, well, full of crap on the issue- so there isn't any direct reason to believe anything said there. I'll spoiler the rest as it's ranty. I always end up wanting to give someone an uppercut after reading Paradox foums; sometimes that person is me for going back there.

Will it have $130 in immediate dlc is probably the more pertinent question given the Paradox connection. (Wow, twenty seconds on the Paradox forums and I remember why I left...)

Don't know what anyone expected, Paradox is not a AAA publisher and no game they publish will have 'expensive' graphics. In general Paradox games have functional graphics but good gameplay, and I'd far rather have that than the reverse if I had to choose what the budget was spent on.

There might be an alternative if the rebels had some sort of actual unified grouping behind them, but they don't. There's frequent low level fighting between the rebels and indeed ISIS is just rebels who have 'defected' themselves, and where they have integrated commands they're mostly integrated with Al Qaeda. It certainly doesn't help that the main foreign backers all back a different group of religious loons which means that their preferred candidates are literally Al Qaeda (Qatar), literally used to be Al Qaeda (Turkey) and someone who wants to purge Syria of anyone who isn't salafi (Saudi). In Libya at least those disagreements came to violence immediately after the central authority went. Do it in the true spirit of Bruce: We know, we know.

Only reason I can think of for so many reports of 'all' Russian forces leaving is so they can complain when the Hmeimem and Tartus bases/ air force stay, despite that not being what was said. Basically it's the same process with Lavrov saying Russia would bomb all terrorists and it being translated to only bombing ISIS/ Al Qaeda so they can complain when non ISIS/ AlQ targets are hit (despite there being more Russian strikes against ISIS in Syria than everyone except for the US combined, and far more on average per day than the US as well). ISIS is done as a 'state' anyway, it's just a question of where the division ends up territory wise between the Kurds/ SDF and the government. They're down to making glorified raids, tactically annoying but strategically irrelevant. Wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if ISIS didn't have a single city in their control at the end of 2016.