Zoraptor

"Boring to who? Our personal opinions are irrelevant." No. Or to be more verbose about it, I'll remember that next time you tell anyone that NWN is the best gmae of all time, Volo. The idea is that you can only do something simple like Good vs Evil for a set amount of time. So it's a fine premise for the movies, all of which I enjoyed to a greater or lesser extent, because a SW movie is what a SW movie is; SFX pr0n with a variable quality supporting story that is not Shakespeare or Tolstoy and isn't intended to be. You're not going to a movie to do much more than be entertained for an hour and a half, it's rare for any movie to do a good job of being thought provoking even when they aim to do that. Once you get into the Expanded Universe though that approach is severely limiting because you go from all six movies which add up to maybe 12 hours of entertainment, total, to a game like KOTOR/2 either of which is multiple times longer, by itself, than all the movies put together. There are, simply put, different requirements for different media, you can get away with a very simplistic approach in movies because it is a very compressed acute length with little time for reflection or analysis or nuance; in contrast a book or a video game takes a lot longer, is usually consumed over an extended period of days to weeks and requires more direct insight into the motivations and thoughts of those involved. Lucas wanted to have his cake and eat it too by both having an EU and remaining true to the very limited vision of his movies. There was thousands of hours worth of EU stuff and pretty much the only bits of it with intrinsic worth were the ones that went off reservation wrt Lucas's good/ evil dichotomy (not so far as to contradict it directly though) and those that wrote around it. Albeit it doesn't help that a lot of the EU is crap anyway. There's a reason why all the simplistic written stories tend to be fairy tales aimed at kids while most hit movies are about as simplistic as those fairy stories. The issue is with Lucas's stipulations that everything be as simplistic as the movies' approach.

Ah yes, we are so morally superior because we... subvert our supposed core beliefs to justify whatever temporal needs we may have at a given time. Hmm.

It's not really between SW fans and RPG fans, though most of the rest is right. The base argument at the heart of K2 and why some people dislike the story was one of the more divisive arguments in the EU- the old (Legends) EU- about whether the world of SW really was just black and white or whether there were shades of gray; between those with a mature, nuanced, view of the world and those rooted in a philosophy suitable for five year olds dictated by the whims of, well, George Lucas. It's a fairly divisive argument in real life too since it tends to mirror the moral absolutist vs moral relativist division. Fundamentally the problem is that Lucas mandated SW is boring. Good vs evil is unimaginative and limiting, and George being George you had some weird stuff being defined as wrong- Jedi could have as much sex as they liked, so long as they didn't care for the person they were boffing, for example, or it being OK to kill thousands of people so long as you didn't get emotional about it and they were bad; the sort of stuff people parody The Sword of Truth/ Terry Goodkind for (deservedly mind you) unremittingly. The canon vision of jedi actually has them as being outright psychopaths*. Some authors noticed that and ran with it, having characters point that out, and some fans hated that happening because George said Jedi were good therefore they were good and no questions could be asked. As it stands, most of the really quality writing present in the old EU ran with that idea. On Kreia and K2 in particular that influence is absolutely clear. Specifically, Kreia has large philosophical and practical similarities to Vergere and some of the questioning of the Jedi philosophy by those such as Hyphen Man (meh, Kai-zez-ell or whatever) was parallel to some of the questioning from other EU. And vice versa, the retconning of Vergere to be outright Sith seems to be mirroring Kreia rather than the other way around. The funny thing is, I can understand people not liking Kreia and what she says, but not thinking she's a crap character. You don't have to believe her, you don't have to agree and she isn't proved right, at any point. What she does do is challenge the status quo and beliefs, and some people just hate that especially if it's done well. *and don't get me started on The Force. The canonical vision of that has everyone being outright slaves to a supernatural force that doesn't give an asterisk, sticking a fork through its eye is a moral imperative

LolEnglandWinsLoses. I just knew Wales were going to score as soon as the commentator started talking about how they were so disorganised and lacked penetration, happens every time. And thanks to daylight savings I tuned in just in time to see most of the Welsh team being scraped off the pitch with a spatula. The two matches against Australia now look even more crucial than before, guess the tickets have been sold already but the hosts going out in pool play would still be a big deal for the tournament. They might have to do a cricket and make it impossible for India England to get knocked out early in future.

To be fair, though, it's not like that report's going to be debated in the Security Council anytime soon, or something like that. The UN has dozens of bureaus, agencies, commissions, and whatever else the thesaurus could come up with, that operate largely independently. It's not that the standards are higher there than in any other thing that is producing papers of that sort. Yep, it's basically the same as the 'congressional briefings' from earlier in the year, very little practical effect and interested parties do reports for the UN every day. Doesn't mean that there won't be attempts by countries to make that sort of crap law but there would be with or without the bleating at the UN.

Well, we pretty much are morally compromised. We live lives of quite genuine privilege and extraordinary wastage while most of the planet doesn't- and we also tend to pat ourselves on the back for doing so. The vast majority of 'our' achievements were made by others decades or centuries ago and are near completely removed from us. For all the talk of muslims and what they believe most of us had better hope that Jesus's "camel through eye of needle" quote was just an advisory. Practically of course you can't give everything away, anyway. But that does not stop there being a moral obligation. It's probably closest to the situation with benefits or healthcare where you don't want everyone to be having MRIs every time they get a cold or to have an unemployment benefit higher than the minimum wage but at the same time you don't want people dying of tuberculosis or cholera on the streets and unemployed people starving under bridges. Once the refugees are there you have an obligation to them and cannot just ship them off in cattle cars back to Syria. The really stupid thing about this crisis is not the direct response to it or the acceptance of refugees in principle, that response is both morally and legally necessary. The problem is that the peripheral response has been so terrible, either grossly incompetent or malign. Merkel actively exacerbated the problem by having encouraged refugees- and economic migrants- to use people smugglers and forged documents to get into Europe; a vicious circle where the smugglers have more money/ encouragement and refugees are encouraged to move in an uncontrolled and personally risky manner, it short circuits the 'proper' way of doing things so those who actually follow the rules and stay in their refugee camps in Turkey/ Lebanon/ Jordan are effectively punished for doing so as they see people who break the rules being 'rewarded' by getting their Euro refugee status for breaking those rules. That was utterly stupid and there ought to be real consequences for her for doing so because she's asterisked up other countries with her 'philanthropy' and has now taken it back to boot, collectivising the consequences. There really are two distinct issues though, direct dealing with refugees once they have arrived where options are very limited, and preventing the refugees from arriving in a uncontrolled manner and disadvantaging those who actually follow the rules.

Yeah, I certainly don't see how you could look at the Greece crises and have any sort of surprise about countries' sovereignty being trumped by the EU. Albeit that wasn't the full EU but then neither is this decision either. Really I don't see how you could look at the EU at all and be surprised that this is the end point. If it weren't other countries being forced to bear the consequences it would be pretty hilarious how quickly Merkel about faced from her idiotic open invitation; and it is always ironic to see Germany bailing themselves out of their own stupidity with not a hint of embarrassment but claims of moral superiority and claiming European Solidarity. It's privatise the profits/ nationalise the debts just with Germany instead of a bank. Congrats, euroweenies, your future is the German Chancellor stomping on your face- forever. Though perhaps an Animal Farm quote would be more appropriate, after all some countries are more equal in the EU than others, though ironically in that case not the PIGS.

And it actually looks like a potentially worthwhile purchase even if you own the CD version/ System Shock Portable since it isn't just base game + SS2Tool as the System Shock 2 release was but has improvements like persistent settings and a windows executable. Night Dive actually owns the System Shock IP now so there might even be sequels- potentially pretty cool if they can find the right devs. The SS2 re-release has sold well over 1.5 million copies (and more on GOG than Steam, despite the bundles it has been in being steam keys) so they've got a decent base to aim at even if a lot of those sales have been at a lower price point than even the $10 base.

So, who are the Kochs backing now? I've been stockpiling double entendres and don't want them to go to waste.

As has been pointed out several times, many of those looking back to the 'roots' of christianity decide that Jesus was a hippie and probably a commie too, and decide that looking right back to the OT is far more to their liking. If people want to find a reason to inflict their beliefs on others they will do so whatever the underlying philosophy, the ability to simultaneously get power over others in some way and to pat yourself on the back for doing so 'morally' has always been a massive temptation- and there are plenty of atheists and secularists who follow that without the need for religion. I'd also say that the root of christianity deradicalising was not the reformation itself but the 30 years war and other religious wars. It was only after those bloody internecine struggles where millions died that a quasi modern system of international states and proclamations of tolerance became the norm; and that was definitively after both sides had become very strongly radicalised for the century or so after the reformation.

I would say though that if you reworded 'violent warlord' to use more favourable or neutral language most muslims would agree with that being a significant element of Muhammed because he was a (righteous, to their view) conqueror both historically and in the Koran. I'd make the distinction between those who see that violence and conquest as being, essentially, the end point and intrinsic to being a muslim and the vast majority who see it as being a means to an end under specific circumstances and not intrinsic except in those specific circumstances. The latter is, of course, both the majority view and also indistinguishable from the vast majority of those following even theoretically pacifist religions like buddhism or christianity or any other philosophy for that matter; everyone is perfectly willing to use violence for their ends under the right circumstances whether they be muslim or whatever.

I think it's the black uniform that makes them look big while lighter colours tend to make players look smaller, the ABs always look bigger than England but it's usually the reverse that is true. As for the game itself, we played pretty poorly a lot of the time with some silly mistakes and McCaw in particular was an utter moron. At least we played poorly and won, unlike South Africa and the first match against Australia earlier this year but they'll have to do better in the knock out stages.

"Gaiety is the most outstanding feature of the Soviet Union"- Iosif Dugashvili

Nah, Ninjas. Fair few non Japanese sounding names in that team too, though getting beaten by Japan + NZ/Aus/RSA D team castoffs still isn't a good look.

The US can reimplement the UN sanctions very easily, as there has to be universal agreement to keep them lifted if a complaint is made rather than to reimplement them- effectively there's a veto on keeping the sanctions lifted where if anyone objects they automatically reoccur. Of course, Iran then wouldn't consider themselves to be subject to the agreement either, but the option is there. There was never any prospect at all of getting any military action formally approved in the agreement- or at the UN itself- and the only option there was simply not to have an agreement at all or act unilaterally, which always remains an option. Choosing something that according to the experts gives 15 years of security over yet another bout of middle eastern anthill kicking is definitely preferable.

It very likely wouldn't be a WW2 like event though; at best a WW1 type event is far more likely where it 'ends' with a 20 year truce while the loser builds up strength again, or a 30 Years War event with modern weaponry. A full scale war between sunni (well, theoretically the salafi/ wahhabi/ takfiri fringe, but inevitably more moderates would get drawn in and become less moderate) and everyone else in the ME would make what is going on now look like a picnic. And chances are that the radicals would win because by and large people are far more willing to die or uproot themselves to fight for a radical cause than for moderation, people who see their friends getting killed tend to radicalise not moderate and moderates tend to get disheartened as the radicals gain power. I'm deeply sceptical of the west's motives especially and their ability to deliver practically on positives but they do have a passive buffering effect from having some level of engagement even if their more active phases are almost uniformly ill thought out.

It should help, it just won't be a perfect solution- but assuming that salafis are seen as being a part of the problem excluding them from any accepted refugees would make it harder for existing/ present salafis to influence the more moderate refugees. Or they could accept only druze/ christian/ yazidi refugees; that would remove the threat of muslim extremism from refugees almost entirely albeit that approach has its own obvious problems. Iran is pretty definitively shia, though I'd assume sunni was meant there. Practically I tend to agree that no intervention at all, ever, is as dumb as constant intervention in everything, and the basic realities of the situation as it is now won't be changed positively by complete non intervention. I do however have considerable sympathy for those who throw their hands up either at the fact that for all the money spent and lives lost over the past decade or so things only seem to have gotten worse/ not improved significantly or those who feel that the west's history of intervention has been so consistently wrong headed that they are either so incompetent that anything done is likely to blow up late or so malign that they are deliberately setting things up to blow up later. Looking back at the mess of naive ideology and cynical realpolitik does not raise any hopes that the west will suddenly find a successful path to stability and success in the ME, as such it's very easy to just say they should stay the asterisks out of the whole region as it could scarcely get worse than it is now. Of course in reality it could get a whole lot worse than it is now.

Thing is, there have always been two sides to GG- or any identifiable group, really- and the Nyberg stuff and other things which are going on epitomises that. There's always one part which loves the outrage and believes that anything is fine so long as it is directed at the right people, their enemies, and the others who don't agree with that approach. The first group is simultaneously the most committed and least committed to the 'cause' because they're deep believers, but only in their particular vision and approach so if the movement as a whole shifts away from their vision they're also the ones who start the internecine attacks. Milo/ Breitbart writing about Nyberg is- and I could not agree more with Keyrock- basically just click and outrage bait with the promise that there can be follow up articles about all their political enemies who are defending the 'pedophile' but it is ambrosia to the people who love drama and 'getting' the opposition. Nyberg is at best an utter moron but as much as 'joking' about being a pedophile is gross stupidity using alleged pedophilia as clickbait and a gotcha! for opponents is hardly the height of integrity either. Especially since she is innocent until proven guilty and I very strongly suspect some will see anyone saying that as being a 'defender' of her. I utterly loathe that sort of approach whoever it comes from, it's used so often with emotive topics to gain cheap and easy points and to label anyone disagreeing as being pro pedophilia/ terrorism/ drugs/ crime/ domestic violence/ misogyny or whatever; and it is exactly what they would accuse sjws of doing. There is a peripherally relevant point in illustrating that some people (and some journalists) will absolve Nyberg of anything, even the 'crime' of being stupid but really, anybody who is surprised by that must spend all their time on the internet reattaching their bottom jaw after it drops off for the twentieth time that day. Some of it is pretty funny though. Seeing some people in GG start labelling others as being 'sjws' or 'sjw lite' because they don't perfectly agree with them/ don't like Breitbart/ aren't outraged enough/ actually do believe that more minorities or women in gaming would be a good thing is almost directly equivalent to a lot of what they accuse aGG of doing with labelling closet gators/ backing unethical journalists that spout stuff they like/ not blanket hating everything the other side says just because it is them saying it. It's all inevitable, but I still find it acutely ironic and amusing that in any group it is always the radicals who believe in their own ideological purity but are always- always- utter hypocrites in practice.

The key sentence being: "The minister conceded that he had no firm information on terrorist infiltration of refugees, but said his "gut feeling" told him it was happening." Colour me unimpressed. If ISIS terrorists wanted to get into Europe, they'd simply come by plane, and not in a 9/11 way. There's a enough of them with valid European passports. ISIS themselves claim about 4000 warriors. But no one can truly know since refugees tend to tear their passports at the Serbian/Hungarian border. A lot don't do that any more- one of the consequences of Merkel's stupidity is that as well as paying people smugglers to smuggle them they're now also paying forgers to make fake Syrian identity papers. There have been more than a few reports of Urdu or Pashtu speaking refugees carrying Syrian ID papers, quite apart from all those who are just claiming to be Syrians with no papers. The German (shorthand, since there have been equally dumb responses from elsewhere) reaction has been just about the single worst reaction possible as it actively exacerbates the problem by encouraging more people to arrive; and I can only conclude that it has been deliberately so or that Merkel et al have not even the most basic grip on reality and how people's minds work. That they are now seeking to strongarm others into accepting their approach and bailing them out of their stupidity only compounds it. It's particularly ironic given their response to Greece, Germany seeking a no harm no foul refugee bail out from their culpable stupidity from everyone else. One rule for the vassals, another for the liege...

Most of the 'slavery' scams here are pretty typical ones with a new veneer- hold the immigrant to ransom against losing their job and being deported if they complain about being paid $2 at the local Indian restaurant being the most recent. Happens rather a lot and ironically there's a disproportionate number of former immigrants doing the exploiting of the new immigrants. The other one is a payment scam, set up a job that no New Zealander can or would do but which is tailored towards a particular immigrant who wants to move here- fluent mandarin architect willing to work for minimum wage, or similar- when a suitable candidate cannot be found through Work & Income NZ (the government unemployment/ job agency) they can import someone who usually pays a decent 5-6 figure sum to the person with the job for the work visa. And then we vote ourselves least corrupt country in the world for the xth year in succession.

CDP/R is also one of the bigger localisers/ distributors in eastern europe, so it could be EA looking to get some games localised/ distributed instead of CDPR looking for a publishing deal. I'd doubt it would be a game development deal though, that is what EA have Bioware for. It's certainly a rather small rumour to hang any serious talk of a buy out on.

The honor part can be slightly debated. That Garrett has people he 'truly cares about' is very debatable, imo- he certainly has some sense of honour as he targets people who 'deserve' it and avoids the poor and killing servants and the like especially*, though clearly he cares mostly about his own sense of honour rather than any accountability to others. Part of that is a sense of professionalism/ professional pride and there being little point targeting those who have little to take, but only a part of it; he's also a narcissist. The only person he's shown genuine concern for is himself and his driving motives are profit and self preservation for self. That doesn't stop him from saving the world of course, but it's the balance of amorality and narcissism leavened with a bit of honour then combined with saving the world which makes him a rare antihero rather than the far more common protagonist villain or flawed hero. The only way that Garrett has people he truly cares about is if you define Garrett as being those people. *gameplay experience may vary, but the game clearly regards civilian deaths as being sloppy at very best.

Nailed it. People really need to learn to just leave other people alone and mind their own business. I'd say that it has to go beyond simple belief, there has also to be a desire to inflict the 'benefits' of those ideas on others whether they want it or not. Otherwise holding or expressing any belief about others would be wrong and so would any political party or political discourse; after all, every candidate will say that they know best what their country and everyone in it need even if they'd couch it in slightly different terms, and that's true whether you agree with the candidate or not. So long as you're reasonable about how you express your beliefs and don't seek to impose them on others (as opposed to express or hold them at all) then it's fine.

Yeah, other programs have had similar bugs with varying levels of blame on the user or producer, some users installed to bizarre locations- I remember someone installing stuff into C:\windows (not PoR2 though) because obviously that's where all the windows programs should go... The uninstall bug for PoR2 was tracked down to being the fault of the (3rd party) installer software of the english only version (?) iirc*, so could have effected anything and wasn't really their fault. After all half the point of using 3rd party utilities is that they're supposed to be safe and you don't have to write your own with potential bugs. Having said that, the quality of the game itself was their fault. While there was massive clamour for DD versions of all the IE games, NWN, Gold Box etc there has been nary a squeak about the travesty of not having PoR2 available. Which says all that needs to be said about its quality and how well it is remembered. *I actually thought the problem was basically the same as with the Sierra Tools one though (ie you had to change the default path in PoR2 to get the bug) so I may be conflating them, though I am pretty sure it took a fair while for the bug to be noticed which wouldn't be the case if it were all uninstalls were effected.

Syrians are mostly arab, there's just a lot of difference between different types of arab since there weren't wholesale population replacements during the arab conquests. So a magrebi arab may actually be a berber, a misr arab looks a lot like an ancient egyptian and a suryah arab looks a lot like an ancient syrian. Much the same way that everyone calls english an ethnicity when it's almost entirely the same as basic celtic stock and near indistinguishable from the welsh. As for whether the west destabilised Syria, there is no doubt they did after their 'success' in Libya and expected things to go much the same way. But the primary movers were the Gulf States and Turkey who have done most of the training and arming of the rebels, and allowed the extranationals that the rebels now rely on to move into Syria. Initially there were a lot of 'moderates'- sadly, naive idealistic fools is more accurate; as if you can just wave a wand and everything can be fine, the only people who believe that are 5 year olds and western strategic planners people who believe western PR- in Syria who bought into the rebellion-> victory-> ... -> democracy, wealth and freedom for all! narrative, but they're long gone. There isn't a secular or moderate faction in the rebel top ten and their biggest groups are all radical sunnis like Al Qaeda Nusra, ISIS, Jaish al Islam, Jaish al Fatah, Ahrar al Sham etc. The only moderation they have is in comparison to ISIS. Frankly, western 'support' for the rebels at this point is a fig leaf to their gulf allies and a complete inability to either face reality or accept the embarrassment of admitting that Putin was right or that they didn't have a clue what they were doing (again. And really, that's the crux, they just do not learn anything from their mistakes because they never admit them and try to pretend that everything is fine so as not to get punished electorally). End of the day it has to be admitted that if Assad is the answer the question is "who is the least worst option?" but there has at least been a notable shift on the edges towards accepting that reality instead of head burying- it will just take time for the centres to accept that. Though of course it has led to some darkly hilarious incidents like Israel acting as Al Qaeda's air force around Qunetra (lol, Syria is responsible for all firing from Syrian territory; starngely whenever Al Nusra get pushed back some rockets coincidentally hit Israel), 'Ibrahim' giving the Saudis conniptions for having the temerity to call himself Caliph and the spectacular 'red line' back down (albeit the only sensible action) after a Kerry off-the-cuff got picked up by Lavrov and run with. Even today? Syria has been ruled by muslims for 1300 years, Iraq for the same and up until recently they had more religious minorities than any western country, certainly including Serbia. Point is, it is the 'today' part that has changed, not the historical part. The good news about that is if it has changed one way it can change back. But, the today part has changed largely due to KSA sitting on a huge ocean of oil and having a backwards interpretation of islam which they are utterly evangelical- or pathological- about infecting every muslim country with. It doesn't help that due to their top down power structures most muslim countries can be infected easily by bribing those in charge and claiming to be helping the poor and downtrodden, eg Pakistan. Truth is, their brand of islam doesn't give a flying asterisk about anything that isn't their brand of islam, hence why they're perfectly happy to destroy sufi muslim tombs and the like in Timbuktu as well as the Temple of Bel. Which lasted twice as long under muslim rule as under pagan and christian rule combined, mind you. And I see that having complained about them vandalising Mecca part of the Grand Mosque has collapsed.