Zoraptor

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.

Vladimir Vladimirovitch announces withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria! Well kind of, and with some pretty massive caveats. They're keeping their air base and naval base, planes, ships, AA etc there so what is going is unclear. It's certainly got some breathless responses from the usual suspects (is Putin dropping Assad?!?!?) but almost certainly means next to nothing practically, and is designed to short circuit some opposition objections at the peace talks and associated western narrative. They can literally fly equipment and planes in and out on at most a daily turnaround time (hours for fighters/ bombers) and those there have less to do at present.

Since there's already been a Knight Rider game it would have to be a remake or sequel. Like Knight Rider 2008, yes indeed. Or perhaps the latest Crusader Kings 2 dlc. Both are wrong anyway. Obviously the AP name is trademarked by Sega so that cannot be used but consider: a Knight is a decidedly Alpha individual, and a Rider can be a Protocol attached to a legal document.

Not worth it to me, but I guess it is to some.

VtMB was modern. For that matter the latter parts of VtMR were as well. I suspect most people wanting a WoD game are specifically thinking Bloodlines 2, so also a modern setting. They had fantastical elements but were still modern setting. To be honest, much as I love AP it was not realistic modern either, and I doubt there could be a proper RPG that was ever realistic modern. You had a power that literally made you invisible, for example.

I know it's tempting to troll WoD, but really... Whatever Trump says I doubt he really wants a protester seriously beaten up- quite the reverse- and that is what would have happened. Trump can deal with criticism, and deal with it pretty effectively too or he wouldn't be where he is, you can argue the method of how he deals with it but not the effectiveness. I get the impression that some people would actually like some serious violence so as to make a point, and that really is a moronic position to take. Yeah, Trump supporters tend towards the bonkers end of the disillusioned spectrum but it's hardly worth someone getting hurt to prove that as it's self evident. And as much as Trump is treating the campaign as an extended wrestling promo- which presumes that there's a certain amount of the carnival nudge nudge wink wink about what he says, and that everyone knows there is as well- instead of an orthodox political campaign spiking rallies in the hope there will be violence is not the way to go about countering him.

I don't like Trump but in that case he did the sensible thing. Both politically and in terms of safety. That crowd was both thoroughly infiltrated and getting decided grumpy, even if the police said they could maintain order I'd have doubted it.

I got psychotic. Just picked C every time, because why not? Write in vote for new game being Awesome Brotocols 2, as always.

Yeah. The new Sansa arc in the show is questionable at best, but mostly due to it making no sense rather than her being a woman. When it comes right down to it the same thing happened in the books, just to a different and 'less important' character, and the same thing has happened countless times to unnamed characters. That's a hazard of having a 'realistic' medieval setting along with all the other random brutality. Most of the really despicable people in the books and TV show are blokes, might as well say that Ramsay or Gregor Clegane or Craster are examples of misandry because they're all men. Worst thing a woman has done is... human sacrifice maybe, and even stiff upper lip honourable Stannis ended up doing that. I nominate Mr Martin. OMG GUYS I JUST HEARD GEORGE MARTIN DIED IT'S ALL OVER THE NEWS !!!!111! Nonek = Nostradamus.

The 'soviet retaliation' story is probably apocryphal. Its original sourcing is very suspect. Not all that difficult to sell, you just have to demonise the enemy enough, and most of your population simply will not believe it's happening because of cognitive dissonance. NATO was definitely having problems, their public casualty estimates for the Serbs were out by an order of magnitude and they kept on bombing dummy vehicles and the like, and their prestige required victory. As with Libya and as Syria would have been, they'd have simply upped the ante until they won in the knowledge that most people would regard them as the 'good guys' whatever they did. That was the war in which Wesley Clark, NATO commander, tried to start WW3 by ordering British tankers to attack Russian paratroops, an order that (oh so very sensibly) got ignored. The NATO leadership was- objectively- pretty bonkers, far more so then even than now. Certainly Clark not making the Presidency was a bullet dodged, even GWB's foreign policy was less stupid than that abject and utter cretin's would likely have been.

Long article on Obama's foreign doctrine and relations- not directly related to the election itself but there's a lot relevant there when it comes to the necessity of appearing 'strong' above all else plus some stuff on The Establishment, and Hillary. Pretty much reiterates my view that with the Syrian red line stuff the mistake was only in having the red line, not in stepping back from it. Plus France, Britain, KSA etc are all basically called chickenhawks, and it makes me laugh that someone political would actually say that.

..the lovechild of John de Lancie and Chris Avellone. The latter is particularly disturbing as having noticed it I just cannot unsee it.

In CoD you are playing a role of a soldier so by this definitio it would also be an RPG Pong is an RPG. I play the role of a paddle, and I can decide at any time to simply allow the 'ball' through; or to hit it back giving it player agency. Now, some would say that Pong lacks stats and thus cannot be an RPG, or lacks stats that effect the gameplay. Not so, the length of the paddle is a stat, as is the speed at which it moves and the ball moves. And if you really want, the weapons in CoD have stats, hence... The alternative is Need For Speed is an RPG, you can improve the stats of your vehicle etc.

I recall reading somewhere that Michigan law requires polling to be done over land line phones, not mobiles, which if true would certainly skew the numbers a bit as younger folks are less likely to have a land line. I read that as well but it doesn't seem to be true: There may be some wiggle room for it being true (maybe conducting the surveys interstate could avoid such rules, or similar) but that survey at least used cell phones as well as land lines. It was a bit more accurate than other polls from Michigan but was still out by a fair bit more than 10% from the real world result.

Clinton has won Mississippi by miles, unsurprisingly, Sanders ahead in Michigan. Stick a fork in Rubio, he's done. Last in both so far and not even a close last. Because, uh, National Socialism has some negative connotations? OK, so NationalSocialisichte Deutsche ArbeiterPartei weren't really socialists by any sensible definition and spent much of their first years killing off anyone was was an actual socialist, but the name has certainly poisoned the well. Realistically, socialism is inherently more 'progressive' than conservative and at least theoretically less inherently nationalist as well. It's not entirely contradictory to have conservative, nationalist, socialism but the two philosophies are far enough apart that most people won't share both to any great degree.