Zoraptor

There really are two separate issues regarding that. Firstly, having someone other than a white bloke being the protagonist. That really cannot be done, because simple historical fact is that it would be extremely unusual, approaching unique, for that to happen. Having a woman or a berber/ arab/ tartar or even a jewish or gypsy character becomes a trivial choice if you cannot follow through on the implications of offering that choice. Realistically, any of those options would be remarked upon in the setting, and some would be regarded as being 'against god' and similar by near everyone you meet. So, it stops being the game they want to make and either becomes a game about potentially playing an arab or woman in Bohemia and dealing with the discrimination you'd receive, massively increasing the game's scope; or you have to ignore the historical context which is a stated aim of making the game and have the woman or berber play basically the same as that white dude does. I have more sympathy for including ethnic minorities as 'npcs', but it still has to deal with the reality that medieval Europe was not an enlightened place nor in that sense ethnically diverse except in specific areas, and runs the risk of tokenism too. Going off to the Jewish Banker to borrow money is realistic, but many would not take kindly to the stereotype even if it is historically accurate; having Saracens or Moors wandering around would be rather unlikely given the religious mores and persistent religious warfare etc.

sigh Pakistan was asked to contribute soldiers to the Yemen campaign, according to their Defence Minister. Debated in the Pakistani parliament as well on that basis, that plus the request to exclude shia soldiers lead to their refusal to contribute. KSA have bought CSS2 ballistic missiles from China, which are installed- and were designed specifically for carrying nuclear warheads. They financed the Pakistani nuclear program. Many of those 'anonymous western sources' people love to quote when it's convenient (but ignore when inconvenient) say there is a deal fro nukes, as do unnamed Pakistani sources. They sold nuclear secrets to North Korea, Libya and Iran- the Iranian IR1 is a direct copy of the P1, with P standing for... Pakistan, Dr Khan confessed to supplying DPRK and supplied evidence that it was governmentally sanctioned and Libyans gave Pakistan as a source for their nuclear program as well. You'd go a long way to find three more 'pariah' states to sell to, selling to Saudi would be small potatoes comparatively. There's a lot more evidence for that than there is for Iran having an actual and active weapons program and ability to quickly produce a bomb like the scaremongers say, Iran has consistently said they aren't doing so as have Mossad and US Intelligence assessments plus they have a fatwa from The Ayatollah himself banning them. Saudi probably won't buy a bomb, but it is because Iran probably won't produce one.

Yes, yes, and because the US won't send troops into Lebanon to root out Hezbollah it means they won't supply Israel with arms. They're two completely separate issues. Pakistan doesn't want to get involved in Yemen because it's a clusterasterisk where the Saudi proxy president has no support at all with them supporting southern separatists and foreign intervention with ground forces- the Egyptian one in the 60s and the Saudi one a few years ago- ended disastrously; and they have a significant shia minority who they don't want any chance of fighting at the same time as the Taleban- and who Saudi wanted specifically excluded from any Pakistani forces sent. Mostly though, we're talking Pakistan here, they helped North Korea get their nuke so they're not going to baulk the country which mostly paid for their bomb if they offer more cash for some working samples if they were willing to help a destitute non islamic pariah. Meh, the vast majority of times you have scaremongering the scaremongering is just that, scaremongering. People tend to forget all the times they're told the sky is falling when it doesn't actually fall, they just remember the occasional time it does.

The Saudis would simply buy a bomb so they don't need the infrastructure. They largely bankrolled the Pakistani 'Islamic Bomb', after all, and for just that purpose. That's pretty well known, amongst people who pay attention to the middle east and Saudi Arabia in particular.

I don't see the reason for scepticism. It's the Bibi redline* argument again but, if they've been two months (or six months, or a year) away from a bomb for years (decades) and if they want a bomb then why don't they have one? The only two answers are that they do want one, but it is harder than implied; or that they don't actually want one. As it is the sceptics try to have their cake and eat it too, the Iranians want one but are held back by... sanctions, [something] the brave defenders of freedom are doing, threat of violence or whatever else justifies their approach so, obviously, that approach has to continue. It is perhaps the classic self reinforcing circular argument where you start from the conclusion("Iran wants the bomb!") and work backwards from there. Of course it is rather hilarious to see Bibi, head of a country that doesn't have IAEA inspections for its nuclear arsenal, throwing a foot stomping paddy about anything nuclear related. *Contradicted in large part of course by those unrealistic and idealistic anti semite goons at, er, Mossad as well as by US intelligence.

Three classic Warhammer titles added, for those who like such things. Chaos Gate Shadow of the Horned Rat Final Liberation

There is no better loot that you have to buy in DAI multiplayer either, the purchases are optional. There's optional stuff to buy if you're impatient or like dress up (?), but it is optional. The strategy there is not just getting people to buy microtransactions though, it's also to keep the game in people's minds once the SP is finished in case there is are more dlcs/ sequels, or if the person with the demo didn't buy the SP they may later if they enjoy the MP. It's certainly an economic rather than an altruistic approach but... CDPR isn't doing their free dlc out of the goodness of their hearts either. It gets press, it garners goodwill from people who hate microtransaction/ trivial dlc and it keeps the game in the public eye and selling longer, and lasts part way until their paid expansion arrives. There's no doubt they could have released their dlc on a far accelerated timetable or even all at once, if they wanted to, or bundled it into the game at release as it is mainly quite trivial reskins and simple quests. They don't do that because they want the publicity. That is particularly important because of that already announced paid expansion pack for TW3- and exactly as I have said previously when this subject has come up: that isn't marketed as being 'dlc' but as an 'expansion pass' precisely because CDPR only do free 'dlc'. I like CDPR as much as anyone but their strategy is most certainly aimed at getting more sales, it just isn't via nickel-and-diming.

I don't blame Tsipras. His population wants the Euro, and any exit from it would rely on the goodwill of his neighbours and the EU, an unlikely commodity since Greece would have to default immediately on their loans. He cannot juggle the contradictory requirements of a situation that was caused by his predecessors and poor imposed policies/ lack of goodwill from the eurozone against the desires of his people for an end to austerity and remaining in the Euro. Since those requirements are contradictory and he didn't cause said contradictions I cannot blame him. I'd also largely absolve the IMF at this point, they made mistakes, largely admitted them and don't want to compound them further. Can't really ask for more than that from them.

Meh, Latin should still be required learning, that'll teach proper sentence construction. Marcus in via stat, puella puellam puellae puellae puella etcetera. Then we could have a proper discussion about the differences between subjectives/ accusatives/ genetives/ datives and ablatives and could possibly fit it some subjunctives too. Sure, but that works both ways- if it's low on the priority list to complain about having a black or female protagonist because it doesn't effect how the game plays then surely it is low on the priority list to complain about not having a black or female protagonist because that doesn't effect how the game plays either. In practical terms it isn't people complaining about female or black protagonists in general, it's usually about the outside pressure to include them even when it clearly isn't appropriate such as KC: Deliverance. I've never seen people complain about the presence of ethnic/ sex options in any game in which those options exist in chargen. But those extreme requests such as the Deliverance one tend to colour (heh) the whole discussion precisely because it's so stupid and doctrinaire. Personally, I don't think you're going to attract more women and minorities into 'mainstream' gaming by trying to convert CoD or other AAAs of its type, that's unworkable. A large proportion of the women who like The SIms or Farmville will never like CoD unless it becomes notCoD along the way- and at that point they've lost most of the people who buy it now. Both the Sims and Farmville are largely aimed at women and are very big sellers (or big 'sellers' in Farmville type cases) already. I'm not particularly keen on the AAA model myself, my preferences are decidedly niche in the main part. But I'm not short of games to play that I like, not short at all so while I may occasionally ridicule AAA games I also don't particularly care that they aren't aimed at me because there are alternatives. There are already alternatives for everyone in gaming, every single game does not need to be designed to appeal to everyone.

The Euro is politically popular in Greece. They want the incompatible combination of no austerity and euro membership, but of the two they apparently prefer Euro membership, something like 70% (?) want to accept the current deal despite it being stupid. That makes it politically untenable for Greece to leave without being (or appearing to be) forced out. Christine Lagarde is neither an armchair economist nor american, and her organisation is saying that they cannot lend to Greece under the current circumstances because the debt is odious and it would be illegal for them to contribute further to that. The European negotiators knew this before making the deal that relies on the IMF contributing. It's not so much disagreement about whether they'll achieve their goal, it's that they know that this deal won't get Greece back on track and that, as it stands, the deal is already dead as they've been told that one of their contributors cannot contribute under the conditions of their deal. Yet they still made the deal saying that the IMF would contribute, presumably not thinking that the IMF would leak then publicly say they won't contribute. That's a refusal to accept reality, it's very easy to insist that Greece must stay if you simply deny reality and decide that everything will work out fine in the end.

Looks like the IMF may refuse to back the bailout due to insufficient (well, no) debt restructuring. Weird world it is where I agree wholeheartedly with the IMF, but when they're right, they're right. Not really- by the simple logic if Greece revalued its currency instead of devalued then suddenly everyone in Greece would be rich, since devaluation makes them poor, and it would be an excellent way to get ludicrously cheap imports too. They'd have a bigger debt, but everyone would be rich, spend up large, then they could devalue and pay off the debt while holding all the assets they'd bought when the revaluation went through! It doesn't really work that way, unless you do a deliberate governmental devaluation which is a very big deal, and which Greece wouldn't need to do since as soon as they go back to the drachma its face value will drop with no intervention required. It'll still drop their purchasing power for imports, but it isn't like their purchasing power is anything to write home about with 40+% poverty and 25% unemployment anyway. It's a lot more nuanced anyway, a stable currency is a symptom of a healthy, sustainably growing economy (with exceptions for certain major currencies, such as Euro and USD) and is ideally what you want, but a stable currency in an unhealthy economy is a sign of currency manipulation- and you don't get more manipulated than having a 3rd party in charge of your currency's value, as Greece has. In a proper system- ie not the Eurozone- the currency floats according to economic strength precisely because it is a consequence of and moderator of said economic strength, a strong economy sees the currency rise in value, a weak one sees it fall and that has effects on competitiveness and import/ export balance. That is and always has been Greece's main problem in the Euro, their currency is massively overvalued relative to their actual performance, a devaluation from what is now for them a purely arbitrary Euro valuation with no relation to their economic performance would actually remove an imbalance. Anything else merely propagates it. Of course, now it's going to be horrible for Greece because they are so out of whack with their actual performance, but continuing to propagate that imbalance in the name of stability is like insisting a starving man continue eating the same rations that have lead to the starvation because that is 'stable' or that a child stuck six feet off the ground on a see saw because a fat kid is on the other end should stay there because that is 'stable'.

From 2012? Really, Bruce? As a consequence it's riddled with post facto/ hindsight inaccuracies and wishful thinking. eg, the article says that Greek debt burden is reduced by 100bn Euros from a debt: gdp ratio then of 160%, it was already up to ~180% with about a quarter of government income going towards paying interest even prior to Syriza and the present super crisis. 'Debt burden' is, of course, weasel wording, meaning that actual debt was not reduced by anywhere near that much- obviously, if it had then their 120% debt to GDP target would have been attained, instantly- just that interest charged on the loans was reduced. In contrast, the proper, needed* debt reduction package has to primarily reduce absolute debt, not 'obligations', because the absolute reduction automatically and intrinsically lowers interest payments as well, you owe less money to pay interest on. Interest reduction is fine in a marginal case, this is not one of those and wasn't in 2012. Not cutting the debt enough just results in what we've got, a slightly, nominally, reduced inability to pay off absolute debt, but an actual, still existing, inability to pay while the 'debt burden' cancelling interest reduction is more than entirely counterbalanced by the GDP dropping further, lowering ability to actually repay below the 2012 level. That's why despite their absolute debt being lower now than in 2012 their relative debt is considerably higher at ~180%. *which won't happen, hence why they need to go

ME3 multiplayer was apparently successful, financially, and that is what counts for EA. Don't know about DAI's multiplayer, it probably doesn't cost much of anything to actually run so long as they've gone to a sensible approach to servers and use the same servers for all games on an 'on demand' basis. It isn't about people buying the game for MP, it is about them buying value added stuff for/ due to the MP.

There is potential dual use stuff for weapons/ civilian use, but not that much and that is definitely going (plus they'd already got rid of most of their potential dual use stockpile). You can also reprocess spent fuel for plutonium, the only Iranian plant that can do that is being repurposed as part of the agreement. Not without reason. The previous Brazil-Turkey-Iran deal on nuclear fuel supply was scuppered as the position was that enrichment by Iran was/ should be prohibited- unreasonably so, since there is no legal provision for stripping a country of the right to enrich. Their position has changed, now, but it was the stated position at that time.

They can kick Greece out, easily, they just have to vote against the bail out and the 85% target cannot be met. It's politically problematic for them to do so, but the adherence to politics over reality is to a large extent what has caused this problem in the first place, and is something that has to be tackled every bit as much as the economic reality if things are going to be fixed and not be repeated. The Euro is an economic entity based on political rather than financial considerations first and foremost, hence near everyone ignoring the rules and having a currency union before having anything approaching a proper fiscal union. Still, if they do it then good on them; ultimately Herr Schauble is correct and Greece would be better off outside the Euro, and it doesn't matter if I think his overall position is rich given that Germany killed 40 million people in a war of wanton aggression and genocide- then got their debts forgiven eight years later. That was the right thing to do and still is; now if he's convinced that kicking Greece is the right thing then ffs show some spine and do it. As below, it'll be a godsend for eurosceptics, but the situation already is that. Heh, 'set things right'. I'm not sure an EU Kommissar/ Gauleiter could be the answer even with the best will in the world, the relatively mild agreement is already seen as a neo colonial putsch by a large number of Greeks, put a formal stamp on that and there's a fair chance you'll have Euro Paul Bremmer cowering behind concrete barriers and need EU troops on the streets. Or have to go back to the 70s and having a bunch of Colonels backing Euro Bremmer- which would hardly endear the EU to anyone, let alone the sceptics who this whole situation has already been a godsend for. Sheesh, they've already got pro EU brits changing sides, have the Kommissar approach it'll be a landslide UK exit. Realistically there isn't any 'setting things right' anyway and we both know it, it's too far gone for that unless they go for proper debt relief instead of piling on more loans to pay back the old loans, and that is politically unfeasible. Pretty much everything related to this issue is a triumph of politics over reality. Which is, ultimately, one of the things I think we both agree on even if we differ on the reasons for that view. Now, sure, though the figures are somewhat different from the ones I've seen; I did say that the gap had widened rather than contracted with austerity. And it is pretty clear that Greece is not extraordinarily corrupt from those figures, there are plenty of countries in the EU worse than them on that front. I've already read the wikipedia article. I'm always sceptical of that sort of stuff because I know that we vote ourselves least corrupt in the world, every year, when we have a pretty horrible crony capitalist model where legislation is actively bought and sold, but people think we're not corrupt because a policeman won't ask you for a bung. Unless you're young and female or a prostitute or a drug dealer or whatever, been a spate of popos getting caught out pressuring sex, or stealing drugs to sell, or making sure their child doesn't get investigated properly for gang rape, or heh, [redacted] because the dude who may or may not have political relationships got name suppression though everyone knows what he's being investigated for. I also know there's a huge amount of cash-in-hand grey economy here as well as the selective enforcement of laws, but most people here think that, heh, that just doesn't count as corruption. Perception is key, whether it be outside or inside. That goes right back to the beginning of the whole argument- they cannot be productive because they cannot produce stuff cheaper than Germany because their currency is too high and they started from too low a base, so they lose their productive factories and the like, never to reopen because their currency and competitiveness is still tied inexorably to Germany. And what do you have left after the productive private sector has gone? Public sector and services like tourism, maybe some agriculture. That is what Greece has. You aren't going to replace the public sector with 'productivity' with the magic of austerity, you'll just, well, drive up unemployment and slaughter GDP further. So long as they're tied to the Euro they cannot be productive in the sense you'd like them to be. Of course they cannot keep funding it with borrowing either, that isn't fair on anyone, but gutting the public sector ultimately won't help either at this point unless it happens along with a default/ nuDrachma. Inflation <-> devaluation has a positive side though, unlike straitjacket austerity- which has lead to large scale deflation, an even greater sin than inflation. Printing money does pay back the debt and it makes you more competitive by lowering your currency, it makes you more competitive by lowering the price of your exports while increasing the cost of imports; you may see some of those factories reopening when they get competitive enough. OTOH austerity alone does nothing, it's pure donkey-chasing-carrot. I've been through why austerity is moronic, its doctrinaire ideological puritanism makes no concession to reality any more than the political considerations do. It says: drop corporate tax rates from 40 to 20%! You get growth and massive investment! Except, of course, nobody in Greece has any money to buy whatever is being made, you're bringing in anti consumption taxes like VAT (which disproportionately hits the poor as a side effect) it drives businesses out of business because you have fewer buyers, raised prices due to VAT etc, further exacerbating the problem rather than helping it, and that exacerbation ensures that you aren't going to get the investment the tax cut for businesses should theoretically mean because there are far better places to invest in whether you be a rich Greek whose wealth has barely been touched or Chinese or German. And, of course, ludicrously decoupled tax rates for business and private use encourages tax avoidance by tricks such as becoming a company then not paying yourself a wage, but a dividend from your wholly owned company- if you have the nous and money to do so, of course, won't work Ioseph Publikos if they even have a job; and if you do that you're probably investing the money in London property to get a 15% return. You then get a fire sale of assets for less than their true value to pay unsustainable loans that remain unsustainable, minimal actual investment, massive unemployment ensuring that 25% of the population makes no contribution to tax base or GDP and cannot buy Greek products driving Greek businesses under- whatever their tax rate is. Austerity is not synonymous with running a balanced budget, because so long as it has that debt level Greece simply cannot run a balanced budget. They already have the largest primary surplus as % of GDP in the Eurozone, and they're still accumulating debt even with that. Of course they're being humiliated, that is perhaps the basic political consideration of the whole thing, to make it clear what anyone else will get if they transgress.

Nah, OECD. Same people who had the Greeks being the hardest working in Europe. The difference went up with austerity, too, perhaps unsurprising when you have massive VAT hikes and a slumping GDP, but was still better than nine other EU economies.

Well yeah, exactly. If Germany wants Greece out then they should do so instead of waffling and vacillating, same as Tsipras and the Greeks should leave instead of prolonging the agony. That would be best for all parties- except perhaps those with political obsessions that trump reality (France, main sponsor of the Euro project). Money would be lost, but I think everybody accepts that that money is gone anyway, no need to throw good after bad. A parting, preferably with a minimum of bad blood, is now (though five years ago would be better) necessary and someone has to bite the bullet. If it's Germany doing so then at this point, good on them even if I think they're a bunch of self righteous hypocritical economic puritans. Trouble is, when it happens there is not going to be a minimum of bad blood, it's going to be monumentally messy and there will be a vested interest in knifing Greece and ensuring it won't do well lest the other weak economies decide to follow a successful Grexit. And even outside of the Euro there's a ton of really nasty stuff that can be done to them pour décourager les autres. Because the Euro can survive an unsuccessful Greek exit, it certainly won't survive a successful one so the same vested interests that will contort economic logic and reason to try and keep them in will be put to keeping them down once they do go. I posted the figure previously, but Greece's black/ grey economy was actually only 5% worse than Germany's was at the same time. That isn't enough to make any significant difference and was better than many others.

Real names were largely a holdover from the academic roots that it had, and having an anonymised name being seen as a bit dodgy in that context. It certainly did change towards more anonymity as time went on and more people joined the internet. To an extent it is reflexive, ie if Kotaku is attacked by gamergate- and the biggest GG group on reddit is 'KotakuInAction'- then it must be defended because they don't like it, and partly it is because it is a SJW site, if you don't know or don't care about the mothership's morals then you don't know or don't care. At its heart Gawker is pure clickbait, they will publish anything that they think they can get away with and will get them clicks. Any 'moral' considerations and any unified policy on that is purely secondary to getting those clicks.

He also seems to be an actual patriot concerned with what is actually best for Greece rather than a donkey perpetually chasing the carrot*. It seems exceedingly likely that his view is also absolutely correct so far as it comes to motivations and the like, and that Greece is gone anyway after another attempt to get a pound of flesh inevitably fails just leaving in an even worse position than now. I'd hope that the measures won't make it through various parliaments especially the Greek one, but the Pasok/ ND hacks who got Greece into this mess will no doubt vote for it even if much of Syriza don't. Austerity is to the neoliberal is as the obsession with leeching or bleeding patients was to medieval doctors- if it doesn't work don't worry, more will. If the patient dies, well, it was inevitable, deus vult, victim should have been less sinful, not our fault we followed our prescriptions based on best practice, further weakening a weak person is totes sensible, trust us we know what we're doing! With appropriate apologies to Sledge Hammer, who was positively restrained, sensible and flexible in comparison. *Though a fair bit of his valvenomics did involve people perpetually chasing carrots, go figure.

Standard split for every DD outlet so far as anyone knows is 70/30 with the latter being the vendor cut. If it were within 30 days of release Origin would be best, as they don't take a cut on kickstarted games during the first thirty days, but it is well outside that. Only difference now is who gets the 30%, Paradox want to pimp their own store because they keep the 30% from there, steam gets the 30% from direct steam sales, GOG gets it from GOG sales etc. If Obsidian were still selling via the backer portal that would be best as they would get all the cash, but they aren't- though I guess they might re open it for expansion pre orders I suspect they cannot direct sell PoE themselves until their contract with Paradox runs out. It's possible that Obsidian get a greater share from sales made via Paradox, but it seems unlikely. Only other possible consideration is referrer links, if a website you like has a GOG referrer they will get a cut of sales made via their referral link. But long story short it likely makes no difference at all to Obsidian who it is bought from.

Much like that 'teenage boy' survey it will depend just about entirely on how you ask the questions as to how and how strongly people are pro 'status quo' or 'anti change' or 'conservative' or 'progressive' or pro/ anti 'inclusivity' with respect to gaming. My general observation is that most people object to perceived overt politicisation of gaming, not any shift from the 'status quo'- which is itself a rather nebulous concept really, when gaming runs the gamut from stuff which is rather obviously already aimed at women (albeit most often of the Facebook/ mobile type) to obscure wargames/ CoD/ WoW etc it is difficult to decide exactly what the 'status quo' entails and it tends to morph into whatever is convenient for whoever is making the argument regarding it. So it isn't really an objection to changing things around a bit, it's an objection to pressure that is at least perceived as trying to change everything around a bit, in ways that are incompatible with both the gaming that [person] likes at present and a desire not to be preached to. Given that perception it is understandable that there is push back. And much as there tends to be push back against 'progressive' stuff for trivial reasons sometimes there is also some hopelessly trivial push back against perfectly sensible 'traditional' gaming from the other side as well. It isn't just 'progressive' type politicisation that is objected to either, I've seen plenty of people who loathe stuff like "America's Army" for being outright propaganda.

Plus Microsoft didn't have a stellar record during the lead in to the on3 launch- always online, higher price, forced kinect etc- would make sense that they cancelled a good game while backing something like Ryse instead. Actually, given that they've reversed all those other decisions we might have a valid candidate for the unannounced game...

Cleve thinks everything is evil/ racist so that won't prove anything.

Stephen Moffat is finding doing Sherlock and Dr Who simultaneously difficult, so he is combining the two series' Christmas Specials?

Why, I remember when Peter was seen as a visionary, rather than someone who sees visions; back in the pre 'Black and White'* era. Bullfrog did some good stuff, back then. *Oh yeah, those horrible greenscan VDUs, wasn't sorry to see them go. They probably have hipster cred now though, wouldn't be surprised if people paid actual money to turn their iPhones into a low fi greenscan PDA with a gimmick interface based on a game. Hipsters, hipsters never change, one might say.