Zoraptor

Just to make sure, since both games are Vampire the Masquerade: Subtitle; the older, isometric game is VtM Redemption, the newer fps/3ps one is VtM: Bloodlines. And yes, Bloodlines is far better than Redemption.

While it was a bit buried, I would recommend everyone with any interest in events to read the interview with Tyanybok (leader of the Ukrainian neo nazi party which is part of the opposition), as it really does give the lie to a lot of what has been said about this being a spontaneous popular uprising rather than a long term plan by those who lost the election to reverse the decision. And I see Tymoshenko is back. Nice to see pro western kleptocrats back centre stage instead of pro russian kleptocrats. Plus ca change... Heh, a result where government members were either absent, or voting under duress and threat of violence gives unanimous result. I'm gobsmacked. You'd have fun finding any proof that I'd said that, since all I've said that the same thing would happen, earlier, in the west, and that it was an inevitable consequence of violence within the protesters, and that the day with most deaths was after the day with most police deaths, when the protesters broke a truce. I have no particular wish for anyone on either side to die, not even the fascists among the protesters. Packing up the politicians on both sides and firing them into the sun notwithstanding. Still, as I said in the beginning I knew it would be pretty much impossible to get you to admit anything was wrong, I'm just providing a rebuttal service for anyone who believes your views represent anything other than your particular truth.

Ignoring a troll certainly isn't a violation of free speech- there's absolutely no obligation to listen to what someone says, whether they're trolling or providing concrete proof for The Theory of Everything. Silencing a troll through moderation or whatever is infringing free speech, but it's done on 'private property' so free speech is also a privilege there- there's no obligation to provide a platform for someone's free speech; unless you're the government, arguably.

If you do it regularly then you're most definitely self important, and need a good trolling to iron out the hypocrite. Then you may get the ultimate situation, two people who think the other is taking something too seriously but are simultaneously trolling each other, unaware. Perfection.

Ah, but it will no doubt include the stormtroopers of the revolution, Svoboda, yes? Your buddies have given them a taste of power, now. Hero to some, villain to many, which she is is a matter of perspective. But democratically elected she was, to be sure. Can say the same thing about old Maggie. Rewrote the laws to specifically target her political enemies, the unions, used the police to enforce it etc. It ain't double standards if you're doing it deliberately, indeed, it ain't double standards if you're actually pointing out that it's double standards. You, on the other hand, talk the democratic walk, but only if it's people you agree with. I just think that politicians are crap, on principle. Nope, basic tenet. Support is people who support, not people who don't care. Yep, sounds like the real world, that. Heh, yeah. Again, I know who Tyanybok is (even if I can't be bothered transliterating that grubby little fascist's name properly), unlike just about everyone in the western media. And, hilariously, John McCain. I also have eyes, so I can read his interview where he was quite open about making preparations for revolution, and how he and other opposition parties were organising it. In March. 2013. That's some delayed action spontanaity, that. Well, you might get your chance to put your money where your mouth is if the rumours of a reverse revolution going on in the east prove true. Best solution for the artificial country that Ukraine is may yet happen, split like a town in Croatia. Now that's special pleading for you. The vast majority of those 100+ protester deaths came after the day in which numbers nearly matched. That that is so is utterly unsurprising, once you kill that number of po pos the gloves most definitively come off and they'll shoot to kill, to preserve their own lives against the deadly violence used against them. And again, any western country would break up those protests in those circumstances. Any one. They probably wouldn't expect, or get, so many police deaths in response though.

Heh, how soon we forget. Go over to Belfast and tell them that Bloody Sunday never happened. Or if you prefer, go to Kent State and tell them that. Nowadays they just use kettling and other techniques to control the protests anyway.

Bro, you'll not find a single image of her falling on her face because it simply didn't happen. Please desist with the fabrications and commence with the accuracies. r00fles! There was a slight stumble on one landing, that's all. If anyone really wants to see it's embedded here.

Not necessarily more money in their pocket- though I agree it will likely be so. For TW2 they were offering games (or store credit?) in compensation for the difference in pricing, and at least one other store (GMG) was offering an australasia specific discount code to offset the regional pricing. There was a freedom of trade suit being brought against Bethesda in the EU about their restrictions around FONV, iirc. Not sure it was specifically about pricing though, I think it was because you could not buy some dlc in Poland and other eastern countries.

Yeah Volo, but that isn't what happened. She did 7 triples to Kim's 6. Kim skated too conservatively to defend her lead and not make mistakes, and suffered for it. Happens all the time. If anyone had cause to be upset it was the Italian in third who also did 7 triples and still scored less than Kim, perhaps due to some anti Italian/ pro Korean conspiracy. My own personal favourite line on the subject, from that horrendous Murdoch rag the Brisbane Courier... Oh yeah, those eastern Europeans, always taking Russia's side on everything. Christ on a pogo stick which world do some people live on?

They switched to geolocation for TW2 after about ten days, iirc- but it did take a court order to make them. That is why they're getting such a lot of stick for it. If you're going to go on about having principles and operating on trust you're going to cop it when you operate against those principles with all the people who think you've breached their trust. I'm not that disappointed despite being one of the people most likely to be asterisked over because I've always recognised most of those principles as sales pitch, much like all the stuff Brad Wardell spouted about Impulse. Ultimately if it came down to a choice between DRM free and regional pricing going (hypothetically, it wouldn't be practically) then they chose the right one. Regional pricing is price gouging on digital goods, pure and simple, but at least it's avoidable with minimal effort or with a bit of discipline to only buy at the level you feel it's actually worth. Or not at all. Only real problem I have with it is the thin end of wedge one, the thought that they may start offering 'optional' steam keys for multiplayer and the like and end up as just another steam reseller.

Yeah, it's a widespread phenomenon not limited to wheel systems, or a single company. My impression was that ME3 certainly had a lot less fake choice options, but perhaps a commensurate decrease in conversation choice prompts as well, ie more auto or run through dialogue, more time and lines between choices. That is just my impression though.

Well, I'm barely seeing a word of criticism. If you're going on about Yanokivich's cronyism and corruption then surely you must think the alternative is better, I'm just showing that they consistently have not been better. What, and your twisted vision is that of tyranny of the minority? Maggie Thatcher decided to commit economic genocide on areas that didn't support the Conservatives, while elected by at most 43% of those who voted- or around a third of the actual population. Electoral dictatorship, indeed. Oddly enough terms like electoral dictatorship are only banded around when it's someone the person doesn't like in power, doing things the person doesn't like. If you support them then it's legitimate power being exercised by the democratic representatives of the people. Dealt with by numbersman already, though I guess it is telling that your example ends up being a plurality enforcing their views on the majority who is opposed or doesn't care- but on a topic you clearly support, instead of oppose. Of course it can, that's the whole point. Who is a butthurt loser depends almost entirely on whether you agree with them or not and whether they're your political allies or not. If they're your allies, brave protesters with legitimate grievance exercising cherished freedom; if not, dangerous violent thugs trying to inflict their vision on others. Oh please. Occupy, the Iraq war protesters etc did not try and occupy the centre of Washington or London for 3 months- and when Occupy did try and go somewhere important they got stomped pdq. Sitting in the grounds of St Pauls Cathedral for a few weeks or marching for a day through London ain't anywhere near equivalent to taking over the centre of a city, government buildings, beating up officials and forcing them to sign resignations and suchlike, and you know it. Some of the protesters were spoiling for a fight, from the beginning. Tough luck for the peaceful protesters, but it was not overall a peaceful protest even from day 1. Well, yes, someone's clinging to a fiction. Nah, you wouldn't, and I rather suspect deep down you know you wouldn't even if you won't admit it. You wouldn't trot out 'electoral dictatorship' and you wouldn't keep calling them peaceful protesters because you think that Ukraine should sign the EU agreement, thus the complaints of any dissenters to that decision would not be, your word, 'valid'. And how many police died in those protests? Your problem is that when 26 people die and 40% of them are police you can hardly claim heavy handedness on the police's behalf, that's simply not police opening up on unarmed protesters with AKs level disparity. Next day, sure, but then it was confirmed by everyone- CNN (ffs CN asterisking N whose world view is stuck in an 80s action movie), AlJ, BBC- that the protesters broke the truce and attacked the police then. Heh, you really think that MEPs run the EU? Cripes. Whenever EU 'democracy' doesn't throw up the 'right' decision they either ignore it, or subvert it. And, of course, since you support the EU I can practically guarantee that terms like 'electoral dictatorship' won't be trotted out for their decisions. No it isn't, it's that winning an election gives 'democratic legitimacy'. Well, at least when the person winning is someone you agree with who makes decisions you agree with. If not, then suddenly it's 'electoral dictatorship'.

IMO they are coming from a place like RPGCodex where "trolling" has its own definition and meme where it is both acceptable and encouraged, and they got butt hurt that outside "trolls" are seen as horrible people or according to this study psychopathic sadist. It like arguing about what is "cool", you will always upset several niche communities. RPGCodex, hah, softy noveaux trollites who can't stand the heat and need to get out of the kitchen whenever there is some real discuss!on that isn't scaled to their level. Usenet, bro, where trolls were trolls and moderation wasn't in the dictionary. Well, except in moderated groups, of course. (Yeah, some trolls are horrible people. Some people are horrible people. It's sheer inevitability)

So, GOG is adding some more new titles (one allegedly being Risen 3, since the first two games are definitely coming), but with regional pricing. Hilarity ensues as GOG staff get their posts downvoted to oblivion and people throw their previous pronouncements back in their faces. I'd be outraged too, seeing as we always get lumped in with the Ockers and their a kidney for a game pricing scheme but fortunately I know what a VPN is and get the compensatory benefit of a certain visceral thrill when sticking it to the man and getting US or UK pricing.

Hmm. You could level exactly the same criticism at Alpha Brotocol's Bourne/ Bauer/ Bond three choice system and all. You can have good writing (which is probably the most subjective category in grading a game) using that system. I tend to agree that slavish devotion to a narrow set of technical criteria is a bad thing, but even in something like the Mass Effects they did use only 2 choices, or up to 6 choices. I'd imagine the situation for DAI would be similar. Whether the MEs or AP have good writing is a somewhat different question, though I think most come down on the side of the writing being good, indeed for AP it is generally praised (perhaps excluding the timed ones) and other stuff is criticised. I have far more problem with the 'false choice' dichotomy trichotomy where each of three given choices leads to exactly the same response just to give an illusion that your choice matters.

Ken Levine probably has a certain amount of George Lucas Syndrome- successful enough to not have to listen to other people. Back in the day Lucas made some good movies, back when people could actually say to him "George, that line is asterisks" off the cuff adjustments. But I think it also has to be said that there are very few shrinking violets in the games industry who think their idea might be OK, kind of, you might like it a bit, because if you have that attitude your game won't be made at least via a publisher. It's like pitching or selling anything, you have to confident and sure of yourself because that is one thing that people will always look for. Most of the times I've seen KL comment in forums and the like, albeit some time ago, he really hasn't come across as someone with a huge ego- though there are clearly issues given the level of staff turnover IG had most of the specific complaints I've seen are about inconsistency of vision from start to finish, with people being annoyed that their work was scrapped or retasked after working on it for years. And that is a complaint that can be levelled at a lot of games.

Yep, Maduro will hide in the basement with his paratroops, just waiting for Obama's spokesman to announce US support before springing back out, like last time. Ah Hugo, you may have been a populist autocrat, but at least you were an amusing populist autocrat.

No, I'm rebutting what you say. You don't like it, sure, I said you wouldn't because you're emotionally invested. Don't worry, it's an understandable reaction, people don't like being told that their pet cause isn't quite as squeaky clean as they like to imagine. Lol, what was that about straw men? 'His own people' are killing police, what's happening to them is exactly what would happen anywhere else including in the west- and is considerably less than what happened in, say, Egypt. The point about Yanukovich being elected is, of course, that he was elected while those the protesters back lost in the fairest- per OSCE- election Ukraine had. As I said, you, and the protesters, want to replace the duly elected President with one you happen to like, despite losing, despite being the minority, and want to impose their President and their vision on the majority. Can't be spun, it's fact, and you know you cannot refute it. No Euromaden is criminal because it's occupied the centre of a city for 3 months and outright killed a bunch of people. That's criminal anywhere, including the EU. Doesn't become non criminal just because you like them. Something the EU and US realise as well deep down, but realpolitik. See, you don't rebut the point that such an occupation and protest would not be allowed in the west, because it cannot be rebutted, everyone, everyone knows it wouldn't be allowed. And yet it not being allowed is suddenly a horrendous crime that would be fixed by, er, joining the EU where it wouldn't be allowed either? Sheesh, if it were south/ eastern Ukrainians doing the occupation you know perfectly well you wouldn't be standing up for their rights, and neither would the US or EU. It'd be the fuzz, cleaning house of violent anarchists/ communists backed by those evil russkies and trying to overthrow a democratic government. You aren't a mere protester when you're biffing a molotov or shooting a gun, you aren't a mere protester anywhere if you do such things. As I said, and unsurprisingly you ignored, if you did the same things in the west there'd be dead protesters. Quid Pro Quo, What is Good for the Goose etc. And this latest flare up is confirmed by everyone as being started by the protesters, after a truce had been agreed. Well yes, the sky is still blue, water is still wet. EU as a customs union/ border free area sure, EU as a monolithic bureaucratic dictatorship is most definitively bad. Hmm, and you have the gall to accuse me of building straw men? I started by saying that Yanukovich is corrupt and basically Kuchma jr, I just said that your sainted alternatives are no better and have provably been so- and they aren't legitimately elected President. And yet, you cannot refute anything I've said. There's plenty of refutation possible. If I'm wrong.

More like Greg and Ray deciding to shut down Bioware when they left. Just simply could not happen, had to be the 2k execs whatever Levine says. It certainly isn't unusual behaviour though, 2k has shut down IG's two sister studios (IG Australia as was, 2k Marin) inside the last year or so, they just couldn't PR that as being anything other than sales of XCOMFPS not justifying the 5 years dev time. Having allegedly spent $200 mill on B:I attention needs to be deflected to minimise damage.

Whereas, of course, breaking up the Occupy Wall Street protests in the US, or the various tactics used in the west ("kettling") shows an ultimate respect for political expression and the right to protest. Well no, protests get broken up all the time in the west. Try occupying the centre of Washington or London and see how long they last, bet it wouldn't be 3 months. Try shooting at the police or setting them on fire while you're at it, for the authentic Ukraine protest experience- I'm sure those western police won't respond violently but with a sternly worded letter of censure... Yeah, they were. They lost the election; the other guy won. That makes them losers, QED. You want to disenfranchise the majority because you happen to agree with the minority's views, you want to set aside all those- the majority- who voted for Yanokovich, for the people who lost. I know perfectly well you'll argue the point to the death, but that is what you're doing, you're just dressing it up in palatable clothes. George Bush, Tony Blair, Frankie Hollande, more popular leaders, every single democratic leader in history most likely have two things in common, they won their elections and some people, somewhere in their country are right royally peeved that they won. Nah, I'm not. I'm saying that painting the protesters as valiant freedom fighters for honesty, progress and the Ukrainian way is a load of rubbish because their chosen bunch of politicians are as corrupt as the other lot, when they were in power last time things did not change; and "once we rule, everything will be OK, trust us" is a position that has a... somewhat questionable history of accuracy, prediction wise, from General Al-Sisi to Robespierre. To the, uh, Orange Revolution in, uh, Ukraine, after which they still have Tymoshenko and Yanukovich. Oh please, painting the protesters as some bunch of beatnik pacifist kumbaya singing lentil eaters is complete rubbish. They've had molotov roostertails and suchlike from the start, and have had a hard right element that was spoiling for a fight. And most significantly, while 16 protesters in a day weren't killed in OWS neither were 10 policeman killed on that same, metaphorical, day. No doubt those police were unfortunate enough to be hit by a particularly nastily cut slice of papaya, to paraphrase Edmund Blackadder. True. OWS were generally peaceful, and there were very few fatalities involved. Certainly not. Yanukovich still has support, the vast bulk of the US would happily have fired GWB into the sun a year or so into his second term, Yanokovich also hasn't managed to get thousands of his own people and tens of thousands at minimum of foreigners pointlessly killed in a war fought under knowingly trumped up pretexts. It's specifically designed to have 'problems with representation' because those pesky 'people' things keep getting in the way of what bureaucrats know to be necessary and beneficial. The EU is run by Sir Humphrey Appleby, for Sir Humphrey Appleby.

Yeah, quoting myself so bad form, but there's a pretty good article on the IG/ B: I situation over at Gamasutra which deals with some of the details of the situation. Perhaps most significant was the insider who said a year ago that IG would be shut down if B:I was not a major sales success but there's also quite a lot of info on how things went so wrong. I rather suspect that Thiaf may be the next, similar, problem child for AAA, though I suspect Eidos Montreal may survive as a Deus Ex studio.

Yeah, and Tymoshenko or whoever ends up ultimately as leader of her bloc would do exactly what was best for her clique- that is, after all what she did while in power. Indeed, rather like Khordokovsky in Russia I've not heard anyone significant say that she didn't do what she was convicted of, the only defence is that others did the same and didn't get prosecuted. I'm not going to get all morally indignant about having pro russian corrupt officials instead of pro west corrupt officials just on narrow ideological grounds. Still, one is the democratically elected corrupt President, the others are losers. Yeah, random link on internet tells Ultimate Truth. I read your link, but it was irrelevant. I was after all, talking about Yanukovich whose election was passably free and fair per OSCE. For reference, the OSCE reports for 2007, when Yuchenko was president, and 2012. The complaints are pretty much identical in each, it's just the wording that is different. Heh, so was Occupy Wall Street. Oddly enough when the po-po's moved in to break up them there weren't lots of police deaths, perhaps because they actually were peaceful protesters. Yeah, and GWB didn't turn the US into a parody. Obama didn't get elected and then end up ignoring a bunch of stuff he said he'd do, or stop doing. Politicians everywhere say what they need to to get elected, then it's go asterisk yourself for x years until the next election cycle. $15 billion in low cost loans for Ukraine versus joining the EU, getting sweet FA for the decades it would take to get accession (if you ever do, per Turkey) and having your economy be subservient to Germany's in perpetuity. And all to join a system which is a blatantly undemocratic technocracy. Ultimately the problem in Ukraine is the same as in any number of ex SSRs, they were designed with no intention of ever being independent, and you had leaders like Uncle Joe and Nikita K deciding to reward their home SSRs with bits of others. Chop the country in half, west can go clean Brit and German toilets for a living, east can go back to Mother Russia. Meh, whole post soviet thing is a clusterasterisk of western hypocracy, Kosovo must be independent, Abkhazia is an integral part of Georgia; apartheid is bad, but not in Latvia or Lithuania; democracy is wonderful and cures all ills, but only when it elects politicians we like.

For once I agree almost entirely with obyknven. Tymoshenko got into politics for the same basic reason Berlusconi did, to make sure she didn't get prosecuted for corruption in her gas dealings. Yanukovich is neither better nor worse seeing as he is basically Kuchma jr, but at least his deal with the Russians got the Ukraine a lot of cash, better than the pittance Brussels offered. The whole situation is replete with ironies, the protesters are complaining about the constitution giving the president too much power. Oddly enough it was brought in by their previous darling Viktor Yuchenko and only became a problem now it isn't their guy in office. Yeah, most of western Ukraine. But let's be frank here, Yanukovich got more vote % than, say, Margaret Thatcher ever got (by a very large margin) and won by almost the same margin that Obama beat Romney by. If they have a mandate then so does he. It's much like the situation in Thailand, the minority is throwing a wobbly and trying to impose their views on the majority. I'm frequently told that the right time to dispute decisions is at an election, indeed most western politicos will happily do whatever they want in office no matter what they promised and that's precisely what their defenders will say. Yes. Quite.

Well yeah, I would categorise a good troll as being a productive thing. It doesn't have to be productive in terms of making people think or reconsider stuff, it can be productive in terms of simply thinking it's funny. In terms of having a different world view, that's rather more difficult to quantify because with a good troll you're often not quite sure exactly what the person's view is. In that sense it is very similar to satire/ irony/ sarcasm in that it's a technique used to show 'disagreement' without necessarily indicating an alternative. I have seen trolling which runs counter to my general beliefs and still thought that it is effective, but then I'm not usually a good target for trolling myself since I at least try not to take things too seriously already.

I'd tend to agree that most trolling is negative or 'bad', but that is also at least partly because people tend to label stuff they simply don't like as trolling. If I were to write a perfectly sensible list of things wrong with, say, Oblivion, and then go and post that on the Bethboards a large proportion of people there would think I was trolling no matter what my actual intention was. In terms of good trolling I'd actually go back to the Tali Sweat Analysis post. I don't really know or care what the initial reason for that post was and whether it was intended as trolling, but if I had made that post it would have had two purposes. Firstly, to make anyone who is really obsessive about such things look a little silly by taking it seriously; and secondly to make the people who get upset at other people's obsessions look silly by taking seriously a post that wasn't serious. And yep, I'd say that Poe's Law is a pretty good match for most good trolling. I'd say that most good trolling uses 'soft' provocativeness. The internet equivalent of, say, walking up to someone and slapping them is bad trolling, pretty much by definition. I'd view being provocative in this context to be more similar to how films and the like can be provocative. I wouldn't say that trolling is a particularly effective way to get an argument across though, but... when it comes right down to it convincing someone they're being silly, or 'winning' an argument on the internet by any means is usually an uphill battle- and, of course, a matter of opinion as to whether it's silly/ wrong in the first place, most often.