Zoraptor

Pretty sure IG/ 2k use an art farm (2k Shanghai?) for a lot of their art assets though, to avoid that situation. IG have had a fairly steady attrition over the past year or so though, including some very senior people.

Assad wants to win. Gas happens, therefore Assad made it happen. That, in a nutshell, is the west's argument*. It just happens to ignore that if Assad wants to win the one thing he must avoid is having the US become the rebel's air force. At least Israel/ Qatar/ Saudi/ Lizardmen did it arguments are logically consistent, so far as they go. Doing something obviously counter productive and illogical though? *Everything else in their approach is equivalent to that of Iraq in 2003 and as reliable, same hyping of intercepts (failed in Iraq), same hyping of human intelligence (like Curvevall, who just told them what they wanted to hear and what would get him paid), same hyping of satellite imagery, all stuff that conclusively failed with respect to Iraq, and all stuff that we cannot be allowed to see as primary sources, only as politically shaped and melded statements, like last time. Prior to Iraq they sliced every caveat, every equivocation, every nuance off every intelligence assessment to make the case for war and we have zero way of knowing if that is not exactly what is happening now. That a clear majority of people do not appear to be drinking the kool aid this time gives my cold cynical heart some vague glimmering of hope for humanity. syrianhr.com? Clarification link and you can check the NYT link as well if that's too biased one way. It certainly isn't, uh, certain, that it is the UK funding him- hence, allegedly- but he lives there and it is exactly the sort of project foreign intelligence branches like the CIA/ MI6/ SVR fund all the time against their enemies. While certainly true sincere democratic movements tend to get marginalised in wartime, even in the west most of the anti democratic measures that have been taken recently have been dressed up in the rhetoric of war. I'd go back to the Spanish Civil War comparison, where there were plenty of sincere democrats, but they got marginalised by the more extreme groups (Falange/ Fascists; Communists) who had better troops, better training, better support and had the 'moral clarity' to push their vision and ideology against nominal friends as well as enemies. And when it comes to moral clarity the typical hard jihadi makes Generalissimo Francisco Franco look like an all inclusive chardonnay socialist. They'd probably like to support the Syrian MB, but it really is a shadow of its former self and far weaker than their Egyptian, er, brethren. I would tend to classify them as 'marginal' extremists since they're fundamentally though not absolutely fundamentalist islamist, but they certainly aren't as extreme as some other players and it all depends on where you draw the line classifying extremism.

He should presumably have a couple of lines to say as well, during a... certain fight, unless they're really going to retcon stuff. Though clearly he's miscast, the strongest man in Iceland should surely be either one of Mance's henchmen or a Black Brother, not some capitalist Lannister running dog.

I'm certainly not saying it's useless or wasted effort, I applaud it in fact and it is a fundamentally good idea. I'd actually doubt it uses much in the way of resources. The fan editor for ME save games is perfectly functional without any inside knowledge, so it should be pretty easy for someone with access to how the save games are built to knock something up quickly, the difficult part would be getting it past the producer/ project director as something useful to do, not the implementation itself. I'd say it has two main functions, getting the committed fan online since the saves/ system will be cloud based- useful for getting better DLC penetration/ uptake rates, better 'biometrics', better utilisation of Origin etc- and because, as Maria says, Bioware is currently offering everyone free ice cream and this is a topping that will appeal to high value customers, exactly the type of people who may be disgruntled about things like the Conrad Venter bug instead of going "Conrad who?". But, while I suspect it will get a lot of use amongst the committed and well informed people like you or I (he says, with his customary surfeit of modesty) I do question how much usage it will get from the more casual who may not even know about it. Anyone with an offline console simply won't be using it even if they do know about it, for example, unless the cloud based system changes.

Apparently TWitcher 2 cost just over $10 million to make and their costs are roughly 6 million a year now. Interesting for two reasons, TW2 should have turned a pretty decent profit, and that burn rate is half what Obsidian's was which I guess really shows the cost difference between Poland and west coast USA.

Hadn't forgotten, but I'd question how many people would use it. The 'default' character set ups for both DA and ME (ie human male fighter/ soldier) saw far more usage than custom ones, and that process is actually integrated into the game seamlessly. The keep will get used by die hard fans and people who want to play through 7 times with different characters just to make sure they hate the game, and I think it's a good idea, but I don't see the typical player using it much to generate different 'backgrounds'.

Meh, any country that kowtows to the US line no matter what is a vassal, to all practical purposes. It doesn't matter if you're put in chains or put them on yourself, you're still a slave even if you don't acknowledge it. Wolfowicz, Dumsfeld et alia were not the real problem in any case, they were the symptom. The current admin is trotting out exactly the same stuff as last time almost down to the word. Same vague "trust us" information, same promises of quick, glorious victory at no cost and no risk, same WMD justification. Only difference is instead of Ronald Dumsfeld saying "We know where they are! Trust Us!" you have JFK the far far far lesser saying "We know they've been used and who used them! Trust us! I'm OUTRAEGED!!!" and the wrapping is less overtly bellicose and imperialistic, dressed up in the political necessity of apparent reluctance. Same feeble, expatriate political facade group set up mainly to appease foreigners rather than Syrians to take over which is disconnected from the reality of the situation, same (worse really) sectarian problems, same 'coalition' of lickspittles, same reliance on intelligence sources with no equivocation, same it's OK for some to have WMD (and even use them without even a skerrick of doubt, cue more Kerry OURAEG!!! at ten minutes to never) but not others. I find it completely plausible that there are plenty of the more informed US military personnel who will not be very happy at all with fighting for 10+ years against the Taliban in Afghanistan to then be asked to fight for the Taliban-with-good-PR in Syria. The ultimate problem with US foreign policy is the "Trust us, we know what we're doing" attitude. And in reality land we don't get to have a prequel season after Mr Hammer fails to defuse the nuke.

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, most likely. An utterly partial propaganda organisation (allegedly funded by MI6) that was run by a single person from his basement in Coventry (?) but regarded as the Last Word by many media outlets because they collated and showed what they wanted in a convenient way plus had a 'nice' authoritative sounding name, as opposed to less partial organisations that weren't quite so prone towards saying what people wanted to hear like HRW.

Unless part of this "Keep" thing includes redesigning your past PC's on the new engine, then no. I could see it being part of the keep. I suppose alanshu could tell us if he stumbles into this thread. The default setup is Warden = Sacrificed = Dead, yes? If so, I wouldn't really expect much if any content dealing with them, as it's likely for most people they will be dead, story wise. Might be nice if you could have a statue or painting commissioned of the Great Hero, but whether he was an international great hero or just a local Fereldan one is a bit of an open question as well.

That's the best case?

Yeah, and the only person who gets money from a dodgy D1P of a grey market key bought with a stolen CC number is... the criminal with the credit card. Moral superiority, unwarranted. Personally I'd go the whole "Stop criminal scum!" route and charge everyone using stolen keys for receiving stolen non authorised duplicated goods. Ban their steam accounts, shut them off from the internet, criminal charges, jail time and then well deserved execution.

Looks to me like they're either all standing around a campfire which is emitting bloom like a small nuke, amongst some standing stones, so possibly the new 'hippie' class using their kumbaya special ability; or the fire ability shown at right is being used on some unfortunate enemy at near right. Three companions? For some reason I thought they'd said only 2 active companions like in ME, but that and the RPS article clearly shows three. Good if so.

More to the point, there were a rather surprising number of military aged men apparently working at that school. It is nice to see that rebel schools are so well resourced with teachers, even in a war zone. And, of course, sometimes, it's a different story and definitely not an atrocity.

Yep, the later M&Ms were graphically dated even when released. Compared to something roughly contemporary like BG they haven't aged well in appearance at all. The VI+ formula is actually one of the most difficult to describe systems in existence as it sounds terrible but is far greater than the sum of its parts in execution. It's glitchy, 'sploity, ill balanced, looks bad and has a story that is vestigial at best. Yet somehow it is just really fun to play.

It wasn't just Labour, they don't have a majority- obviously, since they aren't the government. They're not obligated to toe the line in important decisions just because the PM has been shooting his mouth off. Vote failed, democracy in action, honour the democratic decision! (and yeah, I suspect positions would be reversed if the vote had been different, but there is nothing fundamental stopping another vote later, except for the embarrassment Cameron has suffered already. If the action were fully approved that would not be true, and it would go ahead as a matter of course.)

Oh dear Britain votes against action. How will William Hague cope, having to go cold turkey on his stentorian verbiage binge? Not really surprising given the rather laughable vague and evidence lacking 'intelligence' document released- though at least turnitin suggests it wasn't a plagiarised intelligence document this time.

You really have to split Gulf States into Saudi and Qatar, as one hates the MB and the other is its main patron. Plus, of course, the MB that Assad hates is not (quite) the same MB as in Egypt but the home grown Syrian variety, and Assad now hates Hamas as they've swapped sides, but still likes the other palestinian groups that haven't. It's so complicated that it'd probably be as accurate dropping cooked spaghetti onto a diagram to map the relationships. If it were written as fiction everyone would talk about the massive plot holes and how the author didn't have a clue how to keep his world consistent.

'Oh the humanity!' is trotted out every time the west wants to intervene and it's got pretty devalued. I think most people except possibly Bruce agree that it clearly isn't a battle of horrible monsters vs brave heroes but bad guys against bad guys, and civilians- albeit often different groups of civilians- are targeted by both sides. As a justification Remember Rwanda! simply does not hold water because it is used so inconsistently and when intervention has other primary reasons. And like a policeman who only helps good looking women hoping for a 'reward', or powerful people because they owe them a favour, it is not a sign of great integrity but actually the opposite- an utterly cynical act which fundamentally debases moral authority. For example, in Libya under the terms of the UNSC resolution all civilians should have been treated equally and protected from indiscriminate attack. Except those in Sirte or Bani Walid (where the ex rebels used chemical weapons, with as much certainty as we have about the recent usage but without much reportage, and with condemnation an attempt to mandate a peaceful solution, even, blocked by...) were fair game so far as the west was concerned. Civilians must be protected except those in Congo where more than a million died with nary a murmur. Rwanda cannot be used as any sort of justification because the west still sits on its hands when it isn't otherwise in their interests to intervene and the- worse, and later, and ongoing- losses in Congo were and are ignored because, whatever, we still get the coltan for our phones at a knock down price.

I remember it. Rwanda isn't a good comparison though, fully ethnic conflict, outright mass slaughter of hundreds of thousands over a short time with the main weapons being low tech, no real organised resistance on the ground. Ex Yugloslavia would be better- and Lebanon's civil war even better, since the issues were similar (minority religion in power, mainly sectarian rather than ethnic, lots of regional proxies etc). And in Lebanon the foreign interventions failed dreadfully, except ironically, the Syrian one which eventually succeeded. And even then it only worked because the Lebanese themselves got sick of fighting each other.

The major appeal of consoles over PC is that they're meant to be less complicated (e.g: pop in the disc and play) I don't think that they would be willing to actually deal with choices, much less deal with manual installation. You don't need manual installs, just imagine software installs with you pre clicking 'OK' a half dozen times and that is what you'd have. Manual installs are useful for PCs because you want options on where to install and the like, with a closed box PC it is basically a console, no need for install options and you can have an auto installer. After all, the PS4/ On3 are both built on fairly standard PC hardware, and they won't have any significant manual install options. It's... a bit more than that, as Ocelot says. It'd actually make it easier to do HD remakes if the hardware had been standardised and iterative between generations.

Can't say that I have any problem with 'lazy' when used in proper context. There may be reasons for reuse of maps or spawn mobs in DA2, but from the outside it looks like a simple straight line to the quickest solution, and from the general end user's perspective that is what it is, whatever the actual reasons. On the other hand something like the end of ME3- whether a particular person liked it or not- was not lazy, since it would have taken equal effort to take an alternative approach. Funnily enough I've always considered butthurt to be with regards to those suffering from hemmeroids haemerrhoids haemorrhoids, since people with that most unfortunate and totally unhilarious affliction are typically grumpy and looking for things to be grumpy about. Never even considered the alternative. Karpyshyn's (sp, no doubt) Star Wars books must have sold decently since they got sequels and they weren't all TOR tie ins, so it was successful on that front at least. Though I read the Bane novel a while back when I was stuck in town with nothing to do, and was not impressed with it quality wise.

Same games play on both systems, basically, have the xbox be a tech specification for a specialised, cheap, gaming PC and revise the tech spec every four to five years. You'd have the advantages of the PC system (lots of vendors, hardware competition) remove the loss leader in the equation (making the hardware yourself) and keep the bits which are profitable like online services and (potentially) game licence fees. There would be other potential advantages like better back compatibility and thus longer shelf life for games.

Rather the opposite- 5 days is a very quick amount of time considering the issues, and a delay is pointless in terms of a cover up anyway. Where the attack occurred is outside the government's control so it isn't just a matter of driving the inspectors to the area in a car and while if the government controlled the area it could theoretically sterilise it the rebels do so there's no chance of destroying any evidence, there will be residue all over the place and plenty of samples. While the nerve agent itself will go inert fairly quickly (one of the reasons it's useful militarily) the residue left does not decay particularly quickly, certainly not enough to matter in a matter of days.

It's a logical argument and people aren't always logical at the best of times, but it is a massive leap to use chemical weapons now rather than in the initial attack on Aleppo or something important. The access to the governmental stocks is tightly controlled, as everyone agrees, so it cannot have just been Major El-Bloggs getting peeved and deciding to lob a few rockets in frustration. It's not just that it's a foolish thing to do, it's both monumentally foolish and monumentally convenient, even if Assad were using chem weapons in a minor capacity I cannot imagine any situation in which he wouldn't order everything dropped while the inspectors were there. For kgambit: Daily Fail, but it took ages to find given that the first half dozen pages of search results dealt with the current incident. Yeah, not absolute proof, but then William Hague et alia are hardly waiting for proof absolute either.

The only confirmed use of chemical weapons- by the UN- was by the rebels though. I won't reply to the rest in detail except for a couple of things. Syria's manpower problems are largely 'fixed' now. There are very few defections, they've got a lot of manpower and material support from Hezbollah and Iran and certain groups in the rebels are either as intent on fighting each other as them or are having defection problems themselves. The real crisis phase is arguably over is and pretty much everyone agrees that they are winning, now. If it were a critical situation such as that army base mentioned it would make more sense, but it's an area that has been in rebel hands for a year. Conventional bombing and using rockets is an entirely different matter, they aren't banned and are expected parts of warfare. So there is simply no point in playing chicken with the US as the one thing that can ensure the US intervenes is attacking their prestige- making it so they have to respond or be ridiculed. They are not going to gain the ability to use chemical weapons in general and would have been told so by the Russians at the least, and they don't at this juncture need to use them. Plus the 'baby steps'/ gradual argument does not really hold water here as it's a massive leap rather than a small step from occasional, very small scale use to gassing a sizeable area while inspectors are there. You still want as much plausible deniability as possible, even if you did do it, and a big delay while inspectors fly into the country and negotiate everything is far better than 4-5 days delay from that perspective. As for whether they have been used at all by the government, I'd suspect they have been on occasion, as they have by the rebels, on occasion. I just don't buy the current situation at all, it's too convenient on one side, and the other doesn't have any pressing reason to jeopardise everything on a gamble reliant on guessing someone else's intentions.