Zoraptor

And a bit more on some Squenidos problems wrt Thief. Not surprising that SE is in problems- or requiring such large sales numbers- if they're doing things like spending months making press demos that are incompatible with the base game. Everyone knows that it happens (eg the infamous 'Radiant AI' demo for Oblivion that simply could not happen in the finished game) but the length of time and resources taken...

EA distribute many LucasArts titles- they certainly distributed both KOTORs here. They didn't have any creative involvement though unless you count retroactive via Bioware.

Personally I wouldn't consider it proper to keep a sealed box and download a copy if I intended to sell the box at the end (like buying a cake, downloading a duplicate cake and eating it, then on selling the original), but if it is just to have a nice sealed box sitting on the shelf I have no issue with it.

Pretty good result for them in the end. I still wish they'd started a little bit later once SotA and Torment were done and once a bit more PR groundwork had been set, but they've worked hard for their money, to quote the great philosopher Donna Summers (?), and deserve it. I NEVER DOUBTED YOU LARIAN!

At least in Alpha Protocol I can wear a pimpin' hat with a big bushy beard, but I can't even make Thornton blond or a woman- where's the role playing there? Also it's based on Burn Notice and the bullets fly funny and don't go right where I aim, and it has too much dialogue and timers. It also does so have magic, sometimes when I make a mistake I disappear, which is awesome, or time slows down so I can pop caps into asses! I've never heard of Dues Ex or the others so can't comment on them, are they available on 360?

Dying makes me feel dumb, and I can feel dumb whenever I like. I play games to feel like a God for a brief while. The game clearly does not cater properly to all play styles. Some merchant tempted me in to a warehouse with the promise of lollies and then his friends killed me. I should be able to talk to them and get them to let me go, and give me all their money and stuff too. Next thing you'll tell me I won't be able to talk my way out of fights with rats. For some reason I feel compelled to reply to each line individually in a separate quote box, it's weird. Then why is it marketed as an RPG? Can anyone name a single RPG that doesn't have magic? Games like Skyrim and Oblivion have got it right, lots of character customisation- you know, actually playing a role- and fun stuff like riding around on horses killing stuff. I saw horses in the AoD demo, but I bet I can't ride them. If they want to sell well they need to have voiced dialogue and better graphics, and get rid of that slow and boring combat. Oh look, I stand still while some dude swings at me, then he stands still while I swing at him. Riveting! That's not how reality works. And I want something excellent to happen every time I press a key, not to fall asleep. First person view would be good too as that is needed for proper immersion. I'm only trying to help the developers by pointing all this out. Mr Dweller says he wants feedback, after all.

Our histories are pretty explicit about Freyberg insisting on the Abbey being bombed because he was worried about casualties. It would have needed approval from higher ups who may have been itching to do it anyway, but I'd still attach a fair bit of blame to him. I guess one excuse might be that throughout NA and Sicily there hadn't been much city/ town fighting so there was no experience of a Stalingrad style destruction resulting in good defensive terrain without killing off the enemy but consequences like not being able to use tanks effectively in the town (even given the terrain restrictions) really ought to have been considered. And the same sort of general thing happened regularly in WW1 which Freyberg fought in- massive bombardment to wipe out enemy, enemy not wiped out...

It is a bit bought-you-drink-at-bar, didn't-expect-marriage on the update front. Then again once I've stuck in the money I don't generally read the updates anyway. Virumor Drudanae's clearly contributed in order to get the updates, so he's obviously a warm and fuzzy closet romantic at heart despite his cold and jaded exterior.

I'm playing the demo to something called the Age of Decadence. Can't kill anything, the combat is slow and my diplomat dies all the time, I teleport all over the place like a magician (can't actually play a magician though, or an elf. What sort of RPG is this?) and there's lots and lots of dialogue. Not voiced dialogue though, it's like being back in the 50s. I'm seriously considering making a preorder just so I can post PREORDER CANCELLED on the developer's website in a blaze of righteous fury. And that despite my habit of forgetting to cancel preorders.

Ain't great when you're effectively shutting down a company you paid $400 million for not that long ago. Could have spent a fraction of that to buy Saint's Row- which would fill the GTA shaped hole in EA's portfolio- and other THQ titles at a pretty bargain rate.

Kind of. The battle was winnable in the short term, but no slam dunk. It also would have been a nightmare to supply if held, more so than Malta given the size discrepancy. Militarily speaking the whole Greek intervention was a stupid idea which not only directly wasted resources on an unwinnable campaign but weakened North Africa as well. At Crete there was no air cover to speak of and no heavy weaponry, and it was a disorganised scratch force from the remnants of Greece defending a large area. The big mistake was made by a subordinate without Freyberg's input, and once it had been made there was little anyone could have done in the circumstances. If they had tanks for a counterattack it might have been a different story, but they didn't. If I were to blame Freyberg for anything I'd blame him for exacerbating the mess at Cassino by going overboard on the carpet bombing. That didn't just make things worse for us, but for the others who tried to attack it later. He was also rather over cautious, but then he had something like 10% of our manpower under his command. Heh, given Tobruk I would have expected the reverse order

Don't get EE unless you're terrified of modding, it's more expensive and still bugged and the free mods do as good or better a job of things. Yeah, only difference is that it's a unified download on GG, rather than each being a separate download as on GOG. You can buy them separately at GG as well, I've used excess blue coins or 4/3 deals to get backups of both BGs and IWD2 there and they are literally the GOG installer. They both have sales fairly regularly, if the price is the same get them on GOG though as they actually did the work setting them up.

We don't give F's any more. In school there are only about three (!) grades given now and at uni E is the lowest grade; and if you write your name on the paper you get a D-.

I'm actually watching a documentary about Gallipoli at the moment. Doesn't matter how many times I see stuff about it, I'm always surprised at how much of an absolute farce it actually was. Freyberg won a VC himself in WW1.

Their timing is also a bit unfortunate- they have a publisher association at a time when the memories of the Shadowrun/ HBS/ MS issues are still fresh. And whatever else people may say about how HBS handled things they certainly did damage for anyone bringing a licensed game to the table- even if this KS has directly addressed the most proximal part of that issue in the pitch.

And now we have the intellectual justification for Pirating, I was wondering when someone would make a similar argument. But you are still still stealing and breaking the law, but if you sleep fine at night thats good news Ah, but I didn't break the law. I downloaded a copy of something I already had the right to use for single person licensed use. I didn't make copies of it beyond that, never on sold it while retaining a copy myself and did not allow others to make copies; I never even installed it on multiple computers that I own myself. All I did was treat it exactly as what the publisher says it is, a licence to use rather than a physical good. And spend about five days downloading the thing on dial up. That's the goose/ gander thing. "It's also funny that most publishers argue that they are selling a service, not goods....right up until the moment you want them to act as a service provider. Then they treat your purchase as if it was goods, not a service" pretty much sums it up to a T. If it's a licence then it's a licence, both parties get the benefits of it being a licence as well as the negatives. You cannot have your cake and eat it too- though if you've got good lobbyists and a few pet politicians- or corporate lawyers- you can certainly try. Good lord my ellipses are starting to get ridiculous.

A grade shift would be incremental, ie C+ to C or B-, as a full letter shift is a 15% change of mark either way. And having said that I'd have to grade my grading pretty poorly as well; E is reserved for Did Not Sit, so a +/- margin of error cannot apply on a D- grading.

EA shares have increased by 70% from their 52 week low! Celebrate! (Selective graph data is selective, in other words. Borked Y scale, X scale set to stop at lowest rather than most recent point. I rate this as a D- statistically, with a confidence interval of 95% and margin of error of +/- one grade level)

My attitude is that if publishers are insistent that they're selling a licence rather than a product then that means that format shifting is aOK. After all, a licence to use rather than a perishable product means that you get to use it, and not have to purchase a second licence when it perishes, per the Goose/ Gander doctrine. I downloaded CD2 of IWD2 when something got dropped on the original with not the slightest compunction.

The kobolds man, the kobolds! They're coming out of the goddamned walls! SargeKhalid! DrakeMinsc! I say we stand back and fireball the mine from distance, it's the only way to be sure! Well sir, there's only 3 problems with that, 1, we don't have a fireball, 2 we don't have a fireball and 3, we don't have fireball. Now technically that may be only one problem, but it's so big I thought it worth mentioning three times. I've got two sleeps and a magic missile, and I'm all out of sleeps. .. Game over man, Game over! (I like BG1 well enough otherwise, but it's like saying I liked a meal well enough excepting the compote of dead rodents. Nashkel mines- long, boring, arbitrary enemies that can kill you with a single hit and yield a staggering 6 to 30 odd xp a pop. Probably the single worst area in any RPG I've played. And I still see Kharlie hiding behind every rock, even today months later)

Spartacus has ended up being one of my favourites. Treads the fine line between over the top seriousness and unintentional hilarity, and everyone involved just looks like they're having the best time ever while running around in their posing pouches drenched in food colouring 255.

A couple of years ago Paradox would have fitted well, now they'd outsource it and have it end up as a pared down bug ridden mess chasing Magicka's 'magic formula' and designed to have vast quantities of dlc bolted onto it. Though at least it wouldn't be them transparently aping someone else's IP (Dungeon Keeper, Dwarf Fortress, Syndicate etc) for a change. Stardock would be a decent fit, but why wouldn't they just make another Sins branded game and save the cash? Suppose they might be convinced that 'Master of Magic' might have done better for them if it had actually been called that, but the ultimate problem there was that the game was borked, not what it was called. I'd presume Gearbox wouldn't make any further games internally anyway, so in most practical respects it would be the same as if it went to nuParadox anyway. I'm quite surprised at the quoted buy cost though, it was higher than some of the bids for items in the 'main property' sale.

That was Stardock, though. I guess HW has a special place in people's hearts, so some FNG to the RTS area isn't inspiring. Like Obsidian getting the Freespace IP, or something Probably meant SotS/2, as they're about the only space related thing Paradox have done.

Tigranes is a most well regarded columnist for the prestigious RPGCodex magazine, having written a preview of Expedition: Conquistador (IIRC) for them. I do rather hope that some person with more money than sense donates exactly $1 more to RPGWatch's fundraiser total than the Codex's, as the typhoon of butthurt generated would be magnificent to behold. They also get early usage of the money, which they would not get otherwise (No preorder money early, unless it's a pay for alpha deal). That can be of significant benefit. I think I will probably up to $65 for the copy anyway, Gragt did pretty much sell me on it.

The main points of contention (from a neutral) with the historical parts of Boo's version would be 1) A/H wanting to invade Serbia in WW1. It was by no means a done deal, and there is little doubt that their crown prince- a noted moderate- was murdered with the active collusion of some in the Serb government. A modern comparison would be Joe Biden being assassinated by an Iranian in Bahrain with Republican Guard involvement; it may be a pretext, but it was a justifiable pretext. 2) The Serb experience in WW1 is actually rather underplayed, they lost the highest proportion (probably around a fifth, as high as a quarter) of their population in the war of anyone, and by a fair margin. There were also persistent incidents of ethnic atrocities from both A/H and Bulgaria- though their severity is disputed. That is important background. 3) While the conduct of the Croatian 'state' in WW2 was utterly despicable (e.g.)- as was that of the Catholic church who actively encouraged forced conversions and the like and shielded war criminals post war- it was not universally supported by all Croats or all Catholics, much as not all Serbs were resistance heroes. Most prominently, Tito was a croat resister (and Hildegard's grandfather too, iirc). Again, that is important background. 4) The dropping in support for the royalist resistance had less to do with any deal with Stalin and more to do with their ineffectiveness and tendency to use resources to fight Tito rather than the nazis. Overall what you had when Yugo split was a recipe for disaster based on wounds that had never been healed, but only papered over by Tito's strong personality. When the split happened the Serbs simply didn't trust the Croats not to be oppressive (not helped by use of some nationalist imagery and support from Germany, given the experience in WW2) and the Croats understandably didn't want to give up majority Serb areas of their new country. In general you do not hear much of the background stuff because it takes some research, and because it interferes with the standard good guy/ bad guy narrative. As with most things there really aren't any good guys, and in the case of the Balkan Wars barely even any less worse guys. The Serb reaction- even if I'd still blame them most overall- is at least understandable (though not really justifiable) in historical context. I can certainly understand Serb annoyance at always being painted as the bad guys though, both given their history of being genuinely oppressed within living memory, people's general ignorance of that, and that both the Croats and Kosovans expelled large numbers of Serbs without much if any condemnation from the west. Ultimately though, asking a Croat and Serb to give reasoned explanations of the Balkan Wars is extremely unlikely to work productively. Too many recent wounds, too much refusal to admit bad stuff done by their side while listing bad stuff done by the other. Too many eminent truths that are only either eminent or truths to one side. Quite a lot of the Balkan stuff is quite similar to the Chechen and wider Caucasus' experiences- Chechens' experiences under Russian and especially Stalin's deportations provide historical context for their fight and attitude, and the 100ks of South Ossetian refugees- more than their current population by multiples- fleeing the Georgians gives context as to why they don't want to be reintegrated into Georgia.