Zoraptor

Well, it had- up to the point the papers stopped cooperating, and as much as Snowden's stuff has been. It went to WL first, but as I said, that assured anonymity, something Snowden was not worried about. Handing it to WL is no more a public release than handing it to a politician is, it only becomes public when, er, it becomes public whether it's a politician reading it in parliament (or someone in their office leaking like a sieve) or someone putting it in their paper. ... That is quite the most charmingly naive thing I've seen in a long long time. It's good to see that some people still trust politicians. But those would be the same senators and congressmen who are slavering about treason and espionage*, running to the top of the pole beating their chests and shouting about how the release damages national security and the like? Going to a congressman would be a good way to cut out the middleman, but not in the successful release sense. He might as well just have gone the whole hog and bought a one way ticket to the Gitmo part of Cuba. After all "congressman catches dangerous subversive spy" is marvellous PR and does not run the risk of you being labelled a traitor yourself. Sheesh, Manning confided in a hacker (in this case code for "foetid gob of yak sputum") and got dobbed in by him. The political system simply does not work for this sort of thing, there are too many vested interests and running counter on anything substantive is too risky- and the government is doing its best to make sure that reporters are controlled in that respect as well what with the bugging of AP/ Faux News reporters and the like to catch other 'traitor'. *ie giving aid and information to the enemy. That that enemy apparently is the US public shows roughly how much hope there was for a successful political release

Yeah, as wikileaks is anonymous- if Manning had not shot his mouth off to the wrong person he would (likely) not have been caught. Wikileaks released most of his stuff via the papers (inc Grauniad). That was one of the ironies, they were meant to be vetting the releases for sensitive info, then stopped and complained when sensitive stuff did get released. Snowden is different though, as he clearly intended for it to be known that it was him doing the leaking there was no need for a middleman even though it's pretty clear he knew of WL.

If you're doing an international survey then you simply cannot draw specific national conclusions without the nation of origin data. From a classic survey point of view (eg a political opinion poll) there should also be an independently selected rather than self selected or picked samples, complex weightings for a variety of important factors like sex and age etc, but for many things that is both impractical and unnecessary. I presume from the questions that the questions being looked at are if there is a relationship between for example how many games are bought (how much money is spent) and trust in pro-reviews vs amateur reviews, or whether console gamers are more likely to trust reviews, that sort of thing. For that, there probably should not be too much variation based on location- it is an English language questionnaire, after all, so anyone taking it ought to be able to read the same reviews and (by and large) buy the same games from the same general places. You can always improve surveys, but as with everything you can lose focus and start wandering away from the core issues/ waste lots of time if you start tinkering.

It does say something about Hasbro/ WOTC that they've picked Interplay and Atari as their past partners. While the poor performance of D&D computer games recently is Atari's fault in a direct sense it was Hasbro who gave them the licence, and they haven't done much with it since they got it back in 2011 beyond possibly agreeing to allow the BG remakes (though it appears that Atari still calls the ultimate shots there). It's difficult to say that a game licence has not been mismanaged when two companies have competing, supposedly exclusive, licences at the same time (Atari/ IPLY) and another entirely separate company is making a third game (POR:RoMD) due to a badly written previous licence- that's almost comically bad.

The income levels will vary wildly depending on location and so will purchasing power in gaming. So what? Instead of pointless whining, why don't people use Google to convert Rand or Rubles into Dollars and answer the question? Because it's not just the income level that are different but also game prices.100 euros will on average buy you much more games in Ukraine than in UK. Hence the income question loses validity when taken outside the context of US market. It doesn't really matter, so long as you know what your data means and take its limitations into account. Looking at the games market as a whole and without geographic distinction is a perfectly valid approach, so long as you don't start trying to draw location specific conclusions from it. To a point it would have been a good idea to have the location data anyway since it adds flexibility- but only to a point, it isn't essential.

Surprisingly difficult to, er, carry off when the subject is 100+kg and doesn't really want to be picked up. (Pretty sure it's illegal to lift an opponent deliberately) We have a nude rugby league here. Yeah, the mind boggles.

You only get negs for raising levies if you've declared the war though, if it's defensive there's no raise cost. It's one of the slightly broken things about the wargoals system, since you can occupy the entire holy land as a Christian in a defensive war, then have to walk back out and return it to the infidel once their war score reaches -100. I far prefer the old badboy system for managing such things, while clunky for something like EU it was fine in a more limited setting. I don't grab titles- it ruins score since I use Dynastic Glory, one thing that CK2 certainly does do better- and I don't bribe nobles as generally I don't have the money to. I always use DVIP though, which I think significantly ups the costs and badboy for grabbing titles anyway. Having said that though, I'm less than convinced that the claims fabrication system in CK2 is much better, given that it's a straight random chance from a chancellor mission.

Manning's leaks initially went through and were vetted by the Grauniad (+others inc NYT) as well- until the pressure on them got too much and the Gariunad went back to printing reputable stuff like leaked statements of rape victims. Second part is... well, no kidding. None of Snowden's stuff would be news to them but it isn't like the US or Britain wouldn't do the same- Boris Berezovsky was not granted asylum in the UK because he was an upstanding citizen being unfairly persecuted in Russia, he was a kleptomaniac who overstepped and his main use to Britain was to embarrass the Russkies. Same thing as complaining about the Russians parading CIA operatives with sub The Americans wigs around on TV like a major faux pas, it's not like the US didn't parade Anna Chapman et alia around as well.

He could hardly keep it as was and start posting again, now could he? That would look silly. Also, I like octopus.

Took survey. As always found it difficult to rate on the agree..disagree curve since I end up thinking something along the lines of "yes, uh no" as I run through whether the user review is from someone like Vault Dweller who does excellent reviews even if I don't always agree with him- or consists of "SOZ = SOZZY!" or "COD AWESUM AP SUXXX!!!" as most do.

Have you ever lost a war through inaction though? I think I may have lost maybe a couple- and those I was thinking of were in desert and basically impossible to win due to attrition reducing besieging troop numbers so much that the timer ran out before sieges completed, and it was impossible to defeat the enemy Stacks of Doom with attrited stacks. The AI, of course, lost extensively through inaction. Trouble is that as I described, while the war in CK2 looks a lot more complicated it actually isn't- eg everyone of size having brilliant generals to pick from means there is no practical difference- and is retrograde in many ways. It still uses timed sieges with troop numbers- and has some events that may change time taken by insignificant amounts. But most of all the whole system is geared to make sure there is very little to no consequence for war, or anything really. In CK1 continuous war would destroy your empire even if you were technically winning every time because you'd be penniless and destitute living in a hovel and in shtuck to every money lender in Europe with your provinces looted and depopulated; and that simply does not happen in CK2, everything is pretty much back to normal within a year or so. Same with disease- I didn't even notice having Bubonic Plague in CK2 because it was just another green fog on the map and made little difference from Consumption or The Pox when in reality and in CK1 it was absolutely brutal and ruined and depopulated entire regions. Yeah, I just found the intrigue stupid in the end. Set up plot, check list and find green ticks, repeat until you reach 100+ or whatever then murder/ set up/ whatever some random guy or gal. It's theoretically a very good system and has great potential, but in practice it isn't very good at all and tends towards being used totally randomly by the AI for more make work squashing them. The example I had was of a courtier who murdered the king and was caught doing it. You didn't get away with that any time by Perry Masoning "but m'lud I haven't tried to murder you, only the last guy", you got hanged by the neck until stretchy, your nethers removed and burnt with your entrails before your eyes then chopped into bits and distributed around the kingdom pour decourager les autres. And there wouldn't be a nobleman to raise issue because murdering the king was a crime against God- and if someone got away with that publicly then any nobleman might be next. Bill II catching an arrow 'accidentally' while hunting, fine. But when Ted II had an unfortunate accident with a heated domestic implement while in custody, and having abdicated? Ted III chopped noble Mortimer's head off anyway a couple of years later, to a stunning lack of acrimony. The added blob stability makes it harder, at least peripherally, but once you've got an advantage you'll win every war against a given enemy. It's far easier to maintain a large empire in CK2, and CK1 has better mechanisms for preventing unfettered expansions- badboy and realm duress. I've got Byzants back to near their historical height (only missing Baetica, I think) in about a century starting from Alex Komnemus, using CK2+ which is harder than vanilla.

In what way is CK2 more shallow? Pretty much every way. Been through it all before here previous- CK2 has a lot of apparent depth, amounting to nothing. The battle system still comes down to who has the most troops most of the time because while there are talented leaders and the like you can guarantee that any large nation (and most duchies) will have 1, 2, 3+ leaders with high martial to pick from and there's no obligation (as there would have been in reality) to have that dim wit but powerful duke lead over the highly talented lowborn. So while it may appear more complicated and deep than CK1 it's just make work to get back to the same state as before. And the retinues recharge really quickly, so you frequently end up with the hilarity of wiping out (Fatimid, Byzant, HRE) stack of doom number 8 of a series of several hundred only to find that a new set of stacks o' doom are already trundling their way towards you. In CK1 if you lose your retinues you're stuffed, so you have to be very careful about picking battles. Have a bad king in CK2? Don't worry overly, you'll still have all your retinues and the like to fight the civil war- in CK1 if you have a zero martial king you will have problems because your retinues will be almost non existent. And if you try to fight wars, constant wars in CK1 you'll bankrupt yourself and have to sell all your buildings. While this has changed a bit in CK2 with TOG it's very difficult to lose money, and was impossible (now only rare/ difficult) to lose holdings or buildings. Oh, and the the blobs in CK2, the huge, immovable blobs. I could go on all day. No really, I could. In summary, CK2's complexity is smoke and mirrors designed to give an illusion of complexity. There's very little actual complexity, just a lot of make work interspersed with Oooh Quirky! Hahaha So Funny!! and Reality Breaking Facepalm moments. Courtier kills father, everyone knows she did it. Execution? Tyranny penalty. Imprisonment? Tyranny, as she has no exposed plot. Sense Making? Not a skerrick detected. It's mainly the consequence of designing a game and wanting the player to have lots of bail outs so it isn't Hard and lots of stuff to do so it isn't Boring, but also not to have any Exploits even if they were completely realistic. In CK1 if a duke rebelled and I disliked his traits I'd strip him of his titles and give them to his son, which could be done for no real penalty if done properly. In CK2 that realistic (and more merciful than often) approach results in everyone hating you, because it would be prone to exploits.

I doubt the Chinese could resist the impulse to refuse the extradition anyway, since there's a certain 'man bites dog' irony about them refusing to extradite a political dissident to the US. I doubt there'd be many more popular Americans to the Chinese given how much wind was taken out of the complaints about their hacking with all the revelations of US monitoring.

While I prefer CK1 I wouldn't recommend it unless the person I was recommending it to has very high tolerance for the learning curve and was able to cope with frustration. It's a brutal, unforgiving game that makes CK2 look like a walk in an age restricted park with an escort of heavily armed special forces by comparison. Closest RPG equivalent would be something like Gothic (CK1) vs RIsen (CK2). There's certainly no need to play CK1 first.

Paradox tutorials are always terrible. They just cannot do them. The one for HoI3 manages to be both terrible and in hilariously bad taste. That for CK2 is orders of magnitude better than for CK1 though, which was a single startup 'page', and that game's learning curve was near vertical even if I do prefer it markedly to its flashier, shallower successor. No declaring of war with raised levies is because pretty much the entirety of combat is determined by who has most troops- still, it was far, far worse nearer release. If you could declare war with raised levies you'd either park your troops on top of the provinces you wanted to siege or take the enemy armies out piecemeal before they can unite, making war (even more) trivial (than it is).

Returning in that context refers to electoral returns- ie being elected. Technically it would be returning in the other sense as well since most of those areas were at least Caliphate, but I wouldn't usually go back 1000+ years anyway. There's a big leap to go from 20% enriched Uranium, which Iran has, to ~95% enriched which they would need for weapons. It's the sort of thing a highly industrialised country with a lot of manufacturing capacity and expertise could do quickly, Iran, not so much. Unlike North Korea there won't be active technical help available from Pakistan in setting things up, so they'll have to do everything themselves. Really though, if a quick, peaceful solution was desired the supply of pre enriched uranium from 3rd parties would not have been vetoed. That removes both a solution and any appearance of good faith from negotiations. If the US is going to prevent the importation of enriched uranium then the Iranians only have two options- actually have all the enrichment infrastructure themselves, where it is immune from US veto; or give up on nuclear power totally. Given that they cannot easily import even conventional power equipment number 2 is not really an option even if it did not mean huge loss of face.

If Ion Storm were writing their design docs in french it might explain why DX and Anachronox were delayed, and go some way to explaining Daikatana. The only DA2 gameplay vids I remember had a very poor response- jaggy graphics, big 'anime' style change in combat animations and the like. Pretty sure there were a fair number of stills released first. Anything done in Frostbite should at least look a whole lot better.

Atari is in receivership which may well be the ultimate problem, as some sort of royalties stoush seems likely. I suspect if it was Hasbro then it'd be gone off steam as well, since last time there were problems with Hasbro the D&D games disappeared from everywhere.

But ecept the portraits, BG2 was BG+. That's how a sequel is made. Keep what's good, work on the areas that were problematic, and just add more content. You don't fix things that aren't broken (replacing them with broken things no less), nor you reinvent the wheel making your game unrecognizable.Especially when you are on a tight budget and short time to make the game. See, I agree with you with respect to DAO vs DA2, too much baby was thrown out with bathwater, it was a relatively quick sequel etc. Having said that, there was no need to change the look of the characters from BG1-2 given that the elapsed time between games was not long at all, and for most of them you'd barely be able to recognise them unless you already knew they were the same person. For DA3 though? It's a new engine so change is inevitable, Morrigan is at least recognisable and, to be honest, 'jaw too manly' reads rather like the old Internet Standards 'elbows too pointy, 2/10' trope which is- even though it's currently one of the most overused terms on the internet- passable as misanthropy.

Doesn't seem that much different than "DA3 vs TW3, which is better and why? Discuss!", currently to be found in forums Obsidz, to be honest. In any objective sense it's all a bit silly and trivial, but then it's not like much if any serious business internet discussion is going to alter the world either.

That was blocked because the nuclear program is an excellent excuse for getting sanctions onto an enemy who is antagonistic to you and all your regional allies. Remove the nukular threat and it gets very difficult to justify sanctions, and you end up with a Cuba type situation where nobody else bothers. Can't say that I really agree with a lot of other stuff either. Turkey is not the natural leader, it's not Arab, is an old colonial power not remembered overly fondly and has a recent history of secularism that is at odds with the current tide, even if their current leader is a mild(ish) Islamist. Egypt is the closest thing to a natural leader in the Arab world/ middle east. As a member of NATO Turkey does not need nukes, and the idea of the Muslim Brotherhood or the house of Saud having nukes is every bit as bad an idea as the Iranians having them, in fact one of the main reasons for not wanting Iran to have them is so that if they do get them Saudi will probably feel they have to. The Sunni gulf states have already tried to topple Iran once, via proxy Saddam, while even in Bahrain at present no one except the Khalifas is saying that Iran is doing anything, and that in a country where the shia majority is being oppressed without either (western) comment nor sanction- even active support from Britain in terms of riot gear, gas, monitoring equipment, sniper rifles etc. And I'm less than convinced that democracy is some sort of default state of affairs, most of the elections in the ME are returning islamist parties to power, which are by definition neither secular (nor even, by definition, pluralist) nor particularly in favour of freedom except as it is defined in the(ir interpretation of the) Koran. I have no problems with Iran seeking nuclear weapons despite its ramifications as given their strategic situation it would be eminently sensible to do, though I am unconvinced it is what they are actually doing since it's the same people as insisted that Saddam had WMDs. It's as likely that they've got sick of having to sell their unrefined oil for a relative pittance then reimport refined stuff at a premium because they are blocked from increasing their refining capacity/ maintaining what they have, and nuclear power gives them that power irrespective.

Oh dear, legal troubles. BG2EE delayed, BGEE no longer for sale on Beamdog (still is on Steam though).

I do wonder if people complained about the new looks of Jaheira, Imoen, Viconia et alia in BG2 vs BG1 as if the sky was falling. At least it seems that Morrigan has put some clothes on, she always made me feel cold wandering around the world in that get up.

Logically, it cannot be. You, or any individual voter, have effectively no responsibility because you have effectively no influence. 1 vote in 60 million for you, 1 in 300 million for an american, 1 in 4 million for me. But people buy into the notion that they have influence over elections because collectively we do and politicians play to that, people like to feel important and involved, and for the health of the system itself it is important for people to feel engaged rather than apathetic. It's human nature again, really.

Gamersgate will have a better deal on D&D titles, inevitably. They frequently sell the GOG version bundle for ~$7. Might snag a backup of System Shock 2 for $5, got a disk but it is a 14 year old disk.