Zoraptor

Is that really Ken Levine? He looks suspiciously like Homo Erectus. He's remarkably well preserved since his SS2 days, barely changed in appearance at all. Funny thing is, if you blocked out the pictures I would almost certainly have picked the other two (might have gone Spector for Levine) but I would have picked Todd Howard for Avellone's quote, since it's almost exactly the excuse used by Beth for their lack of coherent story- even if it is probably meant rather differently here.

Well, it isn't a certainty, but equally it isn't false. Maybe it could have been handled through 'proper' channels, but I really doubt it. All the elected officials are running around defending everything as being perfectly legal and having impeccable legal oversight and all sorts of stuff like that, not lining up to get upset at how the NSA has run roughshod over rights and limitations; and giving the moral equivalent of the "we had to destroy our freedoms to save our freedoms!" speech. On the other hand seeing John Kerry squirm when he said that only terrorists were monitored then the interviewer asking whether all the researchers in China targeted were therefore terrorists was outright hilarious.

That was with respect to WoD's link, not Allan's- which I (probably unsurprisingly) near entirely agree with.

That's us, not Aussie. There's a documentary on the subject called 'Black Sheep'. Australia may have an R18 classification now but it seems to be pretty much exactly the same practically as the old MA15- and due to the way most distribution is handled we get saddled with their classification or lack of it as well.

Meh, there's stuff wrong with academic review, certainly. What he suggests won't fix anything though, and is an obvious ideological tilt at science that he doesn't personally agree with- which equally obviously only gets approved because the system is broken and has __ist bias, while right thinking people struggle manfully to illuminate ignorance and battle Big Science. I'd strongly suspect the whole point of that article is wanting to get reviewers named so he can, well, 'name and shame'. Really though, he wants academic articles, some of which may have the number of people who adequately understand their principle numbering at less than a hundred approved within hours of submitting. That isn't just moronic and a recipe for getting a whole lot of bad blog style papers- approved by someone who's had a bad day perhaps, or dislike the author's name; but at least is getting paid to randomly dislike things rather than doing it for free- in many cases it is literally impossible.

Australia protects youngsters from corruption again, despite new R18 rating. Saints Row IV banned for rewarding alien drug use and, uh, probes of a posterior persuasion.

Yes, though not in a while. It's good, and has the potential to be genuinely excellent, great attention to detail and the game system really fits well. Only real drawback is that the time scale is a bit off (ie all the recognisable characters disappear a bit too quickly) and that's unavoidable.

I don't use 'likes' personally. I tend to think that if you like a post you reply- and there's a difference between liking something and finding it worthwhile. Someone can argue a point that you strenuously disagree with well and that certainly makes it worthwhile even if you can't really like it, because that implies agreement. If I think something posted is worthless or I just don't care enough/ have nothing worthwhile to add then I don't reply, if I care enough or think something is worthwhile then I do (with limitations, I do not read a lot of threads at all). Only times I've really been tempted to 'like' something is humourous stuff like the oh so awesome King Spider in the arachnophobia thread. I am kind of curious about what kinds of posts and threads people 'like' most, and whether it would coincide with my preconceived notions.

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.