Zoraptor

It's almost certainly not a steam key, but a paradox key. You need it (if desired, optional) for paradox forum registration as it gives access to restricted forums like tech support, and to use the metaserver for multiplayer. I bought my CK II on steam... got a steam key and redeemed it on my steam client. It has been working so far I don't use steam of course- as it's an affront to all that is good in the world and a vile carbuncle on the otherwise baby smooth bottom of PC gaming- but a key which it doesn't want prior to installation/ running will likely be used for the metaserver/ paradox forums. If it were the steam code itself then she wouldn't even be able to install/ run it without having inputted it prior, as you did. My properly DRM free copy bought from the rich, verdant, oppression free fields of GG came with a key, for example, which I've never had to use; sadly in large part because I found CK2 extremely disappointing overall (actually one of the most disappointing games I've ever played) and a pale shadow of the gleeful anarchism of the original game.

It's almost certainly not a steam key, but a paradox key. You need it (if desired, optional) for paradox forum registration as it gives access to restricted forums like tech support, and to use the metaserver for multiplayer. All Paradox games take ages to load- there are thousands of files loaded at startup and to help with modding most are in plain text or can be altered. For something like EU3 you can also end up with 70MB+ plain text save game files that take ages to load towards the end of the game.

Yes, but one of them has an uninterrupted history from, effectively, Baibars in 1260 to the present day while the other's possession terminated either 2500 or 2000 years ago, depending on how you measure it. That's not like Joseph Bloggstein turning up in Frankfurt in 1946 expecting to get his old property back having fled it in 1933, that's Joseph Bloggstein's great great (x100) grandson turning up and expecting his property back. Under those rules Italy has a legitimate claim to western Europe and the Mediterranean littoral, and I'd rather like north Germany, England, Denmark, Palestine, Switzerland, Italy and southern France back. Nope, Balfour Declaration was 1917, during WW1 and was, as with their (contradictory, who'd a guessed) promises to the arab side, a ploy to get support vs the Ottomans and never intended to be fulfilled, hence British Mandate Palestine, not Israel in 1918. Anyone with any sense does blame the British, and the French, for being- frankly- dishonest colonialist scum who managed the difficult task of asterisking the region up even more than it was with their arbitrary line drawing, contradictory promises, flagrant outright lying and mealy mouthed White Man's Burden justifications for said self interested carve up and associated brutal repression and reliance on even more brutal proxy rulers. After all, it wasn't Saddam Hussein who first gassed Iraq's marsh arabs, it was the British as suggested by... Winston S Churchill, national hero.

Yep. Else, it will be welcome to our new Ethiopian overlords. Which will be fine actually, because in those circumstances we'll all be Ethiopians. "We were there x years ago" is a poor justification because if it's valid then it's a valid justification for pretty much everything. All Euros out of the americas etc etc. Even if it could be a proper argument in some cases it isn't a proper argument in this case. Israel took Solomonic Israel from the Canaanites by a campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide, so logically we should have a look for some extant Canaanites and give the land back to them.

Well, it's not well explained. It can be finniky and sticky. It's hard to get out of combo's once you've started them and can't break your attack to dodge. Not to mention the fact that they have clunky controls for magic, and it's habit of giving you abilities that you don't understand how to use (catching knives on your sword). I kind of presumed Nightshape was asking primarily about the UI (since layout and design was mentioned) rather than the combat? I do agree on the giving abilities you don't know how to use thing though. Last replay I forgot how to level up (!) and (iirc) neither the manual nor the help text mentioned opening the relevant screen while meditating, only opening the relevant screen itself. Didn't take me long to work it out, of course. May have changed with the new version/ tutorial stuff though which is far too big for me to download.

As above, it's true for "little p" poverty where actual food supply is not a problem, but food quality is. Gaza has a bit of a perfect storm in that it gets (cheap, low quality) food aid, it's very densely populated and since those areas there which aren't densely populated are also areas you tend to get shot at if you go then there's little opportunity for exercise. Genuine, "capital P" Poverty where there is difficulty even getting the bare necessities of life is not correlated with obesity though, of course.

I liked Twitcher2 a lot and replayed it recently, but there sure are a lot of things wrong with it as well. Combat was obviously aiming for something like Batman: AA but ended up more like Gothic- certainly not a bad system once you know its quirks, but potentially a real pain while you're learning. QTEs were annoying, not so much the fistfights which were trivial, but the first time going through the Kayran and getting killed after all that annoying tentacle dodging just because you missed a "Press space Bar Now!!!!" prompt was extraordinarily annoying. And there were difficulty spikes reminiscent of Vlad Tepes on a bad day (see Kayran, first fight v antagonist, draug) even once you'd learnt the combat. The alchemy system (meditate to drink part) was good in theory but ended up being unnecessarily restrictive, partly due to the rather stilted UI which was designed more to look pretty than be functional, there was a rather big potential retcon right at the start, the whole engine and approach had changed from the first game etc etc. I liked it a lot overall, but it's certainly not a title where I shake my head when people don't like it.

Kind of meant to reply to this earlier, but wanted to wait until I'd finished MOTB. It's actually quite a difficult question to answer, I still don't really know why I don't like Arcanum for example, it has theoretically everything I should like but... And I'd have to work out why I theoretically like strong storylines and good atmosphere/ world building but like roguelikes and old school low story stuff as well as stuff like, well, MOTB. I guess that if I had to I would say that I tend to like 3 things above all else in games- good mechanics/ gameplay, good atmosphere and a good story line- and that in general most other genres have two out of three of those, but not all three. Something like SMAC or Civ from the strategy side has good mechanics for example, but tend to lack in at least atmosphere (and storyline, though SMAC is about as good at that as it's possible for a strategy title to be). From the fps side, something like STALKER is good on the gameplay side and has excellent atmosphere but... you wouldn't really play it for the storyline. RPGs are about the only genre in which you often get all three things together. So something like BG2 is, at least in theory, just about my perfect game. In reality though I actually like Fallout 2, MOTB and PST at least better than BG2 despite them being objectively weaker than BG2 in what should be the most important area for a game, namely gameplay itself. OTOH Arcanum has good atmosphere and a good story, and gameplay which is, well, not worse than some other games I enjoy yet overall I don't like it much at all. Ultimately it comes down to the rather nebulous and unquantifiable sense of 'immersion' as perhaps the most important factor, the feeling that it's you getting punked by the controller in X16, you getting taunted by SHODAN or you talking The Master to death. But that is not in itself specific to RPGs.

Notorious B.A.D? Sic transit gloria mundi, eh Mr Smalls.

I was talking specifically about the recent, well publicised, incident, as was Farbautisonn from his description. But no, Hamas certainly ain't any shining light for justice and due process and are pretty typical in that regard for an organisation of their type. It's simply that they are within their rights- as historically with most countries- to execute collaborators/ agents provacateur/ spies in times of war without due process.

Hmm. Wrong (Fatah has killed off/ suppressed most of the antagonist factions in WB, much as Hamas has in the GS); yes, but irrelevant as all it does is give Israel far larger buffer strips around palestinian areas; it has far worse access to weapons as Israel controls all the border to a significant depth as opposed to Egypt controlling some of the GS's border; and no, the WB has ~600k people, the GS has 1.2 million and is the most densely populated region on earth. Not a great start there. It's not in Hamas's best interests to spend their time fighting their 'friends', much as it wasn't worth Israel's time fighting the Phalangists and SLA despite them merrily torturing and murdering their way through southern Lebanon for 20 years, or it wasn't worth it for the US to rein in the rightist paramilitaries in Latin America. That's realpolitik for you, and if you're going to criticise one you gotta criticise the other as well. As for the rest, governments gonna govern. Executing agents of a foreign power in times of war is not illegal- I can provide a list as long as your arm of Western examples, should you wish to push the point- and if it weren't Hamas those levies would be called... taxes, levies and the like, without the quote marks. No. Not to the act itself, but to any moral plusage to be gained from it. Israel has an absolute obligation under international law to provide the means of life to its occupied territories, and under international law that is what Gaza is. Failure to do so would be a Crime Against Humanity and is the sort of thing even the US would probably not be able to insulate Israel from. It's also used as a further cudgel to bludgeon and control with as they can, and do, turn stuff off on a whim. Run down the whole area with your blockade, refuse to allow in basic constriction materials or for the palestinians to get money or construct stuff themselves, then claim credit for alleviating the suffering you yourself caused. A great strategy to convince the ignorant, not so much the well informed. Apartheid or Bantustaning are far more accurate accusations. There are massive issues on the WB too, but that is ratcheted down because the Palestinians are far less there population wise and they are corralled into regions surrounded on all sides and in depth by checkpoints, settler only roads, settlements themselves, a 30' wall, and the like.

Yet Steam is often about the only place to have the localised prices- albeit some other places like Impulse/ Gamestop will simply refuse to sell some games at all to certain regions. If steam really wanted to avoid it they almost certainly have the clout to, but it does benefit them, so they won't push it. I'm not in Australia (in NZ, but we tend to get lumped in with them) so I cannot speak directly for Aus, but in the vast majority of cases it is perfectly possible to avoid the localised prices by avoiding steam and using either another DD or a remailer, let alone a key reseller. But a lot of people simply won't do so. That ain't intended to exonerate the publishers though, given that Namco went to court to force regionalisation on TWitcher 2. Of course, I could still buy a non regionalised copy from Gamersgate, even then...

Ignorance and herd mentality, largely. Lots of people think that steam is- literally- the only place to buy from DD and others don't want to make accounts at multiple places or are compulsive about steam achievements or whatever. It's also one of those things where some people get really upset if anyone blames steam for it as "it's the publisher's fault!" only, despite other DD outlets often not having the same differential. Truth is that the situation benefits everyone but the consumer as retail remains relevant, sort of, and both steam and the publishers get more money. Thus, price gouging.

So far as I am aware the only way to get it at the moment is as part of the NWN bundle (which I think only Gamersgate has). That is of course a bundle rather than a separate download though, and is currently rather expensive considering it has been in the $6 range before. You can get GG to send you email alerts on price drops and the like, since they are having a Thanksgiving sale- despite being Swedish- that supposedly extends right to christmas it may well be part of that at some point.

Your government hates you. It's price gouging, pure and simple. Nothing to do with their (or our) government.

Sports games have a huge advantage (as part of not being "creative") in that they are tied to a reality that changes with, well, reality. If you want the updated team rosters, team colours or even in some cases teams themselves you need to get the updated game. There's very little creative with regards to them as- by definition- they're not supposed to be creative, they're supposed to model a reality.

I make pizza 2-3 times a month, usually two at a time. I tend to make the bases myself though unlike Cant I tend to use a bread maker rather than the traditional method- though I do make Naan the traditional way once or twice a year. The two usual toppings set ups I use for pizza are: Plum or Apricot sauce base- I've also used Tamarind for the more orientally inclined Blue cheese Tuna Leek or red onion Whatever veg I have available (usually 2+ of bell pepper, broccoli, cauliflower, peas or courgi/ zucc) Sometimes spinach and feta; or chilli peppers. Tomato base Bacon Sardines Capers Gherkins Veges as above Olives Good old fashioned tasty cheddar cheese as I prefer the extra taste to mozzarella.

That's pretty typical of western democracies though. Our government got elected by 26% of the population due to a low turn out and we don't have most of the US specific issues, ie minor party votes usually will count and have a point. Wikipedia (heh, it gives our historical turn out as 89% and it was way less last election) gives Australia's historical turn out as 81% despite it being illegal not to vote, for example.

Have to admit that when I played MOTB I cheated to give myself the full party roster due to not wanting to miss anything, and it is only one character extra. The game sold fine, though not blockbuster numbers. Their problem was continued funding for the other game. I don't believe that is correct ? http://www.shacknews...s-to-break-even EA said that the game sold above expectations, which is probably the closest you can get to an informed opinion on its objective success. I think the estimate from the governor was probably accurate in terms of how many they needed to sell to get through to the MMO's release and keep the company alive, rather than being a realistic expectation of actual sales.

That is largely confusing symptoms with causes and treatments. 'Money printing' didn't work well in Japan because the population is (generally) abstemious and would rather save than spend, as such providing them with excess cash doesn't tackle one key problem, that of low internal demand. Thus 'printing money' was not inflationary there, but neither did it cause much if anything in the way of growth and henceyou you could have the theoretically antithetical processes of both providing cheap money and having deflation at the same time. The response in a country like the US where there is a lot more historic emphasis on spending should (should) be significantly different, and cause the classic response of both growth and inflation. Certainly there's no evidence of deflation in the US, quite the opposite. I tend to compare the value of currencies against my own. On that metric Japan's has barely changed (and on a more objective measure is at historic highs against pretty much all their major trading partners; same as here) while the USD has lost around 30% of its value. It could be argued- and I'd agree largely- that the USD is still overvalued in absolute terms but the fact remains that the supposedly similar situations between Japan and the US have resulted in a very high Japanese Yen but a comparatively weak USD. Simply put Japan's response to stimulus spending is atypical and cannot be used as a yardstick for expectations elsewhere. Except, ironically, China which is likely to hit exactly the same sort of issues at some point.

Volo's source is an EA press release stating numbers shipped. Yours is VGChartz. Irrelevant, I'd like to introduce you to inaccurate.

The west only has two takes on Russia; "Oh no the slavic horde coming to crush us!!!" and "hahaha look at that funny Boris dance hahaha Russia so funny!!!". Been the same since Ivan Grozny.

It isn't really appropriate to compare the two. Japan's problems are fundamentally different from those in the US- the Japanese oversave rather than overspend, their currency is greatly overvalued and they have a historical problem with deflation. That's pretty close to the exact reverse of the situation in the US. The thing is that- even as someone who drops off the scale of the political compass at both the left and libertarian ends- it would be eminently sensible to actually run a government like a business. The thing is of course is that politicians gonna politicise and, as always, telling people that they can have their cake (entitlements for the left, tax cuts for the right) and eat it too will always win more elections than grim realism. If by some miracle a properly responsible bunch were voted in they'd have to deal with large scale historic debt immediately putting them at a disadvantage for being re-elected and inevitable myopic populism and promises to reverse everything from the opposition.

I am onto Storm of Zehir now, having left MOTB for last. I'd largely forgotten how much I liked some of the ideas behind SoZ and I certainly hope Eternity uses some of the better ones, mainly the overland map exploration as opposed to the OC/ BG style static locations. I actually enjoyed the OC a lot more than I thought too. Up to the Old Owl Well ain't great, with a trite storyline and repetitive trash mob combat but the last two acts are a lot better in terms of pacing and variation. I still hate the AI though as I find it impossible to get a happy medium where characters won't charge off through multiple traps after a random enemy miles away nor passively stand still and get chopped to pieces.

The obvious thing for MS to do is to make the nextbox use 11.1; or a win8 SP1 exclusive 12 having ported 11.1 to 7 to show how nice they are. If all the new cross platform games need a win8 exclusive DX version then the push to upgrade gets a lot stronger than just for '3d'. That didn't happen last time but if they are serious about trying to unify operating systems across hardware and bringing Live to PCs etc and all the stuff they seem to be serious about then that is what they will do.