Zoraptor

What is a drop of rain, compared to the storm? What is a thought compared to a mind? Our unity is full of wonder that your tiny individualism cannot even conceive.

It certainly would. Best you can do most of the time is draw inferences from things like the total shipped, as you know that if there are additional shipments then the bulk of the initial one must have sold and the publisher will happily tell you about it too since it's Good News, else it's all trawling through quarterly reports and the like or VGChartz style guestimates. For DA2 the only really solid numbers were the numbers shipped and the very high number of pre-orders, plus the admission that retailers weren't interested in restocking it.

It didn't sell 2 million+ copies though, that's Vologic- it shipped 2 million copies and that there was never a DA2: Ultimate Edition specifically due to lack of retailer interest, presumably because that initial shipment did not shift. That's in contrast to DAO which had at least four shipments to retail. DA2 may have done OK financially due to the short dev cycle reducing costs but it had a more negative reception both critical and fan, and sold worse than DAO- which was Bioware's most successful title without having much artificial CoD crowd appeal.

In contrast, I'm not a fan of how ME2 was structured- I just don't like "collect all your party members and do loyalty quests" which is what most of that game consists of. I also rather like the Citadel mini missions, lack of extraneous time filler like planet scanning, better (well, actually semi existent) RPG elements and think most of the incidental characters in ME3 are fine or above, quality wise. Obviously, I loathe Kai Leng as I have a functioning brain stem, and find things like Allers pretty rubbish as well but I have little complaint about the rest. In general I found the missions in ME2 to be either repetitive or irrelevant, and all too often the storyline involved Family Angst Syndrome which ended up setting my teeth on edge. I do applaud the attempts at doing different things like the Thane or Samara loyalty missions, but they felt... out of place really, contrived. It's probably a bit of retrospective thinking in that I think that ME2 would have been far better as part of a series if there'd been fewer companions and more story development. I was also playing on insanity, and ME2 has... some issues with that and 'timed' type missions. I did the Grissom Academy level last night while waiting for the rugby to start, and there was plenty of variable height and the like there, and it had those 'walker' bots. No solar polarisation or whatever it was though. Mainly I'm finding ME3 to have far less of a popamole feeling than ME2- weapons and powers actually seem to have some oomph behind them rather than being plink plink, enemies use some nice new abilities and the net result is far less of a repeating pattern of pop out, power/ shoot for 2 seconds, hide for 5 seconds, repeat until enemies dead that 90% of ME2's missions reduced to.

Territorial waters are 12 miles, not one mile, the claim is (unless every english translation is wrong) that the jet was hit at 13 miles but crashed 1 mile inside Syrian waters (ie at the 11 mile mark). If we take the Turkish version as correct then- at minimum- the jet was heading back towards Syrian waters, not away at the time it was hit. Really though, there are a bunch of stuff that makes little sense about the Turkish version of events. A recon version of a jet should have a very good electronic and countermeasure system which, if patrolling near a known conflict zone, should be active and working. It should easily be able to detect the SA2/3/6 launchers that make up the bulk of the Syrian AA missile defence, it's very difficult to credit that a recon version of a jet from a NATO country could not detect such 1970's era systems. The immediate response should have been to run at max speed as most Syrian missiles are relatively short range and can be simply outrun. Even if we assume that the F4 was travelling at only around cruising speed, say 900km/h since it makes the maths easy, it ought to get 1km further away from Syria every 4s. The official Turkisk sequence of events is not outright impossible and bits of it are likely true, but overall and in the important bits it is very unlikely. Far more likely is that Turkey was trying to Gary Powers the Syrian coast, or the Russian base at Tartus.

I'm playing ME3 as well, having polished off a renegade playthrough of ME2 I'd had on the backburner. It's a real shame there are so many major storyline mis-steps in it, as the base gameplay, mission design and the like is streets ahead of either preceding ME.

It has a page there, but unfortunately you cannot actually buy it from there. GG do that quite frequently for games that they cannot sell any more- if you already own it it looks like a completely normal product page but if you do not already own it there is no "buy" button, just a "notify on release".

That Gamersgate bundle has it- though it's certainly too steep a price now (it was ~$6 for weeks just before Atari lost the distribution). GG used to have a DRM free MoW for $10 as a standalone purchase, but that does not seem to have resurfaced along with the two big collections.

They've admitted the plane crashed in Syrian waters and their story really doesn't make any sense- as if their plane was in international airspace and heading away there is no likely way it could crash in Syrian waters; physics/ inertia and avoidance tactics say that it should only get further away from Syria, not closer. There've also been media reports in Turkey suggesting that the turkish military is incorrect in its version. The Syrians claim they shot it down with AAA, ie basically a very big machine gun, and a short range weapon. That would actually fit where the plane was found better than Turkey's version, and give a reason why they fired (ie it was so close as to be considered an imminent threat).

First part certainly may be true and despite standard MMOs being Vogel's primary speciality it could be non MMO and non RPG. That hasn't exactly been Beth's strong suit though and their big earners are their standard broad but shallow RPGs. Outside that even Rage (let alone Brink, Rogue Warrior, even Star Trek going back a bit) of their non RPGs have done below expectations. I don't think the second would be a major factor though. If that were a concern it would be doubly so for TES, as that's still their flagship property.

The MP I've heard they're definitely going to have is MultiPlatform, but if they're going for that MultiPlayer seems likely too. Triss and Geralt, co-op, kinect multiplay...

The Turkish plane was within Syrian air space and thus fair game, despite all the obfuscation and posturing associated with the event. That was tacitly admitted when the Turks found the plane within Syrian territorial waters, though that particular fact never really got reported much, for some reason.

Oh god yes. Is there any game maker less original than Bethesda? (Sensible money: Fallout Online)

On the other hand I've never understood the love for the hotel level. Sub Thief 1 in terms of atmosphere/ gameplay, sub Shining plot. Oh well, opinions.

Russian and Polish translation sounds good in principle, although it being handled by distributors, which in this case almost certainly means 1C/Cenega, sounds less so, as many Polish/Russian players will likely agree. Wouldn't CDP be more likely for Poles in this case, based on the game being on GOG already?

Depends what you mean by that, really. Germany has the benefit of being the largest economy in Europe and having had monetary policy in Europe reflect its economic realities rather than the larger european one. PIIGS would not be in the shape they are now (or at least not in as bad a shape) if they didn't have exchange rates and the like set to reflect Germany's economy rather than their own. That's the inherent limitation of having a single currency without a single economy and overall fiscal policy so it isn't really Germany that is to blame, but it does (well, did, now that the whole south of Europe is imploding and needing help) get the benefits of the single currency without the drawbacks for a long time. It's like what would have happened if there were a "South Pacific dollar". Australia (and to a lesser extent New Zealand) would do fine out of it, but Fiji/ Tonga/ Samoa would be completely stuffed as NZ's high interest rates and Australia's mining boom pushed the currency way above what their economies could handle. As for the US, the problem there is that the economic growth is still rather tepid and being funded by extensive borrowing, zero interest and money printing- none of which are sustainable in the long term and are only really viable to the extent they are being used because the dollar is the world's reserve currency and no one has interest in crashing it as the collateral damage would be catastrophic.

Oh you know, the usual stuff. Euro crisis, debt burdens, unemployment, quantitative easing; dogmatic ideological responses propping up banks that were so economically cretinous to believe that house prices could never fall etc. Fundamentally, the west doesn't really make much stuff any more- the few places which do like Germany are doing rather better- and has relied on financial services and housing for economic growth while buying fripperies on credit. That's unsustainable and was always going to result in a violent correction at some point. High unemployment and slashed benefits result in lots of poor, bored and angry people which is not exactly a great formula for stability and tolerance.

I'd be absolutely ecstatic to be wrong. Unfortunately for this case we evolve per Darwin, not Lamarck.

I think we'll get a good idea of how much religion and a bunch of -isms really matter in modern western society as the economic stuff continues to unravel. Last time there were really big economic upheavals in europe, well within the last century, we got a whole bunch of extremely unpleasant stuff based on/ using as an excuse religion and isms. In such times anyone demonstrably different is at risk, and always has been. At present a lot of such concerns are ratcheted down by the warm enveloping embrace of the western lifestyle- it's difficult to be Angry when you're comfortable, own iDevices, go out for meals and entertainment several times a week and have everything around you designed to reinforce your sense of superiority. Revolution is for arab asteriskholes, not nice western places that have already evolved to the apex of civilisation, basically, but as soon as you have enough people questioning whether the west really is the apex of civilisation we'll learn whether things have changed fundamentally or it's the same as always just with a nice veneer over the top. Personally, and not without regret, I'm completely in the latter camp. As soon as the comfort goes the basic human tenets of wanting to blame/ punish/ take stuff off Other People will reassert itself in a lot of places.

If possible, I would not have launched the KS on a Friday. There's a reason why politicians like to announce bad news on Fridays and good news on Mondays/ Tuesdays, and many of those factors apply to something like a KS launch as well. Apart from that, seems like a fairly typical successful kickstarter.

There are things like working out who Therese and Jeanette are ahead of time or wondering about how the taxi driver knows so much that could count as puzzles too- though they're more obfuscated (ahahaha) storyline elements.

There's no place to get SS2 legally except 2nd hand. EA owns bits of the game and LGS's insurance company owns other bits and until that is resolved it won't be sold. I've played through the game with the new patch with no problems, so ADAOB ought not to have any either.

They'd be looking at a distributor rather than a publisher, a distributor basically fabricates the DVDs, boxes etc then sends them out to shops and that is the extent of their input. As an example EA manufactures and distributes Valve's physical copies of games. P:E doesn't really strike me as the sort of game you'll see on shelves at Gamestop though, so probably little chance of any retail release anyway.

Yep. That's the burden of existing in a proper judicial system, there's an absolute obligation on those responsible for making and enforcing the rules to follow them themselves. That is perhaps the single most basic and important tenet of the modern legal process and is the underlying bedrock of all quality modern judicial systems. Its abuse is a significant sign of a poorly designed or corrupt judicial system, or one that has been co-opted to serve a particular purpose. Since the prosecutors didn't follow the rules there's zero obligation on Assange to walk himself willingly into a corrupt show trial- but if it were a model prosecution, or even a typical one, there would be. In fact, and ironically, that sort of thing is exactly the sort of reasoning Britain uses when granting asylum to people like Boris Berezovsky.

If he were anyone else the initial dropping of the case would have been The End. Facts are: 1) The allegations were delayed, and made only after the two women found out he had not been exclusive. 2) There was no evidence of animus (rather the opposite in fact) after the incidents but prior to the two women meeting 2a) There was an attempt to hide that lack of animus post accusation, via deleting tweets/ facebook postings 2b) One of the women tried to delete her "how to get revenge on a man" webpage which included making false accusations against him. 3) The initial prosecutor did not want to proceed as the case was so weak but got replaced by someone who had sponsored the legislation used 4) The prosecution leaked everything possible against all precedent- and legality- in what can only have been a deliberate policy. That by itself would get the case terminated in any sensible jurisdiction and criminal charges brought against the prosecutory authorities that did the leaking. 4a) There was various other malfeasance, like the police interviewer knowing one of the accusors well 5) They allowed Assange to leave Sweden- they did not require him to surrender his passport at any time despite the accusations 6) They then issued an Interpol Red Notice, generally used for international drug dealers and the like 7) The single piece of impartial evidence- ie not he said/ she said- that would have supported the accusation lacks his DNA. In summary: yep, the Swedish case is a joke, though a bad one. In any sensible system the prosecution would be facing disbarment or sacking, and the charges would be dismissed summarily. Unfortunately due to the way Euro Warrants work the British court cannot even consider the Swedish prosecutors being bent despite the obvious evidence supporting that, as it's just assumed that fellow Euros must be, by definition, Proper. I understand that people don't like Assange, but that's no reason to throw due process out the window. Due process has the absolute requirement that those responsible for enforcing the laws -ie Sweden's judicial and police authorities- themselves abide by those laws, something they've singularly failed at with all the leaking they've done. Sexual impropriety is the perfect crime to accuse people of, as it brings out all the smoke = fire instincts so that you see plenty of people taking the mere accusation as fact, and as evidence of guilt in and of itself. An accusation by itself is not evidence of anything. Amazingly- as if on cue and to illustrate a point- Barack Obama just walked in and punched me on the nose.