Zoraptor

Russia? Maybe if they could reabsorb Belarus and Ukraine (and some of the -stans as well), but the only one which is even a slight possibility is Belarus post Lukachenko. Else they'll just stay treading water and dropping back further relative to China. They only have one card (energy) to play on Europe, and they can only play it sparingly lest they give enough incentive for Europe to seek real alternatives. Big thing from this US election is how much of a drag the Tea Party is on the Republicans. Romney actually did well campaigning, and far better than I expected him to, but while the Tea Party may be great at mobilising a certain section of the party base and raising money a lot of their policies are anathema to the swing vote moderates who are essential to actually winning. In particular the Akin/ Mourdock 'controversies' while it may have actually appealed to some core republican backers cannot but have damaged Romney by association with precisely the demographics he needed to win.

Volourn is a dirty commie! What would Fidel Castro and Ernesto Guevara have achieved without their shadowy PR master delivering cutting barbs against their enemy? Ultimately guns and bullets are secondary to reducing your enemy to a quivering mess with a well delivered insult. I also hear that Fidel credits his oratorical skills to input from said shadowy revolutionary presence...

One of the later ones actually had no or disc check only DRM on its retail release. One of the reasons Ubi's DRM policy was so stupid was that it seemed to be almost completely random in type and implementation. Most of their always on games seem to have got offline patches at some point though.

I largely agree. What DA2 should have been was the BG2 to DAO's BG. What made BG2 so successful as a game was that it took the stuff BG did well and kept it, and improved the stuff that BG did poorly. When it came to DA2 far too much baby was thrown out with the bathwater.

Yeah, I don't have any qualms about reliability, it was more about whether it'd aged well. Anyway, picked up the first Crusader game plus Stronghold, Nox, WC2, Theme Hospital and LoL1/2, so I ended up spending a takeaway meal rather than a cup of coffee.

"I was young and needed the money"

That would have been Mass Effect. Hence being commonly called the "Mass Effect wheel"... Technically, Fahrenheit/ Indigo Prophecy at least had a dialogue wheel earlier, though ME was certainly the first Bioware game to use it- and it has to be admitted that "Fahrenheit/ Indigo Prophecy wheel" does not really trip off the tongue as a description.

I probably wouldn't be surprised at all, on a fundamental level people like stuff that affirms their beliefs and stuff that makes them feel comfortable. Telling people that they have to make hard decisions now is almost always going to lose out to someone saying that everything will be all right if you carry on as usual, because one is difficult and the other is easy. The whole debt crisis is a pretty good example of this. Some people were very worried about the mounting debt and over reliance on certain economic sectors and ideas years ago while others thought they'd discovered the secret to permanent prosperity. We now know well who was right, and who was believed. I may not have liked Helen Clarke (the previous NZ prime minister) very much but she at least made sure we did both parts of the Keynes equation and paid down debt in the good years of the early to mid noughties rather than raise debt even more, for which she should be applauded far more than she has been.

I rather suspect that the proportion of scientific fraud hasn't changed much over history, it's just that we've got better at detecting it now since science is much more available. We even had two (no doubt left wing, given their target) schoolgirls prove that a theoretically blackcurrant juice based mass market drink made by a multinational ('Ribena') was flagrantly lying about having vitamin C in it, and they were 14 of something. It's hardly like 'scientific fraud' is cut along any sort of ideological lines- plenty of 'rightist' scientists swore blind that there was no link between smoking and cancer for decades and would use every statistical trick in the book as evidence. Somehow, I suspect that is Different though.

I don't think anyone is expecting you to be swayed by anything, much as there is effectively zero chance of anyone who liked DA2 being swayed by you. Likers gonna like same as haters gonna hate. Convincing someone that their opinion is Wrong! happens very rarely. You'd go far better simply presenting why you dislike it rather than present it as objective fact since you won't lose a significant number of people instantly by that approach. There are things that were poor about DA2 which probably do meet the criteria for objectivity such as enemy spawn and asset reuse, two issues I've never seen defended in anything other than a facile manner (ie saying that they were done to cut down on time/ money resources). Some people, and not a tiny number at that, do genuinely like things like the characters and the story and as such they cannot suck objectively- you can still present why you didn't like them. OTOH Is probably just a touch, a smidgeon, a tad overstated in the reverse direction.

Anyone played the Crusader: No Subtitle games recently? I always meant to play them back in the day, but never got around to them and wondering if I should.

Yeah, with the strength of the religious right in the US it's pretty much inevitable that scientists will be seen as 'leftist' because from their perspective reality itself is leftist. There's also the plethora of bought and paid for corporate pseudo science which is anything but leftist. It's a lot more balanced outside the US. Really though it's all just labels people can hide behind so as not to actually address issues. "You raise an otherwise cogent point, sir, but I'm afraid you're a leftist/ rightist/ whatever and as such I win again"

I have been playing Pharaoh/ Cleopatra which I bought on a whim from the mighty GOG and it's the first game for ages that I'm unreservedly enjoying. It's not that it's a perfect game by any stretch but it gives a beautiful warm feeling that reminds me of weeing in a wetsuit Better Days. I'm meant to be playing NWN2 which has stalled after I had no time for a couple of days. I'm pretty close to the trial so I've actually got through most of the slog, so there's no doubt I'll go back to it.

Isn't your example really two checks, though? The [bluff] to believe I'm the Great Zappo and then the [intimidate] of arm ripping? Hmm, problem is that that requires- presumably- two skill checks rather than one which makes it fundamentally more difficult than any single check, and to most purposes you should be using the non existent "Zappo's" intimidate rather than your own. Using an "intimidation" option requires that you both convince the target that you're capable of doing the violence and convincing the target that you're capable of doing the violence, in effect bluffing an identity is the same and not twice as difficult. Dunno really, I'm not particularly happy with the D&D diplomacy/ bluff/ intimidate system on a fundamental level anyway.

Yes, i already tried this and it not worked. OpenGL maybe? IIRC IWD2 used it for some acceleration and the original did not. If so it may end up getting fixed by a driver update, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

hmm. In the order they occur to me, not in actual preference 1. Cracker Not a weak episode in the lot and two of the most memorable characters of all time from Robert Carlyse and Lorchan Crannitch, let alone Fitz himself. 2. Blackadder Still as funny now as they were first time 3. The Muppet Show Watched them as a kid, also enjoyed them as a somewhat older kid 4. A bunch of documentaries Ken Burns' documentary on the US Civil War, Line Of Fire, History of Warfare etc. I'm just glad our History Channel still has this stuff as well as Ancient asterisking Aliens. Yeah, not technically a single series but I laugh at list making convention. 5. Red Dwarf (mid run series) ditto Blackadder. Went on too long and had a rough start, but the middle is uniformly excellent. 6. The Wire/ Breaking Bad Both beautifully constructed and well written. On an episode by episode basis The Wire would probably win out, but BB's high points are absolutely brilliant so I can't really separate them. 7. Blake's 7 Have to pick it, given my avatar. Avon is the best anti hero ever, and the series was hugely influential. Well, in the small niche of dark space opera, at least. Honourable mentions to House of Cards (Ian Richardson/ Francis Urqhart ftw), Dangermouse, Top Gear, Time Time, Farscape, Buffy/ Angel, Between the Lines, Homicide: LotS, mid run ST: TNG. More no doubt that I'm missing.

I generally agree but it is context dependent, for example... is not a good example. In the real world, sure, a 100lb kid ain't going to frighten anyone, but in a world with magic that 100lb kid may actually be able to rip your arms off- and being a wizard capable of doing that is potentially something you could bluff. If I claim to be The Great Zappo who will rip your arms off (with the power of my mind) then the 'intimidation' aspect is dependent on bluffing the identity. In any case there still needs to be some way to differentiate "I'll kill you" (genuine intention) from "I'll kill you" (threat, but not intended to be carried out whether bluff or intimidation) as for all the talk of bad design there will be inevitable situations where designer intent and player intent clash.

That's 2e where lower AC = better rather than 3e where higher is better. I've been replaying NWN2 myself and not run into any problems with AC. Lots of scripting/AI issues, but no outright bugs.

I pretty much agree with Gorth- I don't like tags on principle but I'm not sure there's a better option. You need to effectively communicate to the player what their character 'knows' via their skills and that is not just a matter of writing stuff clearly, it is also a matter of player vs designer intentions, making sure that the character's skills are primary rather than the player's ability to discern what a designer intends. I may not know what a Blood Eagle is, but if I'm playing 'Ivar the Boneless' he certainly knows and knows that it would be an effective threat; similarly Maurice de Talleyrand would be more effective at deciding on a decent diplomatic option than I would be. Tags do so effectively and show it in a way that everybody understands implicitly. Else you can end up with something equally as obvious and facile as having the tags in the first place- "do it or I'll be mildly unpleasant to you!!!" vs "Would you like your lungs to remain inside your ribcage, hmm?". The trouble is that without all the cues people normally have when communicating- facial, audio etc- it is very easy to misunderstand what is meant even if you are both intelligent and have good intentions. Thus the very common misunderstandings on forums with respect to intent. Some of the concerns can be alleviated a bit. For bluff vs real threat you could have a single response treated as an 'intimidation', with the option to choose which was meant coming in a subsequent conversation node- after all, a good bluff or threat should by definition be delivered identically to a genuine intent. The drawback is that that may get tiresome if needed too often. You could also replace 'poor' persuade options with 'better' or 'optimal' ones seamlessly, though that is heading a bit down the railroad route. I'd say that most of the drawbacks of tags in terms of metagaming could be solved by having proper consequences for failing dialogue checks. Try a [wisdom] option against someone wiser than you and you may well convince them you're actually more stupid than if you pick a standard option, for example. That approach retains the strengths of a tag system but means that tag chasing is not an automatic choice.

Ironically you could watch the 3rd party debate on RT and Al-J, of all places. Everyone should use multi-member STV as the electoral system. Politicians hate it, thus it's awesome. It's also beautifully capitalist, in that having multi members for the same area make them compete against each other for things that actually count rather than just pander to their 51% target group every X years.

I'm sure they'll use Win8. They'll also integrate the new version of Live into desktop Win8 etc. I think it's pretty much a given that they'll try and absorb/ combine PC and NextBox gaming this cycle- which is a whole lot more sensible than their previous approach of trying to suffocate PC gaming and handing the whole system to a competitor as a consequence. Doubt they'll use ARM though, as its main advantage (low power draw) is not an advantage in a non-mobile device since the trade off for it in sheer processing power is probably too much. OTOH there might not have been RROD problems with ARM due to their low draw/ heat output. Also, if they want to unify PC and nextbox gaming having both running on similar architecture makes that easier.

It's usually the TOC that goes if it's writing at a hard poweroff, not the spindle. Still an annoying problem, but it doesn't actually trash the hard drive as the data is still there, it's just that the HD then doesn't 'know' where anything is.

A full 1/3 of those are governmental mouthpieces every bit as much as much as RT. BBC is cowed by potential funding cuts and says whatever the brit government wants on foreign policy (see for example their censoring of the Syrian rebels using unwitting suicide bombers, throwing prisoners off apartment blocks etc). Al-J is outright owned by Gulf State Oligarchs and it's absolutely obvious with their editorial slant- their Kalifah pals in Bahrain barely rate a mention with their loveable doctor torturing hijinks. Anyone who doesn't think that western media gets stampeded into stupidity and facile lead following should think back to the lead up to Gulf War II and exactly how much hapless flag waving, soundbite parroting and absolute and total lack of critical faculty was on show there. Hasn't changed, won't change and given how much more beholden media are to groupthink and concensus in an internet age where Outrage!!!!1!! at non conformist articles can be mustered by a few facebook or twitter postings it is unlikely to change, ever. Which is absolutely and totally how politicians like it since it means they don't face effective scrutiny. Sheesh, look at the Beeb's coverage of the "pro-democracy" demonstrations in Russia. No comment whatsoever on all the Soviet and Russian Imperial Flags. People waving those aren't really 'democratic' in the soppy hand wringing western sense, yet they're made out to be brave heroes of freeeeedom. All you'd get if they were elected is some ossified fossil like Brezhnev Zyuganov and they'd be even less democratic. And marches an order of magnitude larger in Britain itself somehow got far less coverage. Demonstrations in Beirut? Saad Hariri's party and the asterisking Phalange, who were probably the worst bunch in a conflict notable for having a lot of bad bunches (for example, see Sabra and Chatila; their particular brand of nutbartastic ethno-religious zealotry was largely responsible for civil war in the first place), yet somehow you got the impression that it was some sort of unified Lebanese response and one of the Phalangist leaders got a patsy interview by the beeb. You'd also not have the slightest inkling that there's still fighting going on in Libya, with the glorious freedom loving ex rebels levelling another city with their heavy weapons because according to the beeb et alia everyone in Libya actually hated Gaddafi. It's all narrative based fairy tale telling of good guys and bad guys, and anything that doesn't fit the preprepared script gets dropped like a rock.

Yeah, they've mentioned it multiple times including when they inked the deal, that's how I knew about it in the first place. I don't really have a problem with it either since they were upfront about it. If there isn't something on RPS in the next few days it would probably mean they've got a do not criticise clause in the adserver contract, but so far as I am aware that's standard practice even for something like Google Ads.

Ironic really, since RPS's ads are all (well, for the moment at least, can't imagine anyone there would be at all happy at them shafting one of their contributors) served via Eurogamer. I presume that is why they are using their personal blogs for it rather than RPS itself.