Zoraptor

I take embarassing corps or governments as an end to itself, certainly. Can't say I've ever been embarassed by something I should be doing. Wikileaks did filter a lot of their stuff through the papers (Grauniad, NYT and Der Spiegel, iirc) for all the good it did them.

Bradley Manning :smug: Julian Assange :smugger: Both corporates and governments hate stuff which is embarassing or out of their control which whistleblowers are by definition. I struggle to think of a single instance in which it was someone other than the whistleblower who suffered from the whistleblowing and there are persistent attempts (see for example the current one in the US) to make any sort of uncontrolled release of info constructively illegal. You aren't actually going to get governments/ corps acting on leaked stuff if they can possibly avoid it just out of principle.

There were unofficial patches released, but that's all I'm aware of. I believe they have already been integrated into the GOG version.

MS is wildly variable in its reputation. On one hand Bungie was all Halo, all the time which a lot of people there did not like much at all, on the other they were able to buy themselves out of ownership by MS, something you wouldn't see from pretty muich any other publisher. There are practicality aspects though. A standard Obsidian project would have a budget significantly larger than Double Fine raised. At a million dollars a month overall having even a third of Obsidian's previous staff level and you'd be looking at ~8 million needed for a 2 year project. Obsidian ought to get more than DF (depending on how kickstarter holds up and if fatigue sets in) but you'd still be looking at a lot of people losing their jobs. I'm pretty happy with kickstarter as a model- just about anything is an improvement over the current video game business model, and kickstarter is far from the worst replacement- but it cannot fix all ills.

24 Stewardship* is excellent even for a player tutored mid game ruler. That's 9 holdings with no penalty- I was beating the Seljuks without even raising realm levies and still in the black cash wise. It isn't even just the high stewardship as his traits are perfect for stopping civil wars and rebellions, I had ambitious heretic Armenians who still loved him. *That's Basileus Alex, I guess Doux Alex could have lower stats or BGA could differ stats wise from CK2+.

If we're going to wish for something like a genuinely free press (not wealthy individuals' mouthpieces nor, I'd add, governmental ones, like the Beeb, Al-J or RT, though at least their biases are fairly obvious) we might as well go the whole unobtainable hog and wish for governments to be more transparent in the first place. Reality is that power will aggregate, and entities with power at any given time will seek to maintain their power, one way or the other. So long as Anon and similar are kicking over governmental and corporate anthills I don't have any real problem with them, most governments and corporates deserve a good anthill kicking every once in a while, on principle. The 'Anonymous' label is nice for corps/ governments to have a ready-to-use boogeyman for the horrors of freedom and the benefits of the warm embrace of Total Control Society, and nice for hackers who want a bit of attention to be able to self-identify to a group with an existing reputation.

CK2 as Alex Komnenus is pretty close to cheating- he's far and away the best statted historical character I've seen in the game. Not playing CK2 any more though, just got too annoyed at all the minor stuff and it's become apparent there really isn't much gameplay depth beyond makework stuff at the moment. While waiting for my UK remailer to send over ME3 (+Dead Space 2 and Stalker COP, for the same price as getting ME3 alone locally) I've been replaying GTA: SA. Still good fun, but I'll always wish there was a bit more scope for flexibility in the series- having to fight Tubbs in Vice City when the whole situation could and should have been avoided has always annoyed me.

If it's like the PC release it will most likely be 'glitchy' rather than genuinely buggy. As noted previously, it is their first game for console though certification ought to catch major potential issues. Might be a good idea to wait if you'd have problems patching. Hmm. Relative to something like traditional D&D there isn't a whole lot of character differentiation based on 'class'- you can develop as a fighter, a thief/ alchemist or a fighter/ mage, in effect, or a combination of those, with specialisation ultimately being rewarded. In terms of in game Choices and Consequences it's a bout as good as it is possible to get with a fixed storyline. It's also nowhere near as linear as Gorth makes it out to be, though nowhere near as free form as something like Chapter 2-3 in the original game either- more KOTOR as opposed to BG1, I guess. It's what we'd call 'consoley'. Not a button masher though, in fact that's probably why a lot of people had trouble with it as button mashing is a recipe for disaster- I'd compare it to something like Batman: AA mechanistically. It certainly does have some obnoxious QTEs, though this is perhaps because the PCGMR aren't used to them.

Their "one rogue coder" excuse for the state of the engine is about as credible as "one rogue trader" excuses from banks. It just might be technically accurate, but the monumentally borked lack of supervision that allows that to happen is in itself a very significant problem and that can be laid entirely at the feet of management, including Smith and, frankly, everyone right up to and including Spector.

They won't hand him over to the Afghans- that'd mean him getting the long drop, short rope treatment and there isn't a military anywhere that would let that be dished out by foreigners, if it can be avoided. Plus it would almost certainly damage morale, in a situation where the Afghans are well regarded it might not but there's clearly a large section of the US military personnel who do not regard Afghans well, understandably given the nature of the fighting there and the background. Given Haditha, the ability of the US military to deal with such events in a timely and reasonable manner is... questionable, to say the least, but when even a friendly country like Italy cannot get US personnel put on trial for something relatively minor like killing a bunch of people (accidentally) while hotdogging gondola cables in their A-10s there is no prospect of Afghanistan getting that sort of satisfaction and no real point even entertaining thoughts of what would happen if they did.

'Pure' Asari have Asari as both parents, that is mentioned multiple times. Thus they're probably something like snails on the sex front when it comes to homospecial relationships as opposed to the more sexually conventional (to our homocentric worldview, at least) heterospecial relationships. Technically, I should probably look up whether there is a term distinct from hermaphrodite to describe that sort of behaviour but since it's a sci-fi only situation and real world hermaphroditics like snails don't actually boff beetles in reality there almost certainly isn't without resorting to a made up term like paragyny. {additional, since I actually went looking to see if something like heterogyny existed as a term} They speak english. Of course they'll refer to themselves as female there, as that is what they resemble and every human who sees them will use the female pronoun and descrriptors. Just more homocentrism. They clearly reproduce sexually- it is also mentioned that traits of the father are picked up in heterospecial relationships and they clearly are not clones- Liara and Benezia, Samara and Morinth are not identical.

I cant believe they felt compelled to include a transvestite NPC. Seriously, I had no idea the transvestite community had such numbers! I guess hermaphrodites will have to wait until ME4. There's already a hermaphrodite. It's made explicit (hoho) that Asari can be both male or female depending on the circumstance, hence Liara (ME1 romance option) is a hermaphrodite.

Is their tourist slogan The Awesome Bhutan? (Be nice if more places had a National Happiness Index.)

The distributor for RoT- THQ's budget distributor, can't remember their name offhand- only has digital rights for US/ NA. It's weird though, as the expansion/ dlc for RoT (Phileasson's Secret) is not region locked.

I'd put "Ceterum censeo Valvo delandam esse" in my sig but everyone would presume I just hate swedish cars.

Er, really? Seems to me that some variation is a good idea, sit back and wait for your enemies to come and fight you on ground of your choosing means your enemy is dumb, especially if you have to go to them based on the scenario set up. I'm not sure that ME combat can really be described as 'tactical' in any real sense given you're clearly not meant to micromanage your team mates- and not in a world where something with real tactics like JA2 exists. But I cannot see any argument where defending is more tactical than attacking, the tactics are just different.

PC elitisits flock to steam console? Bunch of muppets. Why so many people are so keen to set Valve up as the Lords of PC Gaming given how poorly regarded every other Lord of [Gaming] is regarded is one of the best pieces of evidence that the vast majority of PC elitism is Prius Driver class hipsterism from those with no idea why a gaming system with no central authority is a very very good idea.

Pretty sure there were infinite Krogan at one point in Grunt's recruitment mission (? might have been Mordin's loyalty mission) too, though I guess there would be some justification there given the backstory. That's the only other case I'm reasonably sure of though.

Anonymous hacked them for the lulz, basically. Publishing credit card details is dickish for sure, but it's far less than some would do with the info (like selling them off). Credit card information should never be stored in an easily decryptable form- that's the most basic rule there is and from what I remember Stratfor didn't encrypt at all. That's monumentally stupid.

'Losing' titles would probably be because those provinces were outside your kingdom's rules- if you have holdings in France as King of England they are subject to the succession rules (and other laws) of France not England. If France were using gavelkind then those holdings will be split amongst any surviving sons, whatever the law of England says.

If you haven't played the original Crusader Kings then EU: Rome is probably closest. Sengoku is supposedly even closer but I haven't played that. Yep, I think most of the problems can and will be fixed pretty easily which is largely why I'm still positive overall. I'd tend to make buildings have maintenance costs to force a balancing of high value/ discipline troops vs cash and stop the current situation where if you have the money you build without any thought, and have a province manpower which depletes, effects income, and recovers slowly (effectively, this would be war exhaustion). Then you could have a fairly quick recharge on the levy itself, but not without longer term consequences. The combat itself I think can be fixed easily- making it so that you have to use commanders by ranks (princes> dukes> counts> barons> commoners) is pretty much entirely realistic and would go a long way to making sure that you don't end up with every army commanded by Hannibal, Napoleon and Subotai.

Gave up on my game of CK2 around 1400, united the Gaels so mission pretty much accomplished. The game is... ever so lightly broken, as it stands and from a small sample size (well, there are a lot of people have the same issues going by the Paradox forums, but it is usually people with problems who complain so it's a not unbiased sample), though I still think it has heaps of potential. Problems are: Blobbing. Once critical mass is reached a large empire/ kingdom can roflstomp breakaways. Even something like Scotland breaking away from England post Ed I is practically impossible due to... Battles. There's zero chance of an Agincourt or Crecy or Bannockburn where a significantly smaller force wins. Simple numbers determines the result of just about every battle, though for evenly balanced enemies this is not decisive due to... Levy recharge. Ludicrously fast. Kill that doomstack and it will be back before you're sieged a single province fully. Sieges. Too long. Harlech was the exception, not the rule. I've tended to assault even well defended places lately as, well, fast levy recharge means you can make up the losses quick smart. Never seen the AI assault though. Plots and civil wars cripple small to mid sized kingdoms but don't cripple larger ones to anywhere near the same degree. If blobbing weren't such a problem this might be a minor concern, as it is it just exacerbates blobbing further as blobs jump in to piranha-ise a weaker neighbour while it's split. Enemies pledging. If you're fighting a muslim and he pledges to, say, the Golden Horde your troops march out of every place of theirs you've taken because, well, the sheikdom of Trondheim is now the chiefdom of Trondheim. Want to continue the war? Disband your troops, redeclare war and retake all those holdings Assassinations. Enemy has powerful allies? Assassinate them, their armies will turn around and go home. Enemy pressing a claim for someone else? Assassinate claimant, war ends. Enemy looking to roflstomp you? Spamsassinate, until their xn heir has to break off and fight rebels. Wars are simply too... soft. They don't cost enough in any respect- during the medieval period fighting wars was ruinously expensive, and fighting over the same places for extended periods and denuding them of manpower and wealth would absolutely cripple you long term, as historically happened with the Byzants. It says something that despite all that I still really like it and it is already my favourite baseline Paradox release. It reminds me of the classic Obsidian game generalisation really, vast potential and vastly more ambition than just about every other game, implementation... could use some work.

You can match make in two seconds. Its biggest problem at the moment seems to be a tendency towards steamrolling- either the christians or muslims get on a roll and before you know it north africans have taken over Paris or Mecca has a cathedral in it. Since that's a balance issue it should be relatively fixable though. Personally I don't like how wars work that much either as you can be on the verge of victory and if your claimant dies the war ends whether you were on the verge of victory or defeat. Coupled with assassinations being cheap and relatively consequence free you can bail on many wars before losing by (in)judicious use of assassins. Overall it's a good game. Don't know if it's better than CKDV, which is probably my favourite vanilla Paradox game, but it certainly is potentially better.

And GSC games added too. I always meant to check out Cossacks as it sold an amazing number of copies for a game most would never have heard of. Probably means Stalker(s) are coming as well.

My french is reasonable. I never got the hang of thinking in it though so I was always better at understanding it than speaking it. As a consequence (and from the latin) I can generally get the idea of what is being said in any romance language with a bit of concentration and if it isn't said too quickly. My german is enough to tourist, no more. My latin is rusty. It was probably my favourite language, even if it is of limited practical use. Everything else consists of being able to say 'hello' 'goodbye' 'thanks' random things that amuse me and stuck in my mind (japanese for hot dog, ice cream) and fairly random maori phrases- though I do have good pronunciation at least.