Zoraptor

Ultimately you can't stop terrorism without 'nation building', practically you can't do nation building without the approval of the large majority of the people living in that nation. I tend to think that Germany and Japan have given a false impression of what can be done because, ultimately, there was almost no resistance to occupation in either of those cases and the occupiers were there, effectively, at the people's invitation. Neither of those things are present in Afghanistan though.

With advanced algorthyms, databases and lots of computing power data mining is trivial. You may be better off if you use basic precautions (turn off 3rd party cookies, use only one internet product per company- ie don't use both Google search, Gmail, Chrome, nuke doubleclick etc) as they make you more opaque and there are easier targets amongst the mass of the uninformed. Perhaps the single biggest problem is that you don't have control over what is in your own 'file' and who it is distributed to. If someone tags an image with "Forename Initial Lastname*, well know criminal/ drug dealer/ paedophile" then Forename Initial Lastname may well be labelled a criminal (via information on database) just on that person's say so, without Forename Initial Lastname even being aware of that labelling, and without Forename Initial Lastname having any right to get the information corrected even if he does find out about it as it may already have been distributed to 3rd parties. *I was going to use a made up name, but it would be ironic if someone actually had that name and I ended up accidentally slandered them.

Comparison? I made no comparison. What I said is certainly correct, though. If you disagree, could you please explain why? Read the wikipedia article on the Ustashe. Take a moment to reflect on why you might have been just a tad offensive. And do stop being disingenuous: it's a comparison every bit as much as it would be if I wrote a list of genocidalists you wouldn't want writing history: Nazis, Soviets, Australians (yes, I've been to Tasmania); it's a rhetorical construct designed specifically to associate X with a bunch of negative stuff.

Sheesh Krezack. I really hope you're just ignorant rather than trolling deliberately with that comparison.

It wasn't just that which gave me such a negative opinion of Radovid, if you One thing's for sure, after that and simple grabbing of collars won't qualify as capital E extreme any more.

Finished second playthrough, went Roche and full on swords. A rather different experience, on the gameplay front I got 2 greater mutagens the whole way through whereas with the magical guy I had them coming out of my ears. I also ran into some bugs and some crashes I didn't get with the release patch, most annoyingly Still liked it a lot, and its many small annoyances remain small and largely ignorable.

They have to, France and Britain have bet the entire organisation's credibility on success. They pretty much have to do anything and everything to win now. Propaganda is as propaganda does. Not like NATO doesn't use it, they just get an acritical reception- how often have they used the "we only killed terrorists today" [..] "can't comment now, we're investigating that incident two days ago" [..] "well, maybe we actually did kill some civilians a few weeks ago, hope Lady Gaga or Pippa's posterior didn't distract you in the meantime"; and it works every time.

You need the save to be in the right place (..\My Documents\The Witcher\saves) and it also has to be from the 'right' place, ie not any old save will do it has to come from- so far as I am aware, based on having 2 eligible saves from each of my Witcher playthroughs- directly before or after the final fight. Of the import items Aerondight at least is pretty useful thanks to the three upgrade slots. I used it well into Chapter 2. The nerfs were clearly carried out for gameplay reasons, much as you end up with Epic Gnolls/ Random Goon who just happens to be Armed With +3 Stuff in Throne of Bhaal or NWN2. The one thing I found really silly was getting a Raven's Armour schematic as a reward when the first game makes it clear that it is a unique item requiring unique parts and assembly technique. Funny that they nerfed the prologue in the new patch, I replayed it the other day and having died a lot on normal first time went through on hard without getting hit at all, except by archers.

As are ambulances, and we know from the friendly fire incidents that NATO had no problem blowing them up. Though I tend to agree otherwise- I've always thought the "[blah] don't fight fair" blather from technologically advanced nations is assinine. Hamas/ Taleban/ Libyans/ Serbs or whoever going out into a nice flat field to fight Israel/ NATO/ NATO/ NATO (golly, NATO fights an awful lot of defensive wars, doesn't it? Reminds me of Rome, who never fought an aggressive war in her history, at least according to her historians) in a 'fair fight' would end with them getting whacked instantly by Apaches, AC130s, cruise missiles etc. Which isn't brave or honourable, it's stupid.

I don't think EA holds the full rights to System Shock in any case which would (potentially) rule it out on a more or less permanent basis and irrespective of whether other EA titles become available. Most of the other residual EA titles were made by companies EA either owned fully at the time or bought outright later, like Bullfrog/ Origin/ Westwood and as such are likely owned EA properties in toto. The same cannot be said for System Shock. Ken Levine apparently tried to buy out the rights to System Shock prior to Irrational being bought by 2k and left the impression that while EA held the trademarks and such, and could potentially make sequels, they did not hold the full rights which were held by [random LGS wind up entities and creditors]. There's also the possibility that any residual royalties could be paid to competitors; 2k, via Irrational and Squeenix, via Eidos; or that permission from them is required to distribute whivh would provide additional legal problems.

Depends on Hasbro, most likely. I tend to suspect that they'd be very happy to be able to licence D&D to someone other than Atari's shambling corpse at this point.

vysnc, most likely. If it's on it the framerate will only reach (typically) 60 or 30 fps for a 60hz digital monitor and there will be little or no variation.

I couldn't see anything with him due to the screen jumping around madly. I suspect he's also the hardest boss fight with the all magic build I had. I finished last night, overall impressions extremely positive despite a large number of small issues. I had only one crash in total. Iorveth path spoilers. Will replay taking the other storyline, would also buy TW3 (or an expansion) tomorrow were it available.

I was somewhat peeved at the lengths I had to go to get the patch applied (despite removing all dlcs etc I ended up having to wipe all the witcher 2 directories completely and make sure I was disconnected when installing- it finally decided my version existed, on the third reinstall) but it seems to have provided another performance boost. I am still on Chapter 2. I know a lot of people have said it felt short but it doesn't seem short to me.

Yes, I actually thought that was the Bioware Twist Moment and Roche was deliberately rescuing him rather than just being spectacularly tunnel visioned and incompetent.

USPTO still says Sega owns the trademark, which would usually mean that they own the IP. It's not 100% indicative though and there are plenty of ways that Obsidian could either own it or get it back if not (reversion clause, buyout clause etc). Realistically though there is probably little significance as to who owns the IP as there is little chance of someone stumping up the money for a sequel which makes the whole thing rather moot.

Patch doesn't work for me either. Suspect it may be because I'm using the GOG executable (or because I've got the "No Knockers Plz We're Ockers" version with the censorship 'patched' out) over a retail install. I'm not worried personally as I've had no technical issues to speak of. I agree, that quest felt a bit 'off' in a number of ways. If it had been altered from the original then there is the question of where the trapdoor where you find the bodies leads to (minorish Act 1 path choice spoiler That interpretation makes little sense in the game as shipped though.

They've been used in missile defence for a long time, for burning out sensors on heat seeking missiles.

Since Cryptic is up for sale there's no guarantee Neverwinter will even end up as a D&D title and it may well not. The old Bioware premium modules went bye bye when Hasbro put their foot down over sublicensing of D&D to an EA subsidiary, and they may well retain the same attitude. Or not, if they think it's the only way to make any money off what should be a fairly lucrative licence. Atari has no money. They sold off the bit that made money (Atari Europe) to Namco Bandai and now it's pretty much death spiral time- they were having troubles financing as far back as NWN2 where a german investment firm (BVT; who had somewhat less success in financing Arcania) provided most of the moneys. I'd be surprised if Obsidian at least weren't genuinely very keen to make more D&D titles but you'd be mad or... optimistic to enter a contract with Atari at the moment without guaranteed and preferably independant financing.

Yes, rescuing someone different in the prologue gives the perk. I'm getting a fair number of loading screens, though they are mainly quick loading at least. Nowhere near the number of TW1 though. On the subject of bugs, I'd have difficulty classifying nearly anything I have seen as a genuine bug except a couple of scripting problemsm, I've still had no crashes. There are quite a lot of what I'd term 'nits'- things like being able to get a schematic for Raven's Armour despite it supposably being unique and involving a fair bit of work to get in TW1, not being able to swap between inventory and journal easily and the like, but they really aren't anything greatly significant. The whole potion thing was a bit off as you can make it without getting the special ingredient, which is sitting in my inventory along with the potion, and I didn't even get poisoned in the fight. I only remembered about it once the quest autocompleted when big K bit the dust. It wasn't really a big deal anyway- even the criticisms of the other parts of that encounter were mainly that it's almost trivial to complete once you know what to do in each step- and it is nice that you get a unique journal entry for not drinking it.

Well, I cannot imagine trying to do it Ironman, but I've actually found most encounters to be eminently winable with a bit of care. Some of the encounter design is badly off though: (mild Chapter 1 spoiler ) Not a fan of that one, at all.

Spectre Oil and Swallow. You also go past a bunch of Places of Power on the way there so can get even more health& vigour regen and armour. Quen, then 2-3 quick strikes at a time, roll out of the way and repeat.

I'm still in Chapter 1. In fact I've only just left the town there for the first time. Wish I had more time... Question: Mutagens. I was given one by and it shows up in inventory but the instructions for taking it are a little obtuse. Is that one taken automatically? Because meditate, go to character and 'find an ability slot that takes one' doesn't seem to work as I cannot see any mutagen slots there. Also, slightly annoyed that selling formulae for potions makes them disappear from the alchemy list when brewing since I bothered to check that the formulae were written in the journal before selling them. You'd think Geralt could as easily get his journal out as fish around for individual recipes...

BBC OK?

Calax: I used Aard on the planks, and had to backtrack to find them. When you get close there'll be a brief "look here, important thing to notice" cutscene. Finished the prologue last night. First impressions are generally very positive, despite my gripes at the end. Combat is challenging, reminds me rather of Batman:AA on hard where I'd spend half my time doing dive rolls until I'd managed to whittle the mobs down a bit. It got easier once I worked out that I could dive roll past the basic mooks and backstab them for basically OSK but if you get surrounded you're dead, quick. Did the obligatory Dark Messiah and Aarded some unfortunates off a convenient cliff but couldn't propel people onto the convenient iron maidens and racks of spikes that were lying around. It's still capital B Beautiful, wonderfully detailed and the dialogue is (despite some Mass Effect "I didn't want to say that possibilities") fine to very good. No bugs, no crashes. There's at least one other Easter Egg as well as the Altair one (Prison Break, of all things). If I have one complaint it is... well, I have three really. QTEs. Hatehatehatehate. Does anyone like them? It's gone very console on the interface. I can't say I really like the changes The third one is even more subjective: a feeling that it was designed by committee, a vague feeling that they sat down and decided to bolt together aspects of games they liked and which they thought epitomised the gameplay systems they were aiming for. Unfortunately I tended towards going "Ah, this bits from Batman, this bits from Thief, this bits from DMoMM" rather than appreciating it. Hopefully won't make a difference in the long term and I'll escape the desire to be jumped straight into Thief for my blackjacking guards fix.