Zoraptor

Look, I didn't make the comparison originally and it was never presented as being a comparison as anything other than sex (and more specifically, what GL's statement on jedi sex implied). You can take that or leave it, no skin off my nose and I'm certainly not going to treat a discussion of the sexual activities of jedi with any degree of deadly seriousness just for the nebulous award of 'winning' on the internet.

If they can get $10 off each 2nd hand sale it is most definitely worth doing. To pluck figures from the sky, if there were 1 million second hand sales (probably conservative) over its lifetime and you could get everyone to buy an online pass (hopelessly optimistic) that's an extra $10 million straight to EA which is almost certainly far more than the MP would cost to develop and probably about half the game's entire budget. Given that there will almost certainly be few if any non-code assets unique to MP (ie its art, sounds, VO etc will almost entirely come from the 'base' game) and UE3's inherent MP friendliness it should be at worst revenue neutral just on that basis. As mentioned previous, there is also the possibility of driving Origin on PC (to encourage cutting of the DD/ retail middleman) and MP DLC packs too I'd also put money on them really wanting a 'friendly' DRM for PC which will put a bit of a dent in this* and encourage people to buy. Basic alterations and bonuses like DLC packs do not accomplish that as they just get pirated as well, and at least good-MP-as-DRM gives some 'benefits'. *Probably about as accurate as a set of VGChartz sales figures, but very likely something EA has to take seriously.

Objection your honour: strawman argument. Sex, dude. The whole Bond thing was related to how the jedi (or how GL considers the jedi to) see sex. Nothing to do with field work except as it pertained to sex and the sillier Bond's propensity for having it as often, and as casual, as possible. That's the whole point of me agreeing with Raithe's analogy so long as it was the 'sillier' ones, since the most recent Bond movie, in a fit of equally un-Bond like continuity, had him trying to avenge the squeeze who died at the end of the last one which by jedi dictates is bad bad bad. In terms of sex Yoda most definitely appears (semi-official poster art notwithstanding) to fit the M mould of not having it, perhaps never having had it and possibly never even having thought about it except in the context of wanting Bond to stop flirting with Moneypenny. But hey, feel free to draw as long a bow as you like from the comparison, you'll just continue to prove Jaesun right.

... 'cause when we think o' yoda, we immediate recollect roger moore as bond in octopussy... crashing the khan's palace with a menagerie o' circus side-show supermodels. Yeah, or Yoda might be equivalent to some sort of leader, I don't know, M? Or maybe not...

Stereotypical Bond (from the Moore/ Brosnan eras, and the more silly the movie the better) is probably a good comparison to what Lucas had in mind- that or maybe Buddhist warrior monks/ tantrics. I've heard more than a few people describe Bond- and especially Book Bond- as sociopathic. I'm pretty confident that we've already thought about it far more than Lucas has.

Looks like the tutorial level from Kotor.

This is incorrect, odd as it may seem. For Jedi sex is fine- outside the context of a healthy adult relationship. "Jedi Knights aren't celibate - the thing that is forbidden is attachments - and possessive relationships." So yeah, canonically a jedi PC* ought to be free to boff all the Ishi Tib/ Gamorreans/ Selonians they like, so long as they don't care about them. ... To whoever made the observation; yes, the perfect jedi is pretty much the perfect sociopath. *[edit: at the time of TOR there was a theoretical ban on 'relationships', which can be interpreted as no sex. Seems pretty clear that it in that sense at least it was flaunted, given Bastilla's progeny]

And to reiterate, that is a constructed difference where two largely unrelated properties ('healthiness' and 'energy richness') are being conflated together artificially. A calorie is a measure of energy produced, nothing more. 'Healthiness' ('goodness') is how healthy something is. You can have healthy high energy foods and unhealthy low energy foods, they're not directly related concepts. I provided the direct quote from you, there was no nuance just a blanket statement. It's a worthwhile point because all too often it is precisely what politicians do, make sweeping statements like "Ban all X!!!!" without sufficient knowledge of what they're actually banning. It's good to see you acknowledging that there are natural trans fats and such now though, some progress is being made. If you'd done so at the time instead of propagating a bunch of rubbish like saying all trans fats are artifical and similar to heavy metals there would not have been any problem. No, it isn't. It's appropriate to say that they are 'bad' foods. No it isn't, hydrocarbon has a very specific definition, "In organic chemistry, a hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon" to quote Wiki's perfectly serviceable one- if you described a protein/ fat/ sugar as a hydrocarbon in a chemistry exam you would get a big red X through the answer. The most technically correct term for what you want is probably the nice catch all "organic molecules" though 'digestible organics' or 'biological energy sources' or similar term would probably be more descriptive. It's actually quite amusing/ unfortunate in a way, as hydrocarbon is just about the only family of organic molecules I can think of without a single significant use as a foodstuff whatsoever, outside of oddities like petrol eating bacteria.

It may well be so. If that's the case it should not detract from SP though, the more separate they are the less effect they should have. And as Gorth notes, UE3 is fundamentally MP friendly out of the box. I'm not particularly expecting large amounts of awesome from the MP in any case, just that it won't really effect the awesomeness (or not) of the SP experience. At this point it's probably a combo DLC purchasing driver and further encouragement to tie copies to Origin accounts as much as anything.

Protip: There's no such thing as a "good calorie" and a "bad calorie." Energy is energy. Protip: You're wrong. Protip: He's right. A calorie is just another name for (~ 4.2) joules which is just another name for energy. In the nutritional sense it is the digestible energy portion of foods, but it's still energy. The 'objective' measures for 'goodness' of calories are things like Glycaemic Index. I'll only deal with the more egregious errors in the rest of your post. No. I pointed out that your "ban all trans fats!!!!!" idea was stupid and unworkable; that you didn't know that there were natural trans fats; you didn't know that some are (apparently) beneficial; and that you didn't know some could be metabolised. Your attempt to wriggle out of the evidence of your own ignorance is noted, sadly without so much as a hint of surprise. To whit, from you: And, from me: Glad you read the link on vaccenic acid though (even if you missed that it was two separate links to two natural trans FAs), 'tis ever a pleasure to lift somewhat the dark shadows of ignorance with the bright light of knowledge, even if it is unappreciated and unrewarded. No, there is clearly 'good' food and 'bad' food. How the food is metabolised is far more relevant as 'good' food and 'bad' food can have exactly the same energy production value (calorie) yet be widely differing in apparent health effects. Hydrocarbons usually produce death in the body, what with them being poisonous and all. Fortunately most people don't ingest benzene/ butane et alia. :1440x900 smugface:

It means it shouldn't (yeah, theoretically) detract from the SP experience even if it sucks?

That is basically what he said, isn't it? The base point was OK, but it wasn't really a great way to make it, as by the missile measure neither bases in Cyprus nor Suffolk is worth anything. And if the enemy is in Suffolk they've got a hoard of extra, conventional options to use as well as missiles, and they can, well, base the missiles in...

Kaliningrad Oblast (East Prussia, as was) borders Poland directly, so it would be theoretically possible. Practically of course that is exactly the sort of thing covered by a defensive pact like NATO. I know you're exaggerating, but that's... a bit off even as an exaggeration. Losing Suffolk implies enemies a few quick and jaunty hours from downtown London. There doesn't seem much doubt that Crimea would actually prefer to be part of Russia as I've seen even people antipathetic to Russia admit that (and it was, up until Krushchev decided to do some Stalin style tinkering with the SSR boundaries). Can't say I'd be surprised if Belarus ends up being absorbed by Russia in the long term.

It's a defensive alliance, anyone who attacks one NATO member attacks all. That is about as close to insurance as you can get in international relations and there's no reason to believe it wouldn't be honoured. But that does mean there's as little obligation to support other members in elective wars as there is for Laos, Paraguay or Belize to.

Heh, I guess with the euros getting back into the colonialism game the turks are feeling a bit left out. Must re-establish Sultanate People's Democratic Republic of Rum. Ludicrous threat in any case, it's about as likely as us invading Fiji to get rid of Frank Bananarama.

Been ages since I played it but I do remember a few problems. Wasn't balefire itself an anachronism too, lore wise? Doesn't really matter, didn't bother me at the time and certainly doesn't now.

** Is there any news on any plans to release Disciples 3:Resurrection in the States? (or just in English?) Apparently yes, if you don't mind DD, and releasing today (!). Will presumably pop up on other portals eventually. If you haven't got the other 2 KB games laready they have a sale on them on at Gamersgate as well.

I presumed the 'wut' was at the 'was terrible' part, since it was a pretty decent game, at least for non die-hard fans of the books. There've been plenty of far worse adaptations.

New King's Bounty game. That makes three games I'm likely to pre-order in early 2012. If I don't end up pre-ordering BatmanAC that would be more than in this entire year.

Funny thing is that they guy/gal riding the bus to and back from a bad job, doesn't have the money, desire, skills or time to prepare a healthy meal. Costs half as much to live on decent food as fast food*, and takes about ten minutes to do as well- and that's from someone who doesn't live on bread and potato but buys choccy biccies, coffee, pork fillet and the like**. Not having a stovetop or fridge would be a good excuse certainly and no doubt living in a high rent area with low income can be a problem too, but for most people it's never having thought about cooking/ can't be bothered rather than genuinely not having the time, and especially not having the money. Anyone can cook, it's hardly rocket science, and there's plenty of stuff that'll take ten minutes or less of their time. More relevantly if they can't be bothered buying cheaper now a little tax based surcharge ain't going to change their behaviour, is it? Having it pointed out to them that they can be healthier for cheaper with minimal effort might. *Taking 2 x MaccyD's meals/day @5USD a pop, average grocery bill for two people 50-70USD excluding non foodstuffs. **And lots of vegies, since that list doesn't sound too healthy. Normally around four types of vegies per meal, since they're far cheaper than meat (or dairy) by weight.

Funny thing is, you actually can make a healthy meal as quick as and almost always cheaper than fast food, if you know how. That Doesn't Mean What You Think It Does or, alternatively I don't post rolleyes for no reason. It's not that vegetable oil produced trans fats aren't bad, of course. But what you are doing is making a blanket statement similar to "cholesterol is bad!!!" (cholesterol is actually essential to proper cell membrane function, and without it you will die) and only slightly better than "aromatic rings are bad!!!" (good luck living without 3 amino acids ++).

As an illustration of what I was saying, I'd call Al-Shabab and the like Taliban clones, not an AlQ franchise. They're primarily an armed militia that uses terrorist tactics on occasion- like the Taliban, or the (non-muslim) Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, for that matter- and whose primary aims are internal to their country.

Yeah, ban all animal fats, steak, mince, milk, butter, the lot. Everyone can get over it by popping some newly legalised tabs.

Sega's always had the trademark registration. The only real question was whether it was a System Shock type divided ownership situation or Sega owned the lot. The tweet doesn't definitively clarify that, but Sega owning the lot has always been most likely as it's pretty much industry standard for the publisher to.

OK, I really sounded like a prick there. Sorry Zor. No worries, I wasn't in the least bit offended anyway. I don't think I'll add anything further at this point since this is a fairly well trod argument other than to say that the main bone of contention is probably where the line is drawn at what constitutes AlQ as opposed to regional players like the Taliban. I have read plenty on AlQ though, but have little interest in a citation war.