Zoraptor

I know a lot of people don't like Jackson as he is and has been very outspoken on a bunch of film industry related issues, isn't afraid of tough negotiating and can come across as slightly self important. Though to be fair so far as I am aware he has been so since as far back as Bad Taste (and arguably being self important is a requirement for a good director) and from what I understand the conditions on LOTR were- broadly- the same as they would have been if unionised. Interesting (?) trivia: they filmed parts of The Frighteners on the property next door to ours and had a big half built house covered in tarpaulin like stuff there for a few months.

Someone (sorry, can't remember who) attached a psd template for adding the Alpha Protocol tag to avatar images on one of their posts. It did rely on either having Photoshop and some rudimentary skills in it or the goodwill of whoever was doing them to implement.

The whole thing is a fiasco. Australian union screws up NZers (followed by loltastic "relocate to Australia" pitch), NZ union feels it has to support Aussie union despite their spokeswomen looking like a frightened rabbit right from the beginning and the stunned and disbelieving annoyance of other NZ unions, Jackson postures and grandstands and Warners uses it to wring more tax concessions from our government- and I would have sympathy for Warners if they hadn't blatantly and provably lied about receiving assurances that there would not be industrial issues from the people who actually make that decision rather than from some smug Australian who should have been fired back across the Tasman with a RotK surplus trebuchet. Complete, utter, unmitigated garbage from the lot of them.

What, the 360 version uses Steamworks as well? (Ohohoho) Seriously though it probably wasn't a good idea to drop to the dashboard if there is any chance its writing stuff to HD (or whatever an Arcade uses) as even though an HD is more reliable you can stuff things up that way. It may be fixable by something basic like clearing the cache and or reinstalling to the HD. [Realistically though the save games are probably stuffed and it probably isn't due to non save game file corruption, sadly. Having said that I had much the same thing happen to me in Oblivion once, albeit on PC, and the save games did end up working again after a reinstall]

Can you even call them aircraft carriers when they aren't going to get planes for, what, nine years (I'm still not sure I heard that right) after their launch? The ghost of Galtieri would be smacking his chops in anticipation. Though it's not quite spending their entire commissioned life freighting oranges around the Med because they're entirely unsuited to the task they were purchased for as happened with one of our ships...

Nah, you're just part of the 1%. But let's not go off on a bitter tangent.

Did they ever get around to turning off the bonus content as they said they would? Because there was originally a time limit for the DAO bonus content (inc Shale), if I recall correctly. All preorder bonuses say to me is that waiting for the Ultimate/Awesome/Complete/GOTY Edition is 100% the correct decision*, at least if I'm interested in buying the game in the first place as they almost always seem to end up included. And I'm not sure I am interested in DA2. *Unless it's Europa Universalis 3, in which case they have two more expansions after the complete edition and I end up buying vanilla, complete and 2/3 expansions because EU3 is my personal crack and even after spending near 100USD on it I still vaguely feel like I've ripped Paradox off.

It's also made by people with a great deal of experience in and intimate knowledge of what works and what doesn't, MMO wise. LOTRO was designed specifically to be somewhat "limited"* as compared to other offerings but to make sure that what it did it did very well. It's been successful precisely because it did not promise the world on a platter but delivered what it claimed, unlike the other roughly contemporaneous examples like Conan and WH which had far more grandiose claims but far less actual achievement and capacity to deliver. Frankly, everything we've seen about TOR suggests they aren't going for the rather more limited but very well executed approach but for the blunderbuss/ shotgun try to hit every target at once and promise the stars approach, ie comparisons to AoC/ WH seem far more apropos. *To clarify, I'm certainly not saying that LOTRO is bad or limited mechanics/ gameplay wise, just that their approach- given the sort of thing which might have been expected in an 'epic' setting like Middle Earth- was rather more circumspect and scaled than might have been expected from other MMO companies. And more successful because of it.

I think a lot of the stink about the hostage rescue is due to the initial reports blaming a suicide vest for the hostage's death- something which would be manifestly untrue as a suicide vest has some, uh, very obvious diagnostic characteristics when it comes to the state of the wearer post use. The other issue is that the Afghan nationals taken at the same time had been released so the kidnappers were clearly amenable to negotiation and not Taleban die hards. Given the inherent risk of any hostage rescue a certain amount of concern in how it was handled is warranted.

The link Tigranes posted works for US people if you don't mind downloads.

He's almost certain to be succeeded by his son in a North Korean style dynastic succession- undemocratic of course, but AOK when it's someone we like. And the US has been doing extensive work against the Muslim Brotherhood for a long time.

I'm not sure it's appropriate to say it was "developed" anywhere, given its quality. Trine is certainly an Indian studio though.

I know right? Great news. NEXT UP: BG2! That or NWN + exp if the Atari Forgotten Realms collection is anything to go by (I have it). It'll almost certainly be BG2 first. So far they've been released in the same order as their original release which makes BG2 next.

The technician background gets you the same option (for the choice at Brayko's, at least) so you could do it in your first playthrough. Though I'd guess most of the people here played recruit first time.

If I had been arguing it as some sort of scientifically verifiable proof you might have a point, possibly, and if were not for the fact that those two companies represent a third of the large publishers in existence, half if you include THQ. Which is by any measure a significant proportion albeit in a small sample size, and also represents 100% of those publishers which have switched to Steamworks exclusively. So yeah, not really equivalent to Lack_of_Pirates_causes_Global_Warming.jpg in the woolly thinking stakes. (Scientifically speaking that's nothing like astronomy, though most of it's early advances came form people just looking at correlations and most of the theory followed from their interpretation, but is statistically based science.) But still, it's irrelevant as it was never presented as any sort of proof of anything other than that Steam probably isn't wailing and gnashing their teeth about the horrible injustice of it all as they stand to make money from the increased costs.

I hate the Correlation != Causation canard as it's just about the most abused bon mots on the internet, which is really saying something. Because the fact that in some cases correlation == causation if the absolute foundation of observational science. Also, you are not Purkake.

A word of warning- those stores sell keys bought from cheap localised versions, usually in SE Asia. There's a potential for them not working or being bricked if used outside their region. As indeed there is for any out-of-region import.

I'm not so convinced it's entirely the fault of eeeevvviilll publishers, personally- I suspect Steam makes a good deal of extra cash from the arrangement. As I posted previously: Fallout 3 (Bethesda) purchaseable for 50USD. FONV (Bethesda, Steamworks) purchaseable for 90USD Bioshock 2 (2k) purchaseable for 50USD. CiV (2k, Steamworks) purchaseable for 80USD. I'm pretty sure the same transition happened with THQ (certainly there is from Stalker: SoC to now but I don't know what their first Steamworked game- SR2, iirc- was sold for initially as it didn't interest me) as well but don't have a direct way to check It certainly could be coincidence that the Steamworks -> Ludicrous Localised Pricing transition happened at the same time but it certainly seems that Steam is at the least happy to and complicit in putting the prices that high. Kind of like a drug dealer blaming the Taleban for the price of heroin, if a somewhat extreme parallel is permitted.

It's basically the same in the UK and Aus so far as food is concerned. Apparently it's too hard to do here because we're unique snowflakes.

It is just gouging, plain and simple. I can import games from the UK one at a time via courier and it'd still cost only 2/3 the price I'd pay here and we're far better off the the Australians are by the sounds of it. Another reason why I loathe Steamworks since Steam is more than happy to shaft people with ludicrous regional pricing whereas I can still go to Gamersgate and buy Bioshock 2 (2k; CiV) and Fallout 3 (Beth; FONV) for exactly the same price as an American can. Gotta make sure those horrible poor people get suitably punished for buying frivolities like food and clothing. We did get an income tax cut as well, though it's only any use if you already had disposable income.

I don't think anyone outside the publishers/ distributors knows what sales figures are like as there isn't an NPD equivalent so how many shift at full price would be pure speculation. On the reduced price sales front we are fairly well off here (NZ) because parallel importing is OK- I think it's still banned in Aus. I have bought cheap copies of quite a few games which turn out to be parallel imported Eastern European versions and I tend to either buy online (anything ~2 GB or less) or get them for 30-50NZD (~20-35USD) when on retail special for larger titles. There's also various importers that will sell cheap/ approx US cost versions if you don't mind waiting a while and dealing with someone in Singapore who may or may not be of dubious reliability. When online prices aren't localised Australians have it far better as they typically have better internet.

I've read others complaining of higher non-US prices for some games (even before DD)...I thought some of that maybe had to do with international trading costs or other such considerations but that big a difference is a fair bit extreme...I'd be mad about that too. Nah, international trading costs is just a rubbish excuse and justification thrown out by publishers. A very large proportions of games sold in Australia get fabricated in Australia so have almost identical costs to games sold in the US which are fabricated in the US. It's all about gouging and while it's not bludgeoning babies for a lollipop it is pretty obnoxious. It's particularly bad now because the AUD (and the NZD to a somewhat lesser extent) have gone up a lot vs the USD.

I'd just point out that the question itself is potentially at least a perfectly sound one in the context of a survey. It's basically asking what percentage of respondents are religious fundamentalists without forcing them to self identify as such and without making the question denominational- you'd get the same answer most likely from strongly religious Jews, Muslims, Christians and even some of the more ideological adherents of eastern religions. There are a bunch of techniques used in surveys to get accurate information that is not always going to be disclosed willingly, and to do things like check for people who are just filling in stuff randomly. Or of course it could just be a loaded question in a bad survey.

The primary point was that most people who would support some sort of crackdown on piracy would not support having other bits of real world law applied like the ability to match real/ virtual names for purposes of civil defamation suits from random disgruntled online acquaintances. That it was frivolous was entirely the point- I don't particularly care about indirect insinuations of supporting piracy but some people will and they would abuse the system. Especially if it had the same "ok, then prove your innocence" provisions most industry sponsored laws have with respect to internet cutoff; you'd have to prove that your comment wasn't implying I pirated. I fundamentally disagree- if it's bad law then the blame is squarely on those who make the law, not those it is aimed at. To make extreme examples, if they were having a law to make it compulsory to have DNA samples and fingerprints taken from everyone, or behavioural correction chips implanted to "fight/ prevent crime" that would be the lawmakers' fault rather than criminals.

Ah yes, another popular excuse by the apologists... not stealing, just violating a bit of copyright. It might be easier to pursue in a court room, but semanthic obfuscation doesn't change the fact that you are stealing. What you are stealing is the depriving other people due payment for the time and labour invested in their work. To bring back my original example of the hairdresser, walking away without paying him is not really stealing either, is it? Try telling the plumber that fixed your broken water pipe that, thanks, but since I now have what I need, why should I pay you for your time, etc. Only the anonymity in stealing digitally distributable stuff makes lions out of whimps. The same whimps indulging in self pity if somebody wants to make it harder for them apparantly. I still think it's wrong, and I don't pirate (it'd take me 4 months or USD240 in download cap excess to download an AAA game on my crappy internet even if I wanted to pirate, but in any case I'm happy buying and get my money's worth), but if we're just going to run around calling something with a perfectly good definition something else why not go the whole hog and call it terrorism or drug running or something*? In both the examples you cite it still wouldn't be stealing. Doesn't make it right, doesn't (necessarily) make it acceptable**, but it ain't stealing, except if excess physical components are removed. It's breach of contract***. The primary point is that most people who would support some sort of 'crackdown on piracy' would not support having other bits of 'real world' law applied like having the the government have a database with the ability to match real/ virtual names for purposes of civil defamation suits from random disgruntled online acquaintances. It's too open to abuse**** and frankly I have zero faith in either copyright holders not to abuse any provisions nor any government to apply them fairly or accurately. Potentially you could have sites banned for relatively 'benign' things like linking to abandonware, or suggesting getting a nocd if you're having drm problems, or for being hacked and having torrent information, or for 'advocating' piracy, or for hosting Daemon Tools, or for having advanced burner software, or for having thread trace/ stack reader/ decompiler software [etc]. Partly though it's that while I don't like pirates I also don't care much about them either as I do my bit by buying stuff, the only bit I can control. I do care about, and have pretty strongly negative opinions on, RIAA/ MPAA/ BSA etc because they provide no benefit to me, treat me like a criminal and attempt to remove as many basic purchase rights as possible all of which have no impact on those that actually pirated. *the MPAA actually do this, of course. grr MPAA gnash gnash **though there are plenty of ways not paying could be acceptable, of course, none of which are 'allowable' in the digital world. If you ask for a trim and they shave your head or dye your hair green, if the plumber ignores instructions and installs and charges you for a gold plated toilet etc you are perfectly within your rights not to pay. ***mileage may vary in different jurisdictions ****and potentially avoidable by something as simple as torrent seed lists being posted as jpgs so as to be defined as artworks protected under first amendment, as per the DVD master key.