Zoraptor

Gothic is not JoWood's they just have a licence to use it for Gothic 4 that PB/P13 could not rescind. Hence the ArcaniA part, which JoWood can at least theoretically continue to use.

I think you've hit my nail on the head. Ashdown was precisely the sort of supremo (q.v. Gerard Templar in Malaya) required. Send him to the 'Stan forthwith and give him some clout. The pity is, and I'm genuinely not being chippy about the Yanks, the US foreign policy machine consists of almost nothing but careerists you are rightly leery of. Iraq proved that US civilian administrators are NOT match-fit. You'd need an ex-military man, as the US armed services has thrown up a generation of thoughtful, imaginative generals whjo might be ideal for the role. which respected ex-military man would take the job if he is gonna know he do not have genuine support o' the current administration? what sorta respected ex-military man With Clout is actually gonna be chosen by the powers that be? Yep, the Jay Garner situation (not just him being replaced by an incompetent stooge for not being a yes man but more especially the slander involved in his removal) should ensure that no military man would touch something like that again without absolutely cast iron guarantees. Which is a real shame because Garner gave the impression of avoiding just about every pitfall Bremer cheerfully leapt into with both feet.

I think the appropriate response is probably: If there's no point bothering why post in the thread in the first place? (Though that's more aimed at run and hide "lol u r rong" posts rather than having already posted previously in the thread and not wanting to go off on tangents like "Why do Finns <3 Nazis- discuss!!!" In any case, LoF is right this time. That NYT article is garbage.)

They need to reduce the size of everyone's heads a bit, that'll make it more Gothic looking.

But there is no DRM on consoles, just like there is no piracy. Playing your pirated games on an xbox connected to the internet is the very definition of dumb.

I know perfectly well you're British and that you've been in the army. As such you're pretty much immune to accusations of sitting behind a desk in Washington swilling overpriced coffee derivatives of any form. That jab was aimed squarely at exactly what it appeared to be, the PR goon in Washington who decided it was expedient to label that incident as job well done. Really? I thought I just said I found you overly emotive and involved. If that were the main criterion for cretinism, well, I'd have been a cretin too on more than one occasion. Including the last paragraph of my previous post. Taleban being Taleban, more at eleven basically. People hold the Coalition up to higher standards because they aren't the Taleban. I always find these arguments specious in any case- "at least we're better than Hitler/ Stalin/ Temujin/ Timur/ Vlad Tepes/ Caligula/ etc" really isn't saying much. Frankly? I doubt any leak could be more harm than any one of civilian casualties, rampant corruption, cronyism, warlordism, rigged elections, continuing violence, rampant drugs etc could do, and it's most likely vanishingly small compared to any one of those. From what I've seen 99% of the stuff leaked would have no practical benefit to the Taleban in any case as it is general and historic in nature, and it is highly unlikely that they're ignorant of the facts on the ground having had nine years to learn how the Coalition does things. Further, pretty much everyone admits they have very good penetration of all facets of Afghan civil and military structures even if the ISI isn't leaking stuff to them too. Nett: I doubt there's much there that the Taleban doesn't already know.

Nah, I just find your language overly emotive and obviously, for want of a better term, biased. I mean really, of course everyone in Afghanistan knows the Coalition kills lots of civilians but are you seriously suggesting an internet leak site is aimed at Afghans? It's clearly aimed at the western public which has been fed a steady diet of PR sanitised "we only kill terrorists, if we've killed someone they are terrorists" propaganda for the last X years. There's probably a dash of me also liking, well, open government which doesn't actively lie to its population and expecting such as a bare minimum of acceptability involved too. Personally, I give the guy who leaked the stuff a huge :salute: and wikileaks a big :salute: for publishing them. If for nothing else, for the guy who stopped to help the injured and got woohoo lit up yeehah in 'Collateral Murder', a hero undeserving of being labeled a terrorist by some PR cretin sitting in Washington sipping lattes.

1. Confirm the notion that publishing lists of local informants has not resulted in deaths directly from those lists, because I think it's fairly ****ing sensible to presume the opposite Hoho, prove a negative, good argumentation there. Prove your positive, that's the way it works. Shall we then presume that because the CIA hasn't produced names these murdered informants don't exist? Oh please. Seemingly every time there were civilian deaths it was obfuscated. They didn't stop for a roadblock. We didn't kill civilians, we killed militants (and if there were children amongst them that is just more evidence of Islamic Terror Babies). It wasn't a wedding party, it was a terrorist celebration. Our informant didn't decide to enact some petty revenge on a rival. There's a fundamental difference between exposing something about an individual and something about a government. In 99.9% of cases unless it is criminal it's none of your business what someone else does. Most of the 0.1% left over relates to, surprisingly, public figures and public interest. Oh please^2. You could as accurately apply the 'vigilantism' tag to "coalition death squads" and "airborne assassins" acting on the say so of some informant hiding behind a shield of anonymity applying summary and final justice in the full knowledge that a proportion of those they are killing will be innocent and guilty of no crime other than having pissed an informant off. Yes yes, emotionally loaded language, in stark contrast to describing leaking documents as 'vigilantism', :rolly eyes:. Sheesh, leaking another country's secrets isn't even illegal which disqualifies it from being vigilantism (so too for the "coalition death squads", natch). [Edit to short circuit the inevitable: "coalition death squads" is not intended literally and anyone taking it as such will be laughed at]

And for fairness: Impulse too. Boni: 15% off at Gamersgate, free G3 at Steam (don't preorder and you get two copies of G3?)

While it has been fairly obvious it was coming: Crusader Kings 2 announced And there was much rejoicing. Inbreeding, assassination, bastards, intrigue, excommunication, madness and usurpation to come later.

Since it came through the electronic ether just a few short hours ago: Gamersgate have a preorder for those desperate for such things. I can see it so it's probably available worldwide. Not listed on Steam, though since they have its trailer it will presumably turn up there at some point.

Hint: ME1 was published by Microsoft

The combat is supposedly being changed on console too, to make it more visceral/ epic/ buzzword-du-jour, though given the amount of release/ backtrack/ clarify I'm not sure what to believe any more. That's what I figured. Where you went wrong was assuming there's a significant PC component in there. I see nothing in the numbers to indicate that. Shrug. I'll lay out the reasons for thinking so with a bit more detail on the reasoning, but it is an estimate based on available information and you'll either think it's a plausible argument or not and that's pretty much that. 1) DAO had a lot of PC cachet as being marketed for a long time as a successor to BG, PC exclusive/ PC version first for ages 2) The 'missing' 500k between the 2.2 million and the 2.7 figure likely to be PC because: 3) You'd expect DAO's third month to be low compared to ME2's 3rd month for the simple reason that ME2 was released in DAO's 3rd month providing new, and very direct, competition. 4) Most of the factors for the extrapolation from ME2 should further underestimate the PC component 4a) eg ME1 was released first on 360 so most people with both PC and 360 systems would buy on 360; and was originally stated as being wholly exclusive to 360 4b) ME2 is a sequel and if you bought the first one on 360 the chances are you would buy the second there too (for save game importing if nothing else). 4c) Neither of these factors apply to DAO 5) The market for both 'old school' RPGs and PC is far higher in Europe than the US, console penetration is less (exc UK) 6) PC sales have a longer tail than console ones due to various factors (DD, no 2nd hand sales etc) 7) NPD does not 'see' PC sales, only US console. So if an underestimate occurs it is likely to be due to PC sales or Euro/ RoW differences. I've also seen nothing from Bioware to suggest that the PC version sold poorly, just stuff which is designed to streamline production and cut costs by bringing the console/PC versions closer together production wise.

I was doubling because we have known total PC/DD/360 sales figure for ME2 at 3 months which was double that of the NPD figure at two months. Since we also have the two months NPD for DAO all other things being equal the same formula would apply. Oh please, there's nothing wrong with that statement unless you're deliberately looking for an argument. The changes being discussed, in context, are all ones where if you can do it on console you most certainly can do it on PC. The fact that they have already been done on PC in DAO (as an option, not compulsory) is fairly compelling evidence, after all.

Yeah, 1 million sales ~ 20 million in revenue, probably somewhat more for PC though, as presumably they sold a fair few copies through their online store where they would get the full $50 out of it. It would also be ~1/3 of sales, so the console versions- either 360 alone or PS360 combined- still would have sold better. The main point though is that anything done for the consoles will work on PC but not vice versa as evidenced by DAO having some fairly well known issues with the PS3 especially but also the 360 and the total lack of the tactical view on either- so it is simply more efficient to aim for the console standard.

Those sale number for ME2 are way down, VGChartz has it at 900,000 in it's first week and 1.4 mil after a month. Heh, VGChartz. There's a reason Wikipedia don't accept them as a valid source. EA's own figure was 1.6 million sold including all PC after three months, though it isn't the first time they've been caught out that way (similar thing happened with Bioshock). NPD is a limited source as well, but far better regarded than VGChartz. For What it's Worth the methodology I used to get the figure was: ME2 800k NPD (2 months 360)-> 1.6 million total sales after three months inc PC (per EA quarterly report). DAO 1100k NPD (2 months PS360)-> 2.2 million total sales after three months inc PC (extrapolation). DAO has almost certainly sold more than 2.7 million copies by February (reason: initial shipment was 2.7 million per EA quarterly report but it had shipped 3.2 million by February). That suggests PC sales of 500k + proportion of 2.2 million + whatever else has sold since = estimate of roughly a million. There are a bunch of assumptions there of course, but I'd say the 1 million estimate is a fair one.

May or may not be relevant, but I tried AP yesterday and it had stopped working too. Symptoms aren't quite the same (it loads but gives the 'grunt noise' fx in menu) but it does make me wonder if it's caused by something extraneous like a windows update as I've also got XPsp3.

Stalker: SoC or CoP Thief: TDP Not RPGs either, of course, but they're good games.

Stop the Lies, Start the Truths! DAO sales>ME2 sales FACT! r00fles etc The way the PC is being treated is a good indicator that development is being streamlined, that's all. It's more expensive to make multiple systems and as such the lowest common denominator- the PS3/360- is the one aimed for. As I understand it the PC version sold more than the PS3 one at least. 1.14 million NPD (PS3/360) for its first two months (cf ME 2 ~800k over the same period :smug:) is considerably less than its total sales. Best guess is roughly 1 million on PC worldwide- though it's based on extrapolation.

I wonder if that means that Atari has sorted its Hasbro (/Turbine, for that matter) legal problems.

They aren't identical but they are consistent- NPD gives ~800k over two months, which is consistent with 1.6 million total sales over three months (but would be very hard to reconcile with 2.8 million sales).

Why not? Probably because he refuses to read the link I've provided twice thrice. That's also a figure consistent with other available sources (NPD/ VGChartz; may be some recursion).

Well, they had different default views and different control schemes. Different engines would be news though. EA disagrees with you (as you've been told multiple times the figure they have is 1.6 million sold after three months, 2 million shipped, the link has been provided multiple times too) and in a battle of credibility between an EA quarterly report and some random guy on the Codex via Volo filter it's, well, not even a contest.

EA bought Bioware in Oct 2007, so two years basically. WoD: There is no solid source for it that I know of- there was a lot of speculation from some very knowledgable sources though that the key factor was the feasibility of console versions. IIRC DA was left off some EA lists of upcoming games which is where a lot of the speculation came from and someone from Bio said that EA were reviewing their active projects but I may not RC and unfortunately that's the sort of thing Google is very bad at searching for. Up to July 2008 DA was still a PC exclusive game, it was announced for consoles then. While they would have been working on it for a while prior to that I see no way that it wasn't 'ported'. EA themselves ('During its call with investors, Electronic Arts CEO John Rictiello [sic] said that the [PC] delay was due to marketing' per Shacknews) said that the PC version was completed to time, since content wise the two versions were identical that leaves, well, what? as an alternative to what the extra time was spent doing. It's certainly not unreasonable to think that many of the storyline/ artists/ designers etc did not sit around twiddling their thumbs for the six months of the delay.

One other thing to bear in mind is that DAO sat around being converted to consoles for months after it was finished. No doubt some of the people involved went to DAO:A but others will have started work on DA2 pre production. At that time they would probably have expected Mass Effect 2 to sell better than DAO, which it didn't end up doing of course, but since EA apparently considered canceling DAO as being too oldschool it seems very likely that was their expectation. As such, making a 'Dragon Effect' would at the time have looked like an eminently sensible idea as well as most of the changes saving money.