Zoraptor

XCOM is weird because they are on all the other DD services except GOG. And it isn't a drm thing either as even the Steam version doesn't have a wrapper on it.

No, the brutal repression didn't work, not the first time and not the second. The bunch of barely trained teenagers, FSB goons and moribund Soviet Dinosaurs that made up the official internal security forces and whose tactics of 'shoot and or blow everything up while interning and or torturing and or executing everything that moves' actually managed to lose the first war, after all. Simply put the 'tame' Chechens- while hardly a pleasant and convivial bunch of enlightened SNAGs- were far far better at not alienating other Chechens, far better suited to gathering useful intelligence, more knowledgable of the environments and culture and were hence far more effective at fighting the 'bad' Chechens while not generating more bad ones to replace them. And as it stands now the Chechen unit of the Russian army is probably their second highest regarded one, behind their paratroops/ special forces.

With torture you end up with a load of rubbish intel even from completely innocent targets while still getting the gibberish from the trained 'guilty' targets. And because the innocent people are telling you what you want to hear you are far more inclined to believe them. Second example is rubbish, the Russians have been burying Chechen rebels in pigskins and such (as well as the more traditional torture methods) for ages and it's utterly pointless against a motivated foe. In the end they did exactly the same thing the US has done in Iraq and Afghanistan, paid off various internal factions to fight on their behalf.

No, they canned it because Microsoft hates PC games and they're paying the bills.

Yes, and not only that but also most normal people will say anything (usually whatever they think the torturer wants to hear) in order to make it stop while those trained will tend to say stuff which is inaccurate, or worse, partly accurate but designed to give a false impression. The information gained is of very poor quality because you have to check literally everything about it to have any idea of its quality. At least if someone is keeping their gob shut you don't end up wasting resources chasing wild geese or getting a dose of whatever the subject thinks you want, which inevitably leads to scenario fulfillment- think there are lots of AQ agents in the US? Torture people and ask them and- surprise surprise- you'll find they tell you that there are lots of agents because that's precisely what you are rewarding them for saying.

And according to law of most of the countries EULA has the law value about the same like toilet paper if you cannot read it before you unpack the good It's specifically aimed at the US, to circumvent First Sale Doctrine (which guarantees the right to sell goods second hand) by making it so that you don't sell the good, but the account. One valve can stop, the other it is illegal for them to do.

It isn't illegal. It's against the EULA to sell an account though, for what that's worth.

I'd presume it's referring to the GTTV footage, given it ends with Thorton getting, well, busted. And if it were set in Paris...

Once again, PST, IWD, Baldur's Gate etc will not turn up at least until Hasbro and Atari stop fighting each other in court. Yep. Well, Zenimax now technically, I guess. Activision only distributed them. Same deal with all the Star Wars titles- they are LucasArts published and only distributed by 3rd parties (and will presumably turn up.. elsewhere.. at some point)

Perhaps an illustration of exactly why thinking someone approves wholesale of people they may "admire" is dumb may help? Beck loves the Founding Fathers. He thinks they are great Logically therefore: He approves of slavery, having children by your slaves, voting being restricted to rich white men etc etc as, "logically", because he thinks they're great he thinks everything about them is great including the slavery, the fathering of children by slaves, and voting rights being restricted to rich white men of a certain monetary value, and any and all other foibles and flaws major or minor they may have had.

Sounds like it's the two Actard owned Troika titles ie Arcanum and VTMB. Don't expect any D&D (TOEE or otherwise) while Atari and Hasbro are fighting about sublicencing in court.

Arkane recently obtained the licence for Arx Fatalis off JoWood, though it could be related to simply to them putting it onto GoG rather than being a potential sequel. The game he was talking about was not The Crossing, and was on a contract for EA, reviving an old IP that was well known and regarded but not a stellar seller.

Probably, couldn't find a publisher, and with EA yanking their other project they didn't have an option to self finance for something which would be risky at the best of times.

So is SMAC, for that matter, and it has the problem (as does SS2) of being associated with a studio that are now their rival 2k's property. I'd hope for either SMAC or SS2 as it would likely mean a bunch of other EA titles coming too- I really can't understand their reluctance as it is basically free money from their side of the deal. I'd tend to go for X-COM, especially if 2k is planning to release a new xcom title. That would hardly be huge as GOG is about the only digital distributor which doesn't have the xcoms yet.

Personally I prefer :picard: :headdesk: as I feel it brings both simplicity and elegance to proceedings.

The most amusing bit of geopolitics of the last two years was watching various western diplomats squirm when asked what the difference between Abkhazia/ South Ossetia and Kosovo was and trying to see them avoid the really obvious difference, ie "well, Kosovo is our client..." He had good reason to think that as he was told that "the US has no opinion" on Kuwait and Iraq's border dispute when he asked prior to invading. He hadn't counted on Saudi Arabia throwing a wobbly, as a combined Iraq/Kuwait could challenge their dominance of OPEC and nearly match their reserves and production capacity

Given the mission based structure a demo could probably be done relatively easily, though it probably still would not be a trivial amount of work unless there's a trade demo or similar already done.

what a bad analogy. really, really bad. besides that, you completely missed the point. No, it's simply a blunt analogy made in the hope it might succeed where any kind of nuance was failing as unlike alanschu I lacked the patience for a really detailed step by step breakdown. Afraid not- they definitively did not know where the WMDs were, at the very least, even if taking the pedant's view towards proof of their existence. Had they actually known where the WMDs were it is absolutely incomprehensible that they would not have either bombed them or seized them at the start of the war. Then proving they exist is the almost trivial task of sending a few people out to take samples or showing the stuff you've captured. Their failure to do so is as close to proof absolute that they were lying- if only about that- as can ever be got.

you said you'd prefer to believe that they'd lie, actually, which is what i replied to. I'd prefer to have a finger cut off than a hand. Having a finger or a hand cut off are not necessarily the only options. I wouldn't like to have a finger cut off either. Yes? In any case it is patently obvious that they did lie, (eg "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction", "We know for a fact that there are weapons there", "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat" ) even if they thought that while they were lying about the details they would be right on the larger scale.

Even though I actually think May I'm getting this weird urge to vote July for some reason...

IIRC the technical 'heir' to the British throne at that time would have been the Crown Prince of Prussia. Not 100% sure, but the first Kaiser was (IIRC again) Victoria's nephew. [edit: nope, unless Victoria died at a very particular time and her daughter still married the future Kaiser even as heir presumptive. If she'd died prior to ascending the throne Hannover would still have had a union with Britain and if she'd died without issue it presumably would have been reestablished]

So it basically cost about the same as original game but ain't stand alone game. It better have the content of the full game with that price. If not, I'll wait for some Steam megasales. According to Gamestop, who EA link to from their official Dragon Age site it's $30 for PC.

I should have been more clear, I don't think it's bad as an analogy per se, but that it's a bad comparison because it kind of implies that there is something about religion which needs curing, along the lines of "take two lithium morning and night and you'll be an atheist in no time (actual results may vary)" Have to agree with Hurlshot, that second analogy is real nice.

Brian bought Wasteland five (?) years ago and hasn't done anything with it (yet, and if rumours are true is in the process of changing).

That's an invalid implication- interviews can be conducted in a "scientifically valid" way (I've personally conducted them) but that in no way implies that the results of those interviews reflect scientific "truth", only that it reflects a statistically valid body of data. If you conducted interviews at the Salem Witch Trials you would (likely) end up with most of the interviews saying that the accused were witches and it would be scientifically accurate to say that. It would not though be accurate to say that this was proof that they actually were witches. As I don't think anyone has been arguing that belief in God is not a real belief your point is not really relevant. I'd also point out that putting belief in God in the same boat as diagnostic interviews for psycho-physical disorders like depression is inherently not a good point to make. Hezbollah (est ~1982) retroactively started the Lebanese Civil War (started 1976)?