Raithe

Hm, I have to admit, I haven't had any serious issues with my first entry into warzones this week. I had one warzone that got a bit glitchy, but all the others have been pretty smooth.

Yeah, I've had the CE on pre-order from Game for the last x months...

Apparently, its linked to how 5 has some LA director. Bateson has said he was told he'd have to go and audition in LA.. and then..boom..next thing he knew, they got someone else.

Hm, I hadn't realised they're shifting out the voice actors for Hitman 5. Marsha Thomasen replacing Vivienne McKee as the voice of Diana, and apparently even David Bateson as Agent 47's voice is no longer true.

The Monroe doctrine noted that the United States would neither interfere with existing European colonies nor meddle in the internal concerns of European countries. At the time, the Falklands were an existing colony.. not a revolutionary or independent one.

That actually isn't quite the same as protecting citizens under your own sovereignity... The whole point of immigration is that you've pretty much said you want to move to that country and become a citizen of said country. Immigration to another country means accepting that other country. Both that you want to enjoy their climate, their economic goodies, and their law and form of government. And the descendents would grow up with Spanish law , culture and wotnot, even if they remained in a English speaking area. Heh, look at some of the areas where immigrants from Poland and India have shifted into some cities in the UK. You can walk through entire areas where you won't hear any English being spoken, but they're still British citizens. It's not like the people of the Falklands went to another country took over a small section of land where people were living, ignored the people already there and then basically said "this is our land and we're a part of those guys over there". The Falklands - Uninhabited. The first people in recorded history to land on it were English in 1690. A British expedition built a harbor on one of the uninhabited islands sometime before 1770. - Note, once more, uninhabited, and a wee bit before Argentina came into existense as an independent country. Of course, since then it's been a nice topic for the Argentine politicians to pull up whenever they need to pull some crowd pleasing time .. and then well, the whole discovery of potential oil has only increased the tensions of the situation. And for all the purported "colonialism" of the UK over this, we actually had a treaty with the Argentines over how the oil should be handled and split between them and us. A treaty that they decided to suddenly pull out of in the late 90's if I recall during another time they decided it would be pleasing to their domestic policy to make noises about "reclaiming" Islands that have never been a part of Argentina. The main thrust of the Argentine claim.. is that there was a Spanish colony on one of the islands for about 40 years. Oh, and that colony? Was one that the Spanish had taken from the French...

Um, did we miss the whole.. it was uninhabited islands a couple of centuries ago? That the English colony was there before Argentina existed as a country?.. That the majority of the population are descended from the various UK families that have moved out there? The key reason we protected them is because.. gee, the people there are British, say they're British, have been organised along British laws and systems of governance (well, apart from that short period that they were occupied by the forces of an Argentine military junta) and strangely enough, say they want to remain with the country of their choice... which just surprisingly enough.. is the UK..

So the fact that the islands were originally uninhabited.. that 70% of the population are descended from English, Scots, Welsh... and that nearly 90% of the entire population (including the non-UK descended residents) want to stay as British citizens and do not want to even discuss the idea of Argentina taking sovereignity of the islands have nothing to do with the situation? That's not imperialism, or colonialism. If the people there follow a specific culture, and believe they're a part of it, and they act that way.. and say "hey, this is my flag of choice".. then yeah, I'd say they're fairly joined in spirit. And hey, in two millenia we were invaded by the Romans, the Saxons, the Vikings, the Normans... you can't exactly say we didn't suffer incursions. We're just good at absorbing them into the culture..

I seem to be bouncing between having a nice solid chunk of gaming one day, then a couple of days without, then back again. I haven't done any end-game content as such, my SI has plugged away at some left over missions on Corellia and as I said, tried out the pvp Warzones on monday. Need to get around to poking at some of the Operations and hardmode flashpoints... and take a gander at Illum at some point.. My smuggler has hit 42 and is on his way to Hoth.. and my Jedi Knight and Bounty Hunter are still on their prologues..

Didn't actually manage to fall asleep in bed till around 5am'ish. And currently ploddign along with a dull headache. I think I'll chalk most of the day up to as vaguely lost and just drink tea....

I've seen a fair few Knights and Scoundrels when I've played today. I also heard a few complaints from people in full pvp gear complaining about the upsurge of "newcomers".. so maybe things are starting to balance out now.

Yup, it's happened a few times like that without partial premade. Although have run into a premade on the other side and they totally kicked our asses. I did some PvP with my Sith Inquisitor today, and as long as someone points out some general coordination like that, folks seem happy to make the attempt. I've had one bad experience, and that's when on the Alderaan warzone, about 30 seconds after the Republic side had grabbed two of the turrets, about half of the Imperial side stomped off to the left Turret and basically did a "we can't win now, so we'll get points for defending here, but there's no point in going for the middle and dying, which will lower our point total." Just.. yeah, that was kind of annoying. And I'll say this, attempting Voidstar when the opposing team is pretty much ONLY Troopers and Sages.. is freaking impossible. Between the amount of stuns / area attacks / healing that they can do....

You mean all the time ? Welcome to MMORPG PVP Surprisingly, I've joined a few where people talked about it right at the start and figured out rough stategy and organised. People volunteering to stay on one turret in Alderaan once it was taken to guard it and call out if the enemy tried to take it.. Everyone sorting out who was guarding the healer, the main focus of attacks and generally being coordinated. Those times are actually quite fun. Heh, and now I've even seen similar approaches used during Hutball matches.

Finally got around to my first batch of PvP yesterday. Went in with my Smuggler on the Republic side, and it wasn't too bad. Although, I will say the amount of Sith Sorcerer's and the rather large number of assorted Lightning stuns/interrupts is a serious pain on some of the warzones. If you've got a group of people willing to coordinate to some extent you can have a fair bit of fun. It's those couple of times no-one wants to try any strategy and just rush around killing folks that it really falls apart.

Hm, I wouldn't say the sci-fi genre in literature has declined. There are still plenty of damn good authors writing sci-fi across the whole spectrum - from Military sci-fi to space opera to hard sci-fi and in between. Look at Baen publishing for one collection of damn good authors. Weber, Ringo, Drake, Flint and the like... For the non-Baen authors, the like of L E Modesitt is still producing some in-depth sci-fi, same with Mike Resnick and Mike Shepherd who tend to cover the military/exploration sci-fi more then anything else.

Its pretty much a couple of pages of Vega getting into a bar fight, then a page of Anderson arriving to put a stop to it, then a page of Anderson telling Vega to get over it, soldier on, and oh, by the way, you're going to be the guy guarding the prisoner known as Shephard. Then it ends. Not much of a tie in, or even any real explanation of other events.

We have a knack for absorbing folks into the cultural mish-mash that is England and the UK.. After all, they lived in England, there were.. 15 kings I believe of the line. With the amount of bloodlines mixing in with the aristocracy, you don't think there's still a chunk of the family around?.. Actually I think one of the current Dukes is supposed to be descended from the Plantagenets on the wrong side of the blankets.

On the offhand side of things.. the ratings of "mentally ill people" are probably higher in America then elsewhere.. due to several important factors. Notably, they have a whole lot more shrinks at work, who "identify" these various neuroses and wotnot as mental illness. And the customer base in America is more likely to go see a shrink and get analysed and therapy... Compared to a lot of other countries.. who don't tend to try recognising personal issues as mental illness. So they don't build statistics up about them...

Well, historically speaking we did have a big claim to the north of France in the last millenia...

Ah, I think the censor has cut out a section of that url. Just look for Kuznetsov Hijacking, and recognise the Dym**** that the forums here censor.

I have to admit, I'm tempted to try getting in a quick play through of ME2 just to have another potential save game with different decisions on it... But I'll have to see how the next couple of weeks progress and how much time I have available...

The one that I'm finding a wee bit amusing is that in-game, apparently Jack Actually, has anyone figured out the time frame between ME2 - Arrival - ME3? Are we talking days, weeks, months, or a year+ ?

The islanders are about 70% decended from UK citizens, there's just over 3,000 people living on the island, and they've been firmly saying they're part of the UK for a loooong time. The oil is something that's cropped up since the 80's. In fact, Argentina suddenly withdrew from a treaty between the UK and Argentina over how the oil should be exploited a few years back. Hell, in the Argentine-inspired poll back in the 90's, around 87% of the islanders were not in favour of even any discussion with Argentina over the question of sovereignity.

The Prothean VI you talk to in ME1, actually talks about the Reapers targeting "advanced organic life" if I recall. Which, when combined with the whole.. leaving the Mass Relays around as it helps guide species into developing specific technologies..which the Reapers know how to deal with, makes more sense of the theory they only bother with species at a specific stage of evolution/advancement. And since they are supposed to be somewhat smart, I'm pretty sure they'd figure in the whole "don't eat your feed stock" concept that most competent farmers/ranchers know...