BruceVC

No it doesn't. A 'no' vote means the nations don't support the resolution on the table. A fluff resolution at that. This issue, like so many other things, is not near as black and white as you think. Nations vote the way they do for a variety of reasons, especially on fluff like this.. Believe it or not, some nations really don't care if Crimea is annexed by Russia or not, in fact, if most nations were smart, they wouldn't. And no doubt a lot of the votes, both yes, no, and neither, were done to stay in the good graces of the main players in all of this. The U.S., U.K., NATO, IMF, Russia, et al. ie: If I'm nation X, and I've got good relations with both Russia and the U.S., or I want to make sure the IMF keeps sending me $$$, I'm likely to abstain or not vote, even if I'm truly for or against what Russia did. Alternatively, if I've got good relations with the U.S. or want them to keep sending me money, and I don't have much relations with Russia at all, I'm likely to vote 'yes' just to keep my lender happy. Money talks quite a lot in votes like these, in fact it probably has the loudest voice. Few if any nations are going to stick their necks out for Ukraine/Crimea and upset their buddies, wannabe buddies, or purse string holders. But once again you are missing the obvious symbolic significance to what the vote means. Are you suggesting China abstained to stay in the good books of the West? This vote is actually an important litmus test of what Russia did and is it acceptable to the main and influential global players . Russia has been desperate to get China to support it based on there justification for annexing Crimea, despite how you try to spin it the fact that China abstained shows Russia doesn't have the real support they wanted from one of there traditional allies in UN votes

LOL Only in your dreams numbnuts. The UN General Assembly has approved a resolution describing the Moscow-backed referendum that led to Russia's annexation of Crimea as illegal. One hundred countries voted in favour of approving a UN General Assembly resolution declaring the Crimean referendum on 16 March illegal and affirming Ukraine's territorial integrity. Eleven nations voted against, with 58 abstentions. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26776416 Here is the list of countries that voted "no", this list is relevant because it shows the type of governments that think that the Crimea annexation was acceptable. You'll notice most of them are dictatorships and some of the most corrupt and inefficient governments in the world. Shame poor Russia and the company it keeps . Russia must be frustrated that China didn't vote "no" but instead chose to abstain "The 11 that opposed the resolution were Armenia, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, North Korea, Nicaragua, Russia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe" Resolutions like this mean little to nothing and I'm sure Russia doesn't care that China or the other 57 that abstained, did so, as they were effectively 'no' votes. There were also 24 nations that didn't bother to vote at all. https://twitter.com/UN_PGA/status/449216773460463617/photo/1/large Thats incorrect, the abstain vote is very important because a "no" vote is direct support for what Russia did. If you accept that we live in global world where countries want there allies to support them in political decisions then just the fact that China abstained shows that they don't support what Russia did. If China wanted to vote "no" they would have, they are not influenced by the West and have demonstrated in the past there usage of the "no" vote despite what the West wants, like with military action against Syria. This also tells me that the Russia\China relationship isn't strong as we are led to believe and that is a good thing

Gromnir. I'll see if I can make this as simple as possible for even a 5 year old can understand. Overhaul has some of the original Bio developers of the original game. You also claimed Bio "knew how and why things worked". Overhaul had access to the original code, despite not having access to the original art assets. Overhaul having the original game, the original code, and some of the original developers are now 'enhancing the original game'. What we have with the EE's is something different to the original game and in a lot of ways not for the better. Overhaul introduced new bugs to the original game when they tried to enhance it. This has nothing to do with BIS. Never has, never will. But keep trying to introduce those red herrings if it makes you feel better. If for some reason Obsidian decides to do an enhanced edition of PST and the IWD games, having some of the original developers from those games already working at Obsidian, then your analogy may apply. That would be the level playing field. Since Obsidian are not enhancing these games (PST/IWD), then for you to talk about BIS is just a fail attempt at trolling. Thanks for highlighting to the forum your selective and ridiculous trolling analogies. You make some good points and I agree with most of what you say

An important thing to remember is that no matter what a person says, someone somewhere is going to get bent out of shape over it. Yeah, if it weren't the 10th ot 11th time he's written that. Wouldn't be bad if it made sense to begin with. Malc I'm a little hurt that you don't see I'm trying to forge some kind of "forum connection" with you. It makes perfect sense as I am showing you I understand how important you Canadians take your wildlife and more importantly how relevant your pets are, especially Moose, to your lifestyles. Don't be a hater Malc, remember we are a global community that should try to understand each others cultures

You've never done any programming I see. Coding disasters don't just miraculously work. That's an insult to the programmers and other people who worked on the games. To be honest is there anyone on these forums who is a developer at the moment who has looked at the underlying code of games like BG and PS:T and can say from an accurate and informed perspective that " the code was a disaster" If so I would like to know what languages that person develops in at the moment and from a technical perspective why the code in the older IE game was problematic. For me most of the views around how bad the earlier IE games were written is subjective and not based on fact but what people read or others told them. So I want some evidence if thats alright

LOL Only in your dreams numbnuts. The UN General Assembly has approved a resolution describing the Moscow-backed referendum that led to Russia's annexation of Crimea as illegal. One hundred countries voted in favour of approving a UN General Assembly resolution declaring the Crimean referendum on 16 March illegal and affirming Ukraine's territorial integrity. Eleven nations voted against, with 58 abstentions. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26776416 Here is the list of countries that voted "no", this list is relevant because it shows the type of governments that think that the Crimea annexation was acceptable. You'll notice most of them are dictatorships and some of the most corrupt and inefficient governments in the world. Shame poor Russia and the company it keeps . Russia must be frustrated that China didn't vote "no" but instead chose to abstain "The 11 that opposed the resolution were Armenia, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, North Korea, Nicaragua, Russia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe"

You're really buying that crap? Every new government in history always said "the previous administration was a disaster and worked miraculously" to justify its present shortcomings. And you really bought into this centuries old excuse? Please... You've never seen the code, so why are you repeating someone else's bullcrap like it's an established fact? I have to 100% agree with Nep on this one Bester, sorry but I have to be honest

But Malc some jokes are eternal

Sounds like pretty much every work day for me. Listen to more Joy Division. But Malc the difference is you know you have your friendly pet moose waiting at home who is always going to cheer you up. I doubt Raven lives in Canada so he isn't as fortunate

A game where you never have to retry (or aren't allowed to) sounds like a game where you don't have to try at all to begin with, (whether it's a result of the game naturally being easy or because you've gotten good at it), and seems rather boring. Not to mention I like playing with Sword Coast Stratagems, (AI/difficulty enhancing mod), combined with a rewarded XP reducer. There's too much XP rewarded in the game, IMO. Mmmmm....I hate it when people use logic and truth to dispute my words I try! Although...I have to point what I said wasn't strictly true, just generally so...but I'm sure you were aware of that. Yeah I was

A game where you never have to retry (or aren't allowed to) sounds like a game where you don't have to try at all to begin with, (whether it's a result of the game naturally being easy or because you've gotten good at it), and seems rather boring. Not to mention I like playing with Sword Coast Stratagems, (AI/difficulty enhancing mod), combined with a rewarded XP reducer. There's too much XP rewarded in the game, IMO. Mmmmm....I hate it when people use logic and truth to dispute my words

I haven't paid attention to the patching but it's about three weeks ago on the autopatching steam version. You boys need to learn to play a game like BG2 from a permanent death perspective. If any character dies he is gone forever, if your main character dies you start the game from the beginning. Thats how real hardcore RPG players do it !!! None of this saving and restoring BS !!!

What drug dealer money are you referring to? I missed that one. Unless you're referring to the administration's decision to not enforce various laws that prohibit banks from dealing with any marijuana seller on legal marijuana stores in the states that have made marijuana legal. The federal government really doesn't constitutionally have the power to do that anyways (though they've certainly been doing it for awhile now). Yes, that one. May be they don't have the constitutional authority, but the Supreme Court says they do. And is Obama a states' rights guy now? When is he abolishing the FDA? OMG, so you also have a problem with the legalization of marijuana? So do you believe its right that people in the USA go to jail for having maybe 10 grams of marijuana on them...because there are people sitting in jail in the USA doing proper jail time for possession of marijuana for personal use. Is this your idea of a fair society, where alcohol is legal ( and all the problems that come with alcohol abuse ) but the act of someone smoking weed means that person deserves to be incarcerated?

You mean the cane? Her mage staff? Good grief, well I think that seals the deal and this game is most certainly not designed for me, I shall adieu and hope the game meets your expectations good people. Wow, so you aren't going to be play DA:I because of one item represented in the artistic interpretation of one charatcer... tough crowd ( I hate to think about what you will say when they start talking about the Romance implementation in DA:l ... ) More a case of the straw that broke the camels back Bruce, the emphasis on style over substance in this Vivian ladies case is only one egregious element in a long tally that i've been keeping, far more important was the previous blurb announcing that she would be a suicidal dullard. I didn't like the unmotivated, idle and idiotic female characters of DA2 for this very reason and so i'll pass on the next installment. But Nonek let me ask you an different question, what if DA:I does offer us the most realistic and rewarding Romance options ever seen in any Bioware game. Are you really going to deny yourself that kind of interaction and entertainment? I guess what I mean is " we mustn't cut our noses off to spite our faces"....

I hear you, most people just don't understand depression. They think a depressed person " should just stop complaining and get on with it "...but we know that the treatment of clinical depression is something much more scientific and requires analysis of the root causes and at times the right medication.

Oh gee, all my problems are solved now. I was only depressed because I didn't get drunk and laid. Oh wait, I actually have a healthy sex life and I had to stop drinking because it started out as this and then turned into self-medicating with alcohol and it made everything worse. Depression =/= being sad. Sadness is not always one of the symptoms. In fact, most forms of clinical depression stop you from being able to process that emotion correctly. Don't get me wrong, a healthy sex life is great and it does help in dealing with it but it is not a cure. Well, unless sex is a major part of your deeper issues, anyway. I think GD is just joking, anyone who knows anything about clinical depression knows that its a chemical imbalance and you can do as many things that you think will make you happy, like sex and alcohol, but these may make absolutely no difference to the way you feel about yourself and life Things like sex and alcohol are only good at treating what I consider is temporary depression

You mean the cane? Her mage staff? Good grief, well I think that seals the deal and this game is most certainly not designed for me, I shall adieu and hope the game meets your expectations good people. Wow, so you aren't going to be play DA:I because of one item represented in the artistic interpretation of one charatcer... tough crowd ( I hate to think about what you will say when they start talking about the Romance implementation in DA:l ... )

Thats a very informative post, thanks for taking the time to go into such detail

I had a Sushi platter for supper last night, I didn't think it was going to full me up but it did. I am really loving my Sushi at the moment

I agree with Notch's general sentiment ....but I would like to see him say "no " to joining a reputable company that offers you $2 Billion ....somehow I think he would suddenly find the cause of social media gaming more agreeable

Any attempt to stop cheating or punish cheaters I think is excellent, as long as its effective. So well done Titanfall

You funny Barti, you make me laugh

Well the good news there are loads of people on these forums who suffer from similar ailments to you, so I don't think you'll have to wait long before someone comments

Welcome to the forums

Yes, I was also going to write about how this is a problem for Sweden as well. For those of you who don't know, Sweden has a rather large military industry compared to it's small size (as recently as 2010 the 7th largest arms exporter while only being 22nd in the list of highest GDP). Being a part of NATO will (I think) put obstacles to selling weapons to certain countries, and in general to the independence of the military industry. The military lobby is a very influential group in Sweden, you can compare it to the pro-Israel lobby in the US. Even if 99% of people don't really care or know anything about the matter, it's a matter of extreme importance to a few very influential people that Sweden has it's own next-generation fighter jet, it's own next-generation stealth submarines et.c.. I can tell for sure that NATO military suppliers such as Lockheed Martin will NOT be happy to have additional competition in their respective fields among NATO countries, and vice versa. Why would Norway have joined NATO and not Sweden?