Drowsy Emperor

I like the new lightsaber. Don't care about the logic, there is none in Star Wars to begin with. A sword with crossguards is a very archetypal image, which is why they chose it. The one thing that's not in focus is the fact that lightsaber use in the original films was quite rudimentary - on the level of a swordfight simulation in a theater, or a typical imaginary duel in hollywood films. It was more about the characters interacting and less about the actual swordfighting. No one knows what real sword fighting was like anyway. This one is probalby going to follow the prequel films in the endless flashy fighting acrobatics.

HAHAHA!!! Oh socialists and their class theories. None of it is ever based on facts; just ideology. The push to end welfare mostly comes from blue collar (I don't know if that's an American specific term; it basically means working class) people pissed off that they have to work while lazy slackers feed off the system. Most of the political support FOR welfare comes from the upper-class communities. I can assure you in the US if you ask poor to lower-middle class people about welfare about 1/2 of them will want it eliminated, and the other half will only accept the programs grudgingly. Ask the rich and about 19/20 of them will give their complete support for welfare. That's because neoliberal ideologues are working overtime to convince everyone that the theoretical "welfare queen" is to blame for everything. Its a project they've been doing ever since the Reagan/Thatcher era and its easy to prove where it originated. Just because some blue collar muppets took up the cause (that goes against their own interests) doesn't make them the real brains behind it. Its nonsense of course, people have no sense of the scale at which a country's economy operates. A certain number of people leeching the system at the bottom rung make absolutely no difference whatsoever to an economy that shuffles billions or trillions of (insert currency) per year. its easy to demonstrate how the current economic crisis and the recession are precisely the fault of the uncontrolled financial capital institutions from the housing crisis onwards. It was the result of systematic abuse that cost taxpayers across the world insane amounts of money and brought economies to the brink of collapse. In fact, it has been repeatedly demonstrated by top economists that that is in fact what happened. Welfare itself has never been an economic threat to the system but it is a barrier to increasing profit margins and possibilities for corruption for people on the top. The money that can be made from privatizing health care and social services is unfathomably large.

I tried a bit of Kingdoms of Amalur but the game refuses to work properly in widescreen. I did play it with black bars to the side but overall the game reminds me a lot of Fable. Its colorful, the action combat is functional but after playing so many games of the same type there's simply no point in playing yet another generic hack and slash RPG.

The problem you are pointing to aren't a result of socialism, it's monetary and cultural. We have more than enough resources, it's simply distribution that have needed, until now, to be tightly controlled... and it worked really well, we brought an entire group of people from abject poverty to excess. Capitalism truly revolutionized distribution of wealth and socialism with capitalism has worked really well up here in the north - some would say better than most other system (if Fukuyama is to be believed). But the system is starting to show it's weaknesses in a modern economy evolving away from production and industry. Extreme waste, the fact that irresponsibility is more often more profitable, growing disparity due to ingrown corruption etc. We need to come up with a new system - not socialist - which essentially still operates under industrial assumptions and not capitalistic. Extreme waste, corruption and irresponsibility are hallmarks of all political system across time when you look deeper into them. Nazi germany was extremely controlled and yet there was plenty of corruption in it. The point being is that those traits are not the result of systems failing but people failing the system. Unbridled capitalism is the absolute champion in those categories anyway. The push to destroy the welfare state comes from the rich, all in an effort to push the state out of businesses (both in terms of regulation and ownership) so they can take them over and put all the profits in their own pocket. If you cut down on the socialist aspects of the system all that will be achieved is that more money will be drained out of the government and by extension, out of what it can provide for the citizens, while the corrupt public figures will be replaced by corrupt private figures accountable to no one.

The AAA model is certainly not doing us any favors at this point. Most of those games (CoD, AssCreed etc.) would be played by exactly no one if it were not for their production values.

The Xbox360 and the PS3 were cracked although the latter wasn't as user friendly as PS2 chips. Games had to be loaded onto the hard drive and there was a risk of bricking the console when inexpertly jailbreaking it. The PS4 has been cracked but so far Sony's threat of legal action kept the crack from spreading. Or something like that. Don't care much for that anyway. In either case, its far easier to pirate on the PC. But, if Denuvo spreads, that may become a problem. Seems to be the only anti-piracy scheme that works at the moment. Its all so tangential to games as a business though, regardless of all the "piracy is a major problem" incessant blabber. The real problem is that game prices haven't really increased so the costs of AAA production must be offset by constantly increasing the number of units sold. However the market will saturate at some point and then either the games will get more expensive (leading to reduced sales) or the AAA model will crumble. Currently however, publishers and developers are lying through the teeth - profits for big name games are astronomical and put Hollywood to shame. Piracy is nothing to them, an annoyance that keeps them from maximizing their incredible profit, not something that's actually a threat. Small time developers however, do have a problem. But games like Minecraft are proof that if you make a good product you can still make millions.

True, it cannot even hit stuff Reminds me of myself when, just as I'm about to fall asleep, a mosquito buzzes right next to my ear.

Is more on the fact that as technology improves consoles become more complex to the point of being specialized PCs, which they are now. So all the advantages of consoles are rendered null as they begin to have the same issues as PCs without any of the advantages. Eventually people will slowly migrate towards PCs. But the argument should stop at the fact that consoles have to become PCs in order to remain competitive, PC has won. They were always a specialized PC. The benefit was that the hardware doesn't change and that's a constant that the PC can't rely on. The only difference in this generation is that Microsoft and Sony realized there was no point in doing their own hardware from scratch and just put their consoles together from mostly PC components. I don't see the PC unseating the consoles as the primary entertainment hub for most people. They are still cheaper and easier to use. The only "victory" for the PC that I see is the multiplatform nature of most games today. Gone are the days of the really desirable console exclusives. A good PC can now play both all the AAA console games and the multitude of indie and PC centric games.

The death of the consoles was proclaimed regarding the lack of their ability to provide another technological jump. This was a false dilemma as people will eventually play on whatever you provide them. Additionally those same trumpets of doom failed to acknowledge the advantages of a closed ecosystem, unified control scheme and a thousand other conveniences for both the developers, the console gaming peasants, and the people rolling in money from console games at the moment. All of these have an interest (or habit) to keep the console thing going.

Its curious how hated Bioware has become among a section of their fan (?) base. We have Bethesda publishing glitchy garbage since forever that becomes playable when players contribute with unpaid man hours make it so and everyone is okay with that while Bioware seems to come under attack whatever they do. A while ago I basically gave up hoping that I'd have another BG saga like experience from them, which was the main and ultimately only important issue I had with BW. Now I'm somewhat bewildered at the things that seem to piss off everyone, that range from somewhat credible to utterly trivial. Regarding this... If ME4 is console only... who cares. I thought people were swearing off the series after the ending fiasco. Why the butthurt now?

A lightsaber is a nonsensical weapon in itself so I don't understand how any variation of it can be any worse. A meter long welding torch that's designed to cut in every direction is just as dangerous to the user as to everyone else. Its an accident waiting to happen. That's if we're to use reason to think about it (which is kinda pointless).

JJAbrams was basically pitching himself to make a SW film with the Star Trek film he made. That's exactly the kind of film the new SW is going to be. I'm 90% sure he'll make a better film than the prequels... although anyone could probably do that. On the other hand his Star Trek film was passable but forgettable.

Coming into cRPG's with Baldur's Gate I could never get past the interface barrier to try the gold box games, in addition to simply not believing the game had much in the way of narrative to keep me engaged. So, it'll be fun to watch you play this. So that I don't have to

That guy... is so annoying.

What do we want it to be? I'm pretty sure SW fans couldn't describe what they wanted of a star wars film at this point. They tend to view it as this grand sweeping epic that's going somewhere, but all I ever saw was a fairy tale for the space age generation. It was well written, at times well directed and the special effects were great at the time. By the third film most of these elements were worn down. We're now at the seventh film of a multi-million dollar franchise, probably the thousandth book, comic and who knows how many metric tons of merchandise. Cool ideas, like Vader's helmet or stormtrooper armor are now made into everything from flash drives to ashtrays, printed on T-shirts you can see people wearing all over town. Expecting to be wowed by anything SW at this point is simply mad. This is why I don't get the nitpicking about the trailer and the negativity. Its Star Wars, an anything goes universe, being Star Wars and people are arguing the merits of lightsaber crossguard while not wondering why in an age of space bombers and lasers is anyone using a sword in the first place. I mean, you're either going to accept that its a fairy tale about knights, rogues and princesses or you're going to drive yourself nuts staying "true" to an imaginary fantasy universe.

Why not moving pictures anyway

Well you have the "emperor" title in the name... we all knew it's coming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PQ6335puOc#t=24

It is usually more politically opportune to let riots run their course and suppress them a "bit late". The risk for the people in power is that the police will kill someone else during suppression inadvertently and cause the situation to escalate even more. If the riots aren't organized well, led and externally funded then they usually die down and its back to business as usual. And the underclass is temporarily pacified.

Collectivism score: 83% Authoritarianism score: 50% Internationalism score: -33% Tribalism score: 0% Liberalism score: -83%

I don't know what people are expecting at this point. I expect the new films will be better than the prequels I-III but the SW saga itself can't really be what it was back when it was made, neither in the mundane things such as special effect nor in the childish whimsy of the original now that its burdened with the task of being all things to all people. And JJAbrams goes out of his way to copy Spielberg and Lucas but he's not the visionary or the talent they were. I think they'll be passable throwaway blockbusters.

You are a: Communist Authoritarian Non-Interventionist Fundamentalist lololololololo I make satan and Hitler look like amateurs

I found KOTOR II to be the most interesting Star Wars thing I ever experienced and that's saying something since I don't even like SW much in the first place. The first KOTOR though, apart from good level design, was a no challenge, generic SW story snooze fest and for the life of me I don't understand why so many people rate it so highly.

The unexpected technical issue being the game itself.

Every other RPG I played since probably had twice as much loot (that is replaced near instantly), particularly after crafting, alchemy and similar busywork became a thing that had to be included in every game. without context, such comments is less than helpful. bg1 were an ad&d game that took you to level 7ish. the loot for such levels o' a d&d game were monty haul. am not gonna go through all such items, but 7 tomes and manuals in addition to multiple rings o' wizardry, the balduran items and multiple +2 weapons with either elemental damage or an additional power (e.g. free action) is only sparse in a campaign run by the absolute worst kinda monty haul dm. seven tomes and manuals? now, because bg level'd slower than many other crpgs you has played, perhaps it felt to you as if the loot were sparse, but given the relative power o' your enemies, and the rules system bg were utilizing, bg were rather extreme monty haul rather than sparse. HA! Good Fun! I don't have much experience with PnP. You're probably right that the slower progression made for a more "natural seeming" tempo of loot acquisition. The one thing I always held against the likes of KOTOR, NWN etc. was the storm of abilities, skills and items they showered you in. Going from peasant to heroic in the usual playing time of a few days didn't feel very convincing.

Every other RPG I played since probably had twice as much loot (that is replaced near instantly), particularly after crafting, alchemy and similar busywork became a thing that had to be included in every game.