Drowsy Emperor

Is it just me or does that "white man" has distinct Mongolian features? An albino Tibetan perhaps? At least it is something different. He looks Slavic to me, which is not at all unreasonable for that geographical area. He is anything but slavic. The eyes are quite obviously asian. Although he could be something else, doesn't exactly exhibit strong racial traits. Only bad taste in clothing.

You won't find a person who'll deny there is some level of discrimination going on, but that's about all that can be said before the discussion becomes pointless. And its just a short step away from from asking for equal treatment (a natural thing, I'd say) to asking for special privileges, which is, when you look at the people who made a career "fighting for these rights" in various generally useless, money wasting NGO's (others paying them to keep their job "a thing")- what its all about. That said, time to

Looks like a debug on google earth.

Jesus christ, do you have to dock like that each and every time? It looks nice but it takes... forever.

I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to Gromnir. Because I can expect a reasonable response from him. Peddle your petty ideology elsewhere

Romance never dies.

I suppose Morrowind must have had some good points but I was bored to tears from wading in brown after 10 or so hours. Kinda my experience with the ES games. Oblivion went up to 20 and Skyrim under 10. I think what kept me going in Oblivion was vegetation.

That sort of aggressively conditioned feminist reflex is most prominent to the anglo-saxon world and gets progressively less so as you go eastwards, and southwards from France onward (lumping in Australia with the west here). You may or may not be surprised to know that such observations would hardly arise in a conversation here. The point being - the female perspective, apart from some genuine gender differences, is heavily influenced by cultural factors. I'm mentioning this because I find those sort of observations stifling, a sign of shallow reasoning. Only women were the priestesses at Delphi, no? Enough for an accusation of misandry, maybe?... The cry of misogyny is now one of those blanket terms, like homophobe or fascist - used to discredit anything and everything on the opposite sides of a debate. I also usually hear it from people who have least reason to complain about their position in life, so I can't help but treat it as a sort of shallow diversion for the bourgeois. I'd also venture that its culturally damaging. Seen more than a few englishmen and americans chasing after asian wives specifically because they don't want to deal with that sort of thing. Didn't understand what it was about at first, only later did I get it. I do agree that there is a specifically female perspective but its not one of those things that's easily defined (which we also agree on).

^ Hitler's agony was shorter than ours.

Morrowind > Skyrim > Fallout 3 The rest aren't worth talking about. Personally I thought Fallout 3 was poor as well. Maybe Skyrim deserved to make the list, its definitely better than some of the games on it. But the codex hates everything post Morrowind apparently so it wasn't going to happen.

In many cases, you are correct, but, as a blanket statement, I disagree. There are cases where voice acting can add a lot to the gaming experience. There are cases where simple text on the screen would have been a much better choice. I like the infinity engine deal - important characters get occasional voice acting to set themselves out from the rest of the NPC's in the game.

More likely they're using it as a deceptive measure - less chance of being shot at while sporting UN colors. Alternative theory is that it was maintained regularly unlike the rest of the army. @Bruce - what Zoraptor said. Its a Ukrainian military chopper intended for UN missions. Its sits in the base along with other Ukrainian hardware and is their property, not the UN's. The way they're using it is unlawful because UN insignia can only be used on UN missions. The United Nations aren't present in this conflict in a peacekeeping role, so naturally I wasn't implying that the real UN had anything to do with this.

I wish it were but the real thing has 20+ tools. I dabbled a bit into lockpicking for fun but everything but the old design tumbler lock, handcuffs and cheap padlocks is very very difficult to pick. Basically there are 10 ways of getting around a lock and every one of them is better than lockpicking. There are 10 ways to hammer a lock? No, I meant that it may be unnecessary to go for the lock in the first place.

Its a military attack chopper with UN designations armed with missiles and an internal gatling gun, currently in use by the pro-Kiev forces in the east. What do you think they're using it for, pray tell?

Sure, you want me to ship you the shell casings as well? Passenger manifesto? The pilot's dating website profile, so you can troll both him and us at the same time?

Just goes to show we could do worse than the codex, those people I can at least relate with. I don't know who thinks like that ^

I suppose its harder to write "movie" type "all voice acted" dialog. It has to be short (because no one is going to listen to an in game character talk for ages), to the point and interesting, if its to be any good. Brevity while maintaining quality is not an easy thing for a writer. The "book" type is probably easier because people read quickly so you can stuff more information in without it being a drag.

Burning does that to vehicles. Pics are definitely genuine. Looks so similar at first glance..., although if it were a rusty wreck the garbage at the bottom would have washed away from rain and whatnot.

Its an attack helicopter, what do you think they're using it for. It can transport a squad as well, but still. Its not like they removed the weaponry and are using it just to ferry troops around.

The way people talk about Bloodlines makes me think I was playing a different game. I recall terribly wonky combat, empty areas and a game that progressively got more sparse and lacking in content, all tied to a story that was vaguely confusing but mostly unimportant. On the other hand the game was very atmospheric and interesting... when it worked... and a breath of fresh air in the somewhat stale genre. But no less flawed. Still, I understand why people like it. I don't get the praise for Arcanum though. It was ugly and broken, with some good ideas tied to poor in game mechanics. In fact, for every good thing in Arcanum there were at least three that didn't work. I don't think it has a single defining feature apart from the unconventional setting that makes it worthy of the best titles in the genre.

Finished Shadowrun Dragonfall. Best fun I've had in ages. More fun than South Park, ME3 and the Witcher 2 combined. The story kept me engaged all the way to the end, and even though it has plenty of cliche moments, its still well written. It must have been, since these days I can hardly force myself to read RPG dialog. I tend to glance over it and choose whatever feels right, but in Dragonfall I read everything, since the game has no voice acting, and enjoyed it. The thing is, I know the new generations hate anything to do with reading, but the old RPG's, which tend to be written with "book" type dialog in mind are simply more interesting to experience that then new ones that go for "movie" type dialog. I can't sit through 15 minutes of slowly voice acted dialog (yes ME3 and W2 I'm looking at you), which is by necessity shorter and generally simplistic compared to the written type. So i skip through it and the voice acting ends up being pointless. Also ,my imagination is still stoked far more with characters who are a well drawn portrait and have something to say, than uncanny valley, badly lip-synced 3D models. *shrugs* I played a rigger, which I assume is the most overpowered class in the game. A rigger controls drones at the cost of action points. The thing is, those drones are quite competent and have more AP than characters... And you can control two at once... at the cost of your character being incapable of action. But you get triple, or even quadruple the AP of a single character to do as you please, and the drones are veritable killing machines. The two drones combined killed more enemies than any member of the team. If anyone is going to play Dragonfall as a rigger I advise using the combat drones only, the support ones aren't all that useful.

Link? Of course didn't see this reported on the Dutch news and too tired to google-fu now (0:40AM) so hopefully can read it fresh in the morning with a nice link http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-14/why-are-ukraine-troops-using-un-helicopters-russia-foreign-minister-asks

Explosive food supplies. Isn't that rust on those wrecks.

Dunno, but at this point Kiev is basically shuffling some ragtag gunmen around, trying to beat the regions into submission but all that has achieved is alienating the population there and ensuring that they end up without a foothold in what was previously an undisputed part of Ukraine. There is no way they're going to retain control without massive bloodbaths and demonstrations of power... that are beyond their capabilities, if not beyond their inclinations (>Odessa, the Maidan snipers etc.).

@sorophx Its certainly not the best game in terms of design, but it is the best RPG story ever written.. probably the best story of any game, regardless of genre. Btw, people should bear in mind that according to my last count (back in the day when I had a higher tolerance for tedious tasks) there were around 170 or so cRPG's (minus MMO) released altogether, so getting into the top 70 ain't exactly as prestigious as it sounds. The number is a guesstimate now, since I stopped maintaining the list ages ago, but it shouldn't be too far off. I'd say that a top 20 would more than accommodate the best that the genre has to offer, but, that's like my opinion, man.