Elerond

I disagree strongly. IMO TESO is a textbook example of how not to do a classless system. I agree with that statement that TESO's classless system is very flawed. I would look more towards systems like Rune Quest, Hero Quest, Rolemaster or GURPS if you want see what good classless RPG system looks like.

I remember reading that they covered their production costs with the initial sales, but that the stock holders weren't satisfied with the numbers and thus considered it a failure. I could be wrong about that, I read it a while ago. They broke-even end of the last year, by statements given by Tomb Raider's executive producer. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-01-17-tomb-raider-finally-achieved-profitability-by-the-end-of-last-year

The problem with that is that they have a funny way of gauging the point at which the game is profitable. A normal person would think that a game would be profitable if it covers it's production cost, but it seems it ain't so. Some games just have very high production cost, which means that they need to actually sell millions of games to be even break-even let alone to make profit. Like for example Tomb Raider's big sell figures weren't enough to cover its over $100 million budget, which was the reason why Square Enix said that it didn't reach its sale goal when it has sold "only" 3.4 million copies, as it needed to sell about 5 million copies to break-even (which it now has done, selling over 6 million copies).

Well now days that is not even a problem, no one is risking anything anymore. Everyone is rehashing their big hits and raking in the money. Also I still stand by my argument that most popular games, make their production budget back, it's just that companies have unreasonable standards by which they judge a success and thus get too bloated to support their own weight without those big profit games. If you want an example look up what square enix said about Tomb Raider, Infinite is another good example. It's more of a case with publishers/devs being unreasonable with their expectations then pirates taking their money away. Not all most popular games success to make their production budget back (for example new Tomb Raider had hard time to become profitable even though it was popular game, as it took it over year to do so), although they are most likely do it, as they are popular, but not all high budget games become popular, for one reason or another (or multiple) and they are ones that need to be compensated by those games that make profit.

You wanna say they went out of businesses because of piracy? They did go out of business because their games didn't produced less money than what did go to making them. There is no single reason why this happened and there is no evidence that piracy was even factor in one way or another, but that wasn't part of original argument that publishers lose money on majority of their games, which is compensated by big sellers

Now that is a load of BS. It's just the accounting arithmetic all large companies do to avoid large taxes. I mean Warner Bros claimed a loss on the lord of the rings movies... Every Hollywood production company claims a loss on their movies, I'm sure it's the same with game publishers. Not to mention how stupid it is to claim that piracy caused a loss on a game/movie. That is how taxes actually work for companies. New Line Cinema claimed that LotR did loss to avoid compensations for Tolkien Estate (and Peter Jackson), which is why they did go in court, which lead to settlement where Warner Bros paid not disclosed sum of money for Tolkien Estate. This lawsuit was also reason why Hobbit films were made so long after LotR trilogy.

Are you aware that Netflix, Amazon, Hulu is not available to more than 6 billions of people living on this planet? You are really missing the point. More than half of those people live in poverty. Is their access to the latest Game of Thrones episode really the most important issue? We are talking about entertainment. Stop trying to make it into some grand social justice issue. I am not going to oppose you but culture or entertainment is part of life, if you would earn just enough money to buy food/housing. would you rest of the day stare into wall if you can almost for free watch some movie on internet? Man cannot live by bread alone actual quote is as follows: "it is written: ‘man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." am not sure the passage is working for you the way you think it does. HA! Good Fun! I don't know-- it clearly justifies pirating Bibles. Which is not much as Bibles has long since become work of public domain, so every body is free to copy one as much they want (Of course there could be some translations or variant that still has some copyrights for it, but even those are on very loose bases if someone really tries to claim them to be new piece of work, that should have copyrights).

Reason for no next gen, PSVIta, or any other port that has not made is not technical, but that Ubisoft don't feel that they would sell enough to make profit. It should also be noted that Obsidian has next to nothing to say when it comes to make such ports, as IP rights are owned by South Park creators and Ubisoft, so those are the people that you should ask such ports and I am quite sure that they don't read Obsidian forums in any great frequency if they read them at all.

I would not like to be that government worker who has to read all those comments and revise them

They actually all bailed on the project very early on, like before development even started. They were involved in some very preliminary stuff. Weren't they hired as area designers and Stackpole also to write a novella? Which would mean that their job would have been completed before actually development of the game would have even started.

Scientists Just Achieved Quantum Teleportation for the First Time The news: It's not every day that you get to say Albert Einstein was wrong. On Thursday, scientists from the Netherlands announced that they were able to achieve quantum teleportation — a feat that Einstein once dismissed as "spooky action at a distance."

Which was, you know, what was originally agreed. No bail out. Too bad that the no-bail-out clause (Article 125 of the Lisbon's treaty) don't protect member states from economical destabilization if they let some members to default, especially when its their money that will be defaulted. So I think that many politician and even economist felt wrongly that no-bail-out clause would protect them from economical crises in other member states which come and bite them hard with sad reality that if loaned money don't come outside of eurozone then letting country to default would also hurt those member states that loaned the money in first place, even if it's private money, which would cause ripple effect that would hurt even those member states that haven't loaned any money at least directly for member state that is going to default. I agree with Walsingham that there was too little of oversight to see that there was no excessive borrowing and other bad habits in member countries. Most of oversight was left for financial markets, because it was assumed that they would not saw branch under them, but that failed miserably when some banks helped Greece hide their too rapidly growing debt and overall there was too much faith that markets will grow with out any glitches, which lead that many other members addition to Greece also had over extended their borrowings.

I think that if my salary was only $600 or even less in month, like average salaries in some eastern Europe countries are, I would probably think much harder where I put $5 than I currently do.

Letting Greece default would had shown that Euro is only monetary union for good days and on bad days its members are on their own, which would had removed most of economical stability that it has brought (meaning that price of loans would have risen probably more than they did and euro's swings in euro's value would probably been in much large and more difficult to predict) and caused it to lose it value as reserve currency, which would have put lots of other countries under economical threat. But even when take that consideration it's difficult to say which choice of action would have cost more in end. Euro countries decided to choose safer option, stabilizing currency by lending money for Greece to pay its debts and it would have quite minor impact on eurozone if they would have acted faster and if Greece would have been only country with problems. But in Euro crisis there is so much blame to throw around that it's in my opinion quite unnecessary start to point fingers to any one country or institution, especially when last five years has been agonizing for most of the "worst" offenders. Although that said I would like to see bit more control put for banks so that they don't do so much speculative investments with money that is not theirs.

If you broke EULA in digital products, given that EULA on question is legal in you country, you are considered as pirate in legal sense. Physical copies of piece of work, rule of thumb is that you are considered as a pirate if you make another copy of that work and lend or sell that copy that you have made. But there is always especially with EULA's question what kind of limitations copyright owner should have right put in their EULAs, which is more question about society's view about how owns the pieces of culture than question should something be considered as piracy or not. So to OP's question if ebook's EULA says that you can't make copies or lend your copy of book then you are pirating it, but if EULA don't prohibit you doing so then it is not pirating (in some countries you have legal right to make copies of book and lend of those copies even if EULA prohibit it, at least if book is not copy protected). In second question, lending physical copies of book that you own isn't, in my knowledge, considered thing that someone can prohibited do by copyright owner in anywhere in world.

I think EA would probably be more hindrance than help for PoE, as it is decent way to get exposure, money and people to give their opinions about game for games that don't already have those, but as PoE already has enough? funding, it has already got decent amount of exposure and interest from press and players and it already has thousands people that will participate on its beta. So in my opinion EA would not bring enough additional money and/or player feedback to make it worthwhile thing Obsidian to do with PoE. Especially during time when EA gets so much mud poured on it, as people and developers haven't yet used to it and know what it actually should be.

I work as an usability specialist for larger software company, even though that my work should have little to do with politics, there has been government contracts for EU specific web-portals. But I liked civic classes in school and I try to keep myself updated on how our government and EU works, so most of my knowledge comes from reading it from internet , which means that my knowledge probably has large holes in it.

Actually, an increasing amount of EU legislation leaves the "2nd level" to the Commission. Proposals, such as the data protection regulation when I was working on it, are absolutely rife with these openings for the Commission to legislate, meaning thatneither the member-states nor the EP has any say in the final product. The activism of the EU Court is terrifying, not least in the legal uncertainty it creates. (See the test-achats case) Additionally, directives (minimum harmonization with national implementation) are becoming rarer, with old directives being systematically replaced with directly applicable regulations. In my understanding Lisbon Treaty (Article 290) removed comitology procedures and replaced them with more limited delegated acts (which gives for Commission rights to determine technical details that are seen as non-essential elements of the legislative act in limited scope, so that legislator can therefore concentrate on policy direction and objectives without entering into overly technical debates ) which both EP and Council can object if they see fit to do so. Although I don't have any first hand experience how things work in reality. Judicial activism is something that is hard to avoid in court systems, but at least it concentrate on invalidate legislation. Specifically about test-achats case, one could argue that by invalidating directive at question court in effect also created new legislation, but in other hand one could argue that if directive did go against Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, as EDJ ruled, meaning that those legislation based on that directive shouldn't have existed in first place (of course in this case most of those legislations existed before said directive or adoption of said charter, which make things much more complicated), and therefore being quite excellent case for judicial activism.

Why you insist on spreading this sort of misinformation is beyond me. It's either irony or malice at play that you blame it on ignorance and "the population being morons", seeing how, as evidenced by the Ukraine thread, you either don't know how the EU siphons sovereignty off member states and towards the Union structures or are, rather dishonestly, downplaying it. But I'm the FSB shill. Again, member states are obligated to: relinquish control over monetary policy once switching to the Euro (handled at the Union level by ECB) acknowledge rulings and domestic ruling overturns by the ECJ and ECHR obey regulations and directives issued by the European Commission (secondary legislation, I'm sure you know what this is) fall in line with the common trading policy or face severe penalties If that all sounds familiar, it's because you already read and glossed over it in the other thread. The structures and organisms responsible for the above are eminently undemocratic and suffer from transparency and accountability deficits. The argument that the EU doesn't micromanage countries is deceitful because what it does is hand out high level objectives for countries to legislate towards, and then sets deadlines for said legislation, leaving only the wording and execution up to member states, while monitoring both and penalizing any deviation from the directives issued. It's not that people believe that some sort of EU nationality is in danger of supplanting whatever their passport currently reads—it's that they correctly surmise that the democratic process is being rendered increasingly irrelevant by the slow but sure transfer of power from their elected representatives to a supra-national organization they have no reason to trust and whose interests, motivations and inner workings are, at best, opaque. Euro is not EU's currency, although original idea of Euro was that it would become such, but currently it hasn't and it more like Independent monetary union, with close tides with EU. Even though all EU's member states are members of EMU, only those countries that have been participated in European Exchange Rate Mechanism II, which is voluntary, for at least two years can adopt Euro as their currency. States outside of EU also can adopt Euro as their currency if they fulfill certain criteria. Currently there are several countries and territories outside EU that use Euro as their currency. ECHR is Council of Europe's court that is institute that is independent from EU and nearly all European countries are it's members. Decisions of national courts can't be appealed to ECJ. ECJ works as institute that determines how EU law should be interpret, but final decision is on national courts. ECJ also works as arbiter between EU's institutions. European Commission don't have power to issue regulations or directives, it only has power to make proposals for legislation, that Council of the European Union and European Parliament has to accept, if proposal is accepted it is Commission job to see that all member states obey it. EU is first and foremost trade union, so it should not come as surprise to any country that joins it that there is trade agreements that they have to obey if they want to be part of the union.

It's only mode where combat are slowed down so that players has easier time to control their characters if they don't want to relay on pause and command queues so much. But then what will happens when somebody speaks while in slow motion combat? Slowmo animations run the risk of being a tad ridiculous too, don't they? But well, it should be easy to implement, and if it pleases some players, good for them. Diversity is good when it does not spread development resources thin. I don't think that they will slow sounds, music or voices down in slow mode. There is always risk that when you make animation run slower or faster that it don't look as smooth as it intended speed, but I don't think that such is issue for those people that want use slow mode.

That is true, but mostly for games that are presented publicly. Closed door presentations are for those games that aren't polished in state that they could be presented for public. And as Obsidian has already presented PoE for members of press in their offices, which means that they already have version of PoE that they feel is good enough to be used as part of their explanation how game will work when it's released even if it don't have stability and look of final version yet.

It's only mode where combat are slowed down so that players has easier time to control their characters if they don't want to relay on pause and command queues so much.

Reading all the comments from people who live in the EU has made me realize something, or rather has made me think of the biggest challenge facing the continued longevity of the EU When I asked questions what people didn't like about EU there are several common themes that are relevant like immigration and a distant central government that people don't relate to But what about the issue of identity? I don't think the EU countries share a true common identity and that's understandable. For example the French are the French and have there own history. They may have great fondness for the Norwegians but do they really share an identity? The EU is an attempt to force a common framework between countries that for thousands of years have been proudly independent through there history, culture and language. No wonder there is this rise of nationalism with "far right " parties gaining votes through slogans like " we represent the true identity of country x" Its actually been relatively easy for "far right" parties to gain support not just because the EU parliament sits in Brussels but the fact that end of the day I think most people prefer being part of there own country and culture rather than being part of some nebulous " EU common brotherhood". You then add economic and social issues to the EU mix and you have serious disillusionment with the EU structures I am not suggesting the EU countries don't like each other or xenophobia is systemic. I am saying you can't force countries to form a union with the objective of economic prosperity without looking at the important issue of cultural identity and how that will be effect the perception of the success of the union as time goes on Look at the USA, each state is almost like a separate country. But the USA works because despite some of the differences between the states almost all US citizens are united by one common thread. They are all American in identity. And that's what the EU lacks? I have traveled all over EU (+ Switzerland) during this month and I found out that lots of people had common European identity and they didn't treat me as stranger even then when we didn't had any common language, where I saw people outside of Europe get much colder treatment. So there is such thing as European identity, but it is not as strong as identity that people feel towards their own country, which is probably one main reasons why people object EU's development towards federation instead of union of independent countries. And I know that lots of EU opposition comes from our politicians that uses EU as explanation for many laws that have lots of opposition, even though truth is usually that those laws would have been made even without EU and EU's directives (which our politicians themselves were part of creating in first place) would have allowed versions that would have been much more liking of those people that opposite them. So I would say that for most people it is not union of independent European nations that they opposite, but idea/fear that there is some alien entity that can overrule their country's decisions, which is the thing that most anti EU populist parties use in their campaigns and is therefore probably the thing that those parties actually don't want get rid of, as it would mean decrease of their popularity. So I would say best thing for EU would be make its process better known and much more transparent, for example by broadcasting European Parliament's, Council of the European Union's and European Commission's sessions in TV and internet, and by advocating media outlets to reporting more about their decisions making. Because in my opinion biggest threat for EU is that people don't know how it works and mental image about cabinet decisions that are done behind closed doors.

Obsidian will show PoE in Paradox's booth behind closed doors for press as part of Paradox's marketing campaign for the game. So it's not like Obsidian pays to be in E3, but opportunity that is available because as Paradox goes in E3 anyway, to show their other games, so it would be waste money not to use this opportunity to market PoE as us backers aren't only ones whom they want to sell this game, which is why they need to start show game for gaming journalists and Paradox's retail partners so that they can get them start to writing articles and add game on their Holiday catalogs.

You mean young people in Finland are taught how elections really work in school? I'm genuinely impressed. Do you also get basic legal and fiscal education? And, by the way, there is no popular legislative initiative at the EU level, or EU-wide referenda. So no participating, at all. Yes we have nationwide curriculum that includes civics (In Finnish Yhteiskuntaoppi) classes that needs to give information how our elections work, what every governmental institutions do and how they work with each other, these same classes also include basics legal and fiscal education.