Darkpriest

Btw, for those of you TB geeks. - PhoenixPoint got funded albeit with only one stretch goal so far. The initial hype was real, seems it lost traction somewhere on the way. i guess not enough news/exposure on the way and near the end.

garbage game with writers having zero integrity....

I've told this piece before and stand by it. We should only give as much laws and free money to immigrants as their countries give to our citizens. No freedom of religion and personal rights, sorry to hear that, no such a thing for your religion and your kind over here as well. It does not work, it will end up as planet of apes, but instead of apes we will have uncivilized "immigrants" who care nothing for us, our history, our values, they only care their living space and how to take it from us, and our wealth, and how to take as much as they can from us.

Not even surprised... I just hope none of the people i know was injured/killed. I guess I will find out on Monday. The sad part of this reality is that people don't feel safe. For example the stampede in Turin was caused because people thought that someone detonated a bomb nearby. In Germany, the last couple of days the "Rock am Ring" festival got disrupted by constant warnings and fear of a terrorist attacks. This is so effed up.

Watched Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 - have to admit it was fairly fun. So many pop culture references, maybe a bit too many, but still fun.

yeah, the problem is, why are we even there in the first place? In past 15 years it has mostly been to fight terrorism, which ironically has increased amount of terrorism and terrorists (at least most radical form which is the thing seen in the news). The only campaign against 'terrorist' was the Afghan one - and it had some ups and downs, but overall the propaganda target was achieved. Other campaigns led only to removal of safety barriers in the region...

Easy, university education - tested, check on the work experience where applicable, knowledge of the language - tested, money of at least 20k EUR/USD or a bank guarantee for this amount. Does not get right to import other members of the family until 5 year probation is done and the person is working in an average pay salary area with no long gaps of unregistered work/unemployment (3+months). EZ - we have enough bumps to cover minimum wage jobs. Your criteria does not include the Manchester attacker who was born in the UK and a citizen. So, not so easy. i meant initially, - obviously it is a bit harder now when you have 2 generation of outcasts, who'd ratehr live in their enclosed communities. If you'd want to get rid of that yu'd need to use methods straight out of nazi books, and that's something noone sane would go for, however you can prevent from escalating the issue, and turn back all the first gens who came in to EU in the last 3-5 years, that you can do. and put the big border sign on the borders of europe... US has fairly strick screening australia as well, japan even more strict, so why not the hell europe?

yeah, the problem is, why are we even there in the first place?

Easy, university education - tested, check on the work experience where applicable, knowledge of the language - tested, money of at least 20k EUR/USD or a bank guarantee for this amount. Does not get right to import other members of the family until 5 year probation is done and the person is working in an average pay salary area with no long gaps of unregistered work/unemployment (3+months). EZ - we have enough bumps to cover minimum wage jobs.

Easily avoided? How so? By better screening and harsh immigration rules for people out of our cultural circle? Does Japan have issues?

I've no interest in getting into a debate of value judgments here -- the thing with violence is that it doesn't determine who is right, only who is left. I'm just pointing out, based on actual examples, that the differences you see aren't such. These IS-"inspired" attackers target the populace at large because they don't see themselves as part of that populace, but that distinction is completely arbitrary, much like Basque freedom fighters not considering themselves Spanish. They prioritised high value political and military targets over plain citizens because they thought that was the most expedient way to accomplish their goals, namely the destabilization of the state, not out of any sense of honor or whatever else you're thinking. Proof of this is that they did not hesitate to murder any civilians that got in their way, and showed no regard for collateral damage. Again, this is when not directly targeting civilians. Sorry, I'm just not seeing it. The difference between those is even though there were collateral casualties, those people were not prime targets. When you are fighting for independence, you do not want to target the local populace, because then you get no support for your actions. Do you think that there were no collateral deaths during any uprising / fight for independence / against an occupant? there always were, it's a part of a warfare, that collateral damage is there. The only way to avoid it, is to have your wishes granted in a peaceful manner, the problem is, the other side not always wants to co-operate, and lose their influence Ideally yes, such means should not be used, but I can understand those measures if you don't get it via political and peaceful means and the military power is hugely asymmetrical. Even that incident that you quoted, it is still disputed that it could have been avoided, as the warning call was made, and it is possible that it was negligence on the police part. The moment your primary target is not the politicians and agents of governmental power arm, and you shift it to civilian populace, you lose any credibility and should be hunted down and removed with any support base you got. The muslim attacks on western societies is not a freedom fight, it's a fight to remove rights or even outright erradicate the individuals who do now want to bow down to a certain set of religious beliefs. Why should I suddenly accept such reality near me? Why would I agree to importing more of the potential trouble?

yeah the thing is, you would not have to worry about this. ou wold not have to worry when going to a concert, when shopping, when clubbing, etc. Just look 20-30 years back at German republic (the western one) and compare crime rates, security level, and incidents there. check the same for France and UK, and even Sweden. Why should I accept something, that could have been easily avoided?

You called? If i recall correctly it was not intentional - someone screwed up either on the telephone caller or police with their reaction time to the warning time. While they placed the bomb, agreed, not the best method of fighting for own "freedom" their intent target were not the civilians, that's why they made the calls where the bomb is. Compare bombings done by IRA or ETA to the "modern" wave of terror and you will notice large differences in methods and targets (on top of what those movements were fighting for and still are to some degree) Don't know man, they did plant a bomb in a mall. Looks pretty intentional to me. They also liked to attack buildings where cops lived with their families... which unsurprisingly led to civilian casualties. And they frequently assassinated average joes who were members of certain political parties in small towns. Low(er)-intensity violence was directed at mom and pop stores, bars, and so on. The differences in methods are attributable to these groups being more professionalized and having actual funding structures, command hierarchies and clear political goals. Evidently you are going to see differences between essentially lone wolf attackers who seem mostly unconcerned with their personal safety, and members of a paramilitary organization. Regardless, I'm not sure that terrorist groups that select targets on political rather than cultural criteria are "better". Result is exactly the same if you happen to be part of their target collective, and the criteria is every bit as arbitrary. They all fight for "freedom" in their own mind. There is a difference, and a significant one at that. For example I do not condemn such bomb attacks if they are aimed at non-civilian targets (i.e. military and political) and are done against targets who took your land and freedom away. You can argue if given organizations have legitimate causes and their real intentions though. Otherwise you'd have to condemn various independence movements / paramilitary organization throughout the history - including US independence, WW1 and WW2. It's a part of the asymetrical warfare. However I do have a huge problem with target being painted on civilian populace to terrorize it and cause as much damage as possible with the goal of eradication of everyone who does not share your point of view and religious beliefs. That's why motivation is a great difference, and why the domestic EU 'terror' was a much different beast than what we are facing from the wave of Islamic terrorizm.

You called? If i recall correctly it was not intentional - someone screwed up either on the telephone caller or police with their reaction time to the warning time. While they placed the bomb, agreed, not the best method of fighting for own "freedom" their intent target were not the civilians, that's why they made the calls where the bomb is. Compare bombings done by IRA or ETA to the "modern" wave of terror and you will notice large differences in methods and targets (on top of what those movements were fighting for and still are to some degree)

https://www.yahoo.com/news/manchester-arena-bomber-identified-salman-154603609.html yeah, this will create just the standard argument over for and against mass immigration

Ah ****. i liked RM.. RIP

true enough, eventually it will move to immigration, tolerance, politics and in the end, everyone will agree to disagree. Shame though that with the raise of tolerance and immigration we need to start caring where we go to concert to not get blown up. 80s and 90s were so much better... domestic terrorism in EUR never targeted civs on purpose and was rather limited. This new imported and then saturated by bad integration politics is something i refuse to accept as day to day reality.

will wait and see. got burned with the recent hype around sword coast legends, which turned out to be a turd. there is some hope with CA, but I will wait for a gameplay before I will make any judgement. Feels like Obs missed some opportunity, on the other hand I like PoE and Tyranny, and I hope these will thrive.

@marelooke Poland and eastern block countries are low cost. The average pay is low depending on what you use. if straight average, then it's around 900 EUR a month, if using median, it is around 750 EUR a month. You can get high quality specialist in the range of 2,500 - 3,000. At the range of 3,000 you usually have wages of upper management in most larger companies. wages at 5,000k plus are very rare and only in the largest and richest companies, but in that range you also get people who earn 100k a month, so disparities get huge, depending on the owner's capital. now for comparison - in US in the west coast area i read some articles recently that IT engineers earning in 80k USD a year are on the very poor side of this career. So this is something like 6k EUR a month? for comparison, the minimum wage in high cost locations - two weeks on minumum wage is more than a whole month for 50% of working people on various jobs, including accounting, basic IT etc. Yeah, Poland is by comparison a low cost country. ***All amounts are in Employees Gross wage/salary @Zoraptor yeah forgot about SIMS - i treat that as a child of Maxis studio, although it is getting worse with each next installment and riddled with more DLCs on each installment. I recall there was a big negative noise at the launch of Sims 4... Shame they killed simcity series. Battlefield - not my cup of tea, but this is something that was for a long time with DICE, not EA per se. It also seen rushed installments suffering later with lower financial results. I feel like the Battlefield 1 was make or break the franchise after some previous fiaskos.

I don't know in general, but that's certainly not what happened with Bioware. The obligatory MP mode started with ME3, and the multiplayer component in that game was handled by a completely different studio (Montreal, while the main game was developed in Edmonton), and it was a stripped down version of what seems to have been initially prototyped as a standalone Battlefield-esque FPS. It was also such an unexpected success that its monetization model was copied and has more or less become standard. Their focus on multiplayer can be said to have begun with the choice to make SWTOR an MMO instead of another single player installment in the franchise, and whose development begun before the company was acquired by EA. EA basically appears to be a cliché American "enterprise" with everything that entails (I expect to walk straight into a Dilbert cartoon should I go to work there). So yeah, the company culture is likely a big part of the reason why big names have been quitting (if not for what I wroter earlier). Those that stay either do so out of convenience or because they can't afford to leave for some reason. (1) the problem here being the "low wage" part, not the "country" part, as my girlfriend always says: "If you pay peanuts you get monkeys". I would disagree here. It's not a matter of pure cost cutting, it's a matter of a corporate culture at your destination. For example in Poland you'd often get as good programmers on average if not better than your average in high cost locations. Just look at various global contests in this field and what these guys can do on technical universities with funding of 0.01% of what US top schools get (might exaggerate the cost part a bit, but the disparity is huge) Then look also at the studios, which bring on average similar quality products to the high cost locations in terms of games and sometimes they can produce a real gem (see the Witcher franchise for example) Same goes to other technically low cost countries. if these countries have good education, they can easily compete with their work force. however the problem often lies with mentality and corporate culture. For example, if in India employees get financially punished even for minor errors and are thought to adhere the procedure to the letter, then do not be surprised that your email with a problem will bounce 20 times, including three times telling that you should raise an error ticket. If the culture pushes for cheap drones, then you will get those. If the culture pushes for problem solvers, you will get those as well, as long as you pay competitively in relation to the local market and purchase power of a dollar. That way you can still save 60% and get similar if not better quality.

The BIG reason why EA has this policy, is because they have no idea how to make good games and create new Franchise... It is easier and cheaper to buy someone with established IPs and milk them than to try and error on your own new IPs. EA does sports games well, and that's it. they try to squeeze all their products into same production cycles or revenue per annum. Look at all the acquired IPs... deteriorating fast after being bought, but production cycle are shorter and you get more sales on the established IP. There are companies like this in other lines of business. It is easier to grow and acquire market via acquisition than greenfielding in new locations. The thing is that in electronic entertainment, you do not need to keep the product standards of the acquired company, because his market is way more volitile due to tech changes surrounding it than other markets. The other difference is that you acquire the products which are already for a global market, however a different consumer focus. Company will naturally gravitate towards expanding th consumer base, thus sacrificing the uniqueness, which created a given IP.

Heroes of Might and Magic.... Settlers and more than a few others

2K perhaps

Kind of being obvious for a long time. First you close the forums, start moving people around, change priorities on projects, the book value of Bioware brand is going to fully clean in 10 year period. The last step is left i.e. Time to rebrand various Bioware studios to EA studios and end it. Not even caring. I was caring and upset when ME2 and DA2 came up. I was annoyed at ME3, indifferent at DA:I, where i bought it for complete trilogy only (and still can;t finish the damned thing). Any other Bioware game after that simply does not exist for me. Bioware does not exist for me as a studio by now.

Some more footage. not as flashy as the ones from the first one, but still nice: