Agiel

Hear, hear for the first part! For the second, as a proper, civilised PC gamer I'm holding out with mouse and keyboard until Bioware delivers on those claims they were looking into M+KB fixes.

That makes me sad because that is how I play a rogue, with two swords or a sword and dagger. Now reading over what I wrote, I should say "can't dual wield longswords as a rogue in Dragon Age anymore". Perhaps limiting the dual wielding rogues to daggers makes it easier on animators since introducing a new moveset that includes swords to rogues means more work (that said, some of the melee animations for archer rogues and mages from Dragon Age 2 are conspicuously absent). Or more likely it's the sad product of Bioware progressively pigeonholing the classes into their own specialisations with little room to try out different builds a la DnD. I played Origins as an Elf dual wielding rogue prestiging in Duelist, Bard, and Shadow (since it was the closest thing to a 40K Harlequin I could make) that could dish out amazing damage *and* was next to impossible to kill with conventional attacks.

My bosses had a private word with me today to gauge my interest for a supervisory position at the company. Since I genuinely enjoy working where I do I told them I'd take it up in a heartbeat, though they gave me the caveat that nothing was set in stone, since they had to check in with their bosses to see if payroll can manage it. Still, I was so elated by this development that later that night I accidentally backed into somebody else's Saab in office parking lot.

Still real bummed you can't dual wields longswords as a rogue in Dragon Age. Sure some might think it a munchkin style of play, but it did bring out my inner Miyamoto Musashi.

What is not modeled is the after-effects of such a conflict, as win, lose or draw for either side carries consequences that I personally shudder to contemplate. "Terror of the unforeseen is what the science of history hides..." -Phillip Roth

Some enterprising scenario designers for Steel Beasts also created their own campaign based around the conflict: https://my.pcloud.com/publink/show?code=XZV4J7ZUAcJeDwKjakBMCtiLtYl00PJUlfV It also served as fodder for a very interesting anti-A2/AD scenario for C: MANO made by Baloogan: http://baloogancampaign.com/2014/03/13/crimean-war-episodes-operation-tiger-rifle/

NATO likely wouldn't do much of anything in the event of whole Russian Guards Tank and Motor Rifle Divisions rolling into Eastern Ukraine, save perhaps offering some equipment such as battle management systems, night observation gear, medical supplies, and so forth (the ZSU has plenty of stuff that can throw a round downrange; they're sorely lacking in everything else). Even a drive to break out of Donbass is unlikely; Russia's armed forces at the moment meet the bare minimum for securing their own frontiers and exerting influence in its periphery in places like the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Far East, and it's certainly no better equipped to effect regime change and quell the inevitable pro-Kiev insurgency in Ukraine than any other country in the world. However, a NATO concern is that if a Russian invasion succeeds in consolidating a de facto state of Novorossiya the way it has for Abkhazia and South Ossetia, would it embolden pro-Kremlin elements in the Baltics? Feeling compelled to maintain some consistency in his policy towards defending Russian minorities in its near abroad, would Putin act to "liberate" them as well? In that event NATO is obliged to respond, however given the lack of strategic depth in the Baltics, and whatever forward-deployed forces there serving as a tripwire at best, I don't see NATO pushing the "Green Men" back before half of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania (and more likely even more) are turned to rubble, and that's before we talk about Russia's policy of "Nuclear De-escalation".

I like the New Retro Wave channel on Youtube as well as that of Monstercat (Drum and Bass, Glitch Hop, and Electro). Also one of my favourite Black Metal instrumental pieces:

The buffetting attack the dragons do seem like a load of horse*** to me. There's little to no tell as to whether it's going ot do it, and thus your window to react is very, very small. It does tremendous amounts of burst damage. And the only way you can control where your character is going to move to using their dash moves is when in real-time play.

Finnish Top Gun: A Finnish friend of mine has relayed to me that it's a video illustrating how in order to be an effective Ground Control Intercept officer, one has to be an qualified aviator as well. *Trivia/Goof: A pilot mistakenly uses the brevity code "Fox 3" when launching a captive Captive Sidewinder IR guided training/test missile. The proper call would be "Fox 2".

This man agrees.

This discussion reminde me of a story told by Viktor Belenko, the famous Soviet defector who flew his stolen MiG-25 to Japan (that was eventually returned to the Soviet Union, in 30 crates). He would try all the goods to offer in an American supermarket, happening on this one canned good that was simply labeled "Dinner". He tried it with potatoes, onions, and garlic and found it very delicious. The next day, he had some friends over to his house, who spied the can in his garbage can and remarked: "Viktor, I didn't know you had a cat."

I do it on Hard partially because it was the "Golden Mean" for me for Dragon Age: Origins, partially because Kevin Van Ord, one of the few games writers whose opinions I respect these days, had said in his review that Inquisition required fairly little strategy (and I'm assuming as a reviewer he played it on Normal), and partially because I started playing Inquisition on the tail end of finishing a replay of Icewind Dale 2.

I did try it at level 12 on Hard, assuming that was the level I was meant to play it on. It still cleaned my party's clock at that point. That said, I haven't gotten too balls-deep into the crafting, and from what I'm told that's where you go into game-breaker territory.

Sort of hope the DLC options has more "Skyhold" wardrobe options that include being able to walk around with my character's combat get-up. Kind of don't like the idea of my Qunari inquisitor walking around buttoned up and would prefer if she looked properly "Ordo Hereticus" complete with jackboots like this piece of concept art here:

Kitten and an adorable barn owl:

Orion launch, following another milestone of the first F-35C carrier trials aboard USS Nimitz:

Companion observations (note that between working overtime five days a week and sleeping nearly 12 hours a night to recover I have only gotten to around after I get Skyhold): Cassandra: Ambivalent. I think I can get hints of her underlying motivations (that which don't relate to stopping the Fade Breaches and the Elder One). We'll see how it pans out, but so far I don't find her offensive. Varric: He remains great as of yet. Solas: A *good* character so far. Fairly amicable. Sera: Kudos to the writer for her and Robyn Addison for getting her voice pitch perfect. However I find her motivations at a high level too nebulous. I like her dialogue save for that which relates to her motivations and the Friends of Red Jenny. Vivienne: Don't quite think her being a mage and her support for the Circle system meshes that well. Otherwise she's fairly inoffensive. Iron Bull: Pretty good character. I think it's interesting to see how the "Shell-Shock" condition plays out in a fantasy world. That said, I actively avoided the dialogue that related to romance or bad sexual innuendo so that opinion isn't spoiled (the Ostrich Effect). Blackwall: Okay personality-wise, but from a gameplay perspective that guy keeps trucking, so he's a winner in my book. Dorian: Okay. Cole: Surprisingly not horrible. Perhaps it's because unlike most other Bioware characters he doesn't open the emotional floodgates on you right away (if he will at all, I suspect). In summation: So far my fears that there would be a character that was Bastilla Shan/Dragon Age 2 Anders/Jacob Taylor levels of bad have been allayed, for now. We'll see how they all shake out once I do all their companion quests.

I don't think authoritarians and kleptocrats in Russia are sunk just yet (Venezuela, Iran, and Nigeria are a different story), though the recent trends suggest they'll never see the salad days ever again.

Anyone know how well Beamdog's Infinity Engine ports play on a regular iPhone 6? Thinking about getting Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition for my new phone, though I have reservations on how well it would play on my screen.

---

Collectivism score: 67% Authoritarianism score: -17% Internationalism score: 83% Tribalism score: -67% Liberalism score: 83% I am a "Socialist Anti-Government World-Federalist Humanist Libertine". I almost feel as if it's a collection of contradictions, provided you eliminated the "fascist nationalist" side of the scale reserved for the mentally ill. In hindsight, I went a little too "and the kitchen sink" on some answers where "maybe" would have sufficed. That said, my political thought role models being Thomas Paine and Christopher Hitchens, that kind of seems on the mark.