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You tell 'em! So the faintest hint of having a sex drive and wanting a serious relationship gives you a "serious predatory vibe"? Heh, okay dude. The author is coming off as a sadly deluded, entitled, whiny materialistic prick. I can get behind that. But a "predator"? Come now. FWIW, this is probably a hyperbolic troll post aimed at closet misogynists and white knights. The self-described "long suffering nice guy" author only has this post to his name and I question the sanity and intelligence of anyone that allows himself to be tricked to buy a dinner worth several hundred to a girl on a first date. Then again, maybe I'm just a jaded, cheap bastard.

Yes but, a referendum... on what? Independence? Federalization? The Constitution doesn't allow for that—the indivisibility of Ukraine is promulgated throughout the document and amendments to the Constitution aimed at "violating" this indivisibility are explicitly forbidden. There is no such thing as a territorial referendum either, only an All-Ukrainian referendum that must be called on by the President and approved by a 2/3 majority of the Rada, complicating things even more; it's not just the government in Kiev that must be willing to resolve this by casting ballots, it's a majority of politicians and people in Ukraine. Ukraine's Constitution is fairly rigid even by European standards, and it's designed first and foremost to guarantee the status quo. I don't disagree that a referendum would be a way out of the cul-de-sac the Kiev gov't has put the country in, but you can't just ignore the legal hurdles. Among other things because that would legitimize the Crimean referendum, which is a big no-no for Kiev (and the West). Interestingly enough, you can no longer access the Constitution through the official website. The rest of the site seems to work fine. I wonder what's up with that.

So, what you're saying is... needs more foreplay?

@Malc: thanks for the link, I wasn't aware of that. We'll see how long before this new offensive stalls. Dismemberment of the Ukrainian state, subjugation to Russia, continued economic deterioration, restoration of Yanukovych oligarchy, you know, the works. You got me. If Ukraine once again becomes part of the Motherland, I stand to gain a promotion to Senior Colonel with the FSB for my valiant efforts in the Obsidian Entertainment Forums, and you know what that means—I'll actually get to use the restroom instead of pissing in a bucket when nobody is looking. Seriously though, I haven't the slightest idea how to solve this at this point. But I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that sending in the army is not the best solution (assuming it's a solution at all). There's also the irony that these uprisings are A-OK to crush under a soldier's boot, but those in Kiev a few months ago weren't.

I'm more or less in the same boat, except for the filler part. Filler combat has been a pet peeve of mine since BG1 (the Derp Roads portion of DAO actually made me quit the game the first time around, and it's the reason I haven't replayed it) and for me the problem was exacerbated by the "Operation Market Garden" execution of some encounters in DA2. I understand however the somewhat necessary role of filler combat in this kind of game, and after taking a look at the scripting of SCS, I have basically given up on pro developers putting in the effort required to build the kind of AI that would make filler combat an actually entertaining part of the game.

There was an incident where a mob tried to storm a National Guard base, in which 3 pro-Russians were killed. The National Guard is a reserve unit that's been created by the Kiev government, with crap training, and chiefly comprised of volunteers—the idea was originally to incorporate already existing militias into a structure fully under the command of the government, but I don't know to what extent this has been accomplished. So far, when regular army units have been involved, they have either defected, handed over their hardware, or just plain turned around: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A_Xcs-Mjkk (doesn't help that the poor tank sounds like it's dying)

Oh, yes, I didn't remember that. I had that happen during one of the "breaks" in the final encounter. "Place of Birth: The Throne of Blood". Good ol' Bioware. Look man, I've been trying to quit peanut butter and bacon sandwiches, okay? It's just that the flesh is weak and, well... bacon.

You also got some loot and XP out of the romance-triggered encounters. The Yochlol ambush was pretty cool. Wasn't there something with Harpers too? Funny how actual consequences and integration have gone down, while ego stroking and fan service have gone through the roof. I seem to remember that Isabela's actions at a critical point in DA2 were also influenced by romance, but I'm not sure if that was necessarily locked to the romance—only played that game once.

He's not a "nice guy" in the sense that he knows precisely what he wants and seems to have formulated a careful strategy to obtain it. A strategy based on a perception of what his prospective mate seems (or should) be attracted to. He's created a fake persona for himself in a misguided effort to be competitive in the dating arena. Underneath, he may well be the sweetest, most loyal and selfless guy she'll ever find, but we'll never know, and it matters about as much as whether Tom Cruise is a wacko to somebody watching Mission: Impossible. On a related note, I like now guys being butthurt about high maintenance, immature and unstable bitches is something to make fun of, but girls whining about how real men are being substituted for man-boys and/or that all men are pigs etc is perfectly normal and something to empathize with. The subjacent machismo is so strong that it's almost as if the double standard here was being applied on purpose. Almost. Ironically enough, self-appointed social justice warriors and their white knight cohorts are suckers for this sort of twaddle.

Much like Gromnir? *snicker*

Where is Calax in NV? I never ran across him. Im not sure if you can miss him. He appears early in the game and actually runs up to you for help. The character isn't named "Calax", so unless you are an Obsidz regular and know about the contest, know the guy personally, or have seen his pic and can make the connection you won't recognize the cameo at all. I know I missed it. And unlike Gromnir's in ToB, his role is fairly minor. Low key, as cameos should be, I think.

As infantry tactics and unit composition changed to account for technology advances (firepower and C3 mostly, but also logistics) between the 19th and 20th centuries, it stands to reason that 21st century "infantry" will not be and act exactly the same as its precursors. My money would be on increasingly smaller units with excellent mobility, training and firepower, as this facilitates achieving local superiority as needed, while at the same time avoiding the huge troop concentrations that are more vulnerable to massed artillery fire and aerial bombing, not to mention difficult to supply and maneuver. This is also supposed to drastically reduce aggregate casualties due to greater force dispersion and possibly also enables warfare along huge areas with relatively small numbers of troops. Response times and operational readiness are critical for this, but that seems to be the direction in which doctrine is developing. But yeah, this is still very much infantry, so the "boots on the ground" comment is perfectly sensible. The likelihood of nuclear exchanges and the extent of those is much harder to predict, and it's this fact and the insane stakes involved that created the climate of paranoia during the Cold War. Nobody wanted nuclear war, but everyone expected the others to start it. In reality I would expect everyone to be unwilling to unleash a nuclear apocalypse, but again the uncertainty would weigh in heavily when deciding whether to push ahead for total victory or sue for peace. In any event I don't see any reason to believe that the next war will necessarily be a nuclear war. Oh, that. Pay it no mind, it's just to show that we care.

n/m delete i'm an idiot etc

am gonna balk at "great," but that is a quibble. in any event, our issue is with using as a citation. HA! Good Fun! Article talk pages are often as informative as the articles themselves, and often illustrate editorial bias in the end product. They also shed light on how fickle, petty and random administrators can be—"anyone can edit Wikipedia", but your edits often can and will be insta-reverted by a recent changes patroller, and if you persist you will be accused of "edit warring" and promptly banned. WP has an... interesting ecology.

You do realize that the United States has the second largest manufacturing industry in the world, right? Differing from China's by a small percentage? Christ, you're not even looking up concrete data, are you, Sarex? The U.S. has been consistently developing its sector for the past forty years. The fact that some manufacturers have outsourced low complexity, cheap item manufacturing overseas doesn't mean that the U.S. has dismantled its manufacturing sector. As the statistics show, it did not. Neither did it dismantle its strategic military industries, such as tank plants, fighter assembly lines, shipyards, and other vital industrial centers. Oh, you want concrete data? Let's take a look at steel production, then. Industry doesn't get much heavier than that. In 1974, the US produced 136M tons. China produced an estimate 26M. Fast forward to 2013, the US production has shrunk to a still very respectable 87 million tons but, get this, China churned out an insane 779 mother****ing million tons of steel in 2013. Source Let's also take a look at cement. In 1994 (couldn't find earlier data), for the US and China respectively, the numbers are 78M and 400M tons. Jump to 2013, and while American production has remained at 77M tons, Chinese production has been cranked up to a whopping 2.3 bn tons. The US have actually been importing cement for consumption, and jobs in that sector have dwindled. Source This is the stuff things are built with, not paper money. It takes time to dismantle the world's once-largest industrial economy, but make no mistake, that's the end goal. The case study is the UK, the country that pioneered the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century and leading industrial power the next, and how it was largely de-industrialized in the 20th century chiefly thanks to the policies of Washington Consensus groupie Margaret Thatcher. That's where the US are heading.

Even if Hurlshot agreed with it, collective punishment is still against the Geneva Conventions. More seriously though, it's doubtful they would do anything that would antagonize the entire player base. The game is still pretty new, the economy can recover. Uber items that have been duped will be phased out as new content is added, etc. It's not even this sort of clear exploit that threatens MMO economy imbalances—stuff that is harder to fix such as runaway inflation is a bigger threat long term.

Agreed. But what I'm arguing is that you just don't kick your huge GDP into high gear with the flip of a switch. I've read that up to ~40% of the wheeled vehicles used by the Soviets were lend-lease. That's obviously nothing to scoff at. Lend-lease only started providing a substantial boost for the Soviets from 1942 on, while the decision to seriously prepare the US for war and seriously crank up production was made in 1940, when it was decided to increase the size of the USN. In addition, a non-trivial fraction of those US-manufactured tanks ended up in Soviet hands anyway via lend lease. American (and British) aid was very much a lifeline for the Soviet Union. I'm not sure how I'm underestimating anything, or how this goes contrary to what I said. Fair enough. Hopefully, the discussion of modern warfare will indeed be irrelevant and this won't escalate beyond a diplomatic clash. It's great fun to be an armchair general though, you won't deny that. Yeah, that's pretty much it if you look at the bottom line, i.e. that the US vastly outproduced everyone. But nobody is disputing that. The fact remains that it was at least two years and a half before the American economic mobilization was complete because in 1942 Soviet and American tank production was roughly equal and the gear up had begun in Spring 1940. So in a war that lasted six years, it took the US two years and a half to overtake the Soviet Union, with an economy that was twice the size in 1939 (the gap only grows bigger in later years). Yeah, that totally proves the point that you can simply "buy more material in no time", so long as you don't face material and workforce shortages and provided that someone else on the other side of the ocean does the dying for you. Only it really doesn't.

And the second part because the boards don't like the quote game (and neither do I). "The nuke is a defensive weapon"? Again with the fallacies: "MAD is a nuclear strategy, therefore MAD is the only nuclear strategy". Nukes are as offensive as they are defensive, if not more. They are deployed as close to their targets as possible to reduce enemy reaction times and minimize the damage caused by the counterattack after a first strike. The reason why the missile shield initiative exists is because if completed it could give the US decisive first strike advantage over Russia, and this is because nukes are the offensive weapon. Nukes have only ever been used in an offensive way, against a country that had no retaliation capability. MAD is a possible outcome, but not necessarily the only outcome and not all nuclear scenarios are based on MAD. And please, do elaborate on that list of prospective great powers and maybe we can actually talk about how feasible it would be for them to build a credible nuclear arsenal. Once again, circular logic. "X is a great power that doesn't have nuclear weapons. X therefore doesn't need nuclear weapons to be a great power because X is already a great power, without having needed nuclear weapons to become one". The obvious flaw is that you are still not giving a concrete definition of what makes a great power outside of GDP, and are not showing any evidence to back this point, instead expecting everyone to accept your assurances that you can buy credible force projection overnight. No, actually, this is where you are supposed to explain how a country with no previous domestic nuclear program, and no nuclear plants domestically built since the fall of the Soviet Union could develop a serious nuclear force element. Oh, right. The "buy nukes" button. Only that's not my suggestion, it's the Ukrainian navy's admission. Also I didn't say "forever", or magically. *THWEEEERP* Strawman alert. http://navaltoday.com/2012/03/21/ukraine-navy-admits-disability-to-man-submarine/ Do some fact checking, at least. Er, Germany and Japan were already dealt with previously... in the same paragraph. Political commitments and public opinion are also to be considered when discussing whether it's feasible for a country to embark on a nuclear program. Oh, I have a fairly good idea what your argument is. It's just that it's not a very good argument to begin with. What the hell are you babbling about? The Soviet Union disintegrated in a political crisis in the wake of a failed hardline coup, not as a result of the economic crisis. The theory that Reagan outspent the Soviet Union to oblivion in the 1980's is just another of those economic history myths that refuses to die, but it's not really supported by facts. http://www.theatlantic.com/past/politics/foreign/reagrus.htm "facepalm" indeed. Incredible way to miss the point, uncanny almost. I specifically made the comparison between the Soviet Union and the European members of NATO, excluding the US on purpose. That group of countries had a joint GDP of roughly 2.3x that of the Soviet Union. According to your GDP-means-power theory, Europe alone could have been more than enough of a counterweight for the Soviets, politically, militarily and especially economically. Only that doesn't reflect the historical reality of 1964 at all. You must be tired. Yeah, that must be it. It cannot possibly be that you missed the huge ass IF that made the whole sentence work as hypothetical and without me actually making a statement either way. Or maybe it is exactly that, and it is in fact you who needs to read more, in general.

LOL I like your Saudi Arabia-approach to modern warfare. It worked great for Iraq. "Buy moar guns, bigger tanks, fancier jets". Or build them under license. Only that doesn't work outside of Command & Conquer. Putting together, supplying and deploying a modern fighting force is not something you can simply purchase overnight, it is a focused effort that takes years, if not decades, for a developed economy. It involves multi-year training for literally hundreds of thousands of people, massive investment in the form of education, appropriation, and most of all, it requires the political will to keep the pressure when people figure they'd rather have the roads fixed, the taxes lowered or what have you. As for your prediction about what will decide the next "real" war (nice preemptive goal post shifting btw), I'm simply going to say [citation needed]. Again, gross simplification and more citations needed. The idea that you just "buy more warheads" is laughable enough, but buying more factories? You cannot do that even in most grand strategy games—are you really suggesting that's a viable course of action IRL? Who is going to put those factories together? What machinery is going to be used to manufacture the tools? We are talking wartime, remember? In wartime trade just doesn't flow freely, demand for essential materials and skills is extreme and now your bloated, financialized make-believe economy can only readily produce paper money. But no matter, because you can keep mashing the "buy missiles" button and you'll win in the end! Right? Also, it took the US from 1940 to 1942 to overtake the Soviet Union in tank production in WWII with an economy that was more than twice the size. But yeah, you can totally buy more military equipment in no time. If you are the single largest heavy industry-based economy in the world. And your production centers are safely away from the front lines. And you don't face material shortages. And... Yes, because history shows that crises are really easy to foresee, and the enemy is going to wait for you to have fully mobilized the economy and built as many ICBMs and stealth strategic bombers as you could possibly need to nuke them back to the stone age. If you ask nicely, they may even let you finish deploying that shiny missile shield! Please don't bother with the straw men. I never said military power is the way to measure power in the world. But it is a factor, and has always been. When forced to choose between historical correlation between military might and influence and your theory that GDP is the end all be all to determine weight in the international arena, I'm going with the established wisdom. Especially since apparently you live in Starcraft universe. Ah yes, of course. It's after all incredibly easy, quick and cheap to design and build complex systems such as the Typhoon and the Leopard. That's why everyone does it. All the time. Only (hello?) we are discussing Russia, in case you forgot. Russia doesn't have "a" nuclear bomb. They have several thousand warheads and the ability to deliver them anywhere in the world in short notice. You then went off on a tangent about how having "a" nuke doesn't really change the game, but that's a point that nobody made. Strawman. No, the one that went right over your head, see it yet? I'll break it down for you, even though I already did in the post you quoted. The point is moot because you don't build your own nuclear weapons from scratch if you already are a member of a major alliance with members that already have strategic arsenals in place. But this, in turn puts you in a position where you either follow the lead of those countries, or risk being left without a nuclear retaliation capability. This is most definitely not the mark of a great power in this day and age. Because you are building your whole argument from the basis that GDP is all that matters, and assuming that everyone else agrees—therefore so long as you can be relatively sure that nobody is going to rain down nukes on you first, you are a great power! But this is not a fact, it's simply a thesis of yours. This reasoning doesn't apply in the case that you want to pursue an independent international agenda that may conflict with that of someone else's. If you are an international yes-man, sure. Again, being a satellite state as far as foreign policy is concerned is simply incompatible with the status of great power. Basically you are using your own argument that only GDP matters as proof that countries with large GDPs could be great powers if they put a large fraction of their nominal economic output towards military spending, and therefore any other player with a lower relative GDP cannot be a great power... as its GDP shows. It's a poignant blend of circular logic and unsupported premises, but fallacious all the same.

It would be awful, but not necessarily inviable. The record for the longest spaceflight is ~14 months, and the dude didn't seem to suffer any long lasting health problems. Adults seem capable of supporting that, even if over time their ability to go back to higher gravity worlds could be lost. Now, pregnancy and delivery in microgravity, that's completely uncharted territory. But yeah, by the time the engineering kinks are ironed out (what with c being the absolute maximum speed in the universe and all), I'd expect genetic engineering to have advanced enough to render that a non-issue.

You mean tidally locked to Earth? I had never heard about the Moon being tidally locked to the Sun. How does that even work? And yeah, I hate windy days as it is. I don't think living in an area with permanent hurricane-level winds is up my alley.

WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH VOLOURN!? That sounds about right Heh, most of the comments seem to be from ME3MP board regulars. Not surprising, that crowd was always running afoul of the new BioWareBot# mods, but it was quite entertaining to read. People should have seen this coming I think, they started locking challenge threads for being "off topic" last year. I can understand not wanting the BSN to become an outpost of /b/, but shutting down groups for being off topic kinda defeats the whole point. I guess they really are committed to building a bright future for the "Bioware Socialist Network".

The "agreement" is one of bare minimums. There cannot be any dialogue between the authorities and other parties while the state monopoly on power is challenged, or rather, no dialogue will be considered. And while it may seem that the separatists aren't getting anything out of this, in fact their unofficial and decentralized nature is going to make them much harder to police than the actions of the Ukrainian government. If the Kiev government continues to execute their "anti-terror operations" regardless, they will be in clear violation of the terms of the deal, and this would be the second multi-party agreement they go back on. Russia will simply continue to do whatever they are or are not doing, they will continue to deny any involvement, and the back-and-forth of covert shenanigans will continue. But by backing this deal they can at least pretend they are trying to de-escalate the situation. I don't believe anyone actually expects these negotiations to go anywhere, because, from what I read, a serious constitutional reform for Ukraine wasn't on the table before the talks even begun, so the rebels have no reason to quit.

Oh, sure. The way he was forced down your throat was terrible. But by that point I was kinda used to the game doing that sort of thing. I just love his interjections and ship dialogue.

And more, increasingly violent clashes, as pro-Russian separatists attempt to storm a military base and are repelled by force, leaving several dead.