213374U

The whole franchise takes a dark turn if you consider the possibility that the "heroes" may just be murdering hapless cosplayers rather than the elite shock troops that they quite obviously are not...

It would have been fine if it had been a discount spin-off. The game was made in 18 months, and EA forced design changes to appeal to whatever the hell they thought console fans wanted at that time. They still asked full price and presented it as a full blown sequel, which it was not. They switched from a tactical party-based RPG in the vein of the BGs to a sort of bastardized RTWP ARPG. Add bad production values, and the criticism was pretty justified I think. That being said, I did like the story, the presentation, and most characters. But outside of that it was disappointing. Mac Walters.

Yeah, if we could not "reinforce dumbassness" or anything along those lines, that would be great. Be not **** to each other and all that, m'kay?

Right. So all of that canon, outside of movies, is not considered "expanded" universe then? What about books? The eleventy script and ad blockers I run don't play well with Wookieepedia and cba to disable them so I haven't visited that site in a while. I'd have imagined that if it doesn't show up in a movie, it's expanded universe by definition. Perhaps that's old thinking with Disney now producing live-action shows and all. I never saw the need to nuke all of the old EU. They could have simply contradicted whatever bits stood in the way of the story they wanted to tell, ignore the rest, and use anything they wanted if it fit. It's what GL's stance was -- basically ignore it but let people have their fun. The whole reset thing felt like Disney wanting to show fans who's boss now and nothing more. And that's from someone who agrees that the old EU was full of dumb, edgy ****.

Just for context, because the BBC piece doesn't make it very clear (that's a shocker). The study in question is part of the C-MORE study. It deals with patients who had moderate to severe COVID19, and who had all been hospitalized. While it is certainly possible that a fraction of asymptomatic and mild cases could also present these kinds of complications, the study in question doesn't really speak to that because the sample is composed of patients who developed pneumonia.

Fair enough. Whatever the establishment parties are pushing over there is not "heavy handed" authoritarianism. More like a slow but steady erosion of liberalism that is being replaced by trash tier ideologues, demagogue politicians and a monolithic bureaucracy. It is authoritarianism in the sense that the balance of individual rights and government authority keeps tipping in favor of the state as a nebulous representation of "the common good". Crucially lacking however are the overt abuse of state power to suppress political dissent and the formal abandonment of the principle of separation of powers. As for your hypothetical question, I don't think there is a good answer. Neither figure existed a vacuum -- Atatürk was building a new national identity from the ruins of the Ottoman empire, and brutally suppressed the opposition including, but not limited to, gassing several thousand Kurds and Zazas. Germans at the time were mindful of the bloody Russian revolution and the communist attempts to overthrow the government in Germany, without forgetting a wounded national pride and abundant propaganda about a "knife in the back" and internal enemies. Supporting a tyrant-to-be is always a gamble in the hope that they'll know when to stop. Most don't. So presented with a contemporary and equivalent choice, I'd probably start considering getting the duck out of fodge or going full militia depending on my personal factors, while opposing both.

Some of those things require having resources, and others require having little to lose beyond your life. That rules them out as options for a majority of the population at this point -- the US just hasn't reached that level of societal collapse, yet. There are also degrees of authoritarianism. Certainly Atatürk and Hitler were both authoritarians, but while the latter was the Nazi, the former is now regarded as a bit of an enlightened figure. It's a spectrum.

Well, I guess they maybe aren't EU references per se, because they may be references to post-reset Disney EU content. But for example, Mando's rifle is a throwback to the Holiday Special. Mando's next destination as of now is also something I don't think has ever been mentioned outside of EU content. That lawman character is a somewhat important EU character as well. And basically all of the Mandalorian characters, outside of Mando himself, and subplots are borrowed from either EU (such as Beskar and the Mandalorian wars) or other stuff Filoni has done, though I'm not sure to what extent that would be considered "EU". Guess one needs a degree these days to make sense of the canon, which is funny if you think about it because the reset was supposed to make it simpler. Personally, I'm hoping that Space Chuck Norris will make an appearance or at least get mentioned. Regarding Jedi selectively not using the Force when they could immediately end an encounter literally with the flick of a wrist, drama. Obi Wan could have simply slammed Jango against the landing pad as he was jetting off and it would have been an instant game over right there, epic fail. Mace could have Force pushed Jango's flames back to his face, etc. I guess that's another reason why Sith are just better -- they seem to have no compunctions about (ab)using the Force to crush your windpipe or drop a cave ceiling on you if they feel it'll save them some time.

Hey guys, just peeking around the corner real quick to see if nu Trek is still garbage that makes zero sense. What is weirdly entertaining is seeing the various discussions on the length of Ahsoka's lekku in live-action as opposed to animation that promptly started springing up online after the episode. I don't know about the animation because I haven't watched any of the shows, but wasn't there a togruta jedi in the films whose appendages were larger? In any case, the prosthetics looked bad. Stiff, creasing... cheap. Which is odd because production values otherwise are fantastic. I'm also kinda digging how they are stuffing the show with EU references all the time.

I always liked the way it was handled in STALKER. Gear is the only place you can find stats, and the difference in raw damage between the best and worst guns isn't huge. Throw in artifacts augmentations to spice up gameplay and add variety but avoid lazy "+50% bullet resistance" nonsense. Sadly, even STALKER had exoskeletons that made you substantially resistant to gunfire, while providing next to no protection from anomalies... because reasons. Skill upgrades can be limited to non-combat stuff for all I care. Never been a fan of contrivances like drunk aiming in Deus Ex or VATS, or the obligatory super rare death ray that necessitates that cheaper weapons hit like wet noodles.

Heh. I don't think you mislabeled anything. If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck... However, you may have underestimated the proclivity of some Americans for condescendingly explaining how it's actually an American duck, not at all like the ducks anywhere else in the world, by quoting some 200-year old legal language that doesn't explicitly mention ducks. And only to finally concede that functionally... it is a duck. I mean, the argument that the President isn't a HoS because of the limited scope of the office's powers is silly because HoS elsewhere are basically ceremonial figureheads. Doesn't stop them from holding, organically, the highest position in government. But as it turns out, apparently now the legislature is a "position" too. (but literally) Just nod sagely and move on, I'd say.

Some people check the news while having their breakfast. I browse these forums. The general gaming forum is fun and I get most of my gaming news from there... it's sort of a curated news site commentated by people I know not to be bots, hype bandwagoneers or 12-year olds. And I enjoy reading random stuff here in WoT -- learned a lot over the years. It's nowhere near as hectic as other online communities, but it's not dead by any means. Obs being one of the few -if not the only- devs whose games I've consistently enjoyed over the years is another reason, obviously, though I don't really participate in the new subforums because of my policy of waiting 6-12 months from release before playing new games.

Yes, it's a bit of a feedback loop. The very dissatisfaction that arises from the sorry state of politics keeps driving people to cynicism and political extremes, which only exacerbates current problems with politics. Much as with the Social Security issues discussed previously, deep reforms are needed but those are impossible in the current climate of polarization -- even if there was someone with the political capital and will to undertake them. And as you said, in the so-called post-truth era, getting the other guy to agree that the day after today will be tomorrow is one hell of an accomplishment. Snr keeps getting worse, but I doubt that's something that can be fixed by fiat.

Yep. I'm thinking it would be much harder to "interfere" in US elections if sizable fractions of the US population weren't susceptible to the idea that their rulers are literal demon-worshipping paedophiles. But crying that big bad Vlad stole the election is much easier than working on fixing the underlying problems that make US internal stability so fragile.

Because it's a system based on nothing but trust. Trust that the future will be at least as good as the present, and that's a notion that is under increasing scrutiny. As long as there are millions of people still paying into it, it won't collapse today, perhaps. But you aren't contributing into a big government savings program that will pay you your own money back and then some. You are paying for today's pensions, and trust that people still can and want to pay for your retirement in a few decades. Yet facts like increasing life expectancy and lower birth rates pose very real concerns. The US pension system is already several trillion in the red. The overall debt situation and the propensity to keep kicking the can down the road due to partisanship and polarization cast doubt on the long-term viability of the system.

I seriously doubt that the relationship between you and your children was one of equals looking for common ground to build a mutually beneficial agreement on. That's how trade deals are supposed to work, even if in reality they may be more like a parent-children relationship with one side holding disproportionate power. Still, you'd have to argue that the agreement would be intrinsically good for all participants, which is frankly one hell of a tall order, for the analogy to work. If something is widely not well regarded, that alone is indeed sufficient reason to avoid going ahead with it if you're even remotely attempting to keep a semblance of democratic governance. TPP strikes me as a weird hill to die on. This is not your typical neckbeard nontroversy. It was bad news for consumers, no matter how you look at it. Here's a nugget to add to what Zoraptor was discussing: Article 18.82: Legal Remedies and Safe Harbours The Parties recognise the importance of facilitating the continued development of legitimate online services operating as intermediaries and, in a manner consistent with Article 41 of the TRIPS Agreement, providing enforcement procedures that permit effective action by right holders against copyright infringement covered under this Chapter that occurs in the online environment. Accordingly, each Party shall ensure that legal remedies are available for right holders to address such copyright infringement and shall establish or maintain appropriate safe harbours in respect of online services that are Internet Service Providers. This framework of legal remedies and safe harbours shall include: (a) legal incentives for Internet Service Providers to cooperate with copyright owners to deter the unauthorised storage and transmission of copyrighted materials or, in the alternative, to take other action to deter the unauthorised storage and transmission of copyrighted materials; and (b) limitations in its law that have the effect of precluding monetary relief against Internet Service Providers for copyright infringements that they do not control, initiate or direct, and that take place through systems or networks controlled or operated by them or on their behalf This seeks to impose the American kind of private ordering of copyright enforcement on jurisdictions where it's not accepted, which could lead to widespread YouTube-style DMCA censorship by ISPs. Such would be unfair, inconsistent, and most importantly, ineffectual... for no benefit to consumers, who are robbed of any expectation of due process. The provisions for "safe harbours" are only meaningful if in the context of extending liability to ISPs, which is not a universal legal doctrine. That in addition to the requirements that parties ensure criminal penalties for copyright infringement even in the absence of financial gain as per Art. 18.77 (1.b). This would shift the burden from private copyright holders to the public again for no benefit, but opening the door to a non-insignificant risk of bogus copyright claims being used to cover government censorship. There's plenty of detailed analyses by smarter and more informed people than me available from not reddit, if you want to look. Bad deal is bad.

It is, from a certain perspective. But that's the thing with moral relativism. Note that the complaint isn't that it couldn't work, but rather that it's "too evil" -- so much so that it threatens the suspension of disbelief. And yet there is no dearth of real-world counterparts of Caesar's Legion that have successfully convinced thousands that their values provide a solid foundation for building a -in their eyes- better society. That may seem abhorrent to us in our urban, Western, Judeo-Christian mindset but, after a nuclear holocaust and a century or two of contemplating the irradiated remains of the society that those values produced, we may be more inclined to listen to Caesar-like figures. "Mustache twirling" is relative, and it stands to reason that after wiping the slate clean, many people would have lost their reference frame. This is insinuated in the lore explaining that in many places humanity has devolved into primitive tribes. So absent higher values of "good", they'd settle for the next best thing: whatever works. And the narrative clearly states that work it does. Regardless, I thought the beauty of it is that no matter what colors they wore, the game still often presented people as **** failing to live up to their own standards and working mostly towards their own selfish goals. The Legion was of course no exception.

Odds are you won't be allowed to choose because you are far from alone in thinking that way, and pop immunization would need to reach 60-70% to start making this thing go away. Here, mistrust in these fast-tracked vaccines hovers around 43%, whereas trust in vaccines in general is fairly high.

Good guess.

ME3 combat was fairly good, but it took them 3 games to get there. And then Andromeda wasn't as good. I'd expect a Bioware Souls-like to be downright terrible gameplay-wise. Several first few iterations, at least. A SWTOR 2 is never going to happen, but if DA4 and the new ME aren't bombs, we may yet see a KotOR 3.

I guess I'm in the same boat as Lexx. I'll be keeping an eye on it, and probably get it when it's discounted. Even if it's just a bunch of upscaled textures and post processing filters à la ReShade, it may be worth it to play through once more. The bundled DLCs are a plus as well. And just to cover the cynicism quota: I fully expect it to be full of old bugs and introduce new ones, as per the time-honored Bioware custom. As always, I'll wait 6-12 months before considering a purchase.

Orange man undoubtedly enjoyed the cult of personality being built around him. But he did not mean to tear up the Constitution. He didn't intend to remake society from the ground up, or favor violence as the ultimate political tool. A reactionary, racist populist with a penchant for abusing executive power? Sure, and that's bad enough. Not an actual potential Führer though and, memes aside, I doubt that any more than a very marginal fraction of his supporters would seriously endorse Trump taking up absolute power for life. I expect the American left to go back to sleep for the most part on material struggles now that they've "won", and keep focused on (trigger warning: bad word) idpol and climate change, which virtually guarantees that Trump-like figures will keep turning up as a candidates with considerable pull -- only now there's the risk of them being both competent and driven.

That was an excerpt from the blog entry. It was missing this bit: "Meanwhile here at BioWare, a veteran team has been hard at work envisioning the next chapter of the Mass Effect universe. We are in early stages on the project and can't say any more just yet, but we’re looking forward to sharing our vision for where we'll be going next." I wonder if this means that DLC for the original versions will finally stop being absurdly expensive compared to the games themselves?

Yes, but it's Macron, so you can bet that it's the result of the surge in popularty of National Rally (while his own is in free fall) rather than a genuine intention of "strengthening" anything other than his own position. France really is a bit of a mess currently and the outlook isn't good.

I get what you're saying but... that kinda runs in the face of process standardization practices. Inefficiency and obsolescence aren't generally considered factors contributing to a system's security -- rather the opposite. Further, and I may be wrong, it looks to me that you wouldn't need to run a massive nation-wide fraud campaign to disrupt the election anyway. Seems that targeting a few select districts would be enough.