213374U

http://pastebin.com/QE9RviaS (I don't speak German, so I can't vouch for the fidelity of the transcript)

Yeah. In Teron you really have to choose between killing people, and talking/skillcheck-ing your way past problems. Not enough SP to build a character that can reliably do both. From what I've read, this is by design, as the devs intended that players realize they are woefully inexperienced nobodies in a harsh world, at the beginning of the game. In the end, high INT really makes a difference. May not seem like much judging by the tooltip, but a minimum 8 INT is a must if you want to try a 'balanced' playthrough (and as the devs advise, you shouldn't try this the first time around). With a ton of metagaming it's possible to build a character that can choose how to resolve situations rather than being forced into a certain path due to specialization choices. I built a successful hybrid and had like 50 unspent SP by the end of my second playthrough. Even with the relatively few CP gained from winning each fight, it's essential to kill anyone that is killable if you want to be a proficient fighter and something else. The rationale is easy to understand, but it's a design choice that not everyone will like. And yeah, The difference in content between Teron and the rest of the cities is enormous. Hopefully lessons learned from and money made with AoD will make their colony ship game better in this regard.

Yes, we are by and large biological automatons, ruled by impulses and instincts that stem from brain structures that first appeared over 200 million years ago. Of course, that's not all we are, but it's not an either/or thing, and the factors discussed don't have exactly the same weight in influencing human conduct. While the upper levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs have come under much criticism, I haven't seen any serious dispute of the base (physiological and safety) needs, which, when under threat, will trigger strong responses that we aren't necessarily in control of, and which are most certainly not rational. Thought precedes action, unless it's instinct-driven.

This is an argumentum ex culo. You are confusing facts with ideology. In fact, part of the problem is that comprehensive, reliable data is not available. However, since the "War on Drugs" began in earnest in the 80's, convictions (which disproportionately target blacks) have skyrocketed. Is the problem -rather than merely the perception of the problem- getting worse lately? Hard to say. It's clearly not getting better, though. As for Muslims and Islamic law, it's actually the other way around. Most Muslims don't care and just do whatever the law of the land says. This is evidenced by the fact that the overwhelming majority of Muslims living in Europe and the US, do not, in fact, go around murdering infidels. Deal with it. Muslim arbitration courts in the UK are a disgrace, I'll give you that. However they are still subject to greater UK law, and any ruling found non-compliant would be thrown out in an actual court of law. So your proof that economic conditions have nothing to do with violence is... that one of the most economically depressed municipalities with a large Muslim presence in Brussels wouldn't be very receptive to Marxist rants. And again, facts disagree, seeing how according to 2014 federal election results, it's a left-leaning town [1] [2], with the ISLAM party getting a little over 4% of the vote in the 2012 local election. You are also conflating "dumping" religion and cultural customs and replacing them with mindless, predatory consumerism, with abiding by secular law and deferring to it when it comes into conflict with interpretations of religious texts. It's a proven system. It can be done. So far, your argumentation to the contrary is based on fearmongering and reactionary ideology. I'm perfectly awake. Even painfully so, at times, thank you very much.

So, for months there has been a (social) media focus on police violence against blacks specifically, in a country of 350 million people, where cops killing blacks -justifiably or not- is a fraction of the total of violent deaths. This, to you, is "a narrative". But then, you have, for years, a media focus on Islam-motivated -inspired -related violence in an area populated by more than 500 million, where the actual number of people killed for this reason is far less than the cops/blacks problem, by about an order of magnitude. This, to you, is "a problem with Islam", a sign of "cultural incompatibility", and so on. Authoritarian ****face Manuel Valls claiming that the Nice attacker had Islamist ties "one way or another" despite evidence to the contrary is not a narrative at all, right? And yeah, I guess the widely observed correlation between poverty and violence is just a coincidence, and mostly just a narrative pushed by leftards. Ideological killings is where it's at. Time for my time out...

Funny that you'd make a comment in this vein, considering your expressed views on other issues. Manufactured race, gender, political orientation or religious wars are apparently very effective at averting class war.

Yeah, I thought the same thing. The purges are proceeding with blinding speed. This was a military uprising, what's the excuse to summarily dismiss thousands of judges? They are also considering bringing back the death penalty for participants in the coup. Looks like "democracy" has been preserved, alright. I wouldn't want to be a Turk right now.

They don't need ads, there is conscription in Turkey. I wouldn't expect frightened 20-somethings who may or may not have been threatened with disciplinary action to go along with this, to make for very good shock troops against their own population.

Obama & co. threw their support behind Erdoğan, but they weren't too quick to do it. From what I saw, only after it was plain that the coup was full of fail, did they come out and demand respect for 'constitutional order' and such. I'm thinking if the coup had been successful, they would instead 'express deep concern for the recent events in Turkey' or some diplomatic rubbish along those lines, but little else. Rule of thumb with coups d'état, if you can't present everyone, within and without, with a fait accompli, you'll end up before a firing squad. Question is whether this will weaken Erdoğan's position in the long run, or strengthen him as his enemies within are defeated for good.

Exactly what demographic changes are "a fact"? Generally, trying to dispute claims for which no evidence has been produced is a waste of time. However, in this case, somebody went ahead and did it anyway. Muslims in Europe are, and will continue to be in the foreseeable future, small minorities. Yeah, people should rightly be afraid of being made a laughingstock when making baseless, fringe claims. I honestly can't sympathize with your frustration in this regard. Who knows, maybe the fear of being ridiculed may push them to research and educate themselves. Are you also concerned that "aliens did 9/11" folks and their ilk are pointed and laughed at? Who are these "progressives" that say we should welcome our new Muslim overlords?

It's a well known myth or conspiracy theory, perhaps. Feel free to post literature in support of the theory that current native European populations will become extinct, or even a minority, and replaced by Muslims. (Breivik's Manifesto, not having been peer-reviewed, is unacceptable as evidence, I'll have you know) edit: also, "Muslim" is not an ethnicity, so I'd also like an explanation of how a religious denomination is going to replace ethnic groups...

[citation needed] [dubious - discuss]

You spoke of "major terrorist attack in the last few years". Breivik's fits the description, like it or not, but I'm sure that the terms "major", "last few years" or even "terrorist attack" could be redefined to exclude it. Fallacious, but effective. Rigour is never a prerequisite when making appeals to emotion, anyway. Living peaceful, gainful lives and abiding by the law of the countries that host them is the definition of integration. You want them to do... what else, exactly? Where does it say that you have to "like" a country to live in it? I'm guessing they like it well enough since, well, they ****ing chose to go over there from whatever ****hole they were born in. I'm going to guess you mean peaceful coexistence, when you speak of integration. No, that's only going to get worse. An ever-increasing wealth gap, quickly deteriorating prospects for an entire generation that never learned to deal with frustration in a healthy way, a largely manufactured gender discourse that has led to identity issues for a lot of young men, anti-immigration sentiments and rhetoric coming to a boiling point, authoritarianism on the rise, etc. It's a recipe for disaster. If you think "the problem" is with Islam, you have an extremely narrow perspective.

Good read, Agiel. Thanks. "Every major terrorist attack in the last few years was committed by Muslims" -- you mean except those that weren't, or those you handwave away, right? I'm sorry, but facts just don't back you here. And they don't back you regarding the "cultural incompatibility" of Muslims at large either, because of the undisputable fact that the overwhelming majority of Muslims living in the west are peaceful, law-abiding citizens. We're talking about millions of people, but you insist in using statistical outliers to illustrate a general principle. That's... not very rigorous, to put it mildly. @Meshugger: "civil war" warnings are preposterous, but I wouldn't completely discount a wave of violence à la St. Bartholomew. Divide and conquer.

Cool story, but OP is specifically asking about Obsidian's freedom of expression regarding what they will be allowed to put in the game, not his own while playing it. That being said, Obsidz is not an indie dev. Making money and staying in business is obviously going to be a higher priority than making any sort of artistic statement or political commentary... even assuming they were inclined to do so. They've probably learned their lesson after the limerick debacle, so expect them to err on the side of caution. P'dox are also notoriously skittish when it comes to anything remotely controversial. Connect the dots, and make a decision. At any rate, pre-emptive controversies are pointless. This one is particularly baffling, considering the OP claims he doesn't even have time to pursue his own hobbies. Priorities?

So what's your theory? Clearly part of the motivation of the shooter was that he was pissed at police brutality against blacks. But that can't be all of it, because he's not alone in feeling that way, yet cops aren't picked off by angry snipers daily. So the rest, as he says, is better left to psychologists. What would you like him to say?

Good way to start a discussion about a game. I find myself wanting to disagree with some of your points but... can't, heh. ...except one, perhaps. Kindly Cheng is too much of a mother figure. You are told not to mess with the big bad red pole and in keeping with the setting's themes, you are little more than a tool to her -- useful, but ultimately disposable. However she actually goes out of her way to help you out and never sells you out; I think this is a weakness and it was also one of my complaints with Dragonfall. The game is mostly just fake grimdark. You can even get a happy ending for Ray, and it's not too difficult either. Cool review. Do more.

The single most ubiquitous "aspect that organically unifies people to seek live under single government" is force. Those who don't want to live under whatever single government you are thinking tend to get crushed rather promptly and become a footnote in some history book. Or they win, and get to establish their own "single government" complete with independence days, official language and symbols, curated glorious victor's history and so on, which ipso facto are pushed to the population as their new "national identity". Fun fact: in 1789, 50% of people in France couldn't speak French. So yeah, organic in the sense that it wasn't aliens that came and drew lines on a map. Generally not a spontaneous, bloodless, bottom-up process, though.

Not only that -- as a result of the financial chaos, he just got a pay rise of £8,000 pa. "Brilliant".

^ But did she? I remember reading back in 2015 that, if she had actually deleted stuff, or even failed to preserve it, given that it was subpoenaed, she (or, more likely, some hapless fall guy) might have been charged with obstruction, which is serious bad news, and easier to deal with for the prosecution than gross negligence. Eventually the IT firm that handled matters for her backtracked and said they didn't have knowledge of anything being deleted and handed everything over. I haven't since seen anything else regarding obstruction of justice so I guess she was just stalling for time or something.

*raises hand* Just next week we'll celebrate the 80th anniversary of the fratricidal struggle that gave us half a million dead and forty years of military dictatorship. That's what's most disheartening about all this -- no matter how many die, how indiscriminate the slaughter, how brutal the repression, we can't seem to learn the lesson. Fast forward a few decades, and we're always back to square one. We really are ****ing hopeless. Just bring Skynet online already.

From what I gather (I'm not subbed atm), the idea is that trash from the event packs unlocks in collections i.e. if you're lucky, you get an interesting piece with the 'event' character, and then you get to spend CC to unlock it for the rest. Disappointing is... putting it mildly. I remember getting chewed out pretty bad for suggesting that Yavin slicing nodes dropping two blue lockboxes was going to hurt the game's economy in the long run, and the resulting rate of price increases observed across the board was unsustainable. This was back when Tulak's chest was 20M. People countered with such well-thought out and articulate arguments that getting 12-15k per node was simply "fun", and "supply and demand bro". That and being accused of "attitude" and being "elitest" (sic) after offering to carry some crybaby through SM DF-DP so they could complete the Oricon arc, made me realize that it was in my best interest to blacklist the SWTOR forums. So now I'm your problem.

You really are a guzzler for trash "journalism" aren't you? The picture used in the "article" is a stock photo at least a year old. In the original piece linked by Mr. French, no mention is made of RPGs or even automatic rifles, just unspecified "war grade" weapons. How many mass shootings have occurred in Germany in the last decade and what has been done in response? How many in the US, and what has been done in response? Yeah... Seriously, stop reading that tripe. It's rotting your brain.

Well, the article is a bit off-base, I think. Here's the actual document: http://europa.eu/globalstrategy/sites/globalstrategy/files/eugs_review_web.pdf It's mostly a bunch of vague references to unspecified existential threats and political bull**** about closer cooperation in matters of security, fostering human rights, the rule of law and what have you. No mentions of a unified military chain of command, training procedures and standards at the Union level, EU troops, or anything of the sort. It suggests shifting the balance towards hard power rather than being mostly flaccid soft as the current status quo, but it doesn't make any specific recommendations as to how to do that. However: "In particular, investment in security and defence is a matter of urgency. Full spectrum defence capabilities are necessary to respond to external crises, build our partners’ capacities, and to guarantee Europe’s safety. Member States remain sovereign in their defence decisions: nevertheless, to acquire and maintain many of these capabilities, defence cooperation must become the norm. The EU will systematically encourage defence cooperation and strive to create a solid European defence industry, which is critical for Europe’s autonomy of decision and action." "With the US, the EU will strive for a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Like the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with Canada, TTIP demonstrates the transatlantic commitment to shared values and signals our willingness to pursue an ambitious rules-based trade agenda" Stuff along those lines is common throughout the doc. To me, the takeaway is a push to consolidate an EU military-industrial complex rather than for a proper 'EU army' as such. It's a much easier sell, too.

Hopefully, the numbers may persuade Paradox to consider GOG as a viable platform for the rest of their releases (Stellaris...). A guy can dream.