213374U

Ouch. WTF? I didn't know the heroic rewards were restricted to prefs (which I assume you are since you preordered RotHC). There's a limit in place for FP loot, but heroic boxes? The Renowned/Exalted sets are really expensive, restricted to certain classes and have a legacy level requirement. They are also ugly for the most part. For a fraction of the price you can get a better looking full set off GTN. If you are on TRE I can hook you up with a bunch of crafted moddable heavy armor pieces, too. PM me your character's name and I'll mail the stuff to you later, if you want. I'll also open a bug ticket on your behalf regarding that starter gear authorization requirement BS, if that's ok with you.

I don't think you will find any actual Western academics priding themselves on their moral relativism, but I may be wrong. Twitter is full of (nasty) surprises. What I don't accept is that Enlightenment ideals led to a complete breakdown of values, a dissolution of civic virtue, extreme individualism and hedonism, etc. You are making this connection, but haven't explained how it actually happened, so I can't very well examine it, let alone refute it. Similarly I could say it's the result of Judeo-Christian morality even though it very much means the exact opposite, because it's also in our past. I also don't need to point to the various strains of tyranny and oppression that nationalism and religion have been and are currently used to support. Going back to that is no solution. I'm afraid we are simply going to have to disagree on the weight that economic factors have. You insist that they don't really matter while making deeply misleading statements such as "much of Europe is still quite prosperous", to shift the focus away from facts and to ideology. But the facts remain: economic factors have historically been a major bullet point when looking at the causes of the instability of societies, migrations and wars. I'm going to stand by this explanation until you explain how a lack of nationalism has led to people "not wanting to reproduce", as opposed to not being able to or realizing that their offspring will most certainly have to live in worse conditions than they did themselves. I think you'll have a hard time defending the idea that nationalism and Abrahamic religions are necessary for population growth when humanity had been growing before those were invented, and cultures without them seem to be doing fine demographically. I don't know that current Western culture is "nihilist", but I'll concede that it's extremely individualistic and materialistic, while at the same time, millions are seeing their material ambitions go unfulfilled. Again, I fail to see how this is a consequence of Enlightenment beyond the suggestion that Enlightened ideas must necessarily lead to atheism. I guess it's hard to dispute the fact that the satisfaction rate of leading a spiritual life is close to 100% but that's only because people can only find it's a hoax after such life. The materialist/spiritual divide is a false dichotomy, though. Regarding the Stations of the Cross story. The mayor is a moron, like most of the self-professed progressives here. Still, these milestones had been paid for with public funds that were earmarked for investment and services. Instead, the other morons (conservatives), decided that this project was more important than the payroll of municipal workers that are owed up to 24 months worth of pay. This is by law a nonconfessional country. Public powers have no business getting involved with religious matters, majority or not. Muslims (and atheists, and...) aren't exempt of taxes as far as I know, so public money cannot be spent on this stuff. The Catholic Church already enjoys important (and exclusive) tax exemptions. They want Stations of the Cross? They can pay for them.

Quelle horreur! Oh wait, no, I'm totally not seeing how that's a bad thing. I don't think it's even a "thing" at all, given that it's an assessment which rests on, at best, a flawed understanding of Enlightened thought and what it brought. Yes, Locke did not seek to establish a "tradition" to replace Catholicism, because he understood that such a thing was same dog, different collar. He realized the damage that these time honored traditions did and was acutely aware of the blood that had been spilt because of them. His intent was not to do away with tradition or wash away the cultural identity of his time, rather the opposite actually: he merely wanted a way of living in society without bloodshed while allowing for these identities and traditions to be preserved, instead of having a dominant paradigm annihilate all others and rule essentially by imposition. For this to be possible, the law of the land was to be administered by civil magistrates which could not get involved with religious disputes, and religious authorities were to deal exclusively with religious issues, while submitting to civil authorities in everything else. Civil authorities in turn were to enforce a legal framework that was deemed universal regardless of creed (natural law). Those who sincerely suggest that Enlightened thought basically boils down to a sort of absolute moral relativism, simply don't know what they are talking about, if I may be so blunt. Anyone interested in this can refer to A Letter Concerning Toleration and go from there. Of course, a society built on these premises requires that its members understand its foundations rather than simply recite a bunch of meaningless mantras, and to think, rather than follow, for it to work. A tradition is by definition the exact opposite. Great when it works for you, not so much when it doesn't. The legacy of the Enlightenment is as much a part of contemporary Western identity as its Christian roots, and downplaying this is myopic and dangerous. Frankly it boggles the mind that defending these ideas would get one labeled a "cultural marxist". It's ironic and tremendously sad that the problems of today (and always) are blamed precisely on the philosophical current whose aim was to tackle them with as little fuss as possible...

1. Removed to deal with "vendor bloat", much like the DK/Coruscant PVP vendors. If you want gear you do heroics, you get 2 boxes with 2 random level-appropriate blue pieces each, per heroic. Easy as pie, really. Or get the orange legacy-bound level 8 pieces from the fleet vendor and outfit them with mods. 2. RNG, most likely. I have had medpacs drop but loot tables were changed with 4.0 and mobs drop more gray vendor trash (and a metric ****ton of jerky schematics) and gifts and less actual loot. 3. That's a bug. Gear losing durability seems inconsistent, dying sometimes will not cause damage, but questing around might.

Keep a stiff upper lip mate. The time to show some of that superior western moral fiber is now. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/28/opinion/europe-is-spying-on-you-mass-surveillance.html?_r=0 https://www.lawfareblog.com/state-emergency-how-paris-attacks-expanded-frances-police-powers This is what you were referring to when you alluded to what IS wants, right? "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever."

So data is "pulp fiction"? Read a bit more, please, I really shouldn't have to break things down for you. The article(s) were strictly limited to the US in scope. Oh, and Breivik doesn't matter, because, uh... reasons! And cultural marxism!

Maybe not a shock to you, but generally public perception of the issue is skewed: www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/us/tally-of-attacks-in-us-challenges-perceptions-of-top-terror-threat.html It's hard to talk about any issue when folks instinctively go "cultural marxism!" at any argument that doesn't jibe with the current iteration of the xenophobic narrative, though.

I haven't played PVP on stealthers nearly as much as I have on my mara, but the flexibility and control advantages brought by stealth simply cannot be compensated by the meager (~5%) damage output advantage the mara supposedly has. Ninja capping as a mara? Forget about it. Node guarding? Lel. Ambushing/disabling healers? No dice. They can't even force the healer out of guard range, which a jugg can do. On the other hand, Shadows/sins have excellent survivability and tools to be a veritable PITA until help can arrive. And operatives can off-/self-heal. To make up for all of that, they'd have to give maras and snipers a huge (upwards of 10%) damage boost. That would break the PVE meta and, most importantly, arenas.

You are doing God's work.

Whether I believe it's okay to nuke them or not is irrelevant, I'm nobody. What matters is will someone actually do it and if so, can they get away with it? I would think that you of all people should be aware of how little stuff being "okay" matters in a war. Who here has suggested otherwise? No one but you has made a value judgment about it. However it's kinda suspect that your outrage is always directed the same way. I don't remember you being so upset when a MSF hospital was bombed in the 'stan a few weeks ago. Or when Israeli commandos infiltrated a hospital in the West Bank to assassinate a patient. Or...

While not excusing their actions by any means, it's interesting how people saying something like that forgetting the fact these pilots were dropping bombs on them in the first place. And i've heard reports that they're not even particularly choosy on who they drop them, militants or civilians. In any case, it's a bit hypocritical to expect these people to act differently. "We're dropping bombs on you, but shooting a pilot is just too much!" Really? I was going to post something along these lines, too. I can't understand how folks can be scandalized by the fact that the people usually on the receiving end of white phosphorus would jump at the chance to shoot an ejected pilot who can't do anything about it. These were military pilots flying a combat sortie. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Well, the British had their own airforce they could and did retaliate with, didn't they? This is asymmetrical warfare. Wonder if you chaps would be more at ease if they had tried the pilots in a kangaroo court and hanged them. "Civilized war" is an oxymoron.

I believe you've reached your buzzword quota for the day, with just one post. You can pat yourself in the back now, good job.

Lol, you talk like it actually matters whether the jet actually flew into Turkish airspace. Each side will claim the other is to blame, people will believe what they want to believe, great powers will act according to their interests, and the victor's history will settle the matter after the smoke clears. As always.

brb getting 2 million sunblock

I had an ops group fail "Mutations" due to people getting tired of waiting for the respawn and leaving. And ninja stealthers "stealing" kills. It was a hair-pulling experience that I haven't tried to repeat. The corpse despawn thing was fixed from what I saw after today's reboot, on TRE at least. I'm curious what could have caused it.

So you're taking Ernst Junger's example and assuming it was representative of everyone else, while dismissing the factual arguments I made and the rest of the contemporary examples of the consequences that resisting conscription had (i.e. deportation to a concentration camp and death by firing squad). Was it an ideological struggle? Perhaps, though the line separating ideology and outright propaganda is blurry at best. Was there a safe alternative to being forcefully sent to die in a battlefield? Not really. "Ideas worth dying or killing for"? Such as? In what context? This is the sort of grandiloquent ideological hot air that is only good to engage people on an emotional level, to stop them from thinking critically and make them easier to manipulate for whatever goal the ideologue has in mind. Funny thing is, it's precisely the fact that these people believe in "ideas worth dying or killing for" that is a big part of the problem. Because it's your ideas that are worth killing and dying for, and not anyone else's, right? And killing others on ideological grounds has a great track record of solving problems permanently, yes sir. How about we try discussing the issue with arguments beyond anecdote and how everyone but you is blind and stupid. As an aside, if these ideas are worth dying and especially killing over, why aren't you, you know, killing and dying for them instead of strongly advocating that others go do it? Are they only sometimes worth that? Only worth that for someone else? How does that work exactly?

What a bizarre thing to say. You do realize that the legal framework that allows for refugees to flow en masse to other countries without fear of being persecuted or immediately turned back was developed as a direct result of WWII, right? Not to mention the fact that during WWII, there weren't that many places to flee towards, it's called a world war for a reason. And, oh, the levels of mobilization reached meant that conscription was at a level unseen before or since, thankfully. This was not the best and bravest gallantly fighting the good fight as much as it was an entire generation of men being thrown into the industrial meat grinder of WWII because there was simply no escaping it. Many others just accepted the fact that their countries had surrendered and tried to make the best of a ****ty situation under German rule. And while we're discussing history: Germanic tribes pushed into a declining Roman Empire in large numbers because their lands were being overrun by the Huns. So yeah, basically war is bad news and if you're smart you'll try to avoid it as best you can. On the other hand, I hear disposable heroes are always in high demand...

It's also the same people who were throwing a hissy fit over Bioware "ruining their fun" when the slicing nodes were nerfed. Where is the fun in making millions just by walking around, breaking the economy in the process? Presumably it's the same "fun" as AFK'ing your way through content. Ah, but who cares. Here's the datamined buffs So assuming these numbers hold, we're looking at a final 45-50% nerf over the 4.0 baseline. Most likely still unacceptable to the /unsub crowd.

Musco specifically stated that some heroics would indeed be "more challenging" after the patch. The SFs are still technically soloable, but then again, so are HM Flashpoints. The fact that there is a [sOLO] version of the instance should be a good indication that the H2+ version is on the harder side by design, but people who were clearing it by relying on massive companion overheals and now can't are understandably pissed. Still, it's hard to dispute that "bait and switch" is a good way to describe the way this has been handled. They only came out with an announcement previous to the patch because dataminers had discovered and made public what they said amounted to a 70% nerf in companion heals. BW really needs to work on the way they engage the community. And this is coming from someone who actually doesn't mind the changes.

Unlike planetary heroics, I don't think the H2+ SFs are meant to be done solo as a matter of course: that's why there's two achievements for it, one with buffs and one without. With anoher player it's a 20' run, which isn't so bad. I did two unbuffed runs on a jugg with a mix of craptastic 186-216 gear, had to switch from Vengeance to Immortal for the final segment (from the ambush in the holo room on), otherwise damage and threat become unmanageable. I died a few times because I'm a baddie and kept resetting the encounter with the Exarch in the third room until I realized I need to kill the elites first. Funny, neither the Exarchs, nor the Paladins I've encountered hit nearly as hard as the single-saber Zakuul Knights. Took me a good long hour for each run, but I had a lot of fun. Not something I intend to do on a regular basis, though.

My bad, I wasn't clear. The "pact" I was referring to is domestic rather than at the EU level and galvanized support behind the government's "gag law" (which I've already discussed) and other reforms such as bringing back life in prison sentences for ill-defined "terrorism" crimes, prison terms for "receiving military training with the intent to commit terrorist acts including doing so through content hosted on the internet", automatic deportation of illegal aliens, etc. These were conceived as the government's way to quell domestic unrest resulting from the economic crisis, but the attacks in France were the perfect excuse to bring more "democrats" behind it. Because, why the **** not. Oh please. Spare me that conspiracy theory notion of capitalism as some kind of mythical cabal acting as a single entity. We have access to hundreds (thousands?) of competing news outlets. The idea that collectively, they give us less full and fair access to information about world events, than a centralized state-sponsored media would, is absolutely ludicrous. Is labelling anything that doesn't agree with your world view a conspiracy theory something you do deliberately to help cope with uncertainty or is it a subconscious reaction? Your ideal media landscape is as unrealistic as your ideal conception of "free" markets, and is to the real world what ideal gases are to real gases. In reality, it's a matter of exposure. More resources and a bigger market share means more exposure and the ability to influence more people. I'm sure I don't have to explain how Alex Jones will never be able to compete with FOX. Your reasoning is also internally inconsistent: in a perfect world where free markets ensure that different viewpoints are all afforded the same exposure (ha!), a state-sponsored perspective would be just another voice, and could pose no threat to the ability of citizens to form opinions critically. Nobody has argued for nationalization of all media, and suggesting that it is the ultimate goal of those warning about the pitfalls of a media landscape dominated by a few private individuals is an outlandish theory... you are not suggesting a conspiracy, are you?

As opposed to corporate-sponsored "education" by the economic elite? No, state-owned media isn't ideal and the potential for abuse is enormous. But at least they can be kicked out every 4-5 years, in theory. Good luck getting rid of the influence the likes of Carlos Slim, uncle Rupee, or Il Cavaliere have on the media. Fairness and ethical journalistic standards are second to market forces, as you well know. With the Charlie Hebdo attacks in january, we got an "anti-jihad pact" that consolidated repression and undermined civil liberties. I can't wait to see what they come up with now, with general elections in less than two months. I just hope the French don't allow something similar to happen, what with nobody batting an eyelash at Hollande stating that France is now at war, and all...

Depending on what time of day you play at, Qyzen's quest may range from undoable to trivial. I only managed to complete it by camping a target-rich area late (think ~4am) at night, in an instance with just 5 other imperial players in it. And I still had to join a pug to take down Snowblind. I'm in the same boat as you regarding Pierce. The whole alliance thing seems like a humongous grind if you want to get any kind of completion for more than one character. Just thinking about doing 6x Star Fortress heroics per character makes me want to start deleting a few, and that's without factoring in the influence grind which, outside of specific cases of crafting, seems practically pointless. Regarding the game essentially playing itself outside of HMs, the forums seem to be divided between the people who suggest that a game by definition requires gameplay, and people lashing out against those who want to "take away their fun" and "make the game worse for everyone". I'd like to be wrong on this, but I expect the next balance pass on the issue (assuming there is one) to please no one.

Must be facetank spec mara gear. That's my spec in warzones.

Yeah, like having to deal with that annoying Twi'lek hypocrite bitch for 60+ runs. Ugh. spacebar pls