Gorth

Not really what we had hoped to hear, but thanks for the update

Supply and demand It doesn't matter how clever an AI you can build if you can't afford the soil erosion effects to sell it to the masses. Vice versa, if you can use more of your budget on marketable effects (like 'Ooh, Shiny!'), why spend you money on the more esoteric stuff, especially if you expect your game to be dated in 2-3 years, just in time for the sequel? Nobody is going to remember it down the road anyway.

Spoiler about your dialogue choice and your lightsaber: As for Hasag, sorry, not much of a Star Wars fan, never noticed the name

Steam. Thanks. The lesser of many evils I suppose

Same or similar phenomena sometimes happens on Amazon. I don't remember it's name but one of those optical cable user review sections were hilarious with everybody pitching in.

Thanks to Gizmo for reminding me of this thread... Dead Island I was tempted by this game, but the DRM on gamersgate listed '3rd part account and downloads required'. Anybody knows what that is?

Try 'Painkiller'. The protagonist is very worried that he'll end up in hell

Not really a game theme... and Maybe we need a Best game voice acting thread some day

Not that I don't want to discuss it, but I just can't drum up the interest in politics to really motivate myself. My interest is mostly from a historians perspective, as dull as it may sound. Short version is, I think democracy is an easier product to market to the masses (who are you going to blame, the idiots that voted the current incumbent in?), but not necessarily the best or most efficient form of government

The Walsingham Tax introduced in late 2011... effectively puts an extra tax on performances and recordings by naturally born red-head country and western singers. People have been caught dying their hair and outrageous claims of their "music" not being country and western to avoid the extra tariffs.

As an insurance company. Nobody likes the premiums and you think you are never going to need it. When storm hits the roof, you suddenly realize it is good to have others helping pay the bill. It probably does more to prevent war between member states than any other organization in recent history.

Letting half of it crash and burn vs. letting all of crash and burn? I'm not exactly a member of the Mussolini fan club, but he did take an aggressive stance against organized crime and corruption. Unfortunately the current breed of politicians take an aggressive stance against independent audits and accountability. Greece and Italy (and Spain and Portugal for that matter) has little short to medium potential as anything but money pits where you can shovel all your money into and 5 years from now, nobody can tell your where the billions went and whose pockets it ended up in (e.g. the first 100 billion Euros that disappeared in Greece). So, sending more money solved absolutely zero issues, it just prolongs the problem.

Ha-hah! Found Mr. Cuddles.

That is like peeing in your pants. A short term warm and fuzzy feeling before the cold sets in again, as you will still have the structural problems (endemic corruption and inefficiency). Split Europe in two and kick out those who can't meet the requirements and hit those politicians who are dead set on empire building for their own reasons, whether it be megalomania, being paid by the companies who wants expansion or just plain stupid.

Changes to the PC carries over to BG2. Changes to Korgan does not. So while giving a book to Korgan will be more powerful, giving it to the PC will have a longer impact. Besides, Korgan isn't the chosen one... He probably can't read either...

Big Mac Index Before I heard of that one, I used the "Beer Index" to compare my salaries and expenses in New Zealand and Australia compared to UK, Denmark and Germany.

I seem to remember that a thief was useful in Durlags Tower, but it's been a number of years since I played that one. Might just be my imagination.

I still remember seeing them live about 15-20 years ago. Great fun

wut The Wheel of Time FPS

So much for "An Apple a day keeps the doctor away" I know. That was bad. Too little sleep and too much work does that to you.

That it, a line has been crossed. People, leave Won Ton soup alone!

You mean that the both guys who hate the west are fighting each other? I know its wrong of me, but somehow this doesn't feel like completely bad news. I'm no expert on Somalia, but quite a lot of Somalis like the West. After all, bongzillions keep coming here. Free food beats no food. Then ship money home to fund the struggle. Maybe. I still doubt it, tho. Inside joke, our security police recently busted a pair of somalis who were recruiting/financing al-shabaab. From sources I unfortunately can't reveal, I've been told that they make up a disproportinate amount of the money transferred out of the country (Denmark). They are also pretty miffed that their right to implement sharia law (stoning and all) is being trampled underfoot. I wonder if I can find a different, public source for the figures. Sigh, Google is not much help there unless I can come up with some clever way of narrowing it down

What campaign (race) are you playing? Took me a while to realise that you needed to play more than one race from start to end to get the "big picture" of what took place and how each side have their own biased views of it.

I've never been there, but when seeing the pictures in the news every now and then, it does look like Cuba is the 50's trapped in amber, like time stood still since it got isolated and blockaded. As for the rest I don't know if it makes a good Fallout game, but it sure as heck has potential for an interesting game of some kind

Fuzzy memory warning... I think you need to have him around a while first. Can't remember if a certain amount of influence points is needed or if it is story/event points I hope somebody remember it better than I do. It just seemed to come naturally at the time as the game progressed and you talked to your companions on the Ebon Hawk.