kanisatha

Well, seems like the Ukrainians have accepted the US plan, "with only a few small details to be worked out." The meetings today between the US and Russian sides in Abu Dhabi appear to have been very productive. Apparently the Ukrainians were there as well and the US mediated between them and the Russians to hammer out agreement on details. I also saw a report that said Zelenskiy has been in agreement on the need to end the war now because the longer it goes on the worse Ukraine's bargaining position will get. But he was very concerned how nationalist hardliners in Ukraine would react if he gave away "too much." So, he wanted Trump to play "bad cop" and push a deal on him so he could tell the hardliners he had "no choice" but to accept the deal. I can actually see that being true. The battlefield situation for Ukraine is not good at all. As VP Vance recently put it, looking at it as Ukraine is being forced to give up 20% of its territory is not the proper way to look at it. The proper way to look at it is that Ukraine gets to keep 80% of its territory, has its sovereignty recognized and accepted, and can now focus on its economic reconstruction and development. That's a win, not a loss. And frankly, I generally agree with this assesment. Taking a weak 'W' *is* better than taking a bad 'L'.

Yes, exactly. Putin has already rejected the European version of the plan. The US is still pushing its original version, with some small modifications, on the Ukrainians, but they're sure to reject that. The problem now is very obvious. Russia has the upper hand on the battlefield, so Putin has zero incentive to accept something *less* than what he (very realistically) can get from fighting on. And he is not just in it for land anymore. Now, he wants a post-partition Ukraine that is effectively subjugated to Russia, where Russia calls the shots in Kiev. Hence, small Ukrainian army size, no military agreements of any kind with anyone unless approved by Russia, Russian language sanctified in the Ukrainian constitution, and an election that Putin can manipulate and get an at least open to deal-making with Russia figure as the new Ukrainian leader. And why not? Putin does hold (almost) all the cards. But of course the worst actors here are Macron and Merz. They went to Geneva on Sunday and told the Ukrainians to reject everything by selling Zelenskiy false hope. False hope that they will help to save Ukraine from Russia, including even if Trump walks away from the Ukrainians. Macron and Merz are using the Ukrainians as a pawn to be sacrificed to Putin to buy themselves some time to get their heads out of their asses. Mark my words. If the war drags on, expect Ukraine to be fighting to hold on to Kiev by July or August '26.

I haven't seen any comments here on these two new sci-fi RPGs, The Expanse and Exodus, so I figured I'd post. I've never played a sci-fi RPG, but am intrigued by these games. Looking forward to comments from those of you who are big into sci-fi RPGs:

Well, all of this seems moot now, because apparently yesterday in Geneva very good progress was made on amending the document on all points, such that everyone--the US, the Europeans, and most importantly the Ukrainians--are now satisfied and on the same page. It seems that the Ukrainians are willing to accept the painful territorial concessions, just as I expected and predicted, in exchange for very strong security guarantees, protection of their sovereignty, and a good reconstruction plan. But that is all the more reason to expect that Putin will very likely reject it. It will at least serve to put more pressure on the Russians, though, and hopefully also will re-isolate them internationally if we can get other major states around the world to accept the modified plan as a good plan that is reasonable and fair to both sides.

Did you play with the expansion included?

Big drama this morning following from claims that Sec. Rubio personally told several senators the plan came from the Russians and is their wish list. Then, the State Dept issued an unusually strong rebuttal claiming what the senators were saying is "blatantly false." Rubio himself also said in a social media post the senators had "got him wrong," and that the plan is a US-authored plan taking into account input from both the Russians and Ukrainians. Then the Ukrainians said they had never been consulted on the plan and only saw its details when it was presented to them a few days ago as a take-it-or-leave-it plan, with a threat of an end to US support if they refused to accept it. Personally, I think the issue here is that Rubio is increasingly finding himself in a bind. He is the one guy (along with Wittkof, and that's why he has already announced he is quitting in January) in the Administration who is principled, and is unhappy with constantly having to go against his own principles in order to be a loyal team player within the Administration. That's what's playing out here, and I expect Rubio will call it quits pretty soon. The only reason he's stayed this long is because he gave up a very good and secure senate seat to take this job, and will now find himself without an alternative political career path for him. I did also see an Axios report providing more details of the deal. It does include a provision that explicitly says the US and European states will provide a security guarantee to Ukraine "equivalent to NATO's Article 5 guarantee." That, at least, is something. But for me, including in my capacity as an international security academic, the provisions limiting Ukraine's military size and weapons, and barring European states from deploying troops inside Ukraine are the truly bad provisions. The territorial concessions. as despicable as they are, cannot at this stage be avoided, because it is indisputable that Ukraine is losing and the Russians are winning on the battlefield.

This is actually worse than Munich. At least then, the French and British leaders didn't include provisions of cash payouts for themselves in the sellout of the Czechs. I expect the Ukrainians will reject, knowing full well it will cost them a lot in Trump's retribution but that will still be better than complete surrender and loss of sovereignty. The real question, though, is how will London, Paris, Berlin, and Warsaw react? Will they also join in Trump's sellout of the Ukrainians?

Well, from an RPG standpoint, isn't this a really good thing, that two different sets of player choices resulted in very strongly different outcome experiences? Isn't this what we want from an RPG?

Have DLCs been confirmed for Avowed? And if so, is there a timeline?

Yeah I watched it live. Very cool. Amazingly large and boistrous crowd at Canaveral for the launch.

Loved this video. As a hardcore fan of the Realms, it was such a treat to see and hear from the great Ed Greenwood.

Thanks for sharing. I like this review very much, because it pushes back at something that's been seriously bothering me about people's views and reviews of games recently, namely this argument that '2' is just a bigger and more polished version of '1' and therefore it's somehow not a good game worth playing. No one seriously made this claim with past '2's, most notably D:OS2 which *was* merely a bigger and more polished version of '1'. But now, those very same people (pro and amateur reviewers alike) who gushed over games like D:OS2 are pushing this silly claim about TOW2. I chalk it up to a very dangerous increase in an entitlement mentality among people in recent years.

Yup, I was thinking the exact same thing watching the video. They should import these changes into PoE2 as well.

No way, because it's their engine that makes their inventory system, hotbar, and party formation and movement such a huge pain. Those are all issues following from the limitations of their engine.

I started playing BG3 about a week ago. I'm using a lot of mods, though all of them from among those available through the built-in mod manager. The most important mod being the one that gets me a 6-character party. As I had expected, the game is okay but not amazing the way everyone likes to gush over it. It's definitely not worthy of all those 98, 99, 100 review scores it was given, calling into question the credibility of those reviewers. Among the things that I dislike are a horrible inventory system and hotbar system, poory designed UIs across the board, moving and organizing the party as a group being a huge pain in the ass, most containers in the environment being empty (and not getting clearly marked as such even after you check them), and all NPCs can be interracted with even though many dont have anything meaningful to say. Your own dialog options during conversations are often many and yet the range of different options is very limited, meaning many of the options are merely minor variations on saying the same thing. Combat is also, as expected, rather tedious, but I can live with it from having a party of six and using low difficulty settings. But it is rather ridiculous the extent to which characters miss their attacks. I've gone through multiple rounds of combat where every single one of my six characters missed on their attack. But I'll grant this is a huge flaw of DnD and not the game per se (and why I love PoE mechanics so very much more). Where the game does shine is in beautiful environments, and very nice character animations and cutscenes. The story is also good so far. More to come.