Cutter wrote on Nov 6, 2012, 15:08:
Oh don't mind Thunbder, everyone knows by now that like most of the rank and file GOP he'll never let actual facts stand in the way of a good rant against the Democrats. Obama isn't a miracle worker and it's hard to get anything done when the GOP oppose the man at every turn no matter how much he strives to cross the aisle and work together. And how would Romney's plans be any better? Oh wait, he doesn't have any. At leas none that he's shared publicly. What we've seen privately is that he believes at least 47% of the country are parasites who shouldn't even be entitled to food. Yeah, I can see where the GOP is a real boon to working people everywhere just like they always are...cut taxes on the rich and big biz, farm out domestic jobs, keep letting the military-industrial complex bankrupt the country. And the most fascinating part is they convince their followers to believe that all the resultant problem of that is the fault of the democrats. Amazing!!! It's like the greatest illusion of all time.

And yes, there are pretty major differences in the left and right, just go google some voting records.

Verno wrote on Nov 6, 2012, 14:54:

RollinThundr wrote on Nov 6, 2012, 14:31:

jacobvandy wrote on Nov 6, 2012, 13:56:
Lately I've been leaning toward the point of view that Obama being re-elected would be better for us than Romney getting in. The problem with ousting an incumbent is the false perception of change associated with it... That would lead many outraged and outspoken Americans to calm down and stop paying attention to what's really going on, because they assume a change in president will mean a change in policy. "OH YEAH, we kicked him out! Good job fellas, now we can go home..."

Meanwhile, I have zero confidence whatsoever that Romney will do anything substantially different than Obama has been doing. As much as I would like to see it proven that R vs. D doesn't mean a goddamn thing in mainstream politics anymore, it would be too detrimental to the current growing subculture of dissent. So, I hope Obama wins, if only to further stoke the fires burning beneath the feet of the angry mobs. Maybe four more years of his "hope and change" will finally spur some improvements around here.

I think we pretty much know what we're getting with Obama. A big spender who flat out refuses to compromise to get anything done who won't even seriously talk about cuts unless it's military, which is crazy when you're fighting 3 wars essentially. Yet he'll win because he's a better public speaker and more "hip" with the hipsters.

It's simply amazing to me that most Americans seem to not care about the massive amount of debt he's added in just 4 short years. Obama was so critical of Bush adding 4 trillion of debt over 8 years, he just had to top him adding 5 trillion in only 4. Yep let's all vote for Obama, bankrupting the country and selling our souls to a communinst nation in China are wonderful ideals.

I would have to vote with my conscience first and there are too many question marks surrounding the changes Romney wants and what policies he will dismantle. For better or for worse Obama mostly has actual plans for his ideas so it should be no surprise that people are going with the known quantity, no one likes an unknown in politics. I will likely just abstain from voting altogether, it's a cop out but at least I'll feel good about it.

When you're trying to assign blame, look no further than the kooks in our own party who ruined a decent female voter push with rape comments and talk about abortion policy regression.

jacobvandy wrote on Nov 6, 2012, 13:56:
Lately I've been leaning toward the point of view that Obama being re-elected would be better for us than Romney getting in. The problem with ousting an incumbent is the false perception of change associated with it... That would lead many outraged and outspoken Americans to calm down and stop paying attention to what's really going on, because they assume a change in president will mean a change in policy. "OH YEAH, we kicked him out! Good job fellas, now we can go home..."

Meanwhile, I have zero confidence whatsoever that Romney will do anything substantially different than Obama has been doing. As much as I would like to see it proven that R vs. D doesn't mean a goddamn thing in mainstream politics anymore, it would be too detrimental to the current growing subculture of dissent. So, I hope Obama wins, if only to further stoke the fires burning beneath the feet of the angry mobs. Maybe four more years of his "hope and change" will finally spur some improvements around here.

nin wrote on Nov 6, 2012, 10:36:

sauron wrote on Nov 6, 2012, 10:20:

nin wrote on Nov 6, 2012, 09:59:
Voted Friday. Now I get to sit back and watch the fireworks. And being a glutton for punishment, I'm sure I'll be following it all night.

I'm unable to vote (foreign passport - Mordor; also, the Lidless Eye has no hands). However, Ive been absolutely glued to the Five Thirty-Eight page for weeks:

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/

Unbiased political statistics analysis done with hard math - very interesting. Honestly, it really is!

I'm not sure if I believe those numbers or not. I think because he seems farther away than a few of the other polls. But I have been following it the past few days...

Guess we'll find out tonight. (Assuming it's resolved) No matter who "wins" half the country is going to be pissed tomorrow.

edit: I've been reading http://electoral-vote.com/ since the 04 election, and he seems to nail it, most of the time.

Beamer wrote on Nov 5, 2012, 11:28:
EVERYTHING WAS BETTER WHEN I WAS WIDE EYED AND YOUNGER!



I always enjoy how little people realize that their personal point in life greatly effected how they viewed the product of that time. There's someone, somewhere, claiming rap was never better than when MC Hammer did it, because rap was exciting and new to him personally at that time.

Games today do almost everything better than previously. They're less cheap. They're more focused. They actually tell stories. Hell, I know the plot of Borderlands 2. I consider that something of a miracle. Somehow Gearbox managed to tell that story coherently. Does anyone know the plot of Metroid? How about Quake? Did anyone ever know why they were doing anything in particular in Doom?

Sure, certain game styles have died out. Turn-based, story-heavy JRPGs, for instance, are no longer popular. FF selling poorly isn't a sign that games are worse, it's a sign that those style games just aren't popular.

The real complaint people can have is that everything is homogenized at the top. Much like what happened with radio and network TV, no one will fully commit to a risk because anything unique may have a limited audience. Fine, whatever. Did this kill music? No, because with the homogenization of radio came the rise of mp3s and spotify. Did this kill TV? No, because with the homogenization of network TV (i.e., Terra Nova being a kiddie show) came the rise of AMC, FX, HBO and Showtime.
With the homogenization of EA will come the rise of anything else, thanks to convenient digital distribution. It's still hard, as video games cost a fortune, as movies do, but man, if FTL and Orcs Must Die 2 aren't up there as 2 of the 5 best games of the year...

Wowbagger_TIP wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 16:07:

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 13:13:
Clinton set the ball rolling on the housing collapse, Bush got the blame since it happened on his watch. Bush alone didn't cause the financial meltdown but any liberal will tell you it was him and him alone. The democrat party had control of both the the House and Senate, starting January 4th, 2007 they didn't seem to have much issue with Bush's policies at the time either but soley trying to blame the recession on Junior is flat out rediculous.

Where did I solely blame it on GWB? Some of the deregulation was passed by the Republican congress and signed by Clinton, and some was passed on a bipartisan basis, so I do think that both share some blame for it, but I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "Clinton set the ball rolling on the housing collapse". Maybe you could clarify.

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 13:13:
Like I said, I'm no cheerleader for Mittens, but Obama gives me a strong impression that he flat out won't get anything done in a positive manner, he refuses to work with republicans then blames them for not working with him, while he signs another executive order to get his way.

Umm... are you even aware of what the GOP said when Obama took office? They flat out stated that they were going to try to prevent him from getting anything done, and that their number one goal was to make sure that he fails and doesn't get a second term. Oh, and let's not forget all the Tea Party folks who came in and flat refuse to compromise on practically anything. So who's not willing to work together again?

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 13:13:
Rather than talk about ways to cut spending, he peddles nationalized heathcare and shit like his "Julia" pitch, government handholding from cradle to grave.

Nationalized health care? What planet do you live on? How exactly is it nationalized? Do you even know what that means?

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 13:13:
He apparently didn't get the memo that our spending is going to bankrupt us. Which is a memo the republicans neither seem to have gotten. And really, robbing Peter to pay Paul via wealth redistribution isn't an answer unless you seriously cut spending.

Actually, when you're faced with a recession, especially one as severe as this one, deficit spending is exactly what you have to do to get the economy started again. Yes, we need to pay it down later, but saying that right now is the time to eliminate the deficit is just crazy. Do that and watch the economy sink right back into recession.

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 13:13:
The whole idea if the rich just pay a little bit more it'll balance out is bullshit. The rich could be taxed 100% of their income and it still wouldn't cover even a half of the spending the pigs in DC keep pushing.

This I actually agree with, but it also misses the point. The point being that the tax increases on the wealthy are just a part of the solution. The Dems have proposed a lot of cuts as well, but the Republicans refused and demanded only cuts and no revenue increases. It's not realistic. It's going to do too much damage and the folks in the middle (who already saw their incomes stagnate for the past 10+ years) and at the bottom who are going to feel the brunt of the pain. Not only that, but it will also ensure that those folks have a much harder time improving their situation, getting an education, getting decent food, etc. It's not going to hurt jobs, we've seen far higher taxes in the past and still had a strong economy. We've got a lot of debt incurred under Bush, along with the debt incurred trying to get out of the recession, that we need to pay down, and we can only do that if the economy recovers.

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 13:13:
If Romney has a plan to create substainable jobs, give him the chance to do so, and if he's serious about cutting spending that's far more talking about cuts than I've heard out of the Obmessiah's mouth.

I'd like to hear Romney's plan, but so far he doesn't seem to have one. He talks a lot about he's going to cut taxes, maintain war-time military spending, and get rid of loopholes and deductions to pay for all that, but has so far refused to even propose anything. All this despite his yapping about Obama's lack of leadership in working with Congress. He just expects them to put a plan together apparently with no real guidance from him? Has he met congress?

Obama has offered a lot of cuts, 3 or 4 to 1 cuts to revenue, but has been rebuffed each time. So, according to Romney, he has a better plan for the economy and a better plan for health care, but doesn't actually lay out those plans. His campaign did at least correct him that his health care plan won't actually cover pre-existing conditions, so we'll continue to see most of the same problems that we've been seeing for decades now. I really don't see him fixing anything that's going to matter. He's mostly just trying to follow the GOP line of repealing Obamacare, but doesn't have any better ideas for what to replace it with.

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 13:13:
At the end of the day it's voting for the lesser of the two evils and granted it's only my opinion but Romney seems to be the lesser of the two this go around.

Romney has so been twisted by the primaries and trying to keep his base with him that he's gone off the deep end and can't do what's actually needed, but has to pursue pleasing the right-wing bumper sticker crowd instead. That's going to spell disaster for us.

Beamer wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 08:47:

Cutter wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 05:56:
They estimate that well over 50% of Fortune 1000 CEOs are clinical psychopaths.

Both a myth and an exaggeration, as the most claimed is usually 1 out of 25, and pretty much everyone says that's entirely false and baseless.

And it becomes an easy argument. "Oh, that guy did something wrong because he's an undiagnosed psychopath." Hardly. "That guy did something wrong because he's so removed from reality and has been so rewarded for doing something wrong that, over time, he stopped recognizing that it is wrong" is more like it.

It's conditioning, not a mental disability, and excusing it as such will never address the underlying problem. Instead, by saying they're all psychopaths, it's seeking headlines and passing blame.

Actually, he's a great article that says just what I said.
Cutter, please stop repeating such obviously wrong information. You like it because you dislike CEOs, but stop and think and realize how ridiculously unlikely it is. Then stop and think and realize how it stops blaming the situation that created the CEO.

Wowbagger_TIP wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 12:43:

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 12:05:

Wowbagger_TIP wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 11:14:
Keep dragging that apology tour line out, even though it's been debunked all over the place. America has done some lousy things, some of which have come back to bite us in the ass, and some have just caused problems for others. Anyone that believes Romney's line about America not dictating to other countries is just plain ignorant. We've both dictated to and freed other countries. It's not an either-or situation.

No we've certainly done that more than once. However you seem to forget how quickly Obama has run to the UN for help anytime he faces opposition, which seems to be alot of the time.

The UN thinking they're an authority on anything aside from passing weak sanctions that they don't follow through on most of the time is pretty humorous.

The UN is often quite useless, but is also one of the only ways to get other countries to take on some of the burden of intervening all over the world. Unless we want to be stuck footing the bill in blood and treasure for every action that needs to be taken, then we have to work with the UN.

You might want to bear in mind that we really don't do anything in the world militarily that isn't in our own interests. Other countries are much the same, and our interests will often not line up with the other security council members. So we end up either going it alone and taking the cost on ourselves, or we try to convince others to go with us. Of course clusterfucks like Iraq make getting others to follow us difficult too.

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 12:05:
For a president who uses the phrase "Let me be clear" on a regular basis, he hasn't been very clear on much of anything, in fact his administration has been one of the least transparent in the history of the US.

He's continued most of the same policies on transparency that the previous administration had. How come Republicans weren't screaming about them then? I don't like it, but I find it rather ridiculous for the right to complain now.

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 12:05:
If there's anything he actually is clear about it's consistantly giving forth the message that he wants more government oversite over everything, and folks like you still planning to give him another 4 years to drive our debt further into the abyss simply because there's a D in front of his name drives me crazy.

This argument makes no sense. We had 10 years of Republican rule that lead up to the financial crisis which drove the economy into the ground. Anyone who's paid any attention knows that you don't get out of a recession by cutting deficits. The focus of the right on that is just laughable. GWB runs up deficits and only a few financial hawks on the right even make a peep about it. He puts 2 wars, a prescription drug benefit and a huge tax cut on the national credit card, and nobody in the GOP balks. Then, all the deregulation and lack of oversight of the mortgage and banking industries catches up with us and NOW you want to bitch about deficits??? It's fucking crazy land over on the right!

While the right isn't alone in responsibility for the crisis, they sure lead the way. To spend a decade decimating the oversight of these industries and then bitch about how Obama hasn't fixed everything in four years is just so outrageous that I can't take anything they say seriously. So even though I really don't like a lot of the things that Obama has done, I just can't stomach the crap Romney is peddling.

I definitely can't vote for someone who won't even acknowledge the mistakes of the past, as they are destined to repeat them.

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 12:05:
I have little love for Mittens, but at the end of the day, I want someone as president who at least has successfully run a business, not some community orginizer, from what is likely the most corrupt state in the union.

Running a company bears almost no real relation to running a country. All these comparisons between the national budget and your checkbook or your corporate bottom line are not valid, as has been explained plenty of times. Given the shit we've seen companies do, and get away with, I'm really not sure it's even a net benefit on his resume.

Wowbagger_TIP wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 11:14:

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 09:23:

Bodolza wrote on Oct 29, 2012, 13:40:

Axis wrote on Oct 29, 2012, 12:17:
If most people honestly think it's the lesser of two "evils", I cant imagine anything more evil than murdering unborn children, so there's that.

Axis,

You are a puppet. You have allowed those who would have control over you to believe that this one issue is more important than almost anything else, and that the "others" hold a view that is morally opposite. This is a lie. They feed you lies through every facet of your life. From television to family, friends and trusted mentors. Even though the subject may have no effect on your life and livelihood, they will make it an issue of paramount importance.

Why? So they can control you. To make sure that you never give power to someone else, even if that someone else is trying to fight for you. Stop allowing others to tell you what you should think.

Let's realistically look at which party tends to want more government oversite and kowtows to the UN on a regular basis. Oh what was that? Did you say democrats? If so you'd be correct. Hell if Obama's apologize for America tour didn't teach you anything I feel a little bad for you.

Keep dragging that apology tour line out, even though it's been debunked all over the place. America has done some lousy things, some of which have come back to bite us in the ass, and some have just caused problems for others. Anyone that believes Romney's line about America not dictating to other countries is just plain ignorant. We've both dictated to and freed other countries. It's not an either-or situation.

Bodolza wrote on Oct 29, 2012, 13:40:

Axis wrote on Oct 29, 2012, 12:17:
If most people honestly think it's the lesser of two "evils", I cant imagine anything more evil than murdering unborn children, so there's that.

Axis,

You are a puppet. You have allowed those who would have control over you to believe that this one issue is more important than almost anything else, and that the "others" hold a view that is morally opposite. This is a lie. They feed you lies through every facet of your life. From television to family, friends and trusted mentors. Even though the subject may have no effect on your life and livelihood, they will make it an issue of paramount importance.

Why? So they can control you. To make sure that you never give power to someone else, even if that someone else is trying to fight for you. Stop allowing others to tell you what you should think.

Beamer wrote on Oct 23, 2012, 14:20:

Beamer wrote on Oct 23, 2012, 14:16:
Also, IGN didn't receive an advance copy of this. IGN. Guaranteed-6.0-IGN.

HAHAHAHA. I actually posted this expecting people to complain, saying IGN is a guaranteed 8.0, but they're really more a guaranteed 6.0. Arguably AAA are rarely worse than that, but IGN tends to be reluctant to go that low.

Sure enough, just looked, the original MOH got a 6.0. I'd put it more at a 5.0. Not memorable, some poor mechanics (vehicles sucked in it, moreso than Borderlands), and overall it was competent but bland and forgettable. No Rogue Warrior, but nothing you'd remember or care about. It was a nice way of showing that the MW games actually do what they do well, they just make some really, really annoying design decisions.

Yifes wrote on Oct 22, 2012, 02:27:

Bhruic wrote on Oct 22, 2012, 01:18:

Acleacius wrote on Oct 21, 2012, 17:12:
The difference should be obvious, they are setting the time frame and budget for their own game, not a publisher. Every time, they've had to release a game early for a publisher and they've done an insane amount of work for a small budget.

We have straight from the horse's mouth that that's not true. Kotor 2 wasn't forced to be released early, they just underestimated the amount of time and effort it would take to release the game the way they envisioned it. It was Obsidian's screw-up. There's absolutely no reason to think that them setting their own schedule and budget ensures they won't have issues. Certainly they have more experience by this point, so I hope they won't have issues, but it's possible that a year and a half from now they might find they don't have enough money to fund development. And it won't be because of a publisher.

Really? Cutting a bunch of content after a hectic 18 month schedule in order to make a Christmas release date sounds pretty forced to me. I'd love to read the interview you're referring to where Obsidian admitted that they themselves planned the December launch and not Lucasarts.

Creston wrote on Oct 21, 2012, 02:32:

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 20, 2012, 23:32:
Agreed, sure LucasArts rushed them with Kotor 2, I get that, but when you sign a contract to deliver in XX amount of months, be able to do so.

Same with AP, Sega's not exactly rolling in the money these days and I always thought that was kinda a odd paring with them as a publisher on that type of game anyway.

For as good as a game FO:NV turned out to be it was pretty bugtastic at launch as well. Seems to be a running theme with Obsidian imo.

Avellone has said (in last week's AMA) that the blame for Kotor2 falls squarely on Obsidian, not on LA. They tried to bite off more than they could chew and they failed.

Apparently Dungeon Siege 3 actually was pretty solid out the gate, and they said they changed their internal QA procedures right before that. So hopefully things will run better this time around. I do think that if there are big issues, they will just get patched. They don't have to wait for a publisher to come up with money to pay for it. (plus they don't have to deal with MS and Sony's certification process.)

Creston

Bhruic wrote on Oct 20, 2012, 22:26:

Jerykk wrote on Oct 20, 2012, 21:32:
I'm apparently one of the few people who enjoyed AP.

No, you might have been one of the few people who didn't run into serious bugs in the game. The game premise and consequence system may have all been great, but the control system was horrible. I was never able to completely eliminate the problems it had, although I was able to limit them to some degree. But it was an extremely common problem that they never fixed.

That was the crux of my problem with Obsidian. They make some stellar games that often end up with serious flaws that never get fixed properly. I don't mind so much if a game has some bugs as long as they are committed to fixing them, but unfortunately, they weren't.

I'm not sure how the situation will be here, since they should get the majority of profits, and since the game is paid for ahead of time, that should mean they have enough money to commit to fixing the inevitable bugs, but they don't really have a good track record. Hopefully that's because of publisher funding (or lack thereof).

TychoCelchuuu wrote on Oct 20, 2012, 19:26:
Alpha Protocl was delayed for a few months but they didn't let Obsidian work on it, they just delayed it for no reason so that it came out after Mass Effect 2 and got horrible reviews for not being more like Gears of War like Mass Effect 2.

Falelorn wrote on Oct 20, 2012, 18:13:

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 20, 2012, 16:28:

Bet wrote on Oct 20, 2012, 15:52:

Axis wrote on Oct 20, 2012, 15:06:
Considering they were behind what many consider to be the greatest PC RPG's of all time, I'm already convinced of it's coming greatness.

I just hope they don't abandon post-apocalyptic games. Considering so many of their lead devs were Fallout-related.. oh well, maybe after PE3.

I hate to say it but I'm taking a wait and see with Eternity. Obsidian has this habit of not finishing or polishing games. KotorII, Alpha Protocol, etc.

I just hope they take their time and finish it/polish it. Since with all the stretch goals they set up they have a lot of work ahead of them. Finish the first game before talking about sequels.

KotOR2, Alpha Protocol, etc were games forced out by the publishers... KotOR2 had their development time shorted by LucasArts and Sega wanted AP out quick before their year end.

Not exactly their fault

Bet wrote on Oct 20, 2012, 15:52:

Axis wrote on Oct 20, 2012, 15:06:
Considering they were behind what many consider to be the greatest PC RPG's of all time, I'm already convinced of it's coming greatness.

I just hope they don't abandon post-apocalyptic games. Considering so many of their lead devs were Fallout-related.. oh well, maybe after PE3.

Ant wrote on Oct 20, 2012, 14:26:

Has Obama actually kept any of his promises? Or does that only apply to republicans? It's ok for dems to lie, or not follow through on things, just not republicans? Is that how it goes in liberal magical fantasy world?

Has any Presidents kept their promises?

Cutter wrote on Oct 20, 2012, 14:05:
Good for Brazil!

ANJ’s recommendation was followed by all of the 154 newspapers that belong to the organization and account for more than 90 percent of the country’s newspaper circulation. Google argues the company doesn't need to pay for the rights to use headlines because Google News benefits newspapers by redirecting large volumes of user traffic to their websites.

Yeah, and someone skimming an article for free makes the paper money how. Jesus, that's like saying because I give my mechanic a good reference to people looking for one that he should work on my car for free. Hope this is the start of reigning Google in.