I've put in @5 hours so far. Spent about an hour trying to get the UI scaling to work correctly, but other than that it's been fun. My impression is that it's more of an improved iteration of DW Universe than a whole new game.

Beamer wrote on Oct 4, 2017, 13:40:

Bumpy wrote on Oct 4, 2017, 13:07:
Guess what Mr. CEO finger pointer, you are in charge and responsible for that 'one' person.

In fairness, a software update is something no one should expect a CEO to pay any attention to. It's mundane and not worth his time.

(Snip)

If your CEO is paying attention to system upgrades, you hired the wrong CEO. He shouldn't have any understanding of that. Those skills don't make for a good CEO.

Look, no one expects a CEO to be technical. But relying on an individual to perform a mission critical task with no oversight is amateur hour and is a failure of due diligence. There should be an entire process where a change is written, there is peer review, change is performed, and there is post change testing.

Yes, the CEO has a responsibility to make sure that is happening. That is part of his job. He doesn't write the process but he must maintain oversight of those to whom he delegates it to.

This isn't a new or obscure idea. I myself have worked from within that framework for over 15 years, three large multinational corporations, and the Department of Defense. There are entire books written about it, as well as international standards. That a large corporation like Equifax would fail at this is shocking. Their business is literally handling personal identification information.

Don't let them off easy. This is not the failure of just some IT dude. Their system failed to catch this.

At the moment I am studying for the CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional). The CISSP is a high level security cert, and here is a direct quote:

"Security governance is not and should not be treated as an IT issue only. Instead, security affects every aspect of an organization. It is no longer just something the IT staff can handle on their own. Security is a business operations issue. Security is an organizational process, not just something the IT geeks do behind the scenes."

It goes on to emphasize that senior management must be engaged in business security and that they have the ultimate responsibility, not the IT department.

This dude received compensation in the tens of millions, yet apparently didn't understand how a critical part of his company operated. To me this is a clear failure of due care. This CEO should man up and take responsibility. You get paid crazy money for a reason.

How is the performance now, on a mid-range PC? I tried playing last year on a free weekend and just couldn't deal with lag (even when playing solo, not online)

Had an interview with the producer of Sins of a Solar Empire, and couldn't ask the most *obvious* question?

"It's been nine years since the release of the original, is there ever going to be a Sins II?"

I would be really into this, but.... It's published by Kalypso which makes it suspect. I still remember the fiasco of "Legends of Pegasus" from a few years ago and Kalypso's refusal to issue refunds or get the developer to do ANY bug fixes. It was a publish and run job.

"If you need an idea for the “We Didn’t Think Of Everything” Award, pick Half-Life 2 Episode 2 and nominate it for “Game most in need of a sequel” Award."


LOL, done.

$8 is a lot of money for what is essentially a skin. Even horse armor added more to Elder Scrolls than this does to Stellaris.

Have they fixed the rush for T4 units issue? That is what ruined the game for me.

Are these awards only open to major publishers?

The whole deal with Brad started to get unpleasant when he announced in 2009 that Stardock was going to boycott UPS after UPS said they didn't want their advertisements run during Glenn Becks show (after Glenn said Obama was a racist who hated white people). Then there was the disaster of Elemental, and finally the allegations of sexual harassment at Stardock.

It's not hard to understand why some people don't want to give them money.

I feel that Stardock has made good on Elemental with free copies of later (better quality) releases in the series to those who preordered the original. As far as I know the Sexual Harassment stuff was never proven, and the UPS fiasco was six years ago. I'm wary of Stardock but don't feel they are worse than EA or Ubisoft.

That said, I will never ever preorder anything from them again!

And eRe4s3r, what is the stance of the German Pirate Party on the 'right to be forgotten' - does the party support or condemn it?

Wow, I wonder if the EU has hired censors from China. How does this work - if the EU wants information to be scrubbed from the Internet globally then on what basis can Google say no to the same demand from China, the US, Russia, Thailand, Iran and so on. Also I haven't seen a lot of information about the EU trying to impose these rules on other companies. Technically the rules apply to other companies but has it been applied in the real world (have the others been getting the same requests as Google or just a fraction)?

Finally, I think it's pathetic that some dude who lives in Germany would try and lay the blame for this at the feet of the US judicial system. Grow a pair and take responsibility for your own nations actions.

I feel 'meh' about it. I actually managed to win on my first play through on the 'normal' setting. As in no restarts for a better landing spot or reload because I did something stupid or got surprised in combat or something. I have been playing ever Civ since the original (including AC) and I never would have been able to do that with any of the others. The devs have said that at higher difficulty there is no different AI logic...

Satellites seemed interesting but not necessary, as was diplomacy. I didn't need any of the higher end techs other than to achieve my victory type. I only did a minimal number of quests.

It took me just under 400 turns / 11 hours to achieve the Harmony Trancendence victory. Last 100 turns / hour or two was waiting on stuff to be researched/built and waiting on the PC to take its turn.

Not saying it's bad, just that to me it has not lived up to my own excitement. Maybe I will feel different after some sleep and another play through. :-P

I've been loving it. The questing was a big 'meh' to me - largely because it's no different from every other MMO. What I like about AA is that when I hit lvl 15 I was able to mostly leave quests behind - I am at 38 now and have done it through crafting and trading. The PVP is interesting with the judicial system dynamics and piracy. I have not participated in any wars so far.

There is problems with spam in chat, and I have heard of the teleport hack but the summoning of bots is a new one. I have to call BS on the claim of a small plot (8x8) going for 300G - last night someone was trying to sell one for 10G on my server and I have seen ones in prime spots go for free. By way of reference I am earning 7G on a 20min trade run.

A lot of people were unable to get any land in the beginning and larger parcels are close to impossible to get for free even now. Since that is a dynamic that a lot of people were looking forward to they got really bitter. I do think it will get better but probably land will never go back to being free for large plots - but I think that is the way it should be.

Universim looks interesting and I would back them... but after my experience with Castle Story / Sauropodstudio I am wary. I backed them two years ago and since then it seems like they spend more time preparing and recuperating from Conventions/Conferences than they do working on the game. I get the feeling I gave them $25 to go out and party...

On the other hand, Planetary Annihilation has come along well. The difference? One studio is run by very young and inexperienced people and the other is run by industry veterans.

Yosemite Sam - what is more likely - a secret program to harvest people medical files and then openly use them at customs, or that border agents sometimes google people? You think they can't? You think they can only use billion $$$ programs developed by the NSA?

I *know* they google people. There was a Dutch Industrial band called Grendal that tried to sneak into the US from Canada using a tourist visa sometime around 2004-2005. They got stopped randomly at the border, and an agent saw a couple of their CD's in their luggage (like 10 copies of the same album - not a huge number but more than a couple of people would likely have). He looked up the band on the web, went to their bio page and saw their pictures. They ended up being banned from the US for like five years or something.

I'm not saying they spend the time to do that for everyone, but I am sure that for a sample of people it happens. Also, it is well known that airlines flying in from abroad are required to provide passenger lists. Googling someone needs not happen as that person walks up to the desk, or even onsite. It could be done ahead of time halfway across the planet.

Finding information out about people coming into the country IS THEIR JOB. You really think they wouldn't use google?

And have you googled Ellen Richardson? You don't have to wade through 'pages and pages of internet crap'. Her website is the very first hit!

Cutter - have you googled her? It makes people look goofy and crazy when they cite 'evidence' that any 5 year old can easily find out is false. If you have larger issues with Harper then that is fine, but this story is BS.

Guys, take your pointy tin foil hats off. How did they get the information that she had mental health issues? They googled her. You can to - look up her name: Ellen Richardson.

Or maybe you prefer to believe that the NSA hacked into Canada's healthcare database and then turned the info over to customs.

Also: I hear that there never was a Soviet Union, much less a fall of the eastern block. It's a lie perpetrated by evil capitalists meant to discredit the virtues of communism.

The real story here is how stupid some people can be by spewing info like that all over the internet and then be surprised that the government can in fact use public search engines. And then there is the fact that apparently no one else uses a search engine - they just take it for granted that some reporter is not trying to slant the story.

I bought it for the Mods - I have zero interest in the campaign. During the alpha and beta I have put in over 70 hours. Well worth the price. While I have only noticed minor feature improvements since Arma II, now nearly every building is enterable, the graphics are improved even on my 4 yo rig. Even the alpha seemed more stable to me than Arama II did years after its release. I never would have believed I would like a game like this but I am a fan.

I have spent all my time just playing the various versions of the Wasteland mod, in case anyone is interested.....