A lot of people Calgary zoo reports record attendance thanks to panda
CALGARY — The arrival of a family of giant pandas to the Calgary Zoo last spring created a stampede of visitors once the guests on loan from China were introduced to an eager public.The zoo surpassed previous records for both attendance and memberships.“We got 1.48 million visitors — that’s a lot of people. If you look at the size of our community with just over 1.1 million citizens in Calgary, the penetration is immense,” Calgary Zoo CEO Clement Lanthier said Thursday.The zoo sold 100,000 annual memberships and saw an average of 4,065 visitors every day.Lanthier said the attendance actually came in slightly lower than the 1.5 million visitors the zoo expected.“We were severely hit in August when the wildfires in B.C. moved a lot of smoke within Calgary for almost 10 days, so that impacted dramatically our attendance,” he said. “Everything in Calgary went into a stall because the smoke was so intense.”Even with the lower-than-expected attendance, he said, the zoo is in good financial shape with people shelling out cash for panda stuffies, panda T-shirts and food. “On the revenue side, we are ahead of what we had budgeted.”The previous record year at the zoo was 2012 when 1.45 million visitors came to see the penguin exhibit, suggesting black-and-white attractions are the quickest way to stay in the black.“We also had the ring-tailed lemur, which was also black and white, and the snow leopard — arguably they’re black and white — so maybe that’s the way to go forward,” Lanthier said with a laugh.He isn’t expecting another attendance record in 2019.“Typically, with the second year of any attraction, panda or anything else, you have a little decline of the attendance.”The adult pandas, Da Mao and Er Shun, along with their cubs, Jia Panpan and Jia Yueyue are housed in a 2,000-square-metre, indoor-outdoor habitat.The furry foursome was shipped to Calgary from Toronto in April and spent about a month in quarantine.The two adults are on loan to Canadian zoos from China as part of a 10-year deal signed in 2012. The cubs were born in Toronto in 2015.It cost around $30 million to house the pandas in Calgary, including $14.4 million for the exhibit itself. Expanded parking lots, washrooms and restaurants were also required to accommodate more visitors.The adult pandas are to remain in Calgary for the next five years, while the cubs are expected to return to China before their parents.— Follow @BillGraveland on TwitterBill Graveland, The Canadian Press
APTN National NewsIn just over a week, chiefs from across Canada will converge on Winnipeg to decide who will be the next national chief of the Assembly of First Nations.They’ll have three choices – Perry Bellegarde, Leon Jourdain and Ghislain Picard.One of them will need about 300 votes to win and the chiefs are the people who decide.Left out of the equation are the people, the so-called grassroots who do not get a vote.Regardless, APTN National News took questions to the candidates.The same eight questions were emailed to the candidates who were allowed an unfiltered chance to speak directly to the people.We begin with Picard, an Innu who stepped in as interim national chief of the AFN when Shawn Atleo abruptly quit earlier this year.APTN: Why do you want the job of national chief? GP: Because the future of our national organization is too important to stay idle. Over the years, my region and its Chiefs have always stood by the national organization independently of the circumstances, because they always believed that there is a purpose for a national political process, lobbying and advocating on behalf of First Nations.APTN: What effect is funding cuts having on the AFN’s ability to lobby for First Nation interests, essentially where’s the money going to come from to get the job done?GP: The funding cuts have definitely an impact on the AFN operations and limit its ability to do the important work needed. While we have to look at the resourcing issue on the longer term, I feel there is enough work to count on the support of the leadership across the country. Some Chiefs have offered to lend a hand in the collective task of lobbying and advocating on behalf of First Nations. To see the AFN be more self-sustaining as a national organization, is a longer term goal that will need the guidance of the leadership across the country.APTN: How will you work with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, or whoever wins the next general election?GP: Part of that response could be provided through a First Nations’ platform leading into the next federal election. Moreover, I feel that First Nations have the ability to determine the conditions that should prevail in trying to engage government for whichever party might become the next government. I fail to see a purpose in engaging with a government, such as the current one, that continues to deny fundamental principles related to Aboriginal and Treaty Rights.APTN: To your critics, the AFN is fractured and unworkable. What will you do to unite the organization and make it effective? The AFN is a national political organization. With all due respect to our specific realities, we have the ability to agree on overarching principles that would support and guide our national process. It is a challenge before us.APTN: The chair of the Specific Claims Tribunal wrote in a report that if it doesn’t get more resources it will fail. What will you do? GP: Here is another example where government has the upper hand when it sets limitations on a situation that has been outstanding for far too long. Beyond major flaws such as the federal government continually challenging claims by First Nations, there needs to be a framework that calls for parties, especially government, to act in good faith. The Specific Claims Tribunal should stand alone and not be part of the Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada and receive adequate funding to conduct the work and pursue the objective of a more efficient process of resolving claims.APTN: What are you going to do with the First Nations Control of First Nations Education Act? GP: The position with regard to the Act is very clear: the federal government needs to withdraw the Act. The outcomes of the Halifax Assembly gave clear direction in terms of how we need to engage with ourselves, based on the regional diversity, and with government. The process is in place and the discussion so far refers to the need of a broader fiscal framework to address the issue of underfunding. Any process for reform, if mutually agreed, must see First Nations’ interests represented by First Nations leadership.APTN: Chief’s salaries are a big topic at the grassroots level. For example, should a chief make $400,000 a year when 80 per cent of his or her band members live on $400 a month, should there be limits?GP: All Chiefs are supportive of the principles of transparency and accountability. It is understood that the Assembly of First Nations has a clear mandate of advocating on behalf of First Nations with little to say on local governance. The AFN does not have the authority to determine the principles that should guide local governance but it could provide the forum to address issues related to code of ethics.APTN: What do you want to see accomplished after your term in office? GP: We definitely need to have a strong and relevant national organization. That’s want I want to see. I also want to see a national organization reflecting on the realities of the Nations and Peoples it represents. Making sure that the national organization is a strong voice for all of our Nations and gain the credibility from our Nations and their Peoples as well as respect from governments would be a significant achievement.Tomorrow: Perry Bellegarde.
New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Thursday said Article 35A, which restricts non-permanent residents to buy property in Jammu and Kashmir, is “constitutionally vulnerable” and also hampering economic development of the state.The statement comes amidst the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) pressing for early elections to the state assembly in the state. The state is under President’s rule and the Union Cabinet takes all policy decisions related to the militancy-hit state. Also Read – Uddhav bats for ‘Sena CM’In a blog, Jaitley said the seven-decade history of the state of Jammu and Kashmir confronts changing India with several questions. “Was the Nehruvian course, which the state had embarked, a historical blunder or was it the correct course to follow? Most Indians today believe that it is the former. “Does our policy today have to be guided by that erroneous vision or an out of box thinking which is in consonance with ground reality?” Jaitley questioned. The senior BJP leader and in-charge of the party’s campaign committee for general elections said Article 35A was “surreptitiously” included by a presidential notification in the Constitution in 1954. Also Read – Farooq demands unconditional release of all detainees in J&KArtcle 35A, he said, was neither a part of the original Constitution framed by the Constituent Assembly, nor did it come as a Constitutional Amendment under Article 368 of the Constitution which requires an approval by two-third majority of both Houses of Parliament. “It came as a presidential notification and is a surreptitious executive insertion in the Constitution.” Jaitley further said the Article gives the right to the state government to discriminate between two state citizens living in the state on the basis of declaring some as permanent residents while leaving out the others. It also discriminates between permanent residents of the state and all other Indian citizens living elsewhere, he added. “Lakhs of Indian citizens in J&K vote in Lok Sabha elections but not in Assembly, municipal or Panchayat polls. Their children cannot get government jobs. They cannot own property and their children cannot get admitted to governmental institutions. “The same applies to those who live elsewhere in the country. The heirs of ladies marrying outside the state are disinherited from owing or inheriting property,” the minister added. He said the state does not have adequate financial resources and its ability to raise more has been crippled by Article 35A.
New Delhi: DU Vice-Chancellor Yogesh Tyagi met the office-bearers of the Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) for the first time in eight months, the students’ body said Friday.According to the RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, which has three office-bearers in the students’ union, a delegation of the student outfit met the V-C Thursday. This is the first time since the students union’s election that the V-C has met DUSU president Shakti Singh and DUSU Joint Secretary Jyoti Chaudhary.
Ahead of the Water Management article in the March issue of International Mining, Golder Associates reports on several cutting-edge mine water reclamation and reuse projects in which it has been involved. One such example is a South African project for Optimum Coal where reclaimed mine water was converted into a clean supply of drinking water for communities in neighbouring areas. For this project, Golder designed and engineered the entire water management system, and secured all regulatory approvals, including the Environmental Impact Assessments. Andre Van Niekerk, Principal Water Engineer comments: “A major challenge here was that the designs had to consider various aspects, such as geological formations, existing services, proximity to existing and future mining, and the presence of local settlements.“Another big challenge was that the Golder team had to negotiate the project authorisations with four different regulatory authorities. Despite the challenges presented during the project, the mine water reclamation for Optimum Coal was very successful.In general, Golder helps mining operations to recycle and reuse return water from the tailings, and from waste disposal and storage facilities. It’s common for modern mines to capture impacted mine water for reclamation and reuse within the mining operations, minerals processes operations, and waste handling and disposal operations. The main advantages of this are that it reduces the freshwater intake to the mining operations and that it reduces the discharge of impacted mine water.”He adds: “In addition to the South African project for Optimum Coal, Golder has been involved in a wide range of other complex water management projects, which have incorporated water recycling, desalination and tailings. When recycling mine wastewater for mineral processing, it is important consider the volumetric aspect. In other words, there must be sufficient levels of water available to satisfy the different mineral processes. It is, therefore, vital to understand the integrated water balance of a mine before proceeding with specific water recycling and reuse activities. In general, for reclaimed water to be fed back into the processing lines at mines, it needs to have a near neutral pH and a low potential for precipitation of nuisance compounds, such as gypsum. This can typically be achieved by lime and limestone treatment, gypsum crystallisation and clarification to remove suspended solids.”Golder regularly uses a diverse range of mine water treatment technologies. These can be broadly classified in terms of the pollutants contained with the impacted mine water. For acidic/low pH water, the use of lime and limestone, as well as other alkaline solutions, is common. Constructed wetlands are often a good way of introducing alkalinity into mine water. For water with heavy metals, such as iron, aluminium and manganese, lime and limestone treatments are also common. Essential here is the creation of a biological sulphate reduction that allows for sulphide precipitation within the minerals. Once again, constructed wetlands are often used to achieve this.“For water with high salinity, our recommended methods of treatment would include membrane-based nanofiltration and reverse osmosis, ionexchange technologies, and certain precipitation technologies for sulphate removal – such as using the sulphate mineral ettringite. Golder regularly works with all of these methods in projects across the globe.”On water sourcing trends, he told IM: “Over the last five or ten years, water in mining has become an increasingly important area of focus and is driven by changing legislation and climatic conditions. In water scarce locations, reusing water has become essential in making mining operations efficient. This is particularly relevant in areas such as southern Africa and the west coast of South America. Additionally, many regions that are less water scarce have also put great emphasis on recycling water. Several of these, such as Sweden and the UK, are driven by regulatory policies and country-specific legislation. In the future, competition for scarce water resources in mining areas will lead to increased competition in the impacted water recycling sector. This is compounded by local regulatory pressures, global expectations on conducting sustainable mining, and increased calls for responsible use of limited resources.”
There’s no denying that Call of Duty: Black Ops was a success before it even got released. The desire for the next CoD episode among gamers grew to the point where it broke sales records in its first 24 hours on sale. In total, it amassed $360 million on day one, easily covering all the development and marketing costs of the game.By the end of 2010 it had surpassed $1 billion in total sales revenue around the world, and it’s with little surprise that NPD is now reporting Black Ops has become the best selling game ever released. If further proof of that were needed, just look at sales of the game for the U.S. alone, which currently total 13.7 million copies.To put the success of Black Ops into perspective NPD also reported in January of this year that total spending for game content during 2010 was $15.6 billion. That’s across just about every sales platform you can think of from brand new retail store bought games, to digital downloads, used game sales, and even rentals. Black Ops alone accounted for $1 billion of that accrued in a single month.While successful, the game has not been a favorite with all gamers and has left a bad taste in the mouth of PS3 gamers. A petition signed by over 8,800 gamers who bought the game demanded a refund due to the sheer number of issues the title had, a number of which are still awaiting fixes. This also led to talk of Activision considering a PS3 Black Ops server shutdown as a viable option.Substantial sales of the game are no doubt going to continue for several months yet, pushing the record up even further. But there are concerns that Activision will now look to new ways of generating even more revenue from future games in the series. Top of the list is a subscription service for online play and premium content which would surely meet with some anger from gamers.Read more at Industry Gamers
ASA President Danny Murphy and First Vice President Ray Gaesser joined USB Secretary Lewis Bainbridge and Director Dwain Ford, and USSEC Director Vanessa Kummer in visits to industry organizations and soy operations in Beijing, Harbin, Qiqihar and Nenjiang late last month as part of Global Partnership Mission to China.While in Beijing, Murphy and Gaesser discussed the biotechnology approvals process before meeting with Zhang Taolin, Vice Minister of China’s Ministry of Agriculture. Vice Minister Zhang reiterated to the American contingent that cooperation is in the mutual benefit of both countries and that the Ministry would proactively support cooperation between the Chinese and American soybean industries. The Vice Minister also noted that the U.S. advantage on biotechnology research and production and China’s rapidly-growing plant breeding program create a natural opportunity to share information for mutual benefit, although he did note that certain social barriers to biotech still remain.Murphy, Gaesser and the American group visited with the Heilongjiang State Farm Bureau in Harbin, which imports 5.5 million metric tons (approximately 202 million bushels) of soy each year. While in Harbin, the group also toured the facilities of 93 Group, a processing and ingredient company that makes tofu, soy milk, isolates, lecithin and other soy-based products. Additionally, the group toured growing operations, research and equipment stations and a co-op.“The Chinese market is so, so important to American soy,” said Murphy. “Trips like this one help the American industry better understand our Chinese counterparts, and help us to find those areas of mutual benefit in which we can work together.”
PORTLAND — The Portland Trail Blazers key to success without LaMarcus Aldridge boils down to one thing: energy. After trailing by as much as 18 points on Sunday, the Blazers received a major lift from Thomas Robinson and their bench to beat the Minnesota Timberwolves 108-97.Damian Lillard scored 32 points to lead the Blazers, as he and the rest of Portland’s supporting cast made a major second-half push to comeback for a big win. Robinson finished with 14 points and career-high 18 rebounds off the bench in a major match-up against Minnesota’s Kevin Love at the Moda Center. Robinson did start the second half and played more than in any game of his two-year career.The energetic Will Barton got extended minutes for the second straight game and he, along with Robinson and Spanish forward Victor Claver, helped propel the Blazers to a dominating run. The three combined for the play of the game at the 8:39 mark of the fourth quarter, moments after a dust-up between Minnesota’s Corey Brewer and Lillard, that led to Lillard’s fifth foul. “I was going to let it slide, but then he kept going. I wasn’t going to let somebody play me like that. So, he had to get off me,” said Lillard who felt like Brewer fell on him and locked legs on purpose.
00:00 /03:49 Listen X To embed this piece of audio in your site, please use this code: Karla Leyja On June 15, Houston City Hall hosted a candlelight vigil, in remembrance of the victims of the Orlando massacre. City Council Member Ellen Cohen invoked Edmund Burke, saying that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.“For those of us who are elected officials,” Cohen said, “we have a responsibility to pass legislation that ensures equality for all.”Cohen was the council member who drafted the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, or HERO. Speaking by phone, she said Orlando makes clear the need for Houston to adopt fresh protections, but, “we don’t want to repeat what happened previously, and that is, we’ll pass it around the horseshoe, and then because nothing has changed in Houston, we’ll end up with the same result if it goes to a vote.”The opposition to a revived HERO, or anything like it, remains just as entrenched as it was before Orlando.“Any effort to relate the act of terror in Orlando to the lack of any Houston type of ordinance, or any efforts to oppose those ordinances, is just simply irrational,” says Dave Welch, executive director of the Texas Pastor Council. There’s just no correlation between the two.”The City Hall vigil and others like it that took place around Houston suggest there are many groups that disagree.Lane Lewis, chairman of the Harris County Democratic Party, organized one of these events. Groups that showed up ranged from LGBT organizations, such as the Montrose Center, to the ACLU and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. I spoke with Lewis on the sidelines of the state Democratic convention.“My message was simple,” Lewis said. “To the 2,000 people that sat there for two hours listening to speakers, I said, ‘I don’t care which one of these organizations you get involved in. If you don’t want to be partisan and get involved with the Democratic Party, then get involved in the health clinic. Get involved in the counseling center. Pick something, and call them tomorrow and get involved.’”That’s the real question: Can these groups keep the spirit of solidarity alive to accomplish common goals?“We’re able with this to see who’s standing up now, and those that are seeking our endorsement, we’re seeing where they stand on these issues,“ says Fran Watson, president of the Houston GLBT Political Caucus. She says the politicians her group has endorsed in the past rushed to help after Orlando. That’s the yardstick she’ll be using when her caucus endorses candidates in August.“There are just all of these issues that are coming out of this that really need to be addressed,” Watson says, “and it can only be addressed if all of these groups, populations, communities are in one accord or coming together to talk about these.”Not all advocates are as hopeful as Watson or Lewis.“The media’s going to stop talking about it in another week and a half. The news cycle’s going to die down,” says Ashton P. Woods, an LGBT activist and a member of the Houston chapter of Black Lives Matter.The victims of the Pulse nightclub shootings cut across multiple lines of race and ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity. But Woods says that doesn’t mean those groups will hold together in a common front.“As a black man,” he says, “people equate being LGBT with whiteness, and because of that, it’s almost as if, all of a sudden, I cease to experience racism, I cease to experience discrimination in housing and in employment, but in actuality, I can go and get gay married, and still get shot by a cop. And people don’t understand that.”Woods says words come easy. He’s waiting to see how people will act.Karla Leyja contributed reporting to this story. Share
Top Movie and TV Trailers You Might Have Missed This WeekAmerican Horror Story Takes Us Back to the Days of Witches and Warlocks Let us know what you like about Geek by taking our survey. Remember how this season started off terrible? The first few episodes were a collection of half-gestures to well-known political phrases and images, interspersed with scenes of Sarah Paulson screaming at nothing. Then, miraculously, it managed to turn it all around. It took that mess and shaped it into something it could build off of. It produced some episodes that were incredibly scary, or at least interesting. Last night’s American Horror Story wasn’t one of those. It felt a lot closer to those first few.OK, that may be a little harsh. It wasn’t anywhere near the horrendous slog that was the first few weeks of this season. One scene elevated this episode above those. The show gave Kai a legitimately scary origin. As the women grow even more disgruntled with the way Kai’s cult is headed, what with them being in the kitchen serving his new army of white supremacist/misogynist bros, Winter tells them why she still trusts Kai. A few years ago, they were internet trolls on various forums. Their anti-abortion troll posts caught the attention of a man who invited them to his house. They decide to go because at this point, they’re stupid horror movie protagonists. Stretch this one sequence into 90 minutes, and it’d make for a pretty great horror movie.Rick Springfield (Photo via FX)Initially, Kai and Winter think it’s a haunted house. It soon becomes clear that the people inside are not actors. The religious nut who runs the house captured people from clinics that provide abortions, drug treatment, and AIDS treatment, torturing them for the sins of being gay, an addict or having an abortion. The scenes where Kai and Winter run through the house, trying to save people and escape are incredibly tense, and easily the scariest part of the entire episode. Kai eventually frees everyone and kills the man running the house. That experience changes him. He began abusing Adderall and going deeper into the dark web. That’s how we got to where we are today.Unfortunately, outside of that one sequence, the episode is a real mess. Winter promises to talk to Kai, and they do that Pinky Power thing again. As ridiculous as it looked before, it’s even worse when it causes Kai to break down in tears. He’s clearly going off the deep end, as he reveals to his sister his plan to create a Messiah. Instead of going full incest, he plans for Samuels to have sex with Winter while he has sex with Samuels at the same time. It’s like somebody watched The Handmaid’s Tale (which gets name-dropped earlier in the episode), thought of a way to make the ritual even creepier, but decided not to go through with it at the last minute. I’m happy the scene didn’t go all the way through with it, as it was gross and uncomfortable, and not in a good horror movie way. But then, what was the point of this? Nothing changes or really even happens in this scene, so why is it here? It’s also unclear if it’s supposed to be funny. Kai is deadly serious about everything, but then he turns on All-4-One’s “I Swear” for mood music. So we have an attempted rape, or at least coercion, played for laughs. This season’s real bad, folks.Alison Pill, Billie Lourd (Photo via FX)All it leads to is Samuels’s death, and not even in that scene. Seriously, how do you have that many candles lying around in a scene where no one gets burned? If you’re going to force us to sit through a near sexual assault, you could at least have Winter melt someone’s face off. That’d give us a Freddy Krueger looking monster to be scared of for the last few episodes. But no. For her insubordination, Winter is forced to pick up trash while wearing a dunce cap. She then has to re-litter because “global warming is a hoax.” Samuels tries to prove he can still get it up for a woman, leading to our second attempted rape of the episode. This one ends with Winter shooting him in the head. She’s turning against Kai, right? Well, no. She tells Kai that Beverly did it, and Kai exiles Beverly to an isolation chamber.Winter accuses Kai of not having an end goal in this episode. Of fully committing to ideas he only just made up. There’s an idea that Kai really doesn’t have a grand plan for his cult, that he’s just making it up as it goes along. That’s what it feels like the show is doing. Does it have any ideas for how the remaining three episodes will play out? It sure doesn’t seem like it. Ally is back, but she’s not obnoxiously scared of everything anymore. She’s come out the other side and fears nothing now. After her therapist confesses that he’s Kai’s brother, and that Kai must have broken into his office to read his files, she gets her revenge. She invites Kai over for Sloppy Joes and tells him that his brother is planning to have him committed. In exchange, she wants her kid back. Where Ozy has been all this time is never explained. Presumably, Ivy has found another babysitter now that she and Winter are both busy with cult stuff.Evan Peters, Sarah Paulson (Photo via FX)How will Kai get Ally her son back? Well, after he kills his brother (admittedly, slicing off his pinky during Pinky Power was a nice shocking moment), all the clowns take their masks off to reveal the newest member of the cult: Ally. Does it make sense? No, but nothing else does anymore. Increasingly, this season feels like it’s written itself into a corner. It’s hard to see where the story can possibly go from here. Whatever they have planned for the finale had better be something truly spectacular if it can redeem this pile.Also, goodbye Cheyenne Jackson. It was nice having you around this long. See you next season, I guess.
Stay on target
Since its release, Destiny has been engaged in a bizarre game of tug of war with the people that play it. Bungie’s very ambitious shared-world shooter (basically: MMO) is unlike anything else on the market today, and with that innovation comes a whole lot of bugs, glitches, and unbalanced situations.In the modern era of game development, a game is never truly “done.” The ability to patch games on the fly has led us into a potentially inescapable cycle of fixes, updates, and brand new bugs. The biggest problem is that Bungie’s approach towards dealing with these issues has been uneven, to put it nicely. The company has a vision for the game that seems to revolve around squeezing money out through regular expansions that keep players locked in an endless grind of the reversed missions and similar activities. So, it seems that any fixes that would get in the way of that grind are either not going to happen, or will take way, way too long to happen.Don’t get us wrong: the game is fun to play. Bungie knows exactly how to make a console first-person shooter feel great. But by insisting on keeping players locked into a flawed system of grind and rewards, they exploit the very gamers that pay their bills. These are the most noticeable ways that flawed system has reared its ugly head since the game’s release — some have been squashed, while others still persist today.Expansions making equipment uselessProbably the most notorious example of Bungie screwing with players came with the release of the game’s first expansion, The Dark Below. It’s generally standard for expansion packs that weapons get upgraded and numbers go up, and that happened here with max damage and levels rising. One problem, though: your previously earned legendary items couldn’t be brought up to the new level, making all the work you poured into them prior to the release useless. When most MMOs released a new expansion, it makes older gear obsolete, but in Destiny, there isn’t enough in-game content to maintain that type of cycle, so players naturally revolted against this decision, which forced Bungie to rethink the leveling system with the next expansion, House of Wolves.Now, you can bring any weapon or piece of gear up to the current weapon cap using a certain material. We’re still not sure if they got it right, but time will tell — especially with the major expansion, The Taken King, coming out this September and potentially rehashing all of the same issues.Grimoire cardsDestiny’s story and narrative have received a lot of well-deserved criticism, but one of the strangest decisions that Bungie made was to take the majority of the game’s admittedly deep, awesome lore and put it on a website. When you play through the campaign and revive Dead Ghosts (collectible items scattered around the environment) or reach a certain number of enemy type kills or kills with various weapons, you get rewarded with cards. Each one has a well-written story containing information about the world, its denizens, and more. To read them, though, you need to exit the game and log on to Bungie’s website or mobile app. This is so weird and backwards that it boggles the mind. Sometimes we just want to chill out in the Tower and read some lore, and it makes no sense that the game won’t allow us to do it. It’s one thing that Destiny doesn’t really have much story in the campaign to begin with, but to take the remaining shreds and put them on a website is something else.Heavy ammo bugManaging death penalties in a game like Destiny is tough. You want respawning to have consequences and mean something, but you also don’t want it to be absurdly punitive. For the longest time, when you croaked in a firefight, one of the consequences was that you lost a percentage of your heavy weapon ammunition. It was a known bug. Heavy weapon synths, a consumable item, let you replenish that ammo, but here’s the rub: if you die after using one, the cool down doesn’t reset. So, players were burning synths, dying, and then losing ammo due to that bug, and having to wait for the synth to cool down before trying again.Adding insult to injury, Xur — the game’s special weekend vendor — randomly sold heavy ammo synth at the time, but when the bug was at its most prevalent, the vendor mysteriously had the longest heavy ammo drought he ever had. Bungie was aware of the ammo loss on death bug, and aware Xur could have simply sold heavy synths until the bug was fixed, yet Bungie took months to fix the bug and Xur frequently didn’t sell synths in the interim to help ease the blow.Unskippable cutscenesWe get that the atmosphere and story of Destiny is an important part of Bungie’s game design philosophy, but this is something that we resolved in 2004. There should always be an option to skip a cutscene. Yes, they play during multiplayer missions, but that’s a simple fix: add a voting option to skip it. Being able to skip pre-mission briefings, especially if you’ve heard them a half a dozen times, would also be nice. We get not being able to pass over them the first time, but making them permanently unskippable is a waste of our time in a game type that’s dedicated to wasting our time.Adding expansion missions to the full gameOne of the most bizarrely exploitative aspects of Destiny is the expansion system. The whole point of paying extra for additional content is that it’s supposed to be optional. However, taking inspiration from MMOs means that Bungie has basically made it necessary to shell out extra cash to keep up with the rest of the world. If you didn’t buy the Dark Below expansion and one of its missions was picked as the weekly strike, you couldn’t play it. No soup for you. The weekly mission could’ve substituted one of the disc missions you had access to, but it didn’t. Throw in the upcoming Taken King expansion bundle that basically gives you the base game, the two existing expansions, and new stuff for less than we paid for the base game and expansions alone, and this policy starts to feel pretty screwed up.Player-to-player tradingDestiny obviously takes a great deal of inspiration from the MMO genre (despite Bungie’s insistence that it’s not an MMO even though it is), but one thing that Bungie seems to have missed is that those games let players do other things besides kill stuff. In a game that already has a fairly borked economy based on random drops, it’s incredibly frustrating to do a raid and get rewarded with a bunch of crap that you can’t use. MMOs handle this by letting players trade items with each other or toss them up on an auction house — it’s a simple system, easy to implement, and it would actually give players more to do in the Tower than hunting for Xur or kicking both balls around. And yet, three expansions in, there’s no sign of trading or player-to-player selling. Bungie is basically saying, “Didn’t get what you want from all that grinding? Grind harder.”Paid emotesOne of the trickiest balancing acts in a game with a long tail is managing player expectations. You have to give them enough to keep them interested without overburdening your development team. Often studios put out little bits of free content to do that — like emotes, for instance. You see where we’re going with this. Bungie announced that the $80 Collector’s Edition of the upcoming Taken King expansion would come with a trio of class-specific emotes to add to the game’s paltry four. However, that requires you to spend money to buy content you already have. Bungie’s Creative Director Luke Smith made matters worse in an interview and the company eventually backpedaled and decided to sell the new stuff for an additional $20, which is better than $80 for content you already have, but a few emotes and shaders for one-third the price of the entire vanilla game isn’t even a microtransaction — it’s a macrotransaction.Enemy level cap the players can’t reachThe problem with a skill-based game like Destiny compared to a numbers-based MMO, is that whereas numbers keep everything capped to a limit, it’s tough to cap player skill. Destiny is a skill-based action game, which means even though the damage guns can output are capped to a limit, killed players can shoot faster than enemies, or even dodge enemy fire and literally never take damage. In fact, a very skilled player can pull the weight of six. To counteract this, since the very first DLC, Bungie has made it so enemy levels can reach a number that player levels cannot to ensure a level of difficulty for even the most skilled players.In Destiny, when an enemy is a higher level, they do more damage and players do less damage, plain and simple. The fact that players cannot reach the enemy level has thus far infuriated the player base, calling out Bungie for lazy design; why not create interesting mechanics rather than just arbitrarily nerfing player damage due to forcing them to be one level below enemies?Closing the loot caveWe’re not going to argue that the Loot Cave was fun or good — it wasn’t. Lining up with a ton of other players to farm Hive for engrams was the most effortless way to level up your gear and get some loot, though. When Destiny patched out the infinite respawning bug from the location, the way they did it displayed a flagrant disregard for the essential rule of game design: let the players play. Designers can’t — and shouldn’t — control everything the player does, and implying that people were “playing the game wrong” by not grinding missions over and over was simply ludicrous. If you want people to play the story missions, make them more fun, diverse, and challenging. If gamers are happier shooting at a hole than going through your content, you’ve made a mistake.So those are our picks for the most egregious ways that Destiny exploits its players. Bungie went from one of the best-loved companies in the business to an EA-grade villain with the release of just one game. We’d like to think that the next expansion will make things all better, but isn’t that just what an addict would say?
4 sleep positions for men and what they mean More Valley freeways to be closed this weekend for improvements Four benefits of having a wireless security system WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO GREECE IF IT LEFT THE EURO?No country has ever left and there are no procedures in the European Union’s vast rulebook for pushing any country out. But if Greece left the euro, it would then have no choice but to start printing its own currency _ the drachma _ to pay its way.Such a move would hit the Greek people hard _ and quickly, according to the Greek think tank Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research. The new drachma would lose half or more of its value relative to the euro. This would drive up inflation and sap the purchasing power of the average Greek. At the same time, the country’s economic output would drop, putting more people out of work where one in five is already unemployed. The prices of imported goods would skyrocket, putting them out of reach for many.However, there are some analysts that say a weaker drachma would make Greek exports cheaper and more competitive and could help the economy start growing again. Companies outside Greece might be attracted by the cheaper labor and real estate, encouraging them to move manufacturing plants there. Tourism might also get a boost: booking a hotel room on a Greek island, for example, would suddenly become much cheaper for foreigners. Both PASOK and New Democracy have vowed to try to renegotiate parts of the bailout in an effort to stimulate Greece’s moribund economy. However, they do not advocate pulling the plug on the deal and insist the top priority is to keep Greece in the euro _ something that 80 percent of Greeks want.To form a government, the winning party _ or coalition _ needs to hold a minimum of 151 of Parliament’s 300 seats. Whichever party comes first will get a bonus of 50 seats in Parliament under the Greek electoral law. Still, it is highly unlikely that any party will win enough seats for an outright majority _ meaning there will be another round of negotiations to form a governing coalition.BUT APART FROM GREECE, THE EUROZONE IS BACK ON TRACK, RIGHT?Hardly. Spain has become the latest _ and largest _ country in the eurozone to ask for a bailout. The country’s borrowing costs have shot up over the past weeks on concerns that it does not have the money to prop up its troubled banking sector, which has been crippled by a collapse in Spain’s property market.On Saturday, the Spanish government acknowledged it would seek outside assistance for its banks after the eurogroup _finance ministers from the 17 euro countries _ agreed to offer Spain (EURO)100 billion in bailout loans. Spain will decide how much it needs once independent audits of the country’s banks have been completed. The bailout move was meant to calm markets ahead of the Greek elections. Instead it has had the opposite effect. Worried about the extra load on Spain’s debt the bailout laon would have, markets have fought shy of Spain all week, sending its borrowing costs to the highest level since the country joined the euro in 1999. These jitters have been also felt in Italy, which is struggling to maintain its huge debts as its economy falters. Italy also saw its borrowing costs rise this week when it went to the markets to sell its debt.(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.) (AP) – Greeks will have to wrestle with a crucial dilemma when they go to the polls for the second time in as many months on June 17 to elect a new government.The outcome could determine whether Greece sticks with the heavy budget cutting that is required under the terms of an international bailout _ or rejects the so-called fiscal austerity imposed by the rest of Europe. If Greeks choose the latter, they risk expulsion from the euro, which would likely induce more pain on an economy already in its fifth year of recession. Meghan McCain to release audiobook on conservatism, family GREECE IS SUCH A SMALL ECONOMY. WHY DOES ITS MEMBERSHIP IN THE EURO MATTER?True, Greece’s economy makes up about 2 percent of the eurozone’s overall economic output. But if Greece falls out of the eurozone, investors will become nervous about whether other financially shaky countries, such as Italy, could also leave. That fear would likely drive up borrowing costs for these and other countries, potentially to levels that would require them to seek international bailouts. Europe would be trapped in a vicious circle.The European banks that hold much of the continent’s government bonds would become significantly weaker and more reluctant to lend to one another. This could spark off a credit crunch like the one that followed the collapse of the U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers.This problem could be made even worse by savers and investors taking money out of banks in shaky economies and moving it out to safer countries such as Germany or even out of the eurozone altogether. This could further destabilize the banking system.WHAT COULD HAPPEN ON JUNE 17?Market-watchers and other European politicians are worried that Syriza, which came second in the May election on an anti-bailout ticket, might do better this time around. Alexis Tsipras, the party’s charismatic leader, has vowed to cancel Greece’s international bailout agreement if he wins.
The uncertainty in Greece has been hanging over global financial markets for months, and analysts say next Sunday’s election may not lead to a quick resolution. But the election will help determine whether the financial crisis that has plagued Europe for more than two years is slowly coming under control _ or about to get much worse.Here are some questions and answers on the Greek election and why it matters to the rest of the world:WHY IS GREECE BACK IN THE NEWS?In a nutshell, the June 17 vote is being seen as a referendum on the euro.Greece secured in March a second multibillion-euro rescue package consisting of loans and debt restructuring. This bailout came with more tough austerity measures, such as cuts in public sector pay and pensions that the country is struggling to meet.The spending cuts have left the economy mired in a deep recession. Angered by the seemingly endless pain, Greeks turned away from the two traditional parties _ conservative New Democracy and socialist PASOK _ in elections last month. They voted instead for more radical parties that have vowed to pull the country out of its bailout and austerity agreements.But if the country renounces its bailout terms, Greece’s international partners could stop providing the rescue loans on which the country depends. That could lead it to default and force it out of the eurozone _ a move that could greatly weaken the euro and send shockwaves across the global financial system. Top Stories New high school in Mesa lets students pick career paths Sponsored Stories 5 people who need to visit the Ultrastar Multi-tainment Center Comments Share Think Tank analyzes the second round of Democratic debates