Richard Garriot is working on Shroud of the Avatar (https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com). Apparently the game features keyword-driven dialogs with NPCs (http://www.examiner.com/article/e3-2015-interview-lord-briti...).

Definitely! I studied pedagogy at a German university but got into programming and really liked it. I took a vocational course for a CS bachelor's degree here in Germany but even before I finished I got a good job as a software developer in a medium sized company.

From my experience you don't need a university degree to get a decent programming job if you have some patience and can demonstrate that you're passionate about it (which your cs certificates clearly communicate).

If you want a formal education, I can recommend http://www.oncampus.de/medieninformatik.html

Feel free to send me an email (qgi at offliners dot com) if you want to hear more about this.

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

Well stated, who coined this one?

Sad, but they've got basically forced to take action by the US and UK agencies. This is somewhat worse than the cold war because the US and Europe do consider each other to be allies, not enemies.

Not really. It's already been established that the German government was partway complicit in GCHQs activities in the region.

They were surely already doing this, just making an issue about it in the press to score some political points.