Meshugger

^^Also known as "rule 34".

Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" Some of his rambling are so abstract that they can be applied to any form of structural planning. Pretty nifty.

Meh, too expensive and no performance improvement to boot. Price/performanceratio-wise, Radeon 4870 X2 ftw!

As Tigranes said, i was talking about the cover.

- Fallout 3? Nope, didn't even try it. - Left4Dead? Nah, too nich

Not a suprise, considering that ME is supposed to be a trilogy. The art direction was really bland, as wrath of dagon said, the citadel looked more like a mall than an intergalactic space station. The level design was solid, as it made sure that the gameplay had a certain flow, but it was nothing extraordinary. The mako missions were really boring and uninspiring as well. ME did have pretty good VO, soundtrack production values, but since the story and characters were so bland, it didn't manage to keep my interest high enough. I the end, i just wanted to end it. As far as roleplaying goes, the options were many. But again, simply uninteresting. ME2 has a lot to improve upon.

Hmm, i do get a strong Splinter Cell vibe from that cover, and i haven't even played any of the SC games. Try changing the colour-setting, by adding some blue and red and less emphasis on black, grey and white.

Because it is an idea/business proposal/vision turning into a game.

Alt-tab has slowly regressed from being self-evident for many developers, into a feature that is almost ignored. With multi-platform gaming, windows specific API-calls, that aren't considered vital, are less prioritized when you have to get the engine to work to begin with. Anyhoo, i haven't tried ME for PC yet, since it has the whole SecureROM debacle. The Xbox360 will be enough for the time being.

It is hard to give some judgement, based on the info you gave us, but good luck nevertheless.

Morbid Angel - God of Emptiness, some good 'ole Death Metal. Chorus: Let the children come to me Their mother loves me, so shall they Woman, bleeding, ate my gifts Man was close behind Just like a snake I'm slithering Thru my world divine And like the cat I'm stalking I'll take your soul and You'll Be like me In emptiness, free ...ah

I see that Yuusha has a strong sense of rightoussness with him, which can be good in some cases, but in his case, it becomes his frailty. First, you paint the world as a black and white canvas, which is not the case in real life, which will affect judgement in a negative way. Second, for every reaction, there is a consequence. Like the jews didn't turn overly aggressive without a causation, did they? There are disagreements on Israel being to trigger-happy at times, but at least we have to agree on the fact that the spiraling violence is a manifestation on both parts, which will imply that both sides needs to sit down and negotiate. Third, no matter what "side" you're on, you have to realize that there are a couple fundemental rules of do's and do not's. Europe has a really, really bloody history. We pretty much conquered everything that we saw at a time. However mostly and foremost, we have been warring against each other almost constantly until 60 years ago. Throughout history it is a fact that the following happens between warring states; one state succumbs to the other, or there is truce with land being transfered either way. Compromises have to be taken on both sides for it to happen. You do not fight until there's nothing left to fight for, you do not seek peace through no compromise. Such things never last, that's just the way it is. Lets take some more modern examples, spanning over the latest 100 years or so: - Germany lost East Prussia to Poland, 6 million germans had to leave their homes forever. - Germany gave the Sudet region to the Czech republic, 2 million germans had to leave their homes forever. - Poland gained prussia, but lost nearly half of its land to the Soviet Union. - All the "balkanese" states lost their independency to the newly formed Yugoslav Communist republic. They later gained independency by all not getting what they really wanted in terms of land. - Finland lost parts of Lapland and the Karelia region to the Soviet union, 400 000 had to leave their homes forever. - Czeckoslovakia was splitted into two states. My point is, that all of these happened to compromises, and sometimes sacrifices for the nation's independency. Again, Israel has previously shown that they are ready to go back to the 1967 borders, or close to it. What's the compromise from Hamas? Jews are allowed to live? And of course, as it has been pointed out previously, Hamas doesn't even represent the whole palestinian authority, what is the guarantee that an eventual compromise will be respected by all Palestinians?

Finally some sense from one company at least.

Fantasy RPG? Do i smell an upcoming BGIII vs. IWDIII thread?

Those attacks in Europe are most likely done by two kinds of people: 1) Neonazis who hate anything jewish 2) Immigrants or their indoctrinated children who hate anything jewish If it was done by anyone else, i would be suprised.

This might sound cynical, but several prisons in the US making a lot of money by having their prisoners to work for different subcontractors in different industries (within the prison of course). The wage is in the vein of cents per hour and the workers are not allowed to unionize or anything remotely similar. I mean, who wouldn't want those people, that are most likely to spend their lives inside the prison walls. Instead of waiting for death, while not work yourself to death instead?

Also, there were some serious memory leaks which caused a number of crashes. Playing with 512MB memory was a real hassle.

1) I understand that sentiment somewhat. But why is Egypt keeping such a tight control over its border? Aren't they allowed to supply any supplies from its border? 2) The jewish settlements can be abolished just as easy as they got there, which i agree upon (or simply become palestinian citizens, like the arabs in israel that already make up to 20% of the population). However, there's little or no plan on how to do it, and it requires the cooperation with the Palestinian authorities as well. Here lies the problem, PLO with Abbas are ready to negotiate a timetable in a broader sense. Hamas is less flexible, or so to say. Adding fuel to the fire, there has been a civil war between PLO's fatah movement and Hamas since the elections. Looking from the outside, there is no govermental authority to negotiate with, nor any spokesperson that would represent the palestinian people. Abbas may have a problem with corruption, but at least he keeps his fatah movement under control. I would even bet that if fatah were still in control over Gaza (and i mean the sole autharian body, no rocketshooting from independent Hamas-supporters), IDF wouldn't have gone there in the first place. Has Olmert said that he is ready to negotiate about the 1967 borders? Doesn't sound to unreasonable to me. 3) States usually conduct war at each other yes, but the i do not see as the whole palestinian state is performing an act of war against israel. Gandhi showed the world that it is possible for the individual to achieve independence without any form of violence. And he did it with a much larger population ot boot. I am still waiting for something similar to happen in the middle east, as a compromise in the usual diplomatic sense seems too unrealistic.

^oh dear...

I was about to respond, but awwwwwww sh*t, Israel just with the tanks.

1) Eh? Hamas have been firing rockets at Israel for the last couple of months, should Hamas then supply Israel with food, water and electricity for each rocket? As i already said, i agree that the UN, red cross and whatnot should be allowed into Gaza as they see fit. And oh, is the border completely shut down? What about the border to Egypt? Aren't any supplies allowed to pass through there? Refugee camp? With universities, schools, TV-stations, infrastructure(somewhat), businesses, hospitals and such? Is the land completely impossible to farm? Again, Hamas won and the international community said that they wouldn't cut funds if they recognized the state of Israel and would negotiate about the future of the palestinian state, which they of course refused. If Hamas refused to negotiate about the terms of aid, then so be it. It is in their responsibility to handle the consequenses. No country has overthrown the palestininan goverment of course, which would have been a hypocrisy.

1) Strange answer. Who said that the well-being of the people of the Gaza strip Israel's concern? Why not also Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Africa, Europe and America as well? Who decides on whose responsibility to feed people from another state? However, i can agree that organizations such as the red cross and alike should be able to send supplies as they see fit to the palestinians. But it is not in the responsibility of another state, unless they voluntarily do so. Doesn't Gaza grow any food of their own? Has Israel killed all sheep, pigs, cattle and burnt their crops of fruits and vegetables as well? Why is hypocricy in banning a terrorist organization? Shouldn't there be consequences for electing a party that has a foreign policy to destroy other states? Or are the palestinians a special case? 3) This question was directed at the ones solely condemning Israel. Shouldn't violence be condemned on both sides? Waiting for answers for question (2)...

Wait what? A game or a movie?

Heh, well, that's not exactly true. Mantis is somehow a bit... broken. Reporting bugs is for the moment impossible. I tried. And apparently, assigning them is out of the question, too. It's a job for killerbob, I think, but she hasn't gotten around to fixing it. I guess you can view that as an excuse. By any means, do. We Beta-testers know where we stand, the public will know soon as well. Thank you, at least one issue is cleared up.

Ok, time for some critique here: Agreed. On the contrary, many products in the software industry are filled with redudant legacy data, since resources are usually better spent on other things. To this day, finding a software installation that hasn't some kind of old and unnecessary data may be a challenge. Which means that they were aware that there was a public interest and responded to that. Claiming otherwise is folly. That is just fatalist mentality. Either you are committed or not. Since when is college, work and family a hindrance for something that you work with a great passion spend all your free time on? Or are you claiming othwerwise? That Team-Gizka are working on their mod after their free time, hobbies, other modding projects, WoW and whatnot? That just implies that they are not committed enough, lazy and just lost interest. So, how committed to this project are they really? Since November, only one person has shown some progress: Tupac Amaru. A great majority of the rest of the bugs haven't even been assigned to anyone, impyling that noone has the 'time' to do it. Even the closed beta-testers haven't reported anything. Admitting lost of interest is the best way for transparency. This "WHEN IT IS DONE!"-mantra is so counterproductive that it isn't even funny. In larger project as this, strong leadership is required with a thought-out structure and having internal deadlines that are checked in an regular manner (daily/weekly/monthly). If people slack of and don't report, disciplinary actions are required or they are thrown out of the project. Wasn't Dashus gone because of personal issues for several months, consequently putting the project at halt? The correct (or at least better) action would have been to find a replacement temporarily, or to find a new buildmanager entirely. Finding committed people is not that hard really, unless there's little interest in finding one in the first place. Letting everyone work on the mod whenever they feel like it is the result of this: progress becoming exceptionally slow. Again, admitting failure is the first step of progression. Faults can be corrected, mistakes can be learned. The best advice that i can give you is to assign a project-manager that is committed enough to demand results, and not to be afraid to replace people whenever it is necessary. Whining about whining people makes you look like a bigger whiner than the whiners themselves. By acting professionally and in a sincere manner, most of these ad hominems wouldn't even be an issue. Of course not. But consequently, nor should you care about what people say. Why even defend it? Again, a very bad decision. Look at GMail and so on, all public betas *hint* *hint*. Hell, even microsoft are issuing open betas for those that sign up. Look at Sourceforge and alike, why not Team-Gizka? why not? Again, just act professionally and answer calmly and move on. I suggest that you concentrate your creative energies on something more productive, like getting more involved with the project