Guard Dog
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Posts posted by Guard Dog
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And of course, you have to mention HK-47s entire dialouge tree in KOTOR. Anyone know who wrote that part?
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KOTOR2 was pretty well written from top to bottom. But the part that sticks out to me was the cutscene where the LS Exile confronts the 3 jedi masters on Dantooine and Kreia intervenes. She reveals why the exile turned his/her back on the force. That was so well done, and so not Star Wars in theme which made it good.
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Believe in aliens? Heck I've seen aliens! I used to work in Eagle Pass, Texas, right near the Rio Grande and the Mexican border and you would see.... oh wait, thats not the kind of aliens you meant.
Nevermind.
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2) I have ADHD. I get 1/10th the way into my mod and I'm already designing my 2nd, 3rd, and 4th.
That is so f'ing true.
I have that same problem. When I have three or four projects cooking at once you can be sure not one of them will ever get done. -
There is no way around it. For a CRPG to be any good it MUST have a well written hook, good story, interesting characterization, and sharp dialogue. Game play mechanics are not enough to save a CRPG. If you think about the really good games, they follow the novel formula point by point. Introduction, conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, conclusion. But as important as good writing is, it is so rare in games today. That is the reason why we still talk about Torment now almost ten years later. That is why we still play BG over an over. Good writing is what separates NWN2 from Dungeon Siege. It's why you remember and replay one, and remove the other and sell it on eBay.
So what are some examples from games you have played where the writing was just exceptional? It can be a particular character that was well written, a particular dialogue string, subplot, character back story, or something else that impressed you.
For me the one that made the biggest impression was the first conversation between TNO and Deionarra's ghost in the mortuary in Torment. Up to that point I was wondering what the heck that game was about, a why was I playing it. After reading that and hearing her fore telling, I was hooked. That has to be one of the best hooks in any game I've played.
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I have created a number of NWN mods and I've been working on an NWN2 ever since I opened the game box. I think there are a few reasons.
1) When NWN came out that toolset was unique. No other CRPG gave you the flexibility to actually create your own "games". Most toolsets allowed you to modify the OC and add your own elements to the game as it was shipped. But with NWN, you never neven needed to play the OC. Now it seems the novelty has worn off a little.
2) NWN now has 5 years, two expansions, and a ton of community made tools. NWN2 has a handfull of user made tools, a very limited Monster selection, and no expansions. And has been out for less than a year. The first expansion will soon be out and may well add enough content to kick start the modding community. The NWN modding really did not hit it's stride until after SoU and the first CEP was released. So it is a little early to call it dead. Granted there were some really good pre-SoU mods, but the best came after. Another thing to note, by using Granny, Obsidian made it difficult to create custom content like new monsters and animations, tiles, etc. With NWN it was not easy, but with NWMax and a few tutorials anyone could do it. That is not a criticisim of Obsidian, I know and understand the why behind the decision. Some things cannot be helped.
3)The tileset system in NWN made it very easy for a rank amatuer to create a decent looking area in a short time. The trade off was, it did no look that great and became horribly repetitive. The NWN2 height mapping is... extremely detail intensive. It is not impossible to use by any means, but it takes a hell of a lot more effort than the NWN Tilesets. The results when done right are really, really impressive. And when done wrong, extremely discouraging to the modder. When it comes to placing objects, triggers, etc it is really not much different from NWN. Scripting of course is the same. But making a good looking playing area requires a lot of thought and effort. And it takes a lot longer. And the sad truth is, not that many modders are investing the time it takes to learn, or are becoming frustrated and giving up altogether.
But it is still too early to give up. Wait until after MotB then see what happens.
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Free Beer? Where and is there a limit, I will put em out of business.And free beer, don't forget.Take the brewery tour and they let you have free 8 oz samples. They say one per customer but there is a table for each kind (Bud, But Lite, Busch, Natural Lite etc) and nobody knows who's had what. Plus there are like 200 people in there at once. The beer boy making minimum wage does not care how many you get.
I must go there next year
And you can take the tour as many times as you like. They do one every 2 hours or so.
no i must go for the free beer
You have to do the tour to get the beer! They have a little taste testing session at the end. -
Sorry, felt like trolling
Ok that was a little funny... -
Free Beer? Where and is there a limit, I will put em out of business.And free beer, don't forget.Take the brewery tour and they let you have free 8 oz samples. They say one per customer but there is a table for each kind (Bud, But Lite, Busch, Natural Lite etc) and nobody knows who's had what. Plus there are like 200 people in there at once. The beer boy making minimum wage does not care how many you get.
I must go there next year
And you can take the tour as many times as you like. They do one every 2 hours or so.
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Without a doubt, Mask of the Betrayer has the strongest storyline and characters yet in a Neverwinter Nights game. That's not to say previous NWN stories and characters haven't been great, just that I feel we've really outdone ourselves this time. (And it's not my story or characters - the credit goes to our creative lead, George Ziets, our module designers Jeff Husges, Eric Fenstermaker, and Tony Evans, and our companion writers Matt MacLean and Chris Avellone.)
No thats ok you can say some of the NWN story lines haven't been great. Because some of them were not.
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Free Beer? Where and is there a limit, I will put em out of business.And free beer, don't forget.Take the brewery tour and they let you have free 8 oz samples. They say one per customer but there is a table for each kind (Bud, But Lite, Busch, Natural Lite etc) and nobody knows who's had what. Plus there are like 200 people in there at once. The beer boy making minimum wage does not care how many you get.
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Your little boy is growing up Taks. Before you know he will be borrowing you car.
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I, for one, plan on purchasing 50 of these for my robot army. They will be remote controlled by my penguin lieutenants.
And so, we have heard the first steps taken towards world domination. A penguin controlled robot army with an evil genius behind it all.
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busch gardens is pretty cool... one in tampa and one in virginia somewhere. it's like a mini-zoo with rides.
taks
And free beer, don't forget.
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I always wondered. Do they start out knowing what they want to call it and just try to come up the the words for each letter?
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Edit: And holy crap, Orcas (Killer Whales) are actually classified as Dolphins! Thinking about it, I shouldn't be that surprised.
Yup, that is true.
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Yeah I've heard of that story. Is that a true story or just an urban legend.
No that actually happens. The first one that got everyones attention was a thief breaking into a house via a skylight. He fell through and broke his leg. The owner caught him trying to drag himself out the front door. The thief was arrested then he sued the homeowner for the accident and actually won. Once again proving Shakespere was a wise man "First kill all of the lawyers". Sorry Gromnir and Enoch.
But I digress for topic here. I agree with GDM completely. As sad as the pics of human brutality are I am much more moved by pictures of human accomplishments and the natural world. That is just me. I will agree with Arkan, the Hubble Deep Field is one of my favorites. But below is one I have always found pretty moving. Its a pic of the Shuttle Atlantis launching as seen from the ISS.
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I think their Florida park had Shamu, or at least Keiko. Maybe I'm mixing up my whales.
There's a really old park in Denver, Elitch Gardens, that Six Flags bought out. So far as I can tell, most all Six Flags are like that. They're amusement parks (think carnivals and such) as opposed to theme parks (Disneyland, Universal Studios, etc.) which extends their novelty a bit longer.
I'm pretty sure Shamu was here in Texas.
Been to both a few times, I much prefer Six Flags. The rides, the arcades. I beat Killer Instinct 2 so many times at Six Flags. All of them with the Werewolf guy on just one credit.
They are all called Shamu.
Sea World for me! It's just a two hour drive form me.
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3. I'd dispute point 3. Freedom of the Press only extends to government interference. It doesn't protect a newspaper from the ill will of the public, nor does it immunize a newspaper from criticism. If direct pressure on the newspaper doesn't yield a desired apology, then applying pressure elsewhere, such as with a boycott of Danish goods, is acceptable in the pursuit of said apology. The point of a boycott would be to persuade Danish private enterprise to join the protesters in demanding an apology in the interests of returning business to normal. Arabs have no obligation to partake of Danish goods. They crossed the line with the violence, not the boycott.
Wow. I actually agree with Yushaa on something. He's right Mes. The thing about free speech is it does work two ways. The newspaper was perfectly within it's rights to print whatever it wanted about Muhammed. And any offended muslim would be perfectly right to be angry and express such in the form of boycotts or protests. However, the moment they resorted to violence or even threats of violence they flushed the moral high ground right down the toilet. Nobody deserves to die or risk bodily harm over words or pictures. That is a lesson the more violent practioners of Islam has not yet learned.
As I posted earlier, God/Allah/Jesus/Muhammed (henceforth referred to collectively as God) is not some helpless figure that requires us mere mortals to stand up for His honor. If someone issues an insult to God, that is between them and God. It is not for us to mete out justice for an offence aginst the divine. Killing a human we are able to adjudicate because we are humans. Besides, I somehow doubt God would be offended.
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Speaking of Civil Rights Issues Brown Vs Board of Education was overturned recently.
We are going OT a little here.... but, what do you mean there?
Ok one last OT post. This article you linked was an opinion piece that, irritatingly, did not cite the cases it was complaining about. But a quick Lexis Nexus search as solved that. So after a lot of reading (you've given me a real homework assignment here Teeth
) I think I've got a pretty good grip on the subject. And I think it's worthy of it's own thread, which I'll put up when I get back tonight. But this is an pretty interesting topic, thanks for bringing it up. For the record, after reading 4 of the opinions, I find I'm in agreement with Kennedy for a change. -
Link: Armed Robots Patrol Iraq
I have one request. Can we please limit this discussion to the technology and leave out the politics of the Iraq war itself. Everyone knows how everyone feels already. But the morality of the use of weapons like this is certainly fair game.
I would never do a thing like that...
Believe it or not you were not the one I was worried about. -
Speaking of Civil Rights Issues Brown Vs Board of Education was overturned recently.
We are going OT a little here.... but, what do you mean there?
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Don't get me wrong, the events of August 1945 are in no way, shape, or form a high point in American history. Unforunately, the decision to use the bomb was one that was hoisted upon the US by the Japanese. Attempts were made to end the war without the kind of wholesale loss of life that was witnessed those two days. As was mentioned before, anyone who thinks that the Japanese were not prepared to fight to the bitter end need only look at the fact that it took TWO bombs and several days for them to finally surrender."
The US could have chosen another less densely populated target, but, they wanted effect. They didn't warn them because they wanted to make sure the bombers had a clear path. There were alternatives though that did not necessarily include the invasion of mainland Japan. Two bombs could have been dropped at minor sites. One prominent disident was Eisenhower.
Churchil and Trueman had both comitted fully to the motto of 'unconditional surrender', to the point where no other kind of surrender would be considered, even if one had existed that would have shortened the war.
This was a time and a war where the lives of civilians meant very little on both sides though, the only thing about this that really irks me is the idea that those bombs saved milions of lives, there is no evidence for it, other than a comparison of casualty rates in the even of an invasion. That is not fact, it's conjecture, and it's a bit too convenient.
Two points you should consider Gorgon. The original target on Aug 6 was Yokohama, much less populated. The target there was the Misubishi factories where the Zeros and Bettys were made. Hiroshima was chosen for it's fuel dumps.
The other thing to consider is the USCINCPAC did everything to let the Japanese know Nagasaki was next. They announced it on Radio Saipan and even dropped leaflets telling the citizens to evacuate. Most did not because the Japanese high command would not let them. Plus, as I understand it, they did a good job of suppressing the news of the full extent of damage to Hiroshima. On top of that, Truman gave a "surrender or else" ultimatum on Aug 3, another on Aug 7, and of course the above mentioned radio/leaflet messages.
As for casualties resulting from an invasion of the Japanese home islands. Come on. You are not dumb and it does not become you to play the part.
I will agree with Stew, this was not a highpoint in American history. But I will point out that unlike Germany, the Japanese military was largely intact in 1945. Most of it was on the the home islands. Their naval losses took them out of the fight by 1943 but they still had consideble power. And I would point out that it was also considered by George Marshall that rather than invade they could blockade and try to force the Japanese to capitulate by starving them off. That was rejected the moment it was discovered the Japanese were also working on an atomic weapon.
One last thing. if the British had atomic weapons when the Battle of Britan was going on, do you think Churchill would have hesitated to use it? Would Stalin, Tojo, or Hitler?
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Just bought Galactic Civilizations II w/expansion. I've been a little leery of Space 4X games since its been so long since there was a good one. MOO2 was the last one I liked. I've heard good things about this one though.
I have that same problem. When I have three or four projects cooking at once you can be sure not one of them will ever get done.
You have to do the tour to get the beer! They have a little taste testing session at the end.
Ok that was a little funny...
First Armed Robots on Patrol in Iraq
in Way Off-Topic
Posted
You have a really good point there. In a hypothetical future war the opening battles might be fought by robots but in the end it will be human against human. An entire nation will not surrender and submit to an invader just because the enemy's robots beat their robots.