Guard Dog

I'd like to hear that too. Are they Pleased, Very Pleased, Disappointed, or did it just perform as expected. I did my part though. I bought two!

Do you ever get the feeling we have all had this conversation before? Deja Vu? Nice to see you Alanschu, you haven't been around much lately.

Actually it's probably safer than cave diving since you cannot even get to base camp without SOME ability as a climber. A lot of idiots die in caves who did not have the the knowledge of more importantly the equipment to go in. The difference is, in cave diving there is nothing to keep them out. My ex-brother-in-law is a rescue diver for the Lake County Sheriffs Dept in north FL. It was his job to go find the bodies of the aforementioned idiots.

Bob Marley on Sirius Ch 31, Radio Magaritaville. And drinking a Corona!

I hope no movie producers read that! That will be next!

Ah the joys of a misspent youth!

Hmmmmm. Thats pretty good Sand.

How would you write it? If it were me, they made the decision to kill off Starbuck, right or wrong. If she is not a cylon then she is out of the story except for flashbacks.

Totally agree with you. I see now way for the writers to pull this off and have it be anything other than an embarrassment.

Awwwwww pretty puppy. I love dogs.

Sorry Gorgon, I misplaced the decimal here. It's 1585.4 years for a radio signal to reach even the closest nebula.

I think Baldurs Gate was the last game to really give you both. Even BGII was lacking in open explorations. That was nice about Morrowind and even Oblivion, you did not really need to do the main story to enjoy the game. BTW, has anyone ever tried going to Kvatch at the beginning of the game (in Oblivion)? What happens if you do?

Radio Waves in space travel at 3X10^8 m/s. Since the Orion Nebula is the closest to earth (1500 Light Years or 1.5X10^19 m) that will be our example. If a radio wave left earth towards Orion is will arrive in 5X10^12 seconds or 15,854 years give or take a few months. Check my math someone but I'm pretty sure thats right. I'm pretty sure they are in the same galaxy as earth. The distance between galaxies in reality is so great I'm certain our descendants will find intergalactic travel is impossible. Another example of how big space is. The Pioneer space probe that flew by the outer planets in the 1970's and early 80's has gone beyond the heliopause and left the solar system. It's last radio contact was in 1998, it was travelling at about 400,000 miles per hour and is on a course for the star Lambda Aquilla, 3rd closest to us. At that speed it will take it 2 million years to make the journey. I believe humans will reach that star before Pioneer does.

Definitely a turn for the surreal. Bob Dylan was a cylon huh? I guess that explains a few things.

If Britain goes, we go. I would not advise a ground camping but a prolonged air campaign will achieve the same ends. I don't like it either. I thought the Iraq invasion was a mistake, but done is done. If you are in for a penny, you need to go in for a pound. I know you want to drop the whole mess and pull out now, but if we do, we'll be back after the next 9-11. Remember what I told you before, when we were packing up to leave in 1991 everyone I spoke to agreed we would have to come back and finish the job one day.

Factually incorrect according to CNN and the AP. Either way, Iran knows exactly what it is doing. If they are not punished for this, next time will be worse. They are doing exactly what Saddam did by publicly funding suicide bombers and shooting at NATO planes in the no-fly zone. They are pushing the envelope and testing resolve. They think the west is weak. Stammerring, hesitating, hand-wringing, going to the UN, these are all signs of weakness to them and it will only embolden them. Trust me, they understand only one thing, violence. You repay force with overwhelming force. It will have to be done sooner or later. Might as well get on with it.

For which bombs should be falling on Tehran right now. Since when was kidnapping uniformed citizens of a sovereign nation not an act of war?

I did not mean current games are dumbed down to be easier, they are dumbed down to be less complex. Just for example in Morrowind you could specialize in a certain type of weapon (like short sword, or longsword, etc). In Oblivion they lump everything into one category "blade". In Morrowind some factions contradicted othres, you could not do this AND that, it was this OR that. None of these things make it deep, but complexity increases interest, for me anyway. As for deep RPG, I don't know what makes a game deep, that will be in the eye of the beholder. My answer would be a little moral ambiguity, where the line between good and evil are a little blurry. Giving the a good PC a chance to do an evil act to serve a greater good for example. Nowadays, what passes for good and evil is a Saturday moning cartoon version. NWN was bad about that. KOTOR2 did it somewhat well, Torment did it better. Another thing that makes a game deeper is a antagonist you can really identify with. Like Irenicus in BG2, Fujill and Trias in PS:T. Most villians in todays games are cartoonish.

Hmmmm.... Good points.

That is an unfair criticism. In NWN2 they were using the Aurora engine which is about seven years old now and really predated the neat physics implementations of modern games. All the did to Aurora was rework the graphics component to go with higher poly counts and generally make it look better. If they had to code a new engine, they would still be working on it. I completely agree with you here. Comparing Oblivion to Morrowind it is easy to see the game was dumbed down for the console kiddies. The sad truth is, I think we will never see games like Torment, FO, or BG again. About the only people who want it are the ones old enough to remember what they were like. It is easier and safer to just churn out clones of shooter games, clones of GTA, and mindless RPGs like Oblivion. Or to continue in tried and true franchises like Star Wars, NWN & D&D, and Aliens. You cannot fault Obsidian or any developer for doing what is safe in the current market. I just wish the realities were different. As for KOTOR2, they know what was screwed up about it. And why.

If you have NWN there is an excellent adaption to it. Click Here: Lone Wolf: Test of the Sun

I'm playing Oblivion now, using OOO. Do you use it and if so, any issues?

Too soon to tell. Both of their titles have been good. Not stunning, but solid. As for the state of RPGs today, that is another topic entirely. I would imagine many devs would agree. If they could get together and make the kind of game they want to make using their own imaginations to come up with the IP, I'd bet we would be impressed. But the investors who underwrite the cost of development do not play computer games so they do not know good from bad. They know safe and risky. And any dev will tell you, putting a fresh IP on the market is risky and with a development and marketing costs running near seven digits these days, no one wants to assume the risk. That is also why dev companies prefer making console games when they can. No compatability issues, ready made market, and I understand it is all around easier (meaning faster) to churn them out. Once Obsidian funds and makes their own IP, then we'll be able to judge them. Another big title or two and we'll see. So far, so good.

Good stuff!