Jediphile

The easiest thing is probably to check out the progress reports at both Team Gizka and The M4-78 Restoration Project respectively.

Call of Cthulhu is a horror RPG based loosely on the works of H.P. Lovecraft. It is typically set in the Boston area in the 1920s and is all about evil cults trying to awaken ancient evil gods of incredible power, the most powerful being Cthulhu, who will unquestionably destroy civilization and enslave mankind if the cultists succeed. The cultists can call on magical lore to summon nasty monsters and similar, and generally you're screwed as a player, because you'll never gain the power of the cultists without learning more about their mythology (the dreaded Cthulhu Mythos skill), yet the more you learn about it, the more insane you get. You used to play with a percentile die (1d100) and roll against your relevant skill (between 0 and about 90). It's one of the few games to have rules for insanity. You begin with a number of sanity points determined by your stats, typically around 60-70, but lose them as you experience traumatic experiences (seeing a dead corpse for the first time, witnessing a horrible murder, or seeing one of the monsters). Typically you will need to make a sanity check in these cases (which is initiatially the same as your number of sanity points), and missing the check always costs points. Use of magic also costs sanity points, but then magic use is based solely on the aforementioned Cthulhu Mythos skill. Trouble is that your sanity is never higher than 100 minus your Mythos skill, so learning more about it will automatically drive a character insane. It's really a fun (well...) game to play. But the gaming company decided to make it all d20 years ago, and the conversion fails (IMHO) miserably to capture the feel of the original rules. Oh, and it's good for non-fight RPGs - here a fight usually means that you're finished, because the monsters will eat the PCs for lunch in a second. Even a single zombie is a lethal threat to any player. The way to complete adventures here is to investigate and solve the problems, not just kill the monsters. The PCs aren't even called Player Characters but rather 'Investigators'. Exalted is a heavily anime-inspired game of some prehistoric period of high fantasy is a japanese-like fantasy world. All the players are "chosen of the gods" with special powers, yet are seen as demons in the eye of the public and therefore hunted by the authorities. It's not D&D, but it's just as high-fantasy if not more so. It's also good fun, at least it was the times I played it. It uses the storyteller RPG system from White Wolf just as vampire, werewolf, mage, and all those other games do.

I just find it amusing how he criticizes the same things he's guilty of. The same one who thinks religion is responsible for WWII and has been the cause of most wars throughout history. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> This is the sort of misrepresentation that I really should report to the moderator as per the rules, except that I don't believe in moderated boards in general. It's true that I believe religion is the cause of most wars and that I said so. It is not true that I said it was the cause the WWII, however. I just said that religion was an issue that Hitler misconstrued to his advantage in order to escalate the conflict in the direction he desired. And it's incredible that you call for tolerance and yet change the subject to be about me and even bring out posts where I alone am the subject of your criticism on a personal level. That means you wrote a post which was solely a personal attack against me alone. This topic is called "Muslim anger towards Scandinavia...". It is not called "Troll and flame ad libitum against Jediphile". I am not nearly interesting enough to warrant my topic or even personal posts on these boards. After all, they say that opinions are like as*holes - everybody's got one and they all stink. This does not exclude mine. Opinions are not right or wrong, they just are. To discuss them is fine. To use them to flame against the people who expressed them is not. However, since I do not wish to troll, I shall refrain from responding in a similar manner. Agreed, but muslims aren't the only people in the world. There are those of us, including myself, for whom concepts like liberty, democracy, freedom and the right to free speech are just as important as islam are the muslims, yet nobody seems to respect our "faith". Respect goes both ways.

Coming from you, I find that comment rather amusing. And ironic. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yes, with that comment I can see how you are undoubtedly more mature than I am... I stand corrected.

GURPS would be a major one - no classes at all, just skills. Also depends on what you call 'classes' - Call of Cthulhu (Chaosium's original, not the d20 half-brew) has "professions", but all they do is force a character to distribute his major skill points on eight relevant skills during character creation, while there are still plenty left after that. Definitely more skillbased. Exalted has a very loose class-structure (they're there, but nowhere as forced as D&D), but then that's another storyteller game like vampire and all the rest. Hmm... not sure I can think of others right now. Paranoia?

Hey, it's Bao-Dur, not General Grievous from the Clone Wars cartoons :D As for gaining influence, just look up Bao-Dur's options in the influence guide.

Oh no I could never let that slide. I tear that doll up. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Precisely :D That's what I like about Fallout 2 - it really does require strength of character to continue beyond that point without tearing up the doll instead of giving it to the kid :cool:

You can do that even without Myron, so effectivevly he has no redeeming qualities at all. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yes, but it's worth more xp this way and you can get the antidote right away.

Levels - completely d20 classes - the jedi division into consulars and guardians is from d20, while the sentinel is a new invention. The prestige classes are also from d20, but they are not as in K2. For one, they can have any sort of prerequisites, demanding certain levels in certain skills and certain combat modifiers (which means having certain levels of experience). But rarely do the rules demand a specific level. The prestige classes aren't as LS/DS as in K2. The Sith Marauder and Jedi Master are prestige classes in d20, but not the others. On the other hand, there are Dark Side Devotees, while the jedi can become Jedi Ace (fighter pilot) or Jedi Investigator (which is probably a bit closer to the sentinel/watchman). The non-jedi classes in KotOR are just as in d20, though. vitality/wounds - completely d20 feats - these have been revised a bit and new feat-trees added in KotOR, but they are still very obviously inspired by the d20 rules. Most of the feats seen in K1 have clear counterparts in d20. skills - these are pretty much carbon-copies of d20, except there are far more skills in d20, which also had skills like piloting, knowledge, professions, etc. weapon stats - completely d20 combat - KotOR games have a system that give a fair representation of the d20 system in the sense of initiative order and number of attacks. The feats work quite differently, though. In KotOR the various combat feats (Flurry, Power Attack, etc.) are mutually exclusive in that you can use only one at a time. Not so in d20 - if you several feats, then they can all be used cumulatively - it's completely possible to use Heroic Surge (which became Flurry in KotOR) with the added chance of double damage from your Critical Strike and the extra damage of Power Attack.

I found it quite... ironic (the lesser offensive word) that you call for tolerance and then admonish against ignorant and disrespectful comments in the same post. It seems contradictory to me, given that what someone is almost always certain to take exception to something someone else says.. Don't get me wrong - ignorant and disrespectful comments are not fun neither to read nor to hear, but you cannot get rid of them without getting rid of democratic debate, as per the Churchill quote I mentioned above.

I also find it utterly ironic that by reacting so violently, the muslims have now made the majority of the european press reprint the cartoons just to be informative to their readers and possibly also to stand behind the right to free speech. If they had just argued their case, they would probably have achieved much better results, but by forcing the issue, they effectively left Denmark and Jyllands-posten with only the choice of either standing their ground or else submit entirely to populist muslim interests. Since the latter was no a genuine option in a democratic country, the situation escalated, and consequently the controversial cartoons has received far more exposure and interest... Which is just sad.

Eh, No... It was a space sim like Elite and such... Where is the cross-genre stuff? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Ah, Elite... and Frontier Boy does that bring back memories. But on topic, yeah, it's not appropriate to K3. Besides, I'm fairly certain an open game like that would have several problems. First of all, an "open world" program like that is a programmer's nightmare, and apart from David Braben (who wrote Elite and Frontier), few have ever tried it. Second, in this context "open" has a tendency to come to mean "empty" - Frontier was huge, but there was nothing to do in that game - no plot - and so the experience wasn't nearly what it could have been. It was exciting to have a competing "Empire" and "Federation" right next to each other (no doubt inspired by two major sci-fi licenses...), but they were just names - nothing ever happened in either place. And K3 can't be like that - it must be plot-based, and it must bring closure to the characters of Revan and the Exile. Haven't tried Freelancer, though...

Still have to get the flags of Norway and Iceland, though - they're not members of the EU...

Nice way to further support your position and then try to close the discussion before anyone can argue further against it. Besides, reading about it and doing research could mean anything, so it doesn't particularly impress me. After all, I've done my own research and reading too, so just saying that as a supporting fact is not going to carry much weight (which is why I didn't do it before myself). Debate of any sort will invariably include both ignorance and disrespect sooner or later. And I said in my last post that it's not pretty, but then made the point that this is part of the democratic debate. You conveniently decided to ingore that in your response, however, and instead just focus of mention of ignorance and disrespect, which you then use to call me naive. So how much respect did you show yourself? What a well-articulated point...

The turret bit in K1 was hard?!? I've played that bit a gazillion times, and I've never failed it, not once! No, it wasn't hard - it was just annoying having to play it again and again at random as you travelled the galaxy. People who think that's hard should take some X-wing/Tie-fighter practice - those were games where combat became, especially using the turrets in X-Wing Allliance.

For the same reasons that they were printed in the first place, to raise a debate regarding religious censorship vs. freedom of press/speech. This whole thing began when there was a childrens book about Islam about to be released but noone could find illustrators to draw the pictures in it because they were afraid of muslim vengeance because Islam prohibits depicting any deity or prophet. This were just supposed to have been regular illustrations, not pictures of Mohammed with a bomb-turban or similar. So Jyllandsposten gathered several known artists who werent afraid and gave them the task of drawing very provocing pictures of Mohammed in an attempt to strike back at this self-censorship that was going on because people were afraid of being the next Salman Rushdie. That, and to draw attention to the problem that fundamentalists in the middle-east threaten the freedom of press in the west. It was a gone-wrong attempt to say that if Islam will not repsect the freedom of press and speech in Denmark, we will not respect Islams laws. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> It's not quite the same. Jyllands-posten published the cartoons as an illustration of self-sensorship (as you say), but which pertained mainly to a problem that was more of a domestic or western nature, since they didn't think the free press of the west should censor itself on a basis of what fundamentalist followers of islam did or did not like. The french "France Soir" and some german newspapers have reprinted the cartoons today, because they felt it was inappropriate that the public was not informed about what had caused this problem. So Jyllandsposten did it more for domestic reasons, while the newspapers today do it out of more international interests. To the muslims it probably won't make much difference, though. It'll be interesting to see what happens now - whether the conflict escalates to anger against France and Germany also. I feel sorry for Sweden, though - they have nothing to do with this (whereas a newspaper in Norway did reprint the cartoons some time ago), and yet they are cast in with Denmark regardless. In my book that speaks volumes about the people behind the boycot

I'm not directing this at you specifically Mr. Barlast, but I'm quite surprised that people continue to consider this as a whole "freedom of press" thing... there's never been true freedom of press anywhere... I'm sure that there are those educated and clever enough on this forum to be aware of that... media was created as a tool of propaganda... you're only ever going to hear what someone wants you to hear about... be it your government or religious leaders... of course, that doesn't mean I agree with the over-reacting extremists or bomb threats... I'm just sick of reading a lot of ignorant and disrespectful comments <{POST_SNAPBACK}> No, you're wrong if you cast all media into the same category on that basis. Sure there are media who do nothing but publish propaganda, and naturally you will read only what some people want you to. That's not the question, though. The question is who gets to decide what is published, and in the newspapers that is scarcely the politicians or religious leaders. I very much doubt that the politicians of Denmark would have supported these cartoons, because while they might not have realised this kind of outrage, they would certainly have seen little to gain from the either. And besides, if you were right, we would see very few domestic publications that criticize the leaders of the various countries, and that is just not the case - indeed, the leading politicians are far more under fire than the politicians who are not in government. A press of propaganda would not be critical of the politicians, and the press criticizes the politicians all the time. I don't really like reading or hearing ignorant or disrespectful comments either, but it does raise debate that is essential to the continued existence of a healthy democracy, which means that everybody gets to express their opinions no matter how ignorant or disrespectful they are. And personally I think that is the way it should be. It may not always be pretty, but it's better than the alternatives in my book. Or as Churchill once put it, "democracy is the worst form of government except for all the other forms that have been tried from time to time." Deal with it.

I left Myron alive, but the urge to murder him is indeed strong. I found his only redeeming quality is that he can help you make the Jet antidote, which is worth quite a few xp if you get him to talk to Dr. Troy in Vault City. But apart from that, you sure feel like putting a bullet in him and generally let bad things happen to him, especially since I played as a female with high charisma I like Fallout 2, but I must admit that it leads me more to the dark side than any Star Wars game - not killing Myron and resisting the urge to tear up the Nixon-doll is really a test of character.

Well, I think redeeming both Revan and Exile and bringing the back to the light could be really interesting. Perhaps this should only be possible if they are set to have been LS in K1 and K2 respectively - that way your choice in those games will have signifcance. Funny - I suggested a scenario like that myself some time ago...

No, G0T0 just speculates that this was so, and even if it was, Revan did not take Nihilus' and Sion's hunt for jedi into account, since he did not know of them at the time. Besides, Revan seems to have become corrupted while he was Darth Revan - even if he sacrificed himself to the dark side to protect the republic from the true Sith, he was clearly seduced by power as a dark lord - otherwise it makes no sense for him to destroy the republic's defenses in his war, when he knows the true Sith will be coming. The fact that Revan then later leaves to fight the true Sith alone only seems to confirm this. Note how Bastila mentions that he has'remembered' something...

Whatever happens in K3, Exile and Revan need to be in there and their stories need to be resolved. Period. But I would agree that you cannot have either of them as central characters, because half the fun of a game like KotOR is to watch your character gain levels and grow powerful. The only way to do that while continuing to play Revan or Exile is to give us yet another amnesic jedi. I doubt many of us want that. In fact, I don't want *any* sort of amnesia in the main character in K3. It's be used twice now, so enough already. I'd much rather play a young jedi trying to make his way up in the "order" (since it's practically destroyed...) I would like Revan and Exile as playable characters/companions in K3, but since they are so powerful, you cannot do that early in the game. Besides, finding Revan and Exile should be a quest. As a player you play not just to watch your character grow in power but also to see what has become of your old characters. The alignment and gender issues also need to be addressed in K3 for Revan and Exile, and I find the easiest way of doing that is to turn them both DS, so that they will wear masks of the Sith (Revan as Darth Revan and Exile as Darth Nihilus). If you played either Revan or Exile (or both) as DS previously, this is just where their quest for power have led them, and if you played them (either) as LS, this is the sacrifice they had to make to fight the true Sith. Lots of problems solved that way, and it could make for an interesting plot too, methinks.

Lancer and I both play in the world of Mystara, which is the original D&D world, then called simply "the Known World" (that pre-AD&D 2e D&D, aka OD&D). The world is high fantasy and quite tolkienesque similar to the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk, but the various nations were thrown in a bit randomly, which makes the gaming world look a bit silly at times (an arabian-like desert nation is separated by norse/viking-nations to the north only be a thin mountain-range, for example). Oh, and the world is hollow, and people live on the inside of it as well with a central red sun, where the core should have been. The Hollow World is a sort of cultural "museum" where the Immortals (gods) place examples of dying civilizations before they are destroyed by evolution. But in spite of all, I prefer Mystara to FR, Greyhawk, and other AD&D worlds because it has more 'grey' and political tones. The nation of Karameikos, for example, has the ever-so-nice-and-benevolent King Stefan as ruler, but he was not above stabbing his former homeland in the back by signing a treaty with their mortal enemies during the most recent war between the empires when things looked bad (and he was too naive to realise how nefarious his cousin the Baron was to the halflings for three decades...). Mystara doesn't fall into the "all-good or all-evil" category of most AD&D worlds. In Mystara nobody is above doing a little evil when necessary, and the 'bad guys' aren't all evil for the sake of being evil either.

I suppose it's a little of both. Revan was Kreia's greatest student, so it will be hard for her to accept that he fell to the dark side as her other students apparently did. It'll be even harder for her to admit, especially to herself. It's much easier to rationalize the whole thing and simply argue that Revan did it all on purpose. But that doesn't make it true, of course, and Kreia is not the most trustworthy person I could think of... If Kreia told me water was wet, I would check before I believed her... But though she is probably in denial, that doesn't preclude the possibility that she could have been right about Revan. So was she? We'll have to wait for K3 to find out whether Revan has fallen or not. But even if he has, it doesn't necessarily mean that he failed. If Revan is as much of a hero and a strategist as some people seem to think, I don't find it impossible that he sought out the true Sith alone because he knew he would have to sacrifice himself to the dark side if he were to become powerful enough to stop them. Doing so means becoming Darth Revan again, of course, and so that his ambition for power will return - Revan will want to be the Dark Lord of the old Sith Empire as well as the ruler of the republic... But even in that case the republic will be "saved" from the true Sith in a manner of speaking, and perhaps LS Revan hoped that there were enough good jedi left to stop and even kill him, if he became too great a threat to the republic himself. Or as Luke says to Han in the Dark Empire comic after Luke has embraced the dark side and joined the Emperor, "That may be true, Han. I may have to die." So what does all this have to do with the Exile? Well, if my own suspicions are correct and the Exile has the power of Nihilus, then Revan could corrupt the Exile to become Nihilus (as described early in this topic) and then use him as a weapon to destroy the true Sith worlds in a civil war among the Sith, while the republic remains unharmed. It would then fall to the main character of K3 (and LS Bastila) to redeem or destroy them both. It all flows together very nicely as I see it.

Actually it was Bastila (or Carth for a LSF Revan) who charged T3 with a mission: Bastila: "T3, you have been with us since Taris. Without you, we would never have escaped that place... and for that, I thank you. I'm leaving this message inside you because I have seen glimpses of the future... and the bond that he and I share does not allow him to hide everything from me.More of his memories have returned - and they trouble him. He has remembered something, something on the edge of the galaxy, and he believes that he must go there to end it. But I'm afraid for him... afraid that he may not return. I need you to be the beacon, T3. If he is lost out there, on the edge of the galaxy, if he finds whatever terrible thing he has seen, then he may not survive. If he doesn't make it back, then I need you to return to the Republic, find help. If you cannot find me, then seek out other Jedi, the Republic... I can't lose him, even if he believes he is protecting me." Revan took the Ebon Hawk with the droids to the unknown regions, but then got into trouble, and so T3 returned to the republic looking for other jedi to help, which led him to the Exile, since he couldn't find Bastila. T3 locked the navicomputer to prevent anyone from following in Revan's footsteps until T3 thought the time was right. Note the scene where HK-47 tries to unlock the navicomputer only to be blasted by T3... The quote is above is for the LSM Revan version, but the DSM Revan version comes to pretty much the same thing.

If you prefer spending 10 seconds everytime loading a 3 second dialogue file. Atleast WinAmp allows you to play multiple files in rapid succession... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Huh? Miles sound tools always plays without delay for me...