Jediphile

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...

Haha!.... awesome.. Is your campaign currently based in the Broken Lands or does that just happen to be one of the many nations they have traveled to in the Known World? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> We're in early AC 1011 and one PC is a dwarf, so the group will be heavily involved in the clan war in Rockhome, which will eventually lead to a confrontation when Thar's hordes invade. I also updated Denwarf to my 2e version, and he's an absolute monster <_<

What enemies do you suggest at lvl 12-22? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The PCs in my campaign are all at levels 13-15, but though they like showing off their power, they've come to be cautious out of respect for my ability to create monster NPCs they can't handle. In one adventure they followed this lowly mage down a dungeon to a confrontation with a lich and his cronies (fire elementals, iron golems and a few demons (balor and merilith Tanar'ri)). During the entire confrontation, the lowly mage turned out to be a major enemy of the PCs (level 26 mage), and though they survived the fight, he took them all captive. Alternatively he would have just teleported away, leaving them behind to be killed by the lich and his cronies. At another time I created a sort of rival group of NPCs, who were all bounty hunters hired to capture the PCs. And they did. Their leader was a 25th level fighter. In an upcoming adventure, the PCs just might come face to face with the legendary orc-king Thar (Lancer will know who this is), who is (IMC) a 27th-fighter *and* 12th-level shaman. Oh, and he's a nosferatu-vampire too, only the PCs don't know that Let the PCs see they're great adventurers who can easily defeat a warband of 10 orcs, but don't be afraid to create more powerful enemy NPCs to deflate their egos a bit if the situation calls for it. I find this works best if the group is bested by a single enemy, but if not, then a coordinated group will do as well.

I'd agree with that, but then Revan is at war with the true Sith to save the republic. What will he have to do to fight them? How far will he have to go? We all know where war has led the jedi before, so maybe Revan left alone because he didn't want his earlier fate of becoming Darth Revan to befall his friends...

The way you keep ignoring my point that an anti-religious ideology by definition has religious aspects to it, you mean? However, I shall drop the matter since the discussion isn't going anywhere and since it's off topic in the first place. The topic here is the islamic reaction to what a newspaper in Denmark published. And in doing so he used religion as a tool, which is my point - religion can and has always be twisted to suit whatever cause someone in power wants it to. Most religions say that the followers shouldn't kill and shouldn't be intolerant, yet most the most intolerant people tend to be highly religious people...

The true Sith are a nasty lot, no doubt about it. As for the Nihilus idea, I think I'm responsible for that. Read here for context. But how can you say Nihilus was there before the Exile? Nobody had heard about Nihilus until a few years (at the earliest) before KotOR2 begins, while the Exile fought in the Mandalorian Wars a full decade before. Also, note what the masters tell the Exile when they meet on Dantooine in KotOR2: "The last Jedi conclave was on Katarr, a Miraluka colony. And all of Katarr was destroyed, all of the Jedi killed...Including Master Zhar... Master Vandar... A Jedi doesn't care if he dies. Everyone does, but when we fight, when we sacrifice ourselves, it is for others, for the greater good. But our presence must not endanger others. And as long as we were visible targets, we were a threat to everything around us.There was a gathering of Jedi on the planet - when we realized that something was attacking us, we resolved to meet secretly to attempt to find this threat.Then... Katarr was no more.When we felt Katarr die, there is something we felt, something we'd felt once before. An echo in the Force.We'd felt it before when you stood before us. Whatever this threat, whatever this hunger is, it is something tied to you, something you have experienced directly. This echo travels in the places where death has walked, where planets have died. Massacres fuel its power, the death of life fuels it." Here the connection between Nihilus and the Exile is rather clear - the masters felt the same echo in Nihilus that they had felt from the Exile years before when they exiled him. Of course, it might then be argued that this is merely a reference to the horrors of Malachor V that spawned both Nihilus and made the Exile what he has become. However, another part of the masters meeting suggests otherwise: "The Sith are a threat, it is true. But the threat they present... it is tied to you in some way. The echo we have felt on the worlds we have walked - we have encountered it only once before, when you stood before us at your trial.We believe that somehow, you are creating this - or that the Sith have learned this technique from you."

Since you chose to completely ignore my point that Hitler tried to exploit the religious issue, it is pointless to debate this further... 1. Never said religion was the cause of all wars, just most. 2. So you're arguing that Stalin targeting all religious followers in communist Russia is not an issue with religious connotations? An interesting way of thinking indeed...

And how many wars have NOT been fought in the name of religion? I'll say it again: read some history. Because religious wars only make up a small fraction of historical conflicts. I also hope you realize the irony of your statements. You're so opposed to wars fought in the name of Christianity, yet you seem opposed to the pro-life stance as well. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Try looking at most wars and then consider whether religion had relevance. It is frequently the case. For example, WW2 has ties to a confrontation between the jewish faith and Hitler's interpretation of christianity. Now, I know you'll say that Hitler's philosophies are not very christian and I agree with that, but the point is that religion was still an issue that served as a convenient pretense for pursuing the jews. If religion had not been an issue, it would have been more difficult for the nazis to do what they did. As for the pro-life example, I never spoke out for or against, so I would thank you for demonstrationing some of the tolerance you question yourself and refrain from putting words in my mouth.

How is wearing a cross "sticking it in everybody's face"? If that's how you view it, then you seriously need to grow up and learn to be more tolerant. I agree with you on the apology stance, but that's not what I'm talking about here. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Then you're off-topic. I really don't care if people wear religious icons or a headscarf, but some of those do scare people, and that is a problem whether we like to admit it or not. There is a great need for tolerance, yes, but that goes more for many of those people who do wear religious icons than for those that don't. Intolerance is wrong, my friend, and that's what I see coming out of you. If we live in a free society, we should be able to express our religion OUTSIDE of our homes. If not, then the concept of "freedom" is a lie. As for pro-life "propaganda", I could think of worse things. Besides, it's not as if you have to be religious to be pro-life. You could be an atheist and be against abortion. Heck, I'll say it right now: I oppose abortion too, except in some specific cases. I'm sure a lot less people would be supportive of abortion if they came flat out and said "We want the right to kill our babies" As for religion being the main cause of war and death in history, that's an utterly stupid statement not backed up by facts whatsoever; more like a statement based on prejudice and ignorance. Do your self a favor and learn some history, then come back. But I'm not surprised to hear that, though, and your statement right after that borders on bigotry. Congratulations, you've done more damage to yourself than I could have. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The Crusades... The Spanish Inquisition... And that's just Christianity - all in the name of holy Christ... The Bible says that "thou shalt not kill", yet that is the phrase that has been ignored the most, it seems... Maybe you should take your own advice and read some history...

Well, you don't actually need gods to make the PCs think twice (though it does make violence on their part irrelevant - they gods are not going to care either way... In fact, they'd probably care less if the PCs are violent). To make the PCs think twice, give them a mission, where they have to protect some lowly 0-level character (in D&D terms) who is the daughter of some important family or who is significant to stopped a conflict for some reason. That way even the encounter with a group of orcs because lethal, because while the PCs will undoubtedly survive and win the battle, they can fail in their mission if the person they are to protect comes under attack even once. I once ran a scenario where the PCs had to defend and organize a small walled human village during an orcish attack. The PCs decided to make it a straight fight with the result that they won, but with all but a handful of the villagers (of 150+) were killed. They might have won the battle, but the players sure didn't feel much sense of victory...