Walsingham

I know what you mean about having trouble imagining playing with fireball, but that's a very good reason for doing it. Besides. Now I can use fireball with wands if the occasion arises. I just can't speculatively loft them out in front like some sort of fantastical Soviet set piece offensive. Current sop is to have the clerics hold onto their skeleton powers until a proper fight ensues then pop skeletons like bony chaff all over the damn place. The clerics job then is to act as medics, which they do passably well. The biggest difference is that unlike having a wizard around I don't have to try and enforce a battle line. Everyone in the party can more or less tank, so it's a lot less stressful and a lot more fun. WRT the wizard lady. Yes, due to a 'lapse of tactical judgement' she attempted to rush a room full of hobgoblins and tragically got cut into tiny tiny bits. A brief moment of reflection later and I acquired my second cleric. I may ditch my second paladin He is a bit rubbish. But I can't find a straight good fighter.

By late dual classing my thief as a mage I've sufficiently nerfed myself for the boss fights (for the tim ebeing) although the new dual classer is rocketing up the levels. Thinking about it, I guess the problem was they wanted to make Tutu work with the uber classes from BG2. But I think fundamentally that was almost impossible. Apart from anything else I'm not convinced the story would work artistically if you were some munchkin class. The whole point is to start out low and humble.

According to one story I read, the Italians are refusing to commit active forces to the air campaign. At the same time ENI, "the Italian oil company" is preparing to begin shipping oil from Ghaddafi controlled terminals. So much for Europe.

Thanks for the advice, Grom. However, I'm not clear on the message. You say clerics are powerful. But you're also saying that the wizard is the right choice? I think I'm goin gto go for the two cleric option, just for the novelty value. But keep those views coming. I'll let you know how it goes. ~~ I'm not using the 'best' wizard because of said animal friendly ranger.

I apologise for not being clear. By deriding the notion of bombing Libya flat I wasn't claiming that bombing it lumpy was better. I don't think I've ever said that. If I did then I shall go back in time and stamp on my own instep. ~~ I don't think there's any evidence that the media control public opinion any more than a man with a plate full of meat controls a hungry bear. They can influence somehwat but ultimately the bear is obeying its own simple agendas. The man isn't going to be able to get the bear to do anything complex, nor can the man prevent the bear from doing anything.* My point is not that we can achieve democratic wonderland by switching our brains on. I am simply observing that unless we do we may as well forget it right now. It's a sore oint for me because w're about to embark on a course of constitutional reform aimed specifically at making government more sensitive to the people, and I very much doubt that the Great British Public are fit to be listened on any complex issue.** WRT the defections, I think the absence of defections may have more to do with simple geography than anything else. Defectors from the armed forces switched sides weeks ago, and civilians can only do so by high-tailing into the desert. I know I wouldn't do that with only confused reports of where the rebels were on any given day. *This analogy is getting a bit complicated. I'm going to stop it. ** I believe they are still fit to throw out governments periodically, hence I'm still supporting Democracy.

Baldur's Gate 1. Having finished Fallout 2. It's great fun, notwithstanding the problems I'm having with the aftereffects of installing Tutu. In my opinion Tutu is nothing but a pain in the arse. But I'm a purist. EDIT: I mean no offence to the chaps who obviously put a lot of work into Tutu. I just think that the project got carried beyond a simple interface change and into game balance, which IMO they got wrong.

1. Because my main chaaracter is a paladin, and I'm aiming on being an Inquisitor in Baldur's Gate 2. So not liking wizards is par for the course. 2. I like a challenge. 3. The path less travelled, and all that.

I am at a certain point in the game and am wondering if I shouldn't swap out a certain ultra-snooty mage lady and replace her with a gruff yet redoubtable dwarf cleric fighter. NO SPOILERS, please. I already have a scandinavian sounding cleric lady in the party, and two paladins, plus a loveable animal friendly ranger. And a thief. My character concept is more comfortable with the priest than the mage. But i don't want to get royally shafted by specialising.

The Met should use just one of those to stop crowds of rioters. Place in the middle of street and clear the area. I know I wouldn't go within 100 yards of the bloody thing.

Will that mean I lose the character? Because I haven't time to replay the whole bloody game. I'll just get drunk for the big fights or something.

Do you mind if I ask whether you've had someone check your speech centres for woodworm?

They don't sleep, they meditate. Wankers, so they are. ~~ Which animals have ears that stick straight out sideways? Because I am going to bloody kill one, shave it, write 'elf' on it in barbecue sauce, and have myself some dinner.

For those who haven't played Lionheart (and I have): Imagine The Merchant of Venice being performed by an ace squad of actors and its funny and moving. Then in the second act they have Steve Buscemi come out and play the ukulele non-stop without singing for two whole hours. Then the curtain comes down. And you're left sitting there trying to pretend to yourself that it was a genius misdirection and somehow still fulfilling, for a while. Then you fly into a rage and burn the theatre down.

I installed Baldur's Gate the other day, installed GD Tutu, the uninstalled it because if I'm playing a game for nostalgic purposes I want to see it the way I remember it. Unfortunately I've been rather busy and only just noticed a problem about four hours of gameplay past when I could do a complete uninstall/reinstall and restart. EDIT: I have been playing with the normal BG1 engine, and a normal BG1 character. Monster spawning. Every group of monsters I run into is massive, and levels with my character. Practically speaking this means I am levelling faster than an obsesive compulsive irish plasterer who has just discovered he's building a holiday house for the Pope. This in turn means I'm having virtually no challenge from the scripted encounters, and THAT is doing my ****ing head in. I want my story back. I want normal monsters back. I have uninstalled Tutu, but the monsters are still spawning like maggots on a dead clown. Do I have to uninstall then reinstall?

Bombing Libya into the stone age, even if that were possible, is hardly going to prevent it playing a role in terrorism. Because lo I say unto you: terrorism is really ****ing simple. Terror cells run on a few thousand a year plus a few odds and ends of explosives training, maybe a few false documents, and some tradecraft. The Taliban managed to play host to terror with a few yards of facial hair and (literally) a hole in the ground. Admittedly maybe Ghaddafi and Sons (funeral services ltd.) won't be donating tonnes of high explosives and thousands of rifles (as they did with the IRA in the 1980s). But how hard do you think we would have to hit them in order to suck up enough money to prevent them affording a few dozen kilos of semtex, and a couple cases of rifles? More importantly do you not think such a campaign of reduction would constitute a war crime or two? For ****'s sake. The whole point of democracy - the very thing those poor bastards are dying for* - is that what ordinary people think matters. You are ordinary. Switch the brain ON. Think. Matter. *Probably.

Researching violent crime use to be my job. Not for a long time though. I'm oddly proud of the fact that although it's hardened me to criminals I don't think it has hardened me to suffering.

LOVE that movie! I wonder why the military hasn't made a ZF-1 yet. What is it he says next? Something about warriors and how he can't stand them? That and something about a button...

www.stratfor.com

May also be from FFXI's Elvaans (not kidding) Yet another reason to want to beat elves about the head and neck with broken bottles. Stupid flimsy sticky out ears. HOW DO THEY ****ING SLEEP? I just realised I'm a racist after all. About elves.

I'd like to be a whining bastard again and point out that I have nothing aginst steam because firstly it sugars the pill with social and other tools, and secondly it ****ing works. My experience with Ubisoft DRM over the last few months is that it knackers the games I buy and I can't play them, and that's ALL IT DOES. Meaning - although I haven't - that the only way I could play them is to pirate them FOR FREE. This is quite literally insane.

I bought it on GoG and it works a dream. Except I think i'm now too old and easily confused to play it. I agree with Enoch that the problem in any system is when some points just disappear into the Vortex. And Arcanum definitely seems t obe greedily eyeing my few skillpoints with stats that can be boosted way past the point of any use ( so far as I can tell) and skills like the mechanical ones which might allow you to build one object every three hours of gameplay. Skills and stats should have SOME benefit, wherever they end up. Enriching either storyline or play ease, or maximum power or SOMETHING. But I totally agree they shouldn't make all classes equal because they make all classes equally poncey.

I was only kidding about Bruce Willis. He's just a good guy, I think. And he is usually well cast. Although Hudson Hawk is the reason I think he's awesome. EDIT: And The Fifth Element, which is surely one of the most underrated sci-fi classics, after Serenity.

I just finished a collection of Dan Abnett fantasy novels. Mixed bunch, the best of which were the Riders of the Dead and the Hammers of Ulric. Riders of the Dead was absolutely brilliant. Heartily recommend it.

I wouldn't call it cheating. A gentleman like Shryke knows how to enjoy something like that, but I reckon his hearts still in the same place it was. A sudden cold refusal often offends, and might have made things much worse. Of course it's views like that which get all my possessions thrown out of upstairs windows. Or used to, anyway.

I wasn't trying to be anti-UK or anti the mother. What I'm saying is how a moment's consideration of the piece unfolds all sorts of possibilities, tied together with sadness for the poor baby. I actually found the British Fritzl more appalling - if that's possible - because he managed to do what he did without a cellar. British society simply failed to offer any way out for his kids in spite of them moving around freely in it.