Walsingham

Well, Fishboot, I'm not sure you can carry a game by performances. As someone already said (give me a break, okay, I'm not taking notes) it is a game after all, not a movie. However, I think we are moving closer to a point where entertainment will become more interactive. This is merely playing on the issue of the customer tailoring their own entertainment experience to maximise their enjoyment of it.

I'm not invading Hell. Too spiky. What about Tuvalu? All we have to do is convince them to drop out of the Commonwealth. They don't even have a defence force.

What you damn foreigners haven't grasped, and we seem to have forgotten, is that Cricket is not a sport. It is a bunch of men standing in a field, on a sunny day, where their wives and families can't get at them. Then they go for beer and sandwiches.

Why not become a Somali warlord. Seems like anyone with a handful of trained mercs could carve out a niche over there. Don't be surprised if someone tries this as a retirement plan.

IW? What's that? I thought I made it up, inspired by Scatman John.... Ski bi di bidi do bop do bop do bap.

Git yer 'ot death 'ere! What's that guv'nor? Ascending bowel cancer? That'll be seven an' six.

Well, I could have chosen somehwere nicer, like the pleasure pits of Coruscant, but none of you skeebs would have recognised the smells.

That's what I keep telling you, Steve. Give War a chance.

Suppose you walk into a farm on tattooine. You smell charcoal smoke, stale sweat, and the sour milk sweetness of hydroponics. Helps it come alive.

I remember reading that social groups go through stages in a 'life cycle'. i wonder if relationships go through something similar. If they do then the devs could program in different behaviours for each stage in teh relationship, and the triggers for moving between each stage. then just let it run. The character would just trigger the changes as and when. Another thought: relationships could have XP.

I think you are reading too much into this. Spam means money. Money attracts OC in Russia like blood attracts sharks in open water. He probably got whacked for refusing to pay the right guy, or withholding payment. And frankly, my "All men are brother" spiel has a line. Mass spammers are on the wrong side of it. The evil quotient of spam may be tiny, but the amounts are immense and the motivation pure greed. You want to cry over a dead spammer? Cry me a river, build a bridge, and get over it.

Ave Caesar. I was thinking that this thread proves how important smells are to us. They evoke whole landscapes of memory and emotion. This made me wonder if they shouldn't be more regularly included in descriptions during games. Shouldn't be too hard to work into dialogue.

The dancing albino is right.

Julianw, I hope you do not feel personally under attack by all this. Nor is it my intention to cast China in a negative light. The point is simply that Chairman Mao, in his essays on revolutionary struggle described the precise ways and means in use by modern terrorists. I also am obliged by my knowledge of the facts to assert that Mao laid some of the groundwork for the modern terrorist's utter disregard for civilian casualties. Having said that, my understanding of Mao was that he was not bloodthirsty in the way of say Stalin or (arguably) Al Qaeda's organisers. He saw education as the means to change, and fear as a means of keeping discipline. Stalin and Al Qaeda see fear as the optimal condition for the sheep they wish to drive along, not education.

I can't REALLY criticise, since I've never played MtG, but can it REALLY be better than poker?

Pat of the problem is that relationships in general are pretty lame in these games. Friendships are no better than the romances. They don't develop, and they don't follow the rule of reciprocity.

I found what I think is an excellent example of how good voice acting can carry even simple graphics. Here. http://www.big-boys.com/articles/fewgoodmen.html Powerful words, powerfully spoken.

"A fool and his money are soon parted" also "Take the money, my son, praising Allah. The kid was ordained to be sold." - Kipling

Thanks for the extra info, there Hildegarde. That does tie into what I knew. Julianw, you may be right. But while I freely accept your point about the Nationalist govt. hardly being worth shedding tears over, you may be rather glossing over Mao's attitude to civilians. Maoist/Marxist thought sees every single person as bound up in the Great Struggle, and distinctions between combatants and non-combatants as 'bourgeois.' I am satisfied that civilians were deliberately purged to purify the communist state. It seems logical to suggest that they were targetted during the making of it. Although I am not an expert on Chinese history. It was also a definite part of Viet Minh/Viet Cong strategy in Vietnam.

Since it ties into so many discussions around here...

Quite possibly. It would be laughable if they were. :D

Well, the PLO and Hamas do play a part, I am sure. But we have good ole Chairman Mao to thank for the notion of inducing utter abject chaos so that a replacement could be installed. It is Maoist doctrine that is being used in Iraq. Attacks on infrastructure , people, police, and so on are all intended to weaken faith in the establishment, and permit 'revolutionary cadres' to reeducate the people. In this case into being Qutf dingbats, rather than commie dingbats. I'm not sure where to trace leaderless terrorism to.

I felt I had to point out a possible error I made. I have referred several times to the fact that many recent terrorist attacks have nothing to do with Islam. Which I stand by. Instead I suggested they had Wahhabi roots. However I was recently brought up short by infromation suggesting that this too may inaccurate. It seems that the real roots of Islamic extremism lie with Sayyd Qutb, and the Muslim Brotherhood. It has been cogently argued that there is little in Wahhabism that is apparent in Al Qaeda's vision or strategy, and that it is far more akin to this Qutb fellow. The fact that Qutb seems to have been influenced by European philosophers is not just interesting, but may help to explain the marxist guerrilla tactics Al Qaeda uses. I felt I had to make this clear since I may have done a grave injustice to perfectly peaceable Wahhabis. :"> And I know you all hang on my every word... http://www.thewahhabimyth.com/qutb.htm

Hee hee hee. We got the idea from the film 'Snatch' "Ye bought it how ye saw it."

I get the impression that US units are not properly integrating because they are rotating NCOs and men in and out of country too regularly. Yes they need down time for R & R, but this leaves confused relations at the squad level. Which is a recipe for indiscipline. Maybe 213374U or 11xHooah can correct me.