Darth InSidious

There's also at least one place on Dxun where stealth is useful, and you could make use of it on Dantooine in the sublevel, theoretically in at least one place (which would explain the '30 seconds' option on one computer. )

This'll be its fourth year.

Oh yes! Though personally, I prefer Chief Whosemoralsarelastix and the senator Surplus Dairyprodus.

I vote that you stop trolling this thread. You've made your opinion plain - there's no need to keep restating it.

Perhaps, but how is it any different from any other attempt by the media to excuse societal responsibility for something by blaming it on popular entertainment (cf: Doom)?

No. Yes. No.

I thought Deekin was funny. I thought that Pepin Pollo was the first genuinely funny scene I've played through since... well, in a long time. But then, I also thought Grobnar was just annoying, and Aldenon's rambling rather... obvious? Perhaps this belongs in its own thread.

This arrived in the post today, and while there's no reason you should give a damn what I think, I'm going to give you another uninteresting, unilluminating and unsatisfying ego-post to scroll through to get to the rebuttal you're waiting for. The music for SoZ is pretty good - it's not TSL in standard (which, to be fair, had some extraordinarily good music), but it's OK. The launcher music upward is pleasant, and it's far less repetitive than the music for MotB. The art direction overall seems excellent, in fact - just finished Samarach and returned to the Sword Coast for the fun to begin in earnest - and the blend of architectural/artistic styles used for Samarach and its cities works surprisingly well. It manages to evoke a decaying Ottoman town that could be anywhere from Ankarra to Alexandria, IMO. The jungle, similarly, feels jungle-like, although perhaps a little clear and dry to quite imitate the real thing. Elements of the design - particularly the jungle and the little ? and ! that appear over encounters remind me a lot of Dungeon Siege, although I've no idea if that's intentional or not. *shrug*. I don't mind the tiny dungeons, since I find three levels of hacking through zombies just to find the lost half-button for Sidequest #514 rather dull, myself. The overland map is great, although it does rather make me feel as though there should be a module parodying jRPGs. Something like Huntemon - Gotta Kill Them All!, in which you wander aimlessly between cities casually decimating the local fauna... but I digress. The dialogue and story leave something to be desired, but this was hardly something unexpected in the expansion as it was sold on the 'story-lite' side, and I'm sure the trading side of things will keep me occupied in between - that looks to be good, although I can certainly see that operating as a hybrid game rather lessens the detail and consequently the fun attached to each individual element. The party members/cohorts and their lack of dialogue is also a little disappointing at times, but in truth that I think is more to do with being so used to it from other games in the genre released recently, rather than any need for them per se. The loading times, though are an issue - in particular with the encounters. They'd be a lot less painful if it didn't take so long for them to load. In all, I'm having fun so far, though as others have noted, I'm not expecting there to be anything particularly memorable about the experience beyond enjoying parts. The Hellfire Warlock PrC is also a nice addition, which seems fun from what little of it I've tried of it. The Yuan-ti Pureblood race, though, seems like a more powerful Drow. IIRC, they have the same level adjustment, but the Drow also takes a -2 to CON and has, frankly, less useful special abilities. OTOH, I found building a Yuan-ti warlock in SoZ to be fairly hellish (no pun intended), although that may have had something to do with the all-spellcaster, all-level-one team. I know, I know - tl;dr. So carry on scrolling past.

And tell me, how many people have actually read the Codex Hammurabi? It's presence on the Codex is undeniable, but I'd wager that's not where Killian Kalthorne first came across the phrase. Iknorite? This man ought to be tried by a court and sentenced. What he deserves is not for anyone here to decide. LOL. The Codex Hammurabi is actually a seven-foot basalt stela, on which Babylonian law, as reformed by Hammurabi, is written in cuneiform. It was discovered in about 1900, IIRC.

Still doesn't explain why it was so ****ing execrable, though. I suppose that's what you get if you plump for John Mediocrity...

Pettifogging.

How is this any different, then, from Disraeli's landslide victory of 1874? Last I heard, he didn't end the world. Obama won't nuke Iran. It'd be politically dangerous both at home and abroad. I think there's good reason for saying he'll bomb Syria, though. Possibly not, but you can wager if he could've gotten away with it, Kubrick would have had Turgidson do something similar.

Two points: first, the American Revolution was in the latter 18th Century - 1763-8, though I'm sure that was a typo. Secondly, several of the most prominent proponents of the Enlightenment - Baron d'Holbach and Hume, for example, so atheism was not non-existent, or entirely unknown, at least in Europe. Can't comment on your founding fathers or their knowledge of such ideas, though. Sorry if this seems unnecessary, but I'm a horrid pedant.

This is pure speculation, but you might be able to limit the number of actions per round with a master heartbeat script (you could just #include at the start of each unique heartbeat script, I'd imagine), and keep pausing each time the script fires (IIRC, every 6 seconds). At a guess, you'd need to work out which character goes first in each round (by AC roll? I'm not good on DnD mechanics...), and then try to fire the attacks in sequence, although I'm at a loss as to how to force that to happen... There are other problems, though, since NWScript doesn't tend to like sequences of actions very well, and trying to create finely timed sets of actions with it is a mug's game at best... but perhaps it's been fixed somewhat in NWN2.

It's not any-bloody-body, it's a bleedin' albatross! Don't say you didn't walk into that one.

Slaves, total economic dominance and a monopoly on cheese-biscuits to cripple the world middle class.

Uplink, by Introversion. Quite amazing - particularly the amount of terror and tension they can elicit with so few features and gizmos in the game. The level of addiction for something with no characters or dialogue (so far, at any rate), either, is also amazing. I love these guys.

When addressing individuals, I agree. But often when these phrases are spoken or printed, they are addressing larger sections of the populace. In an effort to be inclusive (at least in the US) many people will say or print "Happy Holidays". E.g. a business manager sending out warm wishes before a "late-December" break. The US backlash attempts to say, "No, it's Christmas booyah!" which is factually incorrect in its exclusivity and has the side-effect of being very obnoxious for people celebrating other things (or not). Well, yes, if you have to have giant signs etc., I agree - although again, I find the huge signs, giant snowmen and "Santa Claus"es (that ghastly, castrated form of Fr. Christmas) and naff Christmas pop songs trying at best and at worst enough to push me to the brink of throttling someone, but that's just me. I also hate most 'cheery' Christmas carols. Again, not remotely relevant, but thought I'd say it anyway. All of these dates (with the exception of Winter Solstice, I guess) are man-selected. Christians have no special claim over this time of year because the historical Jesus almost certainly wasn't born in December -- that's ultimately all I'm trying to say: many people have well-founded reasons to celebrate things in December! Aggressively suggesting otherwise is obnoxious. OK, fair enough. I just wasn't certain what you were driving at. Yes and no. It's fairly well attested that first-century Judaism and Early Christianity both shared a belief in the 'integral age' of the prophets (and for the Christians, Jesus - presumably he was thought to be the greatest/final prophet as well as Son of God etc.). What this meant was that it was believed that they lived an exact number of years on earth - i.e., they were born (or in some cases, conceived - importantly for this) and died on the same day, separated by X number of years. By various methods of dating, and following John's Gospel, they tried to convert the precise date of Jesus' death (and, consequently, resurrection); it was thought to be 14 Nisan in the Jewish calendar; but what was that in new money (so to speak)? For some reason, they appear to have settled on Friday, 25th of March, 29 [n.b.; this date is actually unlikely, since the 25th of March in AD 29 wasn't a Friday, and nor was Passover Eve on that day - it is so, however, in AD 30 or 33]. Since he was thought to have died on this date, he was also thought to have been conceived, too. The belief in March 25th as the date of Jesus' birth does seem to have existed for a while, but the belief in it as the date of conception also seems to have taken over relatively quickly, judging by the (few) references in the sources available. Well, first off, terms like "Catholic Church", "Orthodox", "Protestant" etc. aren't really valid for the period we're dealing with - at this point, Christianity is still a pretty unified religious belief. Second, please see above; third, I'm not really seeing how having your holy day on the same day as another religion really encourages that... Volourn already answered this pretty well, but I thought I'd just reiterate that Catholics believe Jesus to be the second person of the triune God. So, worship of him equals worship of God. Also, Mary is categorically not worshipped. Honoured, yes; asked to intercede, yes (although that's another topic entirely), worshipped? Nope. Hope that helps. Funny, I was going to say the opposite: I find it... ironic that the same people who often bewail being preached to or evangelised by religious groups then go out and... erm, attempt the same, as far as I can see. Not certain, but I'm pretty sure the ABC gets a high-powered salary and pension. Although his role as one of the Great Officers of State (IIRC) may have something to do with that. Not sure. Others not falling under the Anglican umbrella I think operate on donations, charitable status and what they produce (pamphlets, books etc.). Come daily for three weeks and you could win the entire Norwich City Council!

Why, indeed? Possibly because some minority religious groups feel a need to kick up a stink over it, and there are more than a few hacks desperate to fill up space. And, of course, the BHA will have put out an announcement when the campaign was announced months ago. There's also a difference between talking about the country you were born in, raised in, and have lived in for the best part of thirty years, and making enormous generalisations that don't hold. But seriously, though, you're splitting hairs here. The point is that the UK is one of the most secular countries in Europe, has very low religious attendance and is for all intents and purposes atheist or agnostic. My point is that the Saturnalian tradition of gift-exchange pre-dates the Christian tradition and many other festivals currently (and previously) existed around this time. So when folks crow about Jesus "being the reason for the season" they're ignoring that many other festivals and traditions occur around this time, some before and some after the formalization of "Dec 25 = Christmas, let's burn yule logs around the Christmas tree and give gifts." Indeed their were other holidays at this time, but the one which the current practice descends from is ultimately a combination of the Christian tradition and 19th Century literary figures promoting it (cf: Dickens, et al.) In the US it may also relate to continuing tradition in Europe, but over here the celebration fell out of use following the Reformation due to being considered "Romish". Lots of cultures and religions have practiced celebrations and traditions around December. So when people say, "Jesus is the reason for the season!" and "It's Merry Christmas, not happy holidays!" they are pointedly invalidating not only the beliefs of non-religious people, but the beliefs of non-Christian people who currently celebrate (and in ancient times, also celebrated) around December. While I agree in principle, in practice terms like "Happy Holidays" I find annoyingly sickly and part of this rather bizarre move, at least over here, to attempt to make out that all religions preach basically the same thing. Personally, I'd far rather go through the lengthy process of wishing people "Happy Ramadan", or Chanukah, or Kwanzaa, or Sol Invictus and get the actual date right than lump them all together in this way, but that's just me. Well, as long as we're talking about the "insistedly real" Jesus, I don't think (m)any scholars believe he was actually born in December, much less December 25th, so it's a man-selected day, no matter what. First, I don't get what this has to do with my point about the Mithraic cults; I was contrasting the vague way in which Mithras was represented and worshipped with the way in which Jesus was understood - and by many still understood - as a historical figure. Second, whether or not it is a man-selected date, that seems to ignore the reason that they selected it for. EDIT: It's 2 A.M. here, and exciting though this rapier-like intellectual cut-and-thrust is, I'm tired and, frankly, could be playing MotB right now.

With respect, Mr. Sawyer, that is utter twaddle. You may have perfectly well described the situation in the U.S., but in the U.K. the situation is entirely different. The number of atheists in the country has been estimated at between 36 and 44%, and while around 70% of the country claims to be some form of Christian, a 2005 poll by the EU found that only 38% of people in the country believe in a god and 40% believe in some sort of vague "spirit life-force" thing. As to those who claim a religious affiliation, over half have never even been to a service. As for representation, there are many, many non-religious Lords and MPs, and a distinct bias in Parliament against practicing a religion; at least one man was disbarred from a health committee for being a practicing Catholic. Furthermore, groups like the British Humanist Association and the National Secular Society are highly effective and organised in lobbying parliament, raising awareness of their cause(s) in the public eye and in pushing forward their agenda - much more so than the wrong-footed, disorganised and poorly-publicised attempts of the religious lobby groups that exist here. We may speak the same language, have the same cultural origins and even share some principles, but we are not you. Sol Invictus was invented by Aurelian in 274. The earliest references to Christmas dated to December 25th come from around 240. Saturnalia was celebrated 17th-23rd of December, and the modern exchange of gifts was popularised by Clement Clarke Moore (in England at least, it was traditional in the Middle Ages to exchange gifts on New Year's.) Current scholarship asserts that the date was chosen for Christmas because it was nine months after the Annunciation (March 25th). M. Junianus Justinus tells us that the Mithraic cults borrowed from Christianity, and comparisons between the nebulously transcendent mystery-cult deities and the insistedly real Jesus are likely to prove fruitless, tbh.

You mean like a highly structured, success-oriented, physically active mentality? I think he means like City-gibberish.

Hadn't noticed that, although I'm not that keen on GT, myself. Might make an exception for this, though.

Personally, I'd really like to be able to play this game without having to pirate it or pay out a price somewhere in between Ammon Jerro's soul and the sins of the world, approximately

About to re-read The Loved One. Brilliant, if rather dark comedy.