Pop

Oh. I don't go there. That's cool, then. Maybe we could see that TS make a comeback eventually :ph34r:

.. source?

I didn't read any epiphets stereotyping, maybe, but not name-calling. There's a nice, well thought-out editorial in Slate about this issue. To paraphrase, it argues that in the West, obscuring one's face is associated with being dishonest. It has to do with the idea that someone who's honest will present their whole self openly, and someone who has something to hide will hide himself. The last paragraph says it all, really. "Still, freedom to practice religion in the West shouldn't imply freedom to hold jobs that impinge on that practice. An Orthodox Jew should not have an absolute right to work in a restaurant that is open only on Saturdays. A Quaker cannot join the Army and then state that his religion prohibits him from fighting. By the same token, a Muslim woman who wants to cover her face has no absolute right to work in a school or an office where face-to-face conversations are part of the job. It isn't religious discrimination or anti-Muslim bias to tell her that she must be polite to the natives, respect the local customs, try to speak some of the local patois

Psssst

What they have to do is distinguish between healthy and unhealthy detachment. Take D&D. Sitting in your basement writing D&D for 3 hours is not obsessive. Writing for 14 hours without food or sleep probably is It might seem broad, but in practice it's not that simple. If you spend a lot of time invested in these fantasy worlds you could be labelled as a schizoid. A good example of schizoid fixation would be someone taking things that have happened in their lives and "reimagining" them in the terms of the fantasy. you could see a movie, and then "reimagine" the movie into the fantasy setting. You could imagine something happening in your fantasy and then actually have an emotional reaction to it. And this would happen constantly. One doesn't necessarily have to be paranoid, or even have a skewed perception of physical reality, they just have to be deeply invested in their fantasy. Like I said earlier, schizoid personalities can function, they're not psychotic. One could say they're "special", in the (lame) parlance of our times. But there's always the chance that this fixation on fantasy can be of detriment to one's life. They can have difficult holding jobs, relationships, what have you. And it's at that point that it becomes abnormal and a personality disorder.

Yeah, sounds like a lot of geeks. I'd probably be diagnosed with it if what I already had didn't cover the symptoms. Does it make you feel any different about who you are? I'd say the worst thing to do in this case would be to let this define you.

if there's no treatment, nothing. You live with it. This is an formal diagnosis? btw I know a few people with schizoid personalities who function just fine.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Bah, typo

The only game I have to buy this quarter is NWN2. Next quarter is going to be worse. Mass Effect, Bioshock, etc.

Like Alanschu said in the spam forum, if they were going to put it in, wouldn't they have put it in NWN1? Then again, there were a lot of things with NWN that they had apparently planned to connect to BG that they never got around to doing. Got a different team this time around that might be very interested in including BG touchstones. We have a week to get our hopes up.

Beat ToB and my wired, sleep-deprived self is psyched about a possible appearance by Imoen in NWN2.

Perhaps it would be possible to mod in? Does the toolset allow that kind of freedom?

Just finished ToB, and read the epilogue text for Imoen. Says she started up a thieves guild based in Neverwinter. Could it... ? No, too awesome.

I disagree. Individual FTW.

That's why I don't follow Zappa beyond his music Besides, he wasn't exactly a hedonist. Never did like drugs. Kicked some kids out of his band for doing lines.

Why couldn't they just have had an AoE hold person spell that effects everybody but the caster? Same difference. If Time Stop only works within 50', anybody outside of that 50' effectively gains all the benefits of the spell. TS is supposed to affect the caster only, that's what made it powerful. Hence, the spell is useless if it only affects a certain area.

Explain why staying alive is more important then actually living. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> First, that's a logical contradiction. Living is worthless when one is not alive. Second, there is a heirarchy to happiness. We've got health on the one hand, and we've got aesthetic pleasure on the other. The argument can simply and effectively be presented as a comparison. Consider that we're judging art and medicine on the basis of the "good" that they provide. First we have to define the "good", and for the purposes of my argument I'll define it under classical utilitarianism, as in the creation of happiness and the prevention of pain. Under this model, it becomes necessary to distinguish between the orders of happiness. The highest happinesses being the excercise of one's right to life and continued existence, and the lowest happinesses being the fulfillment of base desires. A desire for sketch comedy, in this case. So let's weigh these two concepts. Creation and distribution of, say, antibiotics, or clean water, with sketch comedy. Sketch comedy may cause happiness and pleasure in those that watch it, this is undeniably true. But antibiotics cure plagues, prolong life and thus, maximize our potential for happiness. Many people would be happy that they were able to effectively cheat death. Reasonable calculus weighs medicine against art. The assumption that life is not worth living without certain arbitrary sensory pleasures is irrational, animalistic hedonism. It also implies that those who are unable to enjoy art are not truly alive, which is a narcissistic claim at best.

Oh man, that takes me back to 1998 is he still a villain? Which reminds me, I should probably look for the N64 No Mercy game. I loved that when I was a kid :D

At higher levels, I much preffered horrid wilting.

Weren't they petitioning Nintendo to get this on the Wii, or something? Good to see point / clicks aren't fully dead.

So we give him fangs and one of those high-collar capes. And have him do Schrek poses. And jedi backflips. Best . villain . ever I'll have to use that.

They could make a whole IP based around Darth Nihilus

You never know. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> It's just that I'd see anime going towards a more traditional RPG route, like they always do (I have friends who wank all over Kenshin) in light of that, Obsidian optioning seems unlikely.

Somehow, I don't see Obsidian getting those rights

Pssh, no weaker than Star Wars' space setting. Greyhawk, now there's generic. Meh. I preferred Spelljammer when it came to my "far out" settings, but that was killed in its relative infancy.