Spider

Although grouping them all into one skill makes sure that every last damn rogue will have those skills. Since it's a mandatory skill for the class and all (and with how all skills autoprogress in 4e).

The latter.

The Ipod part had more to do with the posts following yours I guess. It does help in establishing a viewing pattern though. The gist of our disagreement comes to you saying near future in your second post. If that was what you meant originally as well, then I guess there isn't that much we disagree on. I didn't get the near future impression from your post at all. Gromnir said direct downloads were the clear future, that is what I agree with. When that future will arrive I don't know, that depends on how fast the infra structure is developed. And then there's this: Why we're not seeing them being sold? There are no players capable of playing them. Although my actual figures are a bit off. A standard HD-movie (at 720p) is usually around 4.4 GB, ie fits on one dvd. That will get you full 720p resolution and full surround sound. (TV shows are 1 GB though and have the same picture quality and sound). Is it compressed? Yes, to a degree. But the x264 codec that is used to do that compression is very good at what it does, and streaming the files to a HD TV gives noticeably better quality than DVD. Can't compare to HD-DVD or Blu-ray since I have no experience with those. But the x264 codec takes a lot of power to run, so until recently there haven't even existed media stations that can run it, other than a dedicated media-pc. And definitely no DVD-player that could. Last fall products finally started to appear on the market (I know of two, but there could be a few more). Also, the movie companies want more space because apparently they think we value extras (and I know a lot of people who do). So Blu-rays gives more space for extras as well as the ability to have movies in 1080, which are would take up twice the space.

I hate to be piling on here, but I'm also finding myself disagreeing with the above statement. First, what is your definition of "immensly large files"? A decent quality movie (decent on a standard TV anyway) would land somewhere around 700 GB. Double that and you'll pretty much get as good as it gets. A TV show would be 350 MB and 700 MB respectively. If you want to go into HD quality, you'll get to roughly 1 GB for a TV show and around twice that for a movie. Maybe a bit more, so say 2.5 GB. Nothing that would take me more than 5-10 minutes to download. Now, I realize not everyone lives in Sweden, where fast and affordable internet is available to everyone, but the rest of the world is bound to catch up sooner or later. I think most people would be able to deal with those kinds of waiting times. Also, I don't see harddrive space being much of an issue either. Movies can easily be burned to DVDs (or similarly blu-rays once burner technology becomes affordable). Besides, they're selling harddrives with a terabyte of storage now, imagine where we'll be in 5-10 years. Secondly, let's not forget the Ipod. They are already selling downloads of both movies and TV shows. I don't know any numbers, but it seems to be a fairly succesful initiative. Those episodes are roughly 220 MB in size iirc, which is more than enough for the screen on the Ipod. Personally I think the biggest obstacle to downloaded movies becoming a much bigger deal is the industry's reluctance to allow it to be. They are scared of file-sharing (which explains the "rental" services), but more importantly they're afraid of the income loss abandoning the traditional model would entail at first. They don't want to alienate companies like Wal-Mart by giving on-line alternatives that are DVD-like in quality until they know they'll be able to make as much money that way. Downloaded movies won't become popular overnight, but once they start selling those over Xbox live, directly downloading them to a system that is already connected to the TV, things will start to change.

Sorry, double post. Sometimes tabbed browsing is a bad thing...

Yeah, the lame link was poorly chosen, didn't check it beforehand. Uncompiled version. This one is better: http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Lame_Encoder.htm

I use Foobar 2000 + LAME encoder. Excellent quality and all free. Don't think there are better options. Foobar is also an excellent music player (although somewhat complicated to set up if you want to get into advanced stuff). Links: http://www.foobar2000.org/ http://lame.sourceforge.net/index.php (I'm not even sure you actually need to get LAME separately, could be included in Foobar. I happen to have both so I'm not sure)

Funny that. I felt it was outdated when it was released. So opinions can definitely differ. (and to be fair, iirc it was released a year after it was completed) Doesn't mean it's a bad game by any means, although the combat was pretty awful. But it's good parts make up for the combat, so it's worth playing. Although if graphics and bells and whistles is important, it's probably best to stay away.

No, we're just saying that the game you described IS Arcanum, down to the plot description.

I really don't think so. Most other races bring something that makes them stand out compared to the others. Halflings and gnomes just seem to be small versions of other races (humans and dwarves respectively). They just don't accomplish anything, other than being small.

It's just that gnomes and halflings really have no purpose, no reason to exist. Evolution should have weeded them out long ago. I just don't see either of them as adding anything unique to a setting. Thankfully, I don't play settings that have either, so I don't really have to worry about them outside of cRPGs. But in those they are almost always of the comic relief variety, which just makes them more annoying (the only exception I can think of is Mazzy in BG2, which is the only halfling or gnome character I've tolerated in any cRPG).

Arcanum (even so much that you managed to get the plot down almost exactly)

Except those screens were a tech demo and not actual in-game screen shots.

Just out of interest, which of the classification systems do you prefer? Both have their merits. If I have to chose I do prefer the SNG system though. If for nothing else that it's a theoretical model constructed by gamers as an attempt to analyze the games we play, rather than market researchers doing the same.

Just hovered your mouse over the waters and had the pointer change to the "interact" version?

Thanks for the links, I hadn't read either before (only had the latter described to me)

If that's what they're doing they'll lose more than 20% though, at least in theory. This because elements that appeal to sim gamers overlap with those of other groups. What are the four groups btw? I've only heard of three (and not from WotC). Those would be Simulation gamers (who try to simulate living in a fictive world), Storytelling gamers (gamers where telling a story takes precedence over everything else, not to be confused with White Wolf's ruleset) and Stat gamers (gamers where character building and progression is at the core, rules are important here. Probably should be named better). In my experience D&D is heavily biased towards the last group. Not saying you can't use the system for any of the others, all rules can be used by all classifications. There is also a lot of overlap and while most gamers fall into one of the groups, most enjoy elements of the others as well. Now, it's very hard to design rules that appease all three groups. Specifically between Storytelling and Stat gaming. The former typically sees the rules as an obstacle to telling a good story, while the latter sees the rules as the means of doing so. (Personally I fall into the simulation style when playing PnP. And me and my group would never use D&D for our gameplay if we can get away with it, it just doesn't suit our needs. This is not to say it's a bad system, just not designed for us. But when playing cRPG I fall much more on the stat side of the fence, and then I like D&D a lot more) Edit: I forgot my actual point. I don't think WotC will lose asmuch s 20% of their customer base by omitting the simulaton aspect altogether. I have a feeling that the players who buy D&D fall quite heavily into the Stat gamer group. So I'm guessing they'd rather try to dominate that demographic rather than try and please everyone. However, the automatic skill progression I've read about is something that Stat gamers would hate, so it seems WotC are alienating them as well. My guess is that they view D&D as an entry point into role-playing and thus wants the rules to be easier to just pick up and play.

I just played that area today with a patched game and they didn't highlight for me either.

Wells of Lurue, top right corner (where on the map there is a notation that says "Wells of Lurue")

No, Atari just doesn't have the money to produceanything, at least not anything of quality.

I would say the poll is about right, or maybe the game is slightly worse. But that's just my opinion. I voted bargain bin for JE, because it's not completely without merits. Some people even think it's really good. So it's worth giving a shot, but don't have too high expectations. It would actually have been a fine game if they had cut the companions altogether though. Voted great game for MotB, because it is. I only have one major complaint against it, but if I say what it is Cantousent will flog me or something Voted worth playing for the Witcher, only because the poll forced me to vote in all categories. Haven't played the Witcher yet, so it's more guessing. But based on what others have been saying ti seems about right (although that was true for JE as well, and that game was a pretty big disappointment).

I knew you were supposed to get them, but missed the last part. You were supposed to click on some lake or something? Missed that in that area (and I did run through all of it). Didn't think anything of it, I just assumed you'd get the Mask later, but I never did.

I've just got to point out that trends in D&D is not the same as trends in PnP in general. Outside of D&D I find it quite rare for the players to have more hitpoints than Elephants. But it all depends on your preference. I'm drawn to a different style of game, so what trends are present is a lot different to me. (of course, we're currently mostly playing Exalted 1ed, where a character that truly wants it can probably be tougher than an elephant, although that means sacrificing a lot of offensive power in the process)

In my experience, FF mainly has problems with anything requiring ActiveX. Ironically so does IE these days. I've also encountered problems with some videoplayers on some sites. Mostly flash based and it could be ad-block that is causing the problems there. But I do have the add-on IEView that easily lets me open the pages in IE whenever that happen, so it's not much of a hassle. There is also a mod that lets you use the IE engine within FF, but it was a bit flaky when I tried (admittedly a long time ago), so I never cared much for it. Also, FF has some issues with some banks here in Sweden. Mine works just fine, but I know my mom and a friend needs to use IE for that (two different banks even).