Spider

I agree with this statement 100%. An interesting observation here is that while I totally agree with Eldar here, our appreciation of the actual work is totally different. But see what can happen in a discusion when we actually try to get along.

Ginthaeriel, I'd just like to point out that not all dislike your way of handling yourself in this discussion. I find your posts very interesting and your style of argumenting (with quotes and all) to be very helpful to the reader in order to keep things sorted. Nor do I feel that you devaluate Tolkien, but I guess in this I could be a little biased since I am not a great fan of him myself, although that is because I don't like him as a writer. I do not deny his accomplishments when it came to defining the "High Fantasy" genre. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that some people do appreciate your posts in this thread and find them entertaining and informative. Edit: Also, props for quoting Michael Moorcok on occasion. Of him I am a fan.

I'm far from an authority on the topic. I don't know enough of Tolkien's works or Irish folklore to say anything for sure. But from what I do know, the Sidhe (or at least a part of the sidhe, there are variances) resemble Tolkien's elves a lot more than the norse elves do.

SP, citing your source (wikipedia) is always a nice thing to do, epsecially when copying an entire article. Anyway, a link to why I thought the Sidhe (at least in part) inspired the Tolikenesque version of elves: http://celticsociety.freeservers.com/sidhe.html Some quotes: I don't know how reliable this site is as a source (I googled it), but this is what I've read in the past.

I thought Tolkien's elves were more modeled after the irish Sidhe?

Funny, I thought this was a thread about D&D online. I guess I was wrong... So no one here has tried it yet? This is the first MMORPG I even have any interest in trying, so it would be nice to hear if someone has any actual experience with it. The beta has been going on for a while now, even if it hasn't been released officially (although the servers have gone live). There are two things about this game that make it stand out from normal MMORPGS in my eyes. And no, one of them is not that it's D&D. 1: Only ten levels. I don't know exactly how this is going to work since mmorpgs players in general are levelling addicts and I have read that they are splitting each level up in four "sublevels" (my word). But it's still intriguing. 2: (Mor importantly) Quest XP only. You can level up to max level without being forced to build a combat character. The game is about solving quests and if you can do so without fighting, then more power to you. I do expect that there will be a lot of combat, but it still creates more variety in the characters. Again, I don't know if it works, but it's a cool idea (and somethng I'd love to see all cRPGs embracing). Also, being able to create a character with D&D 3.5 multiclassing rules in full effect makes for lots of varied characters.

All I have to say is: Where did the US end up in the hockey tournament? Kumquatq3? Oh, and of course:

The journalist was the model played bu Lucy Lawless. I only recall one additional model in the pilot (the one found on the abandoned space station) and he was in this episode as well. It's possible I've missed someone though, it's been a while.

I'm fairly happy as long as they do either or. I vastly prefer RPGs where my character's skill is what decides if I succeed in a task o rnot, but I'm not adversed to a system similar to that in Vampire: Bloodlines (player skill decides whether or not I hit, but character skill makes hitting easier and affects how much damage is dealt). I know most games are pausable, but I meant it in the same sense you did. Now, I haven't played Morrowind for much more than a few hours total and it's been ages, so I'm probably totally wrong here. But didn't the game pause when you right-clicked and allowed you to do stuff like change weapons, access inventory, reposition the mouse so that you had a lock on your target and only needed to click on it once you went out of pause and so? Like I said, it's not unlikely I am way off on this, but that's how I remember it.

Do you mean that player skill or character skill has been removed in the "to hit factor"? Either way I think that's a positive thing though. If I am forced to physically connect with an attack, I don't want my skill invalidated by an incompetent character (and vice versa). Either use my skill, or my character's. Regardless, I definitely don't see going in either direction as dumbing down the game. Also, Morrowind was definitely pausable. I don't remember how much you could do when it was paused, but I know the option was there. I'm still not a fan of the series and I don't expect I will like Oblivion overly much, but at least they change enough things to warrant me giving it a fair shot.

I don't think it's too bad. The HD working has never bothered me when playing games and I'm with speakers, not headphones. When not playing games, the load on the HD is fairly minor, so then it's really a non-issue imo.

It's for The Temple of Elemental Evil. What it boils down to is that identifying a magic item would only give you it's name. Like a magic staff would become Staff of Striking, but there was no description of what a Staff of Striking actually does. There was no way other than trial and error to figure out what the things did unless you knew beforehand (most items were standard D&D items).

Not a bug, a feature. Apparently that's how the Troika fellows run their DnD games so they thought it'd be cool for the game as well. It has subsequently been fixed though. I don't know if it's in the official patch or the Co8 one, but with all patches there is a right click option to read more about items (like what they actually do). In fact, with all patches applied, the game is playable. At least if you play it as a combat game like JA2 or similar. It's still only decent, but at least it is tolerable.

From what I've seen (on forums and such) VO is less costly than you'd think. I don't have any numbers, but I've read that it's actually a pretty marginal cost, which is why so many games does it. Personally I love full VO, it adds so much athmosphere. And theoretically it should improve the writing as well (when your dialgoue is actually spoken you have to take more care), although ToEE proved that this does not have to be the case. That's a game that would have benefited from NO voiceacting.

Not when it comes to your desktop. I'm sure you make up for it in other... ways... Like I said, I'm the anti-alanschu.

I get "distressed" whenever I stare at my husband's shortcut-heavy desktop...gah. Tho in threads like these, clean desktops don't provide much entertainment for the curious snoopers. I like that side bar thing, I'd probably use that. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I don't know. The current state of my desktop is heavily inspired by threads like these. I find people who are creative with their desktops to be very interesting. The again, I missed the snoopers part. No, my desktop doesn't provide much information about what secrets I got stashed. The sidebar was inspired by a similar thread as well as the custom toolbars in the bottom right that takes the place of many icons. The sidebar, by the way, is from here and there are tons of panels to chose from.

Thanks. I used to have an extremely cluttered desktop, but then it dawned on me that I never used the icons I had on there, so I started weeding them out. When I finally found a way to get rid of the hated Recycle bin icon, I felt so... complete.

Nope. Just a skinned XP and an external program called Desktop sidebar. But when Vista comes around I'll be happy not having to rely on external programs for that functionality.

I am the anti-alanschu. edit: images added through attachement rather than img--tag to preserve the anity of people on this board.

Umm... The game DOES pause if you open the inventory. So you can change weapons in combat while the game is paused (as well as do stuff like use Bloodbags) Regardless, Troika went down because the produced severly flawed games, not because they were too hardcore for the average consumer.

He's ah...he's been busy making Dungeon Siege games.... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> No, I believe that's the Chris Taylor that didn't work at Interplay.

Currently reading: Michael Moorcok's (damn that language filter) The White Wolf's Son. Or reading and reading, it's sitting on my shelf looking at me while I am not reading it. Not because it's bad, more the other way around. It's a great book and I don't want to read it because then I'll finish it and since it's the last Eternal Champion book ever (a tale 50 years in the making) and the last Elric novel ever, finishing it means the end of so much. I'm not quite ready for that yet. The book is absolutely fantastic though, definitely MM at his best. Most recently finished: Terry Pratchett's Going Postal, the lates Discworld book to make it into paperback. Holds the same high standards as usual, although it isn't one of my favorites. I still really enjoyed it of course. Next book to get: David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. I really liked both Ghostwritten and number9dream so I have high hopes for this one. The first two were a bit uneven, but when they were good, they were absolutely awesome. Before that I'm likely to re-read Willam Gibson's brilliant Pattern Recognition though. I've only read it once and it's about time it gets another read through. (yes I know I praise all the books above quite a lot, but I'm kinda picky about my writers, so what I do read I am likely to love)

Sorry about that, my internet was down for a couple of weeks and I only checked the date on the last post. Just a small note, I didn't say AC didn't make sense. I understand how it works and the reasoning behind it just fine. I just think it's stupid.

I also disagree with this statement. I played PnP long before I played any cRPG and my first encounter with the concept of AC was from AD&D. And I never thought decreasing AC made much sense. Then again, I think AC the way it works in either D&D edition is stupid anyways. But that is beside the point.

I couldn't disagree more. My Raptor has been amazing, the performance is incredible. I have a friend with a 74 and they are about the same.