Deadeye Dragoon

That's upsetting. I don't post here much, nor do I have interest in NWN2, but yeesh. You're developing the game, and have established a nice community here. For Atari/Bioware to usurp that is in very poor taste, business reasons aside. Obsidian, I have no clue as to your future developments, but I hope soon you develop some unique titles, and use your growing success to write your own ticket. Reliance on outside forces (such as...Interplay for example) is a risky move, even if you produce succesful games. It can damage your fanbase and your appearance of individuality. Sure, you need a publisher, and hopefully you'd find one more amenable to your needs rather than its own. But as a company you're a sovereign entity and I hope you demonstrate it by making your own games without any further collusion. But, here's hopes for success no matter what you develop nor how your partners decide to hose you.

Ah, but you say yourself, the goal is to drive Western people and influence from Arab and Muslim states. If that's the actual goal, then if Spain withdraws its influence, it won't be a target. They received that bombing for thier interference, and withdrawing that doesn't bring them to favour in al qaeda's eyes, at best it brings them to neutrality. IMO no political decision should be made with this (relations to a crap terrorist group) in mind, but based on your points it would seem a pragmatic way to defend oneself from terrorism--if the terrorists have a clear calculus for action against states, remove yourself from the equation. Yes, after/if Western influences are removed from the Middle East, AQ may turn to others, certainly Spain would be an apt target historically and as an inroads to Europe. But the Iraq War as a reason for Spaniards to display their willingness to fight against al qaeda is hardly a reason at all. Iraq was not number 1. If anything Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Pakistan were, if the measure of guilt is ties to al qaeda, 9/11, and being a lousy government. That's the major mistake I see; while there are parallels with Reagan's Evil declarations, Bush doesn't appear to know who the enemy actually is. Pakistan--has nukes, was selling nuclear secrets to others, has an unelected military dictator in charge, was one of the only countries which recognized the Taliban as Afghanistan's legitimate government, is perhaps the state with the most populous al qaeda contingent, has its own state-sponsored pseudo-terrorism in Kashmir. (Pakistan though has long been a good guy/bad guy, both Reagan and Clin-ton IIRC removed and reapplied sanctions against them when it seemed to suit some stupid higher purpose. That's placating and appeasing a dangerous country, my friend. And so was choosing them for a base of operations for the Afghanistan war rather than one of the former SSRs. So was the recent addition of them to a higher-level ally status.) Qadaffi's declaration was no mystery, he'd been working on improving relations with the West for about the last 5 years, viewing the opening of the oil markets well worth the abstention from WMD production and general "terror support" stuff. The timing is great for Bush but the reason is more self-helpful capitalist pragmatism by Qadaffi than fear of an invasion. At least IMO. Iran has been turning up for the last decade as well, but the latest election was a farce and the Ayatollah is firmly in charge in the end. I see no great spike in Iran's movement to democracy from the Iraq War. They've given the IAEA lip service and scant inspections but have warned that they'll withdraw from the NPT if the West gives them too much crap. And of course their nuke program may be legitimate, certainly can't count on Western intelligence now to determine that. Syria continues to support Palestinian groups, and be involved with skirmishes with Israel over Golan, I haven't seen any great spike there. Governmentalistically, they haven't made any sweeping reformations, and continue to be a pseudo-democracy, with public elections for most positions but still great military influence in the process. Meanwhile Bush nearly made the stupidest decision imaginable pre-war, allowing Turkey to place troops in Northern Iraq or even staging from Turkey. Which surely would've led to a Kurdish rebellion and much more strife than now. Bush has made an ally of one nuke-toting non-democracy in Pakistan, and has not made any "bold moves" against North Korea, which is certainly more of a threat to distribute WMDs to anti-West groups than Iraq was, particularly since it actually has some. Finally, while it's good that we're now withdrawing our stagings at Saudi Arabia, they remain the least democratic nation in the ME (all others allow at least popularly elected parliaments or other positions. SA allows zero votes) despite being our largest ally there for the last 10 years. And we've moved on to Bahrain and Qatar, which in the ME are not great democracies either, relative to others. Meanwhile the poppy farms of Afghanistan have never been hit, allowing a continuing flow of money to al qaeda and a sleeping Taliban, warlords still run provinces there, the central government is weak and it will/would be quite easy for the anti-West factions to regain power as soon as the US withdraws. While Bush's words of his ideologies make some sense, he doesn't back it up with the action you cite. Clearly if he is backing up his ideology with action, then the ideology he speaks of publicly is not his real ideology. Actions of his Administration do not equate to promoting Democracy as much as a flailing effort to redefine policy to something equally ridiculous, only with new names. You cited al qaeda as manipulating Spain's democracy. Considering that there's more than one gauntlet here, and that America threw its own down when invading Iraq, rather than picking up any left for them there by AQ, this isn't a relativistic criticism, it's a factual one. The BA manipulated democracy as well. You want to blame AQ for causing Aznar's party to lose? You're missing a lot. It wasn't al qaeda-->9/11-->Afghanistan-->Iraq. It was al qaeda-->9/11-->Afghanistan-->(break) United States-->Iraq. Implying al qaeda forced a move on Iraq is silly, IMO. Osama had no tune in Iraq. That's the main problem here, that the War on Iraq was not tied to the War on Terror, in billions of people's minds. Including millions of Spaniards. Even if one agrees with the policy of global protection and the need for every country everywhere to fight a global terrorist organization (which I do agree with), when a country stupidly invades a country that has little to do with terror yet claims it does, that is going to hurt the effort more than help it. My objection to Bush is not that he wants to fight terror, it's that he claims/ed invading Iraq was an important step in that fight, worth upsetting allies that could prove useful later in a truly related matter, and having a net result of more, rather than less, terrorism. Spain voted out a party that supported a foolish and highly inciteful war. AQ took advantage of the War to prop it up as a show of Western belligerence. It's a damn shame that throwing out Anzar's party for idiocy coincides with an AQ goal, but what's the alternative? Rewarding actions that actually exacerbate the war on terror, fearful to be seen as terror-lovers? You want to blame someone for Spain's predicament, blame al qaeda, but also Bush. If Iraq had been a true target in the war on terror Aznar would have been much, much, much, much stronger, and Spaniards could see this. Here's a bad analogy. Say the US warned that Canada was a terror threat. Due to loose borders, or evidence of AQ operatons being allied with its government, or something equally absurd on its face at least. Say a European country decided to join the lunacy and invade Canada, which lets assume was completely innocent of any terror-related charge. AQ flocks to Canada post-invasion, gains new recruits right on our doorstep and across the world, and just before that European country's election, explodes bombs there. You think that country should vote for the party that joined in an invasion of Canada for supposed anti-terror justifications? Perhaps if they are reelected, next invasion will be Mexico, with their faulted ideology, intelligence, reasoning, or whatever led them to invade Canada. And perhaps Aznar's party would've jumped on the bandwagon again if we decided to invade Cuba or Syria in a couple years for the same justifications we used to invade Iraq. "Showing resolve" in the face of terrorism is one thing, "voting for idiots" is something completely different. The former should not necessitate the latter. Invading Iraq for the justification that Saddam was a horrible murderous dictator may have been acceptable, within the confines of a multilateral agreement that it was necessary. Propping up ridiculous claims of grave danger, mushroom clouds, and terror connections was a very dire mistake that is biting us in the ass. And will bite us in the future if we ever claim any other country is a danger because of these things. Iraq was alluring, being militarily crippled, already halfway under fly-overs, a humanitarian cesspool, and involved in a series of UN resolutions it was in violation of. But what it was not was tied to the War on Terror, surely no more than most other ME countries, and that shouldn't have been broached as a reason for invasion, nor tied ideologically to the action. We offered up an entire country on a silver platter to those who would foment real terrorism. Hope I got the quote thingies right.

I don't grok why someone objecting to a War that has little to do with anti-terrorism is labelled an appeaser to terrorism. Nor why the Spanish election result is foremost seen as appeasing al qaeda rather than punishing a Bush supporter. Did Spain support the Afghanistan invasion? That really was about al qaeda, anti-US and Western terrorism, and an adequate judgement for policy. Iraq was hardly a model that we can use to judge any nation's pro/anti-terrorist bent. While al qaeda and others have used the War as a fomenter for their agendas, it isn't because of revenge for the invasion itself; al qaeda and Iraq were hardly connected. Iraq was and is being used as an ideological platform rather than being one of its own. If you cite ansar al-islam, I'll just note they were in the Northern no-fly zone, without much connection to Iraq proper. If you mention MEK, some US congresspeople actually want that group taken off our Foreign Terrorist Organization list and used to undermine/attack the Iranian theocrats, and that we currently have not disbanded the organization but merely disarmed them and given them a fairly free camp to operate in. They are in limbo. If you mention support for Palestinian terrorist bombers, that support went to families of the bombers post bombing, not to Hamas or al aqsa, and considering these families also automatically have their homes bulldozed, seems a balance. Saddam was a bastard and it's great he's gone, but his only real target group was his own people, he didn't join any anti-West terror groups, didn't give them even a single conventional weapon AFAIK, and can hardly be called a terror supporter. Nor did many terrorists orginate from Iraq. Of the 600 or so folks at Gitmo, either 0 or 1 are from Iraq, compared to several hundred from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan each, IIRC. The War on Iraq had little if anything to do with the War on Terror. To your first paragraph, yes al qaeda sees an opportunity to manipulate politics, something they've been doing for for years, a means to their goal of throwing out Western influence from Islamic nations. Doing so by attacks on civilians is unforgiveable of course. But you completely ignore the manipulation of American and other democracies by George Bush's Administration re: the Iraq War and its place in any current consequential strife. Don't seek to place all blame for Aznar's party's loss on al qaeda, put a lot of it on the decision to go to war with Iraq, a decision recognized by Spaniards as foolhardy, great for Iraqis but likely to increase terrorism rather than decrease it. It's too bad that al qaeda decided to push buttons, but IMO the Spaniards voted wisely in the end. This vote could mean that in three years, if/when the US pushes for and invades Syria or Iran or Nation X, Spain doesn't automatically follow like a lap dog to an Imperialistic master. This will mean less dead Spaniards, the ability to focus on Spain's own terrorist problems of ETA and more on actual al qaeda-related movements in Spain, etc. Makes for a much clearer and efficient definition and use of resources. I also don't see this as a highly leftist/liberal/appeaser move; it may be seen as so because the neo-conservative hawkish US agenda is the one that's being voted "against" and politics are often polarised into extremes. But I see the vote as more moderate than wussie leftist. Zapatero may be a leftist, and I don't agree that Spain should pull troops out of Iraq (though they made a foolish decision, there are obligations that go along with it), but don't necessarily judge people's votes by the attitude of the only viable candidate. In the end I don't see it as a vote for an appeasement as much as a vote against extremely foolish and fairly pointless (aside from bettering the Iraqi people's lives, which weren't the justifications proferred) warring on foreign nations. That AQ or the media views it as a singular reaction to the bombings is hardly at the top of reasons for the vote IMO. Basically, folks here (here being the US media mostly) seem to be arguing only two possible reasons and options for the vote, neither IMO palatable or terribly accurate. 1) Vote for Aznar's party=affirming commitment to the "War on Terror" (or if a lefty, to aggressive moves against nations which don't pose much actual danger or link to terrorism), and 2) Vote for Zapatero's party=completely caving in to terrorism, abdicating responsibility for action against al qaeda. Not that definitive at all, I prefer 3) Vote against Aznar, recognizing that the Iraq War was a mistake and punishing him for it, preferring to focus in the future on more domestic dangers to Spain and Spaniards.

Big fat hairy men Just like me! Oops. Busted. Ahah! I knew it! I'm a 13 year old girl myself. I knew both. You two would make a good couple!

In PnP you have no choice but to take turns. If you dont then you get chaos because everyone would be talking and trying to do something at the same time and a human DM cant cope with that kind of sensory overload. A computer on the other hand has no problem multitasking. In fact they are very good at it. RT is something that can only be done on a computer. The pause aspect is there to facilitate the interaction between the computer and user. I see very little reason to place the limits of one media on another just because. This doesn't answer why TB is a limitation of PnP media. You need to explain exactly what the limitation is in a PnP TB game, what is sacrificed by each player moving in turn versus what could be gained from it, and the same for the same game in PnP but also RT if it were possible. Just pointing out that a computer can calculate X times faster than a human is "just because" for your own argument. WHY should a TB game ported to computer be better in RT? Does it matter the type of game or tactics? Just PnP RPGs? Chess? Why or why not? "no choice to take turns"? Why would a PnP player not want to take turns?

(strictly TB) Jagged Alliance 2 had auto-resolve, though it didn't give results as efficient as if you commanded things, it was useful for cleaning up a stray enemy who you couldn't find. Of course there are very few easy fights in that game IMO, which goes to your second point. And to where RT is viable. IMO (group) RT can be used if a) the discrepancy in power/survivability between PCs and enemies is vast, or b ) the tactics simply aren't very intricate. Modifying this slightly is TBWP, the best example being IWD2 which had some very challenging RTish battles, with challenging opponents (which made the autopause that much more important, as was said). In pure RT/no-pause group games the challenge just can't be very severe, and intricate tactics--or at least tactics based on multiple action selections, must be unnecessary to survive. In such games "tactics" generally just resolve around positioning and targeting. Not variety of actions. ACK, I keep writing b ) without the space and it turns into a smiley face

Well, I did as you suggested a while back and played through Tactics in RT, with a full squad. It was a far cry from efficiency for me, unless I took the boring decoy+sniper route. With two unarmed, two frontliners, and two supporters, I could only really attack in three phases of 2 as a group (or often just a single 2-man attack), with each 2-man unit performing the same actions, attacking the same enemy, etc. It just seemed quite loose and quite prone to failure by surprises. It was not "Tactics" IMO, beyond the preparation to position and AI settings before the slamdances began. It was certainly not "perfect" considering the available tactics found in TB mode being diluted in RT mode. I managed to employ as much tactics as I could though, but for any interesting tactics it would turn into a clickfest. Can I click that guy to use grenades just before my unarmed characters go in, then click that guy again in time so that he won't keep hurling grenades at my now active unarmed guys? That had become the primary determiner of success in any battles with interesting and elastic tactics. Or, more often, I'd just ignore interesting ideas and go for the easiest win with the same boring methods again and again. In turning into a clickfest, it had lost most of its tactical nuance and challenge for me. Again, hardly perfect. The problem with cycling is quite easy to fix, with a sleep mode one checks during or before the battle, the cycles would skip those on sleep/overwatch mode. BTW, have you ever played JA2? If so, would you think an RT mode would perfectly reflect the tactical possibilities of its TB mode?

Why do you keep saying this? If you have a full team of six in Tactics, you will never be able to control/alter actions of two or more members at the same time. You'll never get more than 1/6 control over the group at any gaming moment, and it's just silly to claim that 5 out of 6 tics of AI "control" makes perfect use of its combat system. Tactics AI does not crouch, does not switch weapons depending on utility, does not flee behind cover, does not use items, does not switch targets depending on threat level, does not choose between burst and single-shot, etc. etc. There's a big difference between RT/TB modes in games depending on whether one is only controlling a single character or multiple characters. If you played RT Tactics with a single player I could see your point being hypothetically validated by game speed allowing time for actions for that single PC that would adequately mirror TB actions per need. As is, claiming it gives a player the same control of a team in RT as it does TB is just nonsense. But I haven't read the rest of this thread so perhaps earlier points acknowledge this. I sure hope so.

True, should've put "in my opinion" after that. To me the sax seems...noncommittal somehow. Without the timbre of other horns but not enough resonance to make it mythical by itself. Then again I don't consider my musical tastes to be very refined.

Nah, He renamed us "If you got oil, we invade" States of America. Hehe, thanks, hope I don't get sent to a camp for using the wrong new name.

I disagree. With the unnecessary Us in "colour" "humour" and such, and Ms and Es in "programme", the average Olde Englishe citizen loses weeks of valuable computer gaming time over their lifetime.

Monterey, California, United States of Kick Your Foreign Ass (Isn't that what Bush renamed us?)

Rock, R&B, old school Rap, Country, Blues, Soul, a bit of Metal. Classical on the radio sometimes. And Bagpipes. Only genre I really (mostly) hate is Jazz. The saxaphone btw is the worst instrument ever created.

Well I liked the orange/blue contrast, but TNO's hairbeads did make me ponder the purchase a bit. Still, the collections of letters (...words?) on the box combined in a way to make the game look interesting. What's the status of the Dark Sun setting? Is it live or dead? I'd like to see a new DS game as much as a new Planescape one, and a DS game would be more free of wacky comparisons and fan mayhem due to Torment. But I kind of hope Obsidian stays well away from WotC. What I'd really like is a new franchise setting and ruleset all owned by Obsidian, with no upward hierarchy to bollix up the works. Screw I'play, screw WotC, I want to see Feargus & Co. survive, and thrive or wither, on their own. KotOR 2 is a fine establishment but in the future I hope they look to independence from outside influence. Assuming they can deny the sirens of the megacorporate capitalist pigdogs.

Howdy everybody! I hope we can guide Obsidian to success through our vast technical knowledge and keen witticisms. Wheee!!