Magister Lajciak

And you don't care about the campaign at all? I do care about the campaign, but probably not sufficiently to buy the game. I am talking in terms of probabilities, of course, and if the single-player campaign gets such rave reviews from professionals and fans alike that I will consider it worthwile to purchase the game on that basis alone than I will. It's just that by removing offline/LAN-functionality, they have basically removed the multiplayer portion of the game for me, which was the bigger part of the game in my experience, and my possibilities of purchasing the game will have to take that into account, hence the likelihood of my buying it has been greatly reduced and the possibility of day 1 purchase is eliminated (and day 1 purchasing is what I would normally expect to do with non-online [online being WoW] Blizzard games).

Indeed - I too didn't think Blizzard would do something to make me doubt a day 1 purchase of both Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3. As I said, I will probably still get Diablo 3 for the single-player component (though I would strongly prefer playing it with my friends and family and LAN), but Starcraft 2 really needs offline multiplayer functionality for me to buy it. It is ironic, that there may be hackers who add LAN functionality and if they succeed, I may buy the game thanks to those hackers. I am not sure that's exactly what Blizzard had in mind when they decided to fight piracy in this manner, but hey, it may work for me (offline multiplayer) and Blizzard (they could get my money), but that's assuming hackers succeed in doing that.

If it is really for piracy reasons, then Blizzard will prolly add LAN functuality with a patch later, after 6-12 months or so. It is for piracy reasons and they state as much, though they are also trying to provide some spin about building a community and providing better multiplayer experience... In any case, if they do release a patch with online-free multiplayer functionality, I will buy the game immediately after I find out such a patch has been released.

Blizzard has decided to not include LAN support in Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 as an anti-piracy measure. This means that unless things change, I won't be purchasing Starcraft 2, which for me is a primarily multiplayer LAN game, though I will still likely purchase Diablo 3, where I expect the single-player component to be strong enough to justify buying the game on that basis alone. Here is an article on the matter: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-318442.html As a point of interest, the Petition for LAN now has about 70 thousand signatures: http://www.petitiononline.com/LANSC2/petition.html It would be nice if Blizzard changed its mind on this issue, though I am sceptical.

In related news, Blizzard has decided to not include LAN support in Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 as an anti-piracy measure. This means that unless things change, I won't be purchasing Starcraft 2, which for me is a primarily multiplayer LAN game, though I will still likely purchase Diablo 3, where I expect the single-player component to be strong enough to justify buying the game on that basis alone. Here is an article on the matter: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-318442.html As a point of interest, the Petition for LAN now has about 70 thousand signatures: http://www.petitiononline.com/LANSC2/petition.html It would be nice if Blizzard changed its mind on this issue, though I am sceptical.

I mostly lost interest in the franchise after they implemented online authentication and limited installs in their latest Red Alert game, so I guess I wasn't planning on buying it anyway. Unfortunately, this is likely to be the indication of a new trend for gaming. If it is, perhaps I should find myself a new hobby.

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Preview #10 is up! It deals with the updated Barbarian class.

My personal feelings on this are cautiously optimistic. I love the fact that the new OS promises to get rid of the unnecessary clutter that has been bloating recent Windows releases. It is also nice to hear that the new OS will use a Linux kernel and will be open-source. My worries are the likely lack of support for it by many applications, especially games - though if anybody can break Microsoft's hold on such support it is Google - we will just have to wait and see. Even if that happens, however, I can foresee problems with lack of backward compatibility with older Windows applications and games. I am also somewhat worried by the OS being designed 'for the web', which is understandable given Google's focus, but I like having access to things offline - in fact I prefer that hugely - I hate relying on internet connections when it can be avoided. It will be interesting to watch how this develops.

In an interesting development, Google has decided to make its own operating system: Google Chrome OS http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/int...-chrome-os.html http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/08/technology...sion=2009070804

Preview #9 is up and showcases the updated Monk class: http://paizo.com/paizo/blog (It is probably best to add the link to the blog again, since the last one is on the first page.)

This was a good one.

It's not about renaming elves and dwarves into something different, it's about them always having the same basic features. Elves are always the wild, lean, keen-sighted people who live a long time and suffer from a superiority complex while dwarves are the short, grumpy bearded people who live underground. Sure, but these features define these races. Yes, we could make a game, where the elves are humble, short, fat humanoids with poor eyesight and a short lifespan, but there would be no reason to call such a race elves at all. I don't see the point of artificially changing these tropes and in fact welcome being able to recognize an elf for an elf across games. Being different for the sake of being different is not good game design, IMO.

Yes, it does! That's an awesome deal! I thought I would get the print version (which also comes with a free PDF version, if I remember correctly), but getting the full book for only $10 in PDF format might just be too tempting an offer for me to pass up.

I am enthusiastic about some and less so about others. I will definitely get the final book and decide whether 3.5E will remain my primary ruleset with some Pathfinder RPG changes and my own changes thrown in or if Pathfinder RPG will be my primary ruleset with some 3.5E changes and my own changes included. Either way, I will most likely run a hybrid game.

I have not been much of a Bard fan in the past, but that is not so much due to the mechanics as it is because of the 'frivolous' flavor - bard sings at enemies... That said, I do recognize that it is a valid and historically rooted archetype that needs to be supported, so kudos to the Paizo people for upgrading it in such a good way.

Domains grant powers at various levels and spells. Turn Undead now = Channel Energy which can be used to either heal living or harm undead. Meh, what's the point of healing spell conversion then? Now you can replace it with the much more flavorful domain spell conversion.

It can work if done well. Look at Starcraft (an RTS game no less!), which did this very well. You didn't play the same events with different characters, but rather played different parts of the story from the perspectives of different characters.

Batteries are more efficient than hydrogen fuel cells: http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficie.../fuel-cell3.htm http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficie.../fuel-cell4.htm There is also an energy loss involved in the production of hydrogen, which I believe is substantially greater than the loss when charging a battery, but I cannot recall where I read that. Of course, hydrogen fuel cells can store much more energy per unit mass, so there is a trade-off. Battery technology is improving, however, and it is entirely possible that batteries will win out in the end with fuel cells proving a dead-end technology for the majority of automotive applications. Then again, fuel cell technology is improving too.... This lack of clarity about which will turn out to be better illustrates the difficulty/danger of commiting to a technology/infrastructure too early.

Ford Nucleon The sheer brilliance behind the idea of a car carrying a nuclear reactor as a power source is only rivaled by stunning intelligence of the notion of the Nuclear Plane.

taks makes a good point - they need to develop infrastructure for long range car travel, not just city travel. Otherwise, most people won't buy the electric car. I know I wouldn't buy an electric car if it was for city use only (and having two cars is too expensive). Whereas most travel might be within the city, the flexibility the car provides for out of city travel is also crucial to its appeal. Example: Let's say I want to go to my family's cottage in the mountains, which is 320 kilometers from Bratislava, where I live. Your suggestion of using public transportation is workable, but much less convenient. If I take a bus, my trip will take more than twice as long as if I travelled by car (exact multiple will depend on how much waiting there will be when changing buses) and will be constrained by schedules and require me to change buses twice. On top of that, if I travel by car, I will have flexibility when I am at the cottage and will be able to visit other places in the region easily. Plus, when going to the cottage, I generally want to bring some supplies and perhaps some new things (e.g. new chairs or something) and then bring some things back on the return jourbey. Using a bus, this would be much harder to do (at best). To top it all off, I rarely go to our family cottage alone - I generally go there with... family. We calculated that two people taking the bus will cost about the same as two people going by car. If three of us are going, the car is the cheaper option and if 4 of us go and we want to take a dog too... Obviously, that's just one example, but I think it illustrates the appeal of having a car that can do both urban travel and long-distance travel, as essentially all cars can do these days - apart from those using innovative propulsion technologies. Someday, the infrastructure will be there for these cars too, but the lack of flexibility of short and long range travel will constrain the appeal of these new vehicles in the meantime. Let's hope the transition is as swift as possible.

The Paladin is awesome!

HDDs are large these days, so I don't think 20GB will be a problem. I have a question about graphics cards requirements. I have a very respectable graphics card NVIDIA 9800GTS... but it is the mobile version, since I use a notebook. I am still sure it exceeds the minimum requirements, but does it reach the recommended requirements?

I think this is one of the major reasons why governments (and companies) are not moving significantly faster towards building the infrastructure for alternative fuels/power sources. To put it simply, nobody wants to bet on a loser. Building a new transportation infrastructure network is very expensive and building multiple transportation infrastructure networks is unconscionably expensive. Some sort of international agreement may be useful to standardize interfaces of each type of infrastructure (be it hydrogen, or battery, or biofuel, or whatever), but even then it is unclear which of the technological solution will be the ultimate winner and building infrastructure for all of them is prohibitively expensive. As a result, the waiting game continues, as governments don't commit to an infrastructure system until it becomes clearer which one will ultimately prevail.

I am actually looking forward to the game a lot, but your response is just awesome!