Rostere

So, the other day I was at a party and had the opportunity to drink a lot of Swedish beer traditionally seasoned with bog myrtle. Great stuff!

Well, the original intent was to pick a verbal fight, but then I changed my mind... So, at the time I wrote it, wouldn't it be considered trolling? Never thought I'd be arguing one of my own posts was actually trolling... :S

This post seems pretty silly now that congressmen are running away from this bill in droves. As I said, given the scale of the protests and resistance, the chances of it passing were slim and the odds of it surviving legal scrutiny were even slimmer. So maybe the US isn't quite like China after all. Of course I was exaggerating a lot Really, I don't even think SOPA/PIPA would be the end of Internet like many seem to - if there were corporations taking down wikipedia instead of wikipedia taking down wikipedia, the backlash would be crazy. The things I really think are worrisome are other stuff, regarding surveillance and the judicial system. You'll have to forgive me for trolling a bit for trying to provoke a response regarding civil rights in general. But that discussion would really be a bit OT and it can't be interpreted as anything else than a compliment to this forum that no one took my bait I think the appropriate term for what you were doing was 'being mendacious' rather than 'trolling'. I think "trolling" was perfectly descriptive.

Okay guys. What is this and why haven't I heard of it before?

This post seems pretty silly now that congressmen are running away from this bill in droves. As I said, given the scale of the protests and resistance, the chances of it passing were slim and the odds of it surviving legal scrutiny were even slimmer. So maybe the US isn't quite like China after all. Of course I was exaggerating a lot Really, I don't even think SOPA/PIPA would be the end of Internet like many seem to - if there were corporations taking down wikipedia instead of wikipedia taking down wikipedia, the backlash would be crazy. The things I really think are worrisome are other stuff, regarding surveillance and the judicial system. You'll have to forgive me for trolling a bit for trying to provoke a response regarding civil rights in general. But that discussion would really be a bit OT and it can't be interpreted as anything else than a compliment to this forum that no one took my bait

The "unfavourable" reviews on Metacritic just made my day... Seriously, scroll through the user reviews and read the ones giving SWTOR a 1 or a 0. I can't blame Bioware for saying Metacritic has been hijacked. Seriously, there are some VERY angry people out there. I can personally in a way relate to the "single player RPG elitists" who wanted KotOR 3 but got this, but most of them seems to have played and enjoyed WoW. SWTOR is better than WoW in almost every aspect, except of course for end-game content.

LOL, the U.S., what can you say... I'm not really surprised, considering the events in the recent decade. I guess eventually, the individual will have no rights against the state/ strong corporations at all over there. This is all a part of a quite recent trend. Strange, how the U.S. is growing more and more like China. People talk of increased Chinese political influence. Well, this is probably not what they meant, but if it was, I'd say the Chinese have done a damn fine job.

Well. Another pic of a cat in front of a bookcase shows dictionaries of Danish and Occitan, plus a "Teach Yourself Icelandic" book. In addition to this a book called "The Gypsies". Among fiction, we find "Italian Folktales" by Italo Calvino and "The Club Dumas" by Arturo P

It's (naturally) the same with all classes - my BH keeps repeating some really cheesy wannabe-Arnold lines over and over again. You kind of learn to like the way of conversation...

This.

Well, 1. SW:TOR 2. DX:HR 3. Portal 2 Don't think I can make a longer list with just new games. Been replaying a lot of old games, crazy amounts of Thief trilogy among others.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqaXWOk3uB0

It blows my mind that people think 4th Ed. is more munchkin-oriented (or min-maxer) oriented than 3.5E/3E or 2nd Ed. In previous editions, I could get away with stat murder compared to what's possible in 4E (IME, of course). "Munchkin" point of view meant in this case the perspective of one who sees the game as merely numbers. So what I meant to say when I wrote about changes positive from that point of view, was basically the same thing which appears to be your opinion as well.

I don't really know about others, but I do despise 4th ed., in particular I hate the new Forgotten Realms with a passion. The alignment system especially is entirely messed up, WotC has been like a retarded kid playing with his father's model railway. What really saddens me is that I really can't find any sensible reason for the changes and additions to the lore - they're just plain stupid. Game mechanically, the new D&D looks a lot more like, say, WoW, and in several ways those changes are actually positive, but only from a strictly "munchkin" point of view. Even if I don't prefer it, I can stand 4th ed. D&D. Regarding 4th ed. FR however, I feel I must make a personal appeal to anyone reading this not to buy anything associated with it. Never has such a classic setting been desecrated in such a way. It's worse than Star Wars ep. 1, X-Com: Enforcer, or any other cheap spinoff I can think of. To be honest, I think my inner nerd has never been so sad as when I heard of the new FR. What were they thinking? Were they drunk? Did they have 12 year old kids as writers? Did they have drunk 12-year-olds as writers?

wat

I'm sorry, but I can't see how modern technology could possibly allow such a mistake to happen. You'd have to be a brutally worthless engineer when constructing the drone, and I honestly don't think those are allowed to work on military hardware - if that is the case though, the US military must be making some serious reassessments regarding which "halfwits" they buy their equipment from. More likely, the drone had the capability to stay out of Iranian airspace with precision, but some military goon gave it imprecise instructions. Or alternatively, it was really on an espionage/surveillance mission.

It would be cool if Obsidian were working on an expansion for SW:TOR

I won't be playing until somewhere around January/February, but I hear my guild will play on a server called "Niman".

This was only a matter of time. Now, when will Wales become a sovereign country?

Nice. I love Starflight. Played one on the Megadrive!

Agree - this is the weirdest thread

+1

So, apparently I'm also in the beta now. Neat!

The Byzantines had a mass of political maneuverings, infighting, backstabbing and general fun and games going on. The Imperial Court, the Bureaucracy, the Nobility, the Soldiers, and that's only keeping to what was happening within the Empire. Take in the efforts of the Persians as neighbours... They also had the cold war and on/off border skirmishes and outright short wars over a few centuries. Something that the Sith Inquisitor should have a good handle on. So therefore, someone with knowledge of how that sort of stuff actually happens.. is more likely to produce an interesting setup then someone who has no clue at all. Every dark-age/medieval state has struggled with such problems. I just don't agree that there are any similarities between those and the sith empire. You can't just say that Byzantine Christianity is the same as Force worship and start copy-pasting. If you really need inspiration there are plenty of modern autocracies that would make for a far better model. 1. Yes, throughout history there has obviously been other countries like Byzantium, similar in one or several ways. That does, however, not make Byzantium itself a less good source for inspiration. 2. The point is not that Byzantium = Sith Empire. The Sith Inquisitor is a character presumably acting in a "devious, usually stealthy manner". Studying a society associated with these ways, or really the image today of that society, would give a heightened understanding of how you can deserve that reputation. In the extreme case, there would have existed a real society which exactly mirrored (what we know of) the Sith Empire. However, by drawing inspiration from that source, we would have added nothing to make the Star Wars universe more colourful and interesting. To make a wider picture, you will have to expand on different aspects of the Sith Empire. 3. No one has equated Byzantine Christianity and Force worship. 4. To be honest, I don't really think so myself. That's mostly a result of Crusader propaganda and a very long history. Most western kingdoms couldn't even dream of the sophistication and organization of byzantine state and so they didn't comprehend it fully. If we were to examine 1000 years of history of say France or Britain their history has seen as much civil strife as Byzantium. Nobody is saying Byzantium was not sophisticated. I'd claim rather the contrary. But who is to say their hierarchical system is not complicated: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_ari...and_bureaucracy. Like stated before, there have been lots of other nations supporting an autocracy with a rigid, ritualistic, complex hierarchy. Seeing France under Louis XIV as an inspiration for the story of a Sith Inquisitor would also be interesting. The reason I think I'm more excited about Byzantium is that it lies much further from the modern collective memory, it feels more distant and exotic. What remains today is only the condensed stereotype and it's web of associations - the perfect raw material of inspiration to draw upon.