random n00b

Criminal negligence at worst, I'd say. Regardless of all the boasting and the hard-ass attitude, I find it hard to believe that harmful intent, or even the awareness that a serious risk to the soldier's health existed. Should have taken precautions to prevent or mitigate a possible heatstroke - he didn't, and a person died as a result. that's all there's to it. The fact that this happened during a more or less "brutal" disciplining (which is otherwise legal) is, I think, rather irrelevant. I don't think there would be so many people going "ooh!" and "aah!", if it had happened during regular instruction. Heh, that's funny. Probably subjecting a [unlawful combatant] prisoner to that kind of disciplinary measures would be construed as "torture", "inhumane treatment", and any number of other equally imaginative epithets. And yet people actually sign up for it...

What's all the fuss about? If you got nothing to hide, you got nothing to worry about...

Actually, psychopaths need very little motivation to "take the next step", to kill. In fact, an appeal to their vanity (the dying for God thing) and the assurance that there will be no reprisals (they'll be dead) can be just enough. Combine that with an often extremely low (the folks that do the bombing) or extremely high (the ones that plan them) IQ, and you have a winner. I'm not making up any of that. You say greed or any other factor can be a motive to kill, and I agree. But then, why the fixation on Islam? I'm not defending the clerics. They *are* profitting from the fact that attention is diverted towards the Evil Others instead of their own domestic problems. They maintain the Theocracy status quo, after all.

Ah, yeah. I guess I forgot to make my point - can't think straight when I haven't slept. The deal is, Islam is not what's pushing people to kill. It's just the tool used to generate a group identity that can then be redirected into a "US vs THEM" mentality, enough to have people support terrorism (or be able to look the other side, at least). Unfortunately, the exact same attitude is prevalent in the West, only in a negative. This is from Metadigital's profile, but I think it illustrates this very well: http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/monkeysphere.html

I wonder if Pro-death fashion would yield similar results?

Yeah. And the fact that we aren't taught the barbarism of the Umayyads (more like the opposite), should speak volumes, considering they were invaders and had to be kicked out for a fully "Christian" kingdom to be established. Actually, it was a period of unprecedented advancement in the region, not seen since the fall of the Roman Empire... Of course, it eventually came down to petty plotting and backstabbing, and things declined. And then... the Empi... er... Christians Struck Back! Why? Religion is just like any other social tool. You think TV or the Internets are actually opening your mind? Hominids killed their peers long before they had firearms. It's just a scapegoat. And, as Wals cleverly pointed out, we're just playing into the hands of the fundies by centering on Islam, instead of those pulling its strings. Actually, no. You don't need to have an entire population that's murderous - that's insane. It's much better to recruit those that are actually capable of doing the killing (which may account for about ~1% of the population in the West, I don't know over there), and then manipulate the rest into tolerating it. We invented that, as well. Hitler nailed it. I'm fairly confident that your average Saudi Arab couldn't cut your head off, even if he wanted. On the other hand, it doesn't bother him too much if another American Imperialist Pig is disemboweled. As I said, it takes a very specific set of factors to make a murderer, chief among them being victim of abuse as a child, but also neurological disorders. What the hell am I talking about anyway...

It's cool. Now I got something in common with Hades. YAY!

Ahem... sure.

Today, I got expelled from the Armed Service.

He was nice enough. With a head full of youthful idealism and all... good to know it didn't get him blown to bits in some God-forsaken village.

I'd be very surprised if you were qualified to discuss that subject on equal terms with Pid and me.

Ah, yes. The Truth is oh ever so clear when one has had the benefit of an education that fostered critical thought... Of course, it's always easier to blame bad stuff on the devilish possession caused by abstract totems, than to accept that it's just human beings merely less fortunate than oneself. It takes a very specific set of factors to breed violence within a person, and Islam is not one of them. It's like blaming school massacres on GTA.

Somebody please put this thread out of its misery, already.

Against the advice offered by some, I downloaded the last version of Oblivion Lost, and have started a new game. I have to say, it's pretty neat so far. You can (must) rest every once in a while, there are many new skins, both for characters and equipment, and the total freedom mod is a nice touch. Also, you can actually get your equipment repaired now, albeit at a rather hefty fee. There are a few new muties, and there's the whole full night cycle thing - it's fun to sneak around in pitch black, but it's easy to screw up. No timed missions anymore, which is one of the things I never liked in the vanilla game. Supposedly, there are drivable vehicles, but so far I haven't found any. Weapons damage is apparently rebalanced, making the game more "realistic" (everything is deadlier), and the game is changed quite a bit for that. Now NPCs die much faster, which makes the game both easier and harder, if you are protecting someone. Obviously, the player can die much faster now as well, and at about 40% health, bad stuff starts to happen. The only thing that I'm hating so far is that now some NPCs use grenades (which is cool) but it's very unbalanced. They can put a grenade on your feet from 50m, and the worst is, if you don't see them throwing it, you won't know until you are flying around, because grenades make next to zero noise when they land. They really need to fix that. And then there's the "blowout" mechanic, which is something that I'd think you should be given the option to turn off. I rather like it myself, what with random anomalies and all, but I can see how some people could hate it. All in all, good fun.

http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/BG2/index_portraits.php You want the "Death Rabbit's Portrait Pack", I think that's the one I used. It doesn't have ALL NWN portraits, but it's a start.

Wow. Do you make a point of thinking up new fallacies to post, or does it come naturally?

The Halo Generation strikes again!

YEAH! IWD soundsets are totally WIN. I was so happy when I found that script you mention. Portraits, not quite so much, seeing how they are a bit blurrier (is that a word?) and less cartoonish than BG's. They ARE better, but I don't like it when stuff looks out of place. And regarding your Khalid "solution"... um... that'd be too evil, even for my CE, Gate-in-town-casting Wild Mage. Lol fatty Imoen.

If it's a choice between a proper ammo system and an overall finished game, I think they may have learned something from K2...

Take that, Soviet Russia!

That's OK, I'm not testing my orbital mind control rays, I'm just telling you that we made the decision for a good reason and we're happy with it. So you say, but I wear my tin foil hat 24/7 just in case, mister. I'm not saying this decision can't benefit the game. It's just that I don't see how it can. But perhaps that's why I'm not designing games. I just hope this doesn't turn out to be another balance-breaking decision. I'll have to wait and see. EDIT: It's cool that you show up and stand by your work, though. I hope it's not the last we'll hear from ya. Kudos. Hopefully not. It sure doesn't look that way, from the way side-missions are handled...

You probably went too fast. In one of those rest-triggered sequences, you should have that dream about Ellesime and the Tree of Life again, and Irenicus will freak out. A crucial conversation comes after that. I always use NWN portraits. Not much better than the ones shipped with BG2, but they add variety and the art is similar, which helps not to break the feel... As for Jaheira in BG1, that meant Khalid. So she loses by default...

Yeah, it does actually. It's a "superspy" setting after all, where that kind of stuff has a place. The ability to continuously create bullets out of thin air, I think, is putting a bit too much strain on suspension of disbelief. I remember characters in The Matrix running out of ammo quite often, even with all their reality-bending powers. *shrug* Then why have stuff like combat shotguns, assault rifles, and skills that allow you to place three bullets in three heads in a split-second? Are you implying that all of that is "just for show"? Meh. I reserve the right to change my opinion when more info is released, but just "it's really cool" and "we base a lot of our mechanics on that", isn't convincing at all.

10-20 seconds lag? That's insane. I suffer about 2-3 seconds lag tops at the start of combat when triggers/contingencies are going off. I bow before your superior lag tolerance. There are three things that, as far as I know, are involved in swaying him. One is the deva quest, which apparently you solved successfully (for this purpose at least, keeping the essence for yourself has its own benefits). The second is the business with Vongoethe, the lich at Amkethran. If you fail to save Marlowe and/or the girl, Irenicus will be impressed, in the wrong way. The last thing is listening to his psycho ramblings. There is one conversation involving Ellesime and Suldanessellar that you must complete in order to have him reflect on his ways. I believe this comes after you revive the dream from Chapter 6. I am not sure if being of evil alignment could interfere with the process, however. When I played evil characters, I never tried redeeming him. Viconia is a great backup caster, but she's not quite as good at the offensive. Ironskin, Conjure Animals, Blade Barrier, Righteous Magic, Heal(!), etc make Jaheira pretty formidable in CQ. Throw in Fighter HLAs and one of those giant strength girdles, and she's a monster. The problem is, again, finding a suitable weapon, and the amount of micromanagement she needs in a fight compared to "fire and forget" regular tanks. I think her versatility is her strong point.

It's a distinct component, so it's possible you didn't install it. Yep, it lags for me too, and I can run Crysis... I don't think the engine was designed to deal with that kind of scripting. But to me it's definitely worth the trade-off. Honestly, I could never get into fanfic (of an kind), but I have a feeling I wouldn't like it, based on the mod. While I liked how Irenicus' personality was treated, I didn't like the dialogues much. The mod is great for one thing, though. Depending on player actions, there are some 4-5 different endings for Irenicus, some of them pretty grim (and not necessarily for Irenicus!). Also, his reactions are heavily affected by how the player deals with some in-game events whose relation to Irenicus isn't apparent. If he chose to take Balth's soul, it's possible you missed out (or botched) one of these. Notably, if you did Watcher's Keep during SoA, swaying Irenicus' ways is unfortunately no longer possible. But taking a soul is a perfectly acceptable solution for an evil party, I think. In my opinion the mod aced that aspect, in that he seems much more alive and free than any other vanilla NPC, despite his circumstances. His long-winded tirades and the dialogue music they chose however, were a bit grating on my nerves. I agree with Tale. I used to think like you, until I got the fixes to her romance and took her all the way to ToB. She's a fairly competent offensive caster, and as a character, she's more credible and less silly than most others... Finding good weapons for her in the endgame is difficult, though.