Phosphor

From a beginning of absolute dumb luck and then through a series of evolutionary developments based on that intial dumb luck. That the foundations of life came together as they did, that the planet developed an atmosphere as it did, and that we've somehow survived as a species is all absolutely extraordinary. Now, that answer is assuming that by "human beings" the question infers human beings as a species. If it means human beings as a culture or as an identity, then the answer is much more involved. The purpose of human life, or of other life? There's quite a difference as I see it, but I'll focus on the human. Human life serves no purpose, really. We live apart from the natural order of things, we've managed to avoid most elements of a natural balance and really do no good for the natural world. Humanity, if it has a purpose, is to bear witness to existence. To acknowledge what is out there and to know it exists. If we got our collective human act together, we could be the safekeepers of what exists, to maintain it, to protect it and nurture it, but we seem to rather have a preferene for destroying it and dominating it. In harmony and with respect to each other and to the natural world. To not live soley for oneself and social standing/wealth/material gain/etc. I have absolutely no idea. I don't even have a firm believe myself, whether we just cease to be or whether we do have a soul that moves on to another existence. I suppose that question is a real crux of faith and belief. By not having any clearly defined perceptions or faith-based beliefs on the subject. I'm pretty open to an array of possibilities, likely due to conflict between the rational and emotional aspects of my personality. Many are perfectly decent people, and there are many hateful people, in the Christian fold. Just like any other religion or group of people, it's a mixed bunch. Clear, undeniable answers, evidence and other proofs contrary to my current views. Out of curiosity, why does your teacher think you're crazy for posting this here? He wants a survey of people, right? Is this group here any different from any other group?

I think it's safe to say this thread has had it's day.

Please see the sticky for system requirement information. This thread was started on spurious grounds so I'm locking it.

Here are the system requirements for KOTOR2 on the PC. Taken from Lucas Arts' KOTOR2 page. Computer: 100DirectX 9.0c compatible computer. Operating Systems: Windows 98 SE, Millennium (ME), 2000, and XP. CPU: Pentium III or Athlon class 1 GHz or faster required. Pentium 4 or Athlon XP class 1.6 GHz or faster recommended. Memory: 256 MB RAM required. 512 MB RAM recommended. Graphics Card: 32 MB OpenGL 1.4 compliant AGP or PCX 3D Graphics card with Hardware Transform and Lighting (T&L) Capability required. ATI Radeon 9200 or NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti or better recommended. Sound Card: 100DirectX 9.0c compatible audio device required. CD-ROM: Quad Speed CD-ROM drive required. 16 Speed CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive recommended. Input Device: Keyboard and mouse required. DirectX: Microsoft DirectX 9.0c is included on this CD. You will be prompted to install DirectX during the installation of this game if this or a more recent version isn't already properly installed on your system. NOTE: DirectX may require the "latest" updates for your operating system. This may also include the latest drivers for your particular motherboard, sound and video hardware. Here is the chipset list for the system specs: ----------------------------------------------------- Video Chipsets Supported at Time of Release: ATI Radeon 8500/9000/9200 ATI Radeon 9500/9600/9700/9800 ATI Radeon X300/X600/X700/X800 NVIDIA GeForce 2/3/4 Family NVIDIA GeForceFX Family NVIDIA GeForce 6 Family Additional chipsets supported. For a complete list of supported 3D cards, please consult the Troubleshooting Guide, or visit the Technical Section of the LucasArts website at www.lucasarts.com.

I really liked Johnny Mnemonic. It was a good cyberpunk film; certainly elaborated upon from Gibson's short story, but then the story in itself wouldn't make much of a movie. Anyways, on widescreen DVD: http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000...8731335-8806429 PS - Completely agree with Bettany as John Constantine. That would have been excellent.

Spamtopia is now under martial law.

Bad film is when it loses money, or doesn't make very much. As long as people go see dren like Alone In The Dark, House Of The Dead and such, Uwe and others like him will keep making the movies.

Yep. Both the XBox and PC versions were scheduled for release in February. The XBox released got bumped ahead, but the PC release is on-schedule.

The thing is, the name is put up for sale by the owners of the building or property, so a business that opts to buy naming rights isn't really at fault. Of course, the corporation could just give a donation, but no-one is in business for altruistic reasons. What bothers me more than just selling the general name, is selling naming rights to various areas of the building, so you get Buick Drive, the Bell Lobby, the Kraft Theatre and so on; that's just tacky on the part of the owner.

If you don't like someone's movies, don't go see them. The movie studios must like what he does with the franchises they license, since they keep giving directorship over to him.

All comments are fair enough, but nothing is going to change the fact that the NWN2 boards are relocated. So, I don't see the point in continuing with board comparisons, anecdotes, allegations and other commentary.

I hate that guy.

I think it's on par with the opening titles of all the other Star Wars films.

Essentially that's exactly it. As Green Knight points out, The Nameless One is condemned to fight in the Blood War which is a nice equivalent to burning in Hell.

I would be sad to see Troika fold. They may not be perfect, but their games are at least a step apart from the bulk of what is classed as cRPGs these days. Now, if Troika are absorbed into a larger company, but still allowed to function as Troika (like BIS were in Interplay), then that might not be so bad. What Troika need more than anything is proper team management. They just don't seem to have a handle on proper project management, time allocation and task distribution. They admitted that was a big problem with TOEE, and they seemed a bit better organised for Vampire, but it still suffered from what seemed to be disorganisation. If they were absorbed into a larger company, they may have more resources (both financial and human), it may give them that extra push they need to really raise the quality of their games. Chris' account is a bit sad, but also quite in perspective. Troika are very much in a niche market that happens to be on the small side of things; a break in production isn't surprising.

Ah yes, that's true. I rather hope that Enterprise continues with the Romulans every now and then. I've always liked them, and never thought they were used enough. On that note, it's great to see the Andorians showing up so much on Enterprise.

I didn't find that the affairs of the people in the planes were at all petty.. It all seemed quite interesting.

This doesn't need a poll, as it encourages only voting and not discussing one's decisions or reasons for their choice.

Right, but he's done so much in the past that he needs to make up for. And maybe helping a few berks in the planes is a start. But I played TNO as neutral good. Different alignment, different way of playing. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Indeed. Also, it should be pretty clear that even the most innocuous people or seemingy irrelevant details can be a bigger piece of the puzzle than you might assume.

I've heard they're similar to Baldur's Gate but with lower levels of freedom, character customisation and dialogue options. The settings are apprently very nicely done. But I can't comment on them from personal experience. Apparently I won a contest over at RPGDot for a copy of Seal Of Evil, but that never materialised.

Planescape: Torment, Fallout 1, Fallout 2 and Arcanum are a great place to start; lots of excellent gaming for very little cost.

No, that doesn't happen until much later. The weren't actually seen until Kirk's era. This last episode seems to set up a foreshadowing to the Federation, and the Romulans meddling and observation of those events, and their efforts to cause it to fail. I'm curious as to how next week's episode will play out; I have to say I was surprised to see the To Be Continued... tag at the end. After this they're doing a Klingon two-parter. As for cancellation, it seems to be more than a rumour but less than assured. The Enterprise team were told that should the series be cancelled, they'd be given enough notice to write a proper ending, but they stop filming in March, so there's not exactly enough time to re-write properly at this point. So that's a good sign. The network folks haven't, last I checked, decided on anything yet; some seem to be in favour of cancellation, others not. The ratings aren't great, but they're very good for UPN in the Friday night slot. I'm hoping for it to continue, I really am. This past season has been superb, and far better than anything Voyager did in it's seven years. It's true the budget has been smaller; they decided that people would rather have good stories with less special effects, so paring the budget back in hopes of keeping the show going. And I honestly haven't noticed a decrease in special effects quality. I've noticed fewer of them, but that's meant more character-driven pieces, which is great.

If there is a season five, then it's going to look at the foundations of the Federation. The most recent episode certainly pointed in that direction as well. The Romulans have been great, I agree. Coto is really doing them justice, I think.

This season of Enterprise has been excellent, in my opinion. Manny Coto taking over the show has done wonders for it's quality, with the best episodes of the series being all in season four.

I never liked the Shadowrun rule-set very much, I always found it cumbersome and un-elegant. The Cyberpunk and Cyberpunk 2020 rules were much better; I loved that system.