Magena

I have to admit that I have been out of it for so long that I don't really know what is even coming out this year. I would really like to see another citybuilding game - as I'm bored with the ones I have, and another RPG, because I need something new to beat up!!! :D

^ Yes!!! A wonderful use for tea . - Granted I drink it more than I apply it, but I have definately had summers where the application out raced the drinking of. You can also use Vinegar for sunburns, but lets face it... tea smells better.

I was surprised when I saw that Travellor had been added to the GURPS world... so I see no reason why at least something like Fallout isn't added in the next few years.

Ya know, that always happens until you create a few characters in a system..

ya also need teas and coffee... though coffee bags work really well in keeping them stocked.

Salt and pepper are very important. So are things like crushed basil, and crushed oragono. Just remember that they do have a shelf life, so you might not want to get huge ones if you aren't going to cook that much. Keeping pasta and rice in your cupboard are good options also... so is popcorn for those quicky meals. olive oil is good to keep onhand and canned tomatoes.

rofl!! I had forgotten about that. ahhhh, the good old days when a group of us would get together and watch those movies. I do however have my vorpol bunny on my bureau.

OMG!! I'm soooooooooooo shocked. I would have thought lilac.

part of it depends on the color wheel that you are using. if you use the traditional art color wheel, then black is supposedly the combination of all color. - personally, I get a really dark brown. - if you use a photographic or computer graphic color wheel, then black is the absense of all color. Either way I get in trouble if I say it is anything other than a shade at school. -- darn those teachers! Then again I get really funky greens when I mix yellow with black.

Define "natural," because homosexuality does occur in other animals in nature than just human beings. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Thanks for bring that up. There are animals in nature who don't just have sex to breed. Dolphins for instance just seem to like the touch and feel, because by our standards they are bi-sexual. The other thing is that often, well confuses me on the subject, is that most people like physical interaction. Our society puts as much on "if it's initiated, you need to follow through" as they do on "yuck, how could you do that with <fill in the blank>". It is natural for us to want to be touched and to feel comfortable within the embrase of another. - if it isn't then how come children can die from the lack of human touch? -- but again, the problem comes about when you start stating when someone is on one side or the other of that imaginary mark. Until hormones start overriding any other thoughts in ones mind, then holding hands with someone of the same sex is often seen as cute and totally acceptable. It is that fear of intercourse that causes the problems.

Yep, that is true. And even now if you go into a store that sells a collection of bibles, there are new ones even cropping up now. It does bother me that even with those, when you read Genesis, the interpretations will change. There were also "books" left out of the bible when it was first compiled, not because they were hidden away, but because the monks/clergy who were putting it together didn't want to include them for whatever reason.

I agree with Eldar. I know that even the advent of "create your own adventure" books made the books often seem not to be as good as they could have been had it just been one contiguous book that was written the way I wanted. :D Guess I need to put that English to work and actually start writing.

I know this is off topic from the start of the thread, but I figured I would pipe in about this before the thread gets closed down for derailment. If I thought that everything said in the King James bible was truly the word of God, then I would be more willing to agree the opinions in the bible, but I know that not only the KJB but other versions of it have always had a strong influence on what the church wanted (or the king wanted society to think) that I have problems with the idea that there could be that against what God would allow. - since sometimes it is as much biological as anything else. That doesn't mean that I think abusive people should be allowed to abuse just anyone - though of course there are options there for those who choose to look - and yes there are often chemical imballances - sometimes drugs fix these, sometimes they don't or only make the situation worse - but human sexuality is something that has been under investigation for very few years comparitively. I'm not talking about things like breeding or those aspects of sexuality, rather those aspects that are in the brain. It's true that people who feel they are homosexual don't go through the same psychological eval's as those who feel they were born into the wrong sex, but then again, I don't see the need. - if we are going to start going that far as to have sext therapists to tell people if they should be homosexual or heterosexual, then we definately need testing before people can start having kids (I mean the ones having the kids, not just testing before the kids get confused by the fact that Dad use to be married to Mom, but now is married to Frank.

Personally I would say typo, but he might have something that is considered "brogue" where he is.

Ya know, that is one argument I keep using. I do find it funny though that most of the men that I know who are severely homophobic seem to think that the idea of (watching) two women going at it is truly acceptable. I am actually more worried about the number of people who are serial monogomists or who don't even subscribe to the monogamy idea at all, and have sex with just about anyone at any time. We have some pretty deadly things out there that get transmitted via sexual contact and yet it society still thinks of guys as studs if they can bag numerous babes (or dudes) in any given month. - of course women who do the same are considered Ho's, but hey, no one said it needed to make sense.

I've realized how far we have gotten from the original question, and figure that I would try to revisit the actual question itself. The important thing to remember is that C++ can be used anywhere, as opposed to C# which is a Windows specific language. (hubby says that C# is VB with vowels taken out). The other thing is that learning both will make you more employable no matter what. One thing you should do though is that whatever program you aren't using for a work project, then create small projects for yourself/friends using that language. This will help to ensure that you are using both languages and that you don't get to a point where you need to know "the other language" and can't remember anything about it. And no matter what you end up doing, make sure to make small programs and applets with that program so that you can show your skills to any perspective employers. Sometimes they will ask for this, sometimes you will get an interviewer who is clueless and is looking more for if you make a good personality match more than if you can actually program. The other option that I have run into is that the interviewer didn't want to see any old work, but wanted code finished (on a white board) for some action. - or they might set you down in front of some code and want to see if you can troubleshoot the code.... any number of things can happen, so make sure that you keep up your skills on any programming langugage you say you know.

true, and it is the basis of many other languages and scripting languages. But even so, lots of people don't want to deal with it, so they learn the other languages without have the solid understanding of C... kinda like taking Spanish, French and Italian without taking Latin. It is possible to learn, but the addition of the basis of Latin makes it easier to grasp each of the languages as individuals. -- ok, so C isn't as ancient or as dead of a language, but well... And if taking only one language, then it isn't as much of an issue. I am however going with the idea that the person who originally asked is planning on working in some aspect of computers for a good 40 years, so C++ won't be the only language they need to learn. I still say that Java is something that should be looked into. I don't know the differences between Java and J++ (other than one is Sun and the other is Microsoft) because I haven't worked with either enough to see differences, but I'm sure that there will be a change within the next 10 years.

Kaftan, thanks! *hurries off to read, and do her homework*

Huh? Why? Because most people play with generally the same rules. if you are playing a d20 game then you already have a general idea of how the dice will work, etc. Also, there is a general idea of how the character creation will work to set up the characters. I don't know if you remember carrying around a box of dice. d4, d6, d8, d10, d20... all were used for different reasons. I don't think I have seen a dice set with all those in them for quite some time now. It must have been the groups that I fell in with then, because unless the group was large for a particular game, and yes I have played with groups up to 23 people in a game (livingrooms become amazingly small, and diningrooms don't work at all) then we would do a lot more roll playing, and having everyone have to roll for init and such, but with smaller groups it often wasn't as much of an issue. The way we played our characters often created our own init scheme for the player characters, and the DM would just need to figure out where the NPC's fell into that. I also think that it is easier to make a guide for what kinds of combat things work or don't for a given class/level. I would truly hate it if they started saying that certain spells can only be used on certain occasions, because that would end up throwing most of the fun stuff that I (and my husband for that matter) do when we can. - it isn't that we use the spells wrong, it is more we become inventive with how the spell is used. And that is why I prefer 1ed to the more recent editions. It use to be that Dragon would carry new versions of character classes. Some DM's would allow them, but more often than not, the groups that I played with wouldn't... I think because it made more work for the DM to keep it straight. But if you were playing a mage, then you could do all kinds of things as long as you could think of it. Then with subsequent versions, the mage was broken up more and more, to the point of having a specific kind of mage, with specific kinds of spells. The thing that sucks about them of course is that hand to hand is a bad idea - but that is no matter what rule base you are using. True, though I don't think Fallout is a good example, since it let you fire shots one at a time - you could stop at any time between shots. The old AD&D "gold box" games (if anyone remember those - Pool of Radiance (the original one), Curse of the Azure Bonds, Champions of Krynn, etc.) would be a better example - I once had my paladin attack the evil wizard only to find that he was protected by Fire Shield. Now in AD&D 1e that meant I took twice the damage I inflicted (not just the same as in 2e or that pathetic random dice roll in 3e). Ouch! And as if that wasn't bad enough, my paladin had multiple attacks, and the game wouldn't allow me not to use all the remaining on the same target... Ouch indeed! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I used Fallout because it is a cRPG that I felt people would be familiar with, and the rules on the turns and inits can't be changed. I honestly think that the rules get redone so much because although there are many of us who play them who have great imaginations and can think of things and how they work in abstracts, there are also many people who want to play who can't do that. When you hand them a character sheet they say "yeah, what is this for?" or "ok, I have this thing filled out, now what?" and by honing the rules it takes away a lot of the guess work out of that. - kinda like the difference between playing a pnp rpg, and a crpg. I keep getting frustrated because things I would do in pnp, I'm not allowed to do with a crpg. I can't decide that I don't want to go through the front door and wander around to find another entrance if the programmers didn't put that it. There are many many DM's out there who are the same way. If they didn't think of something, then they just make the characters do what they wanted to. I've had three DM's which had to be quick on their toes, because our "group" often wouldn't do what they expected us to. I even had one game that was postponed until the next weekend because we did something totally unexpected and the DM had to rethink how to proceed because the characters weren't going to do what he wanted us to no matter what the prodding. Of course, in a cPRG, the characters will do what the "DM" wants simply because we want to finish the game and we know that we have to do this... in pnp, if playing a module, then yes, there are also often very few ways that the characters can go, and they can't do much other than follow the module. - though I think one of my favorite games played over IRC was with a module, and we lost a few players (they bailed, it wasn't that they were cannon fodder) but by the end those of us remaining had a great time. (I also think that the DM there tweaked the module to allow us latitude and still get us where we needed to be)

On one hand you are right, in BG2 the romance did have some points which would push the game. However, if the romance didn't exist then the characters would still end up going to those places. It wasn't as though if you didn't have Aerie in your party and weren't going at it with her then you couldn't finish the game. There is a part where it was intwined with the game, but at the same time, it isn't intrigal to the game to have the romance. As a matter of fact I had problems with the game because I was getting the butler coming into the underdark to get Anomen back.. yet at that point we couldn't do the next trigger, so the romance fell apart. But at least the game continued on. Also, I thought that it truly sucked that for the females there was ONLY the choice of one man, while the men had three choices.

I have just been in hiding for the last year. But I just couldn't keep away from these wonderful people.

There are always house rule no matter what game you are playing, including board games. Having a system like a D20 system can make it easier for people who are moving around and not just playing with the same people for the next 50 years. I don't mind the d20 system, but then part of that might be because when I started playing pnp, we did more role playing than roll playing. I've noticed that those who tend to rely on the dice to tell them what to do and when tend to get bogged down with taking turns so that everyone can get their rolls in. One reason that I dislike games where you have turns (ie Fallout, though I think you can turn it off) is that I know that I know when I pull out my gun and pull the trigger that I'm going to unload the clip into whatever I'm shooting at. I don't need to stop between bullets to think about what I'm going to do next. - the downside is that if I'm not watching my health... well, then I get to redo areas. I will admit that I prefer first ed DnD over 3rd, but much of that is that I felt I had more latitude in what I could do with my character in the first and even second edition, though some things did limit me.

It's rather amazing how many men in history were interested in the men near them in more than one way. I actually like having the option of romances in the games... but I like them when they are OPTIONS, and not something that is needed to move the game along. It can definately be fun to have romances go on, and have side stories to go along with them can help with the feeling of role playing in the game.

I would love that as I haven't really seen anything of this system other than occasionally seeing books on a bookshelf, but I never opened them. A "waiting list" might be a good idea as some people might realize that when Ender can DM isn't when others can game.

FORTRAN is pretty much a language of the past, though much of that has to do with DEC no longer being a company. - I think most of that software is being slowly migrated to a C type language. It isn't that the language doesn't exist, more that the number of jobs that use that language are getting to be less and less. And certainly at this point most people who have jobs using those languages are working their hardest to keep those jobs until they retire. :D