Luridis

I was going to make one called Mr. Jack based upon a Cracked.com article I read one time. There is something called Mr. Jack's Mustache in a list called The 25 Most Disturbing Adult Toys of all time. The appearance of this thing is downright frightening and it would be hilarious to see a monster themed on it. But, I can't really figure out what it would do, without being in the same realm as it's intended purpose. If I could think of an RPG purpose for it then I'd have done it.

Sandbox and IE-style don't mix. A sandbox game (à la Minecraft, a pure sandbox, or GTA, a mostly sandbox,) is more about dicking around and making your own fun, not story, companions and combat depth. Doesn't have to be one or the other, hense what I said about too many variables to track. I've seen it done in other games, but I don't see the dev-time/dollars to make it happen with PE.

Eat yourself? You might be more careful with those word choices.

I have a feeling the next gen consoles will be bust anyway... http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/02/report-next-xbox-will-use-persistent-net-connection-to-block-used-games/ But, with Ouya using Linux/Chrome, I have a feeling a port to those and steambox might show up. (Because Obsidian would probably see more profit and wouldn't have to turn over their IP license. There's also less memory issues compared to current X&P.)

I'd love a sandbox, but I don't think they have the team quantity and funds to do it... There's so many more variables to track in a go-anywhere-anytime world.

Edit: Assuming your ultimate goal is amateur game development... Personally, I think if you just want to play around with game creation then ground-up isn't the way to go in this day and age. I consider C++ a middle-level language and if your intention is to build graphics APIs or 3D engines then, yea, that would be the way to go. But, as I'm sure any of the actual developers here can tell you, creating full fledged game engines from scratch is a huge endeavor. These guys have been building personal knowledge on game tech for the last two decades at least. They're already hardened C++ engineers who know the APIs, the platforms, the graphics pipelines, the instructions and shader languages for the GPUs, and the quirks and inconsistencies of all of the above. All that said, it takes a team of these people years to hammer out a full-featured engine. And, I don't even want to get started on digging up your calculus book for the mathematics involved. I know, what's my point? Like it or not, I think we've entered the era of Application Level game development. Let the engine guys do the boiler-plate code and figure out the ins and outs of various platforms and GPUs. With engines out there like Cry, Unreal, Source and especially Unity, there's little reason to revisit what teams of experienced developers are already doing. Think of it this way: You're trying to learn gcc and makefiles in the age of Visual Studio and Eclipse. Am I saying don't learn good programming techniques? No. But, I am saying you don't need to learn console tic-tac-toe to mess around and experiment with 3D game development. So, pick up a good book on Javascript or C# and go through the basics in an IDE. Most of the beginners books that I have seen will give you solid starting programmer skills. (Check the reviews.) These books obviously won't cover advanced algorithm design, but you're not exactly going to be writing sort algorithms for system libraries either. If you are shown good basic coding skills you're not likely to need more unless you actually started working on huge coding projects. After that, you can download Unity and actually start attaching scripts to primitives and cameras and see some of the fun stuff. Later, download Blender and make some models for Unity. That has really been the hard part for me as I'm not much of an artist. And the technical details! UV maps, baking, oddly placed edges, N-gons... who the hell knew things had come so far from Elite's wire frame models! I want a program with a big button that says "Make Spaceships", "Make Skyboxes", "Make Terrains", "Make Humaniods" and then a textbox where you enter the number you need. With an IDE like Unity it shouldn't be difficult to make some silly basic game in a few months of spare time. I say basic because if you intend to make something near the complexity of an RPG there will be a ton more involved. The one piece of advice I ran across consistently for amateur game developers is do not make an RPG your first project. There's far more going on in the background than I expected. So, I've been working on a space shooter, hopefully along the lines of classic Start Raiders and it's more than enough hobby for me to chew on at my skill level. Unity tutorials are all over the place...

On Doors: Please make sure enemy detection is properly stifled when the door is shut too. Detection through doors was an annoying mechanic in NWN2, between henchmen opening them and the enemies being piled at the door when you did.

Yay! Great stuff guys, we're glad you can talk about development too. That said, LOLz at Adam's paste-oopsy in the update email... (I've done that too.) Edit: The oopsy being the "The problem is fairly complex: All of the six playable races, human, elf, dwarf, aumaua, orlan, and the god-like..." appearing three times.

AK-47's are not all that is on the list or I'd be more inclined to agree with you. But, it's way too broad, and includes models like the Remington 750 hunting rifle. It requires registration of weapons that are not machine guns as machine guns, including hand guns. It will inundate a system that will need to hire thousands of people to handle the workload when we're already bankrupt. (Far more important to me.) Now, if you would like to take on a 300lb boar with a 22 rifle, I'd love to see that. I know people who would pay to see it, but at least one person near by would need to have a rifle capable of killing the animal before it mauled you to death. If they came back and said we've got a law that targets semi automatic rifles where making them fully automatic is trivial and requires extensive modification then I might support that. I might also support the removal of weapons that look military in nature, simply because they alarm people. But what is being proposed now, under no circumstances would I support. Once the bill is drafted, if it's still in the current form, I'll be sending letters to reps ask for a no. What I don't understand is why people are okay with all the money being spent on this when adding armed security to schools is probably less expensive. (Considering the paperwork costs in this.)

You must live somewhere very urban... Not everyone does. For a lot of citizens of this country the backyard can still very much kill them. In Texas, it's not hard for this to show up in your back yard. They're not protected, in fact, they're an invasive and destructive species. They're also extremely dangerous... They were introduced with settlers in the 1500's. (Some believe descended from Columbus' stock as a few went on the record as missing.) 300lbs with tusks and not shy about poking around garbage cans. As for the rest, replacing an 8 round magazine with a larger one is more trivial than making a semi-auto fully automatic. People who obey the law won't of course, the gangsters however, will. To me that puts the guy who want's to comply at a disadvantage.

You really did give me pause and make me think about it; interpretations of law, legal experts and professors. I was really curious as to whether or not it might not mean what we have come to understand it to mean. I wasn't quite sure what to think until I considered the times. I cannot imagine colonial leaders would have ever expected early Americans to enter or live on the frontier unarmed. And, there are still places in this country where it is dangerous to go unarmed. (If you've ever seen a Grizzly Bear in real life, you know what I'm talking about.) There are places now where it can take police an hour to get to you, what then? When I think about all the pictures of paintings I've seen from Colonial America, men carrying arms appeared to be a common and ordinary occurrence. Arms were a part of every day life to these people and to think they would specifically pencil in a law to state, "You have the right to bear arms so long as you're part of, and only if you're a part of, an approved militia." Such is nonsensical to me in the context of the place and time that was Colonial America. Weapons of War: Right to bear arms. Not the right to bear cannons, rockets, artillery, and/or ships-of-the-line. There was a clear distinction between a gun and military hardware at the time. Comparisons of a musket to surface-air-missile launchers are just plain silly. Not being able to own Apache Gunships is not an "infringement" of the right to bear arms because nothing was written about owning warships of that era. People are grabbing at straws there... Professors can argue points on the diction of deceased people all they want and it still won't matter. The generally accepted classical and modern interpretation is that citizens have the right to own firearms. I don't believe in altering that anymore than I believe in changing freedom of speech or trial by jury. Infringements of The Constitution have already been made on multiple occasions and I against any further restriction. If anything I'd like to see some things expanded, like allowing gay marriage and gay adoption. What goes on in other people's bedrooms is their business and I've never really understood what the big deal is with it. Want to close the gun-show loophole? Fine. Want to be more thorough with background checks? Fine. Summarily discard the right to bear arms? No! Because next we'll need licenses to buy butcher knives and chainsaws because someone lost their cool and chopped someone up. Oh, and for the record... I don't own a gun.

But the problem is that once they're voted into office by and large they serve only the interests of corporate lobbyists. Sure, if the public makes enough stink they'll act to avoid being called out during the next election, but day-to-day they're far more interested in who's giving away dollars.

Slide to unlock is apparently a new idea. I guess someone has to give them money for all those plastic cases that were made in the 1980's with slide-locks. http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/01/31/171239/micron-lands-broad-slide-to-unlock-patent

US Congressmen have initiated inquiry into the behavior of the prosecution. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/congressmen-want-answers-from-aaron-swartz-prosecutors/

WARNING: Probably not safe for work! (Depending on where you work.)

Hoorah Downunder from waaaay Upover!

My fault for not quantifying my statement... I'm close to a Libertarian, but don't quite fit into that mold. I thought the whole bit about me not being behind 9-11 conspiracies would have made that clear. Since I don't know what the name of the boat I'm actually in is called then lets see if you can tell me. I am considerate of men-in-power conspiracies that are plausible (i.e. price fixing, unimaginable legislative influence), but don't label everyone in office the next Adolf Hitler. I'm against wildly unfounded and highly improbable conspiracy theories. I'm for gay rights and marriage. I'm for equal opportunity, but against excessive entitlement for any group of people. I'm for protecting borders, but against that being a used as a vehicle for racism. I'm pro soldier, but against foreign wars. I'm not socialist, but I do think those with excess should cover more of the nations operating costs. I'm for freedom of all religion, including the right to not practice one. I'm for protectionist economics, even more so with the effect that globalization has on people of countries without labor protections. I'm for trial by jury, I'm also for fully informing jurors of their common-law rights (nullification). I'm against arbitration as that system is so horribly stacked in favor of corporations. I'm against corporations as an entity of influence in our legal system; corporations typically have employees, most of which already have the right to vote. I don't believe in a racial binary, as such leads to a racial divide. (i.e. no minority/majority or black/white) Not every person with dark skin is African, nor is every person with light skin Angelo-Saxon. I'm for unions, but against using them as an extortion vehicle. So, I don't know where exactly I fit into that great political cog, but I do know that I've never voted a party ticket in my life.

Grenades, Rocket Launchers and Nuclear Missiles are illegal in civilian hands. So are fully automatic weapons, silencers and ultra high power sniper rifles. People are pretty much limited to handguns and semi automatic rifles, regardless of what they look like. AK-47's and M-16's function no differently than hunting rifles in a civilian configuration. BTW: Liberals and Conservatives calling each other "nuts" is exactly the sort of polarization the establishment wanted to create with a 2 party system.

Aww... I wonder why they want to invest in Dell? http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Chrome-OS-Chromebook-Windows-8-Jim-Wong-Windows-RT,20746.html

And if people weren't so programmed to be so self-centered, to believe in such antisocial ideologies as "he who dies with the most toys wins" guns would be far less an issue. Again, go read that report, and the bit about "financial stress". You might be thinking, "Oh, come on! People aren't that greedy." No? http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-28/libor-lies-revealed-in-rigging-of-300-trillion-benchmark.html BTW: I'm not advocating socialism... I'm advocating a true free market, something we had only for a short time in this country. Also, sane regulation of that market. "You want to off-shore 10,000 jobs to a country where the workers are paid at a 1/10 ratio because they allow abhorrent labor practices, tariff time." "You want to offshore work to a country with a state paid higher education, while Americans are paying $100-200 a textbook, tariff time."

Try not to preface an opinion with the term fact. Handguns get their share of ire too. If you're curious why they are talking about the semi-automatic, large magazine rifles, it's probably because they have the unfortunate distinction of being used in the mass shootings recently. I mistakenly made that plural... but if you go read that report, the fact is that handguns were used more often in mass shootings, according to the government's own study.

And while you may declare that you and your buds from down the street should be considered a militia, you don't have a clear chain of command, and wouldn't come, as a militia, to the military in a time of emergency. You'd instead just be flat out drafted and turned into a proper military soldier. Sure "well regulated" may have changed it's meaning over the histories, but so has "militia". In the times of the founders, a Militia was basically the current US Army Reserve/US National Guard. You show up for a few weeks a year to sort out drills and practice shooting, as well as retain a military commission based on that service (Daniel Boone, for example, was a Colonel in the Kentucky Militia). No neighborhood watch group, or gun club, or whatever you want to say, can claim that their militia will have carry over into the US military in terms of rank. Also, from the same guys who made the constitution you have the First and Second Militia Act(s) of 1792, The first simply saying that the President could call up the militias to active service, the second saying http://www.constitution.org/mil/mil_act_1792.htm So, the 2nd amendment basically says that the soldiers in the Reserve or National Guard have a non-infringed right to bare arms, but the average Joe doesn't. And the Militia act of 1903 established the National Guard to replace the militias constructed under this and previous systems. Arrrgh... I hate the way quote works now, even with the flipping of the BBCode switch it's still more work. I've seen your argument before and there have been plenty of law professors to rebut it. But at the end of the day, there's no point in arguing about it... The murders are only going to get more frequent because men do not think clearly when under heavy emotional stress, like the stress brought on by a system designed to bleed them dry and keep them impoverished. What am I saying? The right to bear arms is irreverent when the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is so downtrodden.

Being a Libertarian, it saddens me to see so many people today who are willing to sit back and allow our rights to be eroded further and further. These same people don't realize that we're already bordering on a police state. Democrats and Republicans continue to squabble about the issues that were specifically chosen to divide the people. Look at the last few elections, nearly 50/50 division of the people every time. Divide et Impera Here are some facts for you... The semi-automatic handgun is the weapon of choice for most mass shootings since 1999. Assault rifles are not machine guns, those have been illegal forever, without federal permit. Most of the weapons they're talking about banning are nothing more than semi-automatic hunting rifles. So, if handguns are used more often, and assault rifles aren't machine guns, why are we even discussing them? Because the usefulness of a handgun is far less than a rifle in the face of a military occupation. (Read: Executive order of martial law.) Why was this whole thing really brought up? Oh, I dunno... To distract people from the fact that our nation is bankrupt and they still haven't fixed it? The 2011 fiscal year closed with the end of 2012. Did you know our nation's debit has exceeded it's income? In fact, it's the highest GDP-debit ratio we have ever had. 2011 US Debit: 15.222 Trillion Dollars 2011 GDP (Value Produced): 14.911 Trillion Dollars Ratio: 100.3% You have heard the quote by now I am sure, about trading liberty for security. Well, I hope I'm dead wrong about what's coming... I really do. But if it does, everyone is going to learn real fast what that safer feeling and petty squabbling have cost them. No, I'm not talking about Sept. 11th conspiracies. I'm talking about the evolution of corporate monetary influence that the people have allowed themselves to be distracted from, time and again. (Remember campaign finance reform? right... where's the ban on that.) This is a scene from a movie made in the 1980's and, the rotten truth of it is, it's far more fact than fiction.

Power creep drives me nuts... I'm still waiting for a game that treats magic very conservatively in that their are few spells and abilities. I'd like to see most of them be subtle and a few really powerful ones you can pull off perhaps once per encounter. (aka Lord of the Rings treatment of magic, but I know it probably wouldn't be popular)

I'll probably go back and give it a go with the AI completely off at some point. I think the reason kills were taking so long was due to my reluctance to manually run the spell casters or allow them to cast on their own. I shut them off to stop the group from getting fried and just left them firing bows and crossbows most of the time.