Humodour

That's one way to look at it. A lot of people found Torment's subtle teaser romances far preferable to BG2's in-your-face mills & boon style soap romances, though.

Can you name a better romance in any game? You don't have to rush to the answer. Take your time. I'll be here. And when you finally realize you can't think of a better one because it doesn't exist, do not despair. Just because you're a failure doesn't mean we don't love you. Easy: Annah, FFG in Planescape: Torment. Dunno why you're personally attacking me, there, though. I wasn't being sarcastic. Moreover, remember that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence; even if BG2 romances were the best game romances, that would in no way imply they were good.

I lol'd at 21 drinking age.

actually, it doesn't sound like he actually replaced the battery. yes, if the CMOS battery is dead your pooter probably would not boot. try replacing that, first, then check back. taks I did try replacing the battery - which is what your were replying to. But I see a green LED on the mobo and my network card has it's orange LED on (but when I press on, the blue LED doesn't turn on). There is no sound from the computer - the fan isn't going. So it seems the failure it start isn't a power problem (PSU or battery). It's a relatively recent mobo - has an Athlon XP, guessing gigabyte. Will probably be getting a new mobo soon - oh well, thanks anyway guys.

Worked for Bioware.

Did you not play the Viconia one? That was incredible. Every single time it would activate it goes through a cycle of Viconia seeming like she's seeking sympathy with some tale of woe and end with her telling you to **** off regardless of the right or wrong response. It's the only time that game developers have ever been brave enough to implement a psycho-*****. It was hilarious. Haha, that's so true! And the even funnier thing? She was the best of the romances. Awesome.

It's funny those two things happened, really. I suspect in the end because both sides fubar'd, it will actually lead to an alliance, whereas if just one side ****ed up, it would be impossible.

c - 1 e - 2

He said he doesn't like "monster of the week" stuff, so I'm thinking Dr Who and Torchwood are out. At least shows like Reaper have a few over-arching plot threads and strong character design to tie it all together (not that I don't like Dr Who).

I have a few ideas of my own. I've written them down, so that one day in 10 years when I'm sick of teaching kids why 1+cot^2(x)=cosec^2(x), I'll read my notes, and think "hey, I'm going to start a game company" and it will be tyte.

Is it me or does n00b just love to argue for the sake of it?

It baffles me why so many people claim this makes a show good.

The Muffin Man.

Linkin Park's level of popular success in the early years of this decade was nothing short of phenomenal. Their music in this period was actually very simple and formulaic: it could be reduced to a sum of elements such as throaty male screaming, repetitive but unrelenting rap, simple and powerful electric guitar chords, a single ballad melody resounding through the entire composition, a strict intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus formula (with exactly tabulated systems of bridges in relation to the choruses), etc. If we took these elements separately, defined them 'scientifically', then fed them to a 'blind monkey', would the monkey, as you say, random noob, produce something that succeeds at the level of Linkin Park - no, rather, music that sounds like, and is 'as good as', Linkin Park? I don't think so. A media product is never simply a sum of its parts: in that very summation, something that is created is more than that. This is something that you can't explain if you try to import a purely mathematical / scientific mind to something so fluid, and try to 'define' what 'Fallout is', what the core of 'Fallout' is. NMA have been doing that for years, but you look at them arguing over the latest concept art and many of them still disagree with each other. That doesn't mean that 'what Fallout is' doesn't exist: it simply means that it is the wrong approach altogether to try and reduce it down to isolated essences which can be mathematically reconstructed. It's quite simply the wrong model to use. Of course art, music, etc. can be analysed and explained. But all (good) analysis of art, for example, always relates any exploration of a single essence or component back to that whole which is more than the sum of its parts: that which is evident in the work of art itself. Same with Fallout. Now, the fact that it's ab it of 1+1=3? doesn't mean that the study of art or other media is considered to be mystical: that dichotomy between a 'scientific' taxonomy and a 'prehistoric' mysticity is entirely unfounded in this case, because that implies that everything has a scientific-mathematical order with which it is composed, and with enough study, enough technology, enough tools, one can dissect anything to find these independent, atomised elements which follow the general logics of science. That is inverse logic because we are taking the scientific model and applying it to Jack and Joe, and when it doesn't seem to fit, we say "it's just not very clear yet, let's keep going". Art can be demystified, explained, analysed, deconstructed: but because of the nature of art, the way to do it is not to try and define clear, independent, atomised characteristics and say art is the mathematical sum of these parts. That simply flies in the face of art as we experience it, just to satisfy a scientific model. Art and other media have to be analysed in a way that is conscious of this 'more than the sum, etc' and the fact that experience of art and media is always holistic in regards to who consumes it and how. edit: Yeah, that was rambly tl;dr, sorry. But in relation to Fallout, really - it simply means that as Krezack says, it's more than just a sum of its parts, and therefore, making a Fallout sequel which recaptures that 'feel' of Fallout is NOT something a monkey could do. A monkey could reconstruct, say, a table from a blueprint exactly the same, but that's a table; a media product like Fallout is made in a different manner using different base elements which operate in a different manner, and a monkey, without the faculty to understand or adapt to that situation, would not be able to make something that recaptures that 'soul', if you like. Conversely, this means that making a 'faithful' sequel in this sense does not mean that individual symptomatic elements, such as turn-based gameplay or 2D graphics, have to be the same. It would probably be easier if they were, and I'm sure Sand will come and tell me that for him, it's not FO unless it's turn-based (I think it was Sand?). But the 'feel, the 'soul', of a game is not dependent on all such symptomatic elements being exactly the same. That's why making a 'faithful' Fallout would not be a pointless, or silly, or simple venture! <3

TV series I enjoy: Burn Notice Reaper Chuck How I Met Your Mother Black Books Fawlty Towers Daria Scrubs The Big Bang Theory Stargate Dead Like Me Red Dwarf Absolutely Fabulous Clone High Doctor Who Battlestar Galactica Father Ted Daybreak Terminator Jericho

Hmm. Can you explain that a bit more? Not sure I follow.

You should grab: Burn Notice Reaper Chuck Dead Like Me How I Met Your Mother

Games I'm looking forward to (some a lot more than others): Aliens RPG Alpha Protocol Aliens FPS MotB STALKER HL2: Episode 3 The Witcher Mass Effect NWN2 Mildly interested: Jade Empire Fallout 3 Oblivion Dragon Age Bioshock

What time is it? If it's the morning, that means you had a good night. If it's the afternoon, that means you had a really good night.

You just want them all to be mauled horribly, you evil little man.

Right. So, please define what the "soul" of Fallout is, so the discussion can progress. Unless it was a matter of Divine Revelation for the original team, there must be some comprehensible aspect to it, that so far, nobody has been able to quite place their finger on. This doesn't seem to conflict with the fact that folks here are certain that Beth will fail to capture that. Funny. Haha, I'm pretty sure the definition of "greater than the sum of its parts" is that you can't define it fully in terms of other things, so what you're asking is kind of illogical. Fallout was a delicate balance of various concepts and mechanics - it's that balance and choice of concepts/mechanics to use that is the 'soul', I guess. That said, I doubt I'm the only one who feels art is more than the sum of its parts, and I believe that's actually a fairly widely held notion. But just because humans find it hard to capture the essence of something or explain it fully by referencing its parts doesn't mean it is divinely determined. Heck, this is the main reason so many computer games fail these days - the 'parts' don't come together well, or one of the 'parts' is poor quality and drags the entire game down. Marketing is the other reason for failure, of course. Edit: added quote.

If you don't smear Vegemite behind your ears when you're travelling around Australia, you leave yourself extremely vulnerable to dropbear attack.

Zoma said there has been 3 leads.