Humodour

Heya. So today I went to turn my PC on and it did nothing. It was on, and the blue LED was showing, but the monitor wasn't getting a signal and the fan wasn't going or anything. I turned it off and then on again, but this time nothing happened at all. No blue LED even. For the past year (or two) I've been running the comp on a low CMOS battery... so whenever I'd turn it on when I woke up, it'd often show a time many hours slow. Other than that, there have been no indications I need to replace the battery. Would a dry CMOS battery cause it not to start at all? Dammit, I wanted to finish Baldur's Gate 1 this weekend.

They removed that huh? Awesome. I think I can deal with the 3 installs thingo (and there will be a crack if I can't). So much for Gromnir calling our rants and boycotts a waste of time.

You logic is sound, but I think it's not complete; I maintain there are ways to integrate character development into an RPG which the player perceives as enlightening rather than disempowering. I'll have a bit of a think about it, but I think any game which raises moral questions can trigger character development by triggering real personal development. Forcing the player to make even basic moral and philosophical decisions is perhaps the best form of this, and I believe it's one of the reasons Torment was so successful (likewise for Deus Ex). Anyway, I'm not really talking about morality systems as a means of character development, rather as a means of shaping the game universe in response to player actions - actions breed consequences and reactivity in the game-world, ideally in shades of grey and in partially unpredictable ways. The actual morality score and/or mechanics could be entirely invisible to the player.

That's a lot of assumptions. "Character development is offensive to players"? HUH? Also, Fallout and Torment both had a 'morality' system. Did you play them? Deus Ex went free-style instead, which I think worked well.

CD-keys are an acceptable balance between security and invasiveness. This isn't a 'war' publishers can win. It's all about cutting your losses and then focusing on keeping happy those who really do buy your games, so they'll continue to in future; they're the ones you want to market to.

When I was going to bed last night, I thought of a cool idea. It'd be nice if there was a game world with a 'memory'. You'd have two systems: karma and reputation. Reputation would be about what people thought of you. Karma would be whether you did good or bad stuff. The problem with Fallout or BG's system is that neither differentiates between good and respected and all consequences are fairly predictable. If you divided the two systems as such, you could then work with a world that also rewards/punishes/whatever the player in unpredictable ways depending on their actions; a world that's reactive to the actions and attitude of the player. A world that truly revolves around you (but not in the stereotypically trite way of 'here comes the hero to save the day'). Probably better for a world like Planescape or Star Wars, with their living Belief and living Force philosophies... indeed Torment was kind of reactionary like this to a certain extent.

I absolutely cannot disagree more. Bicep exercises are worthless becuase isolations are worthless. The best exercises are compound lifts. the ones that hit multiple muscle groups at the same time not to mention stabilizing muscles/etc, like the 4 I mentioned earlier. Isolations like curls focus mainly on one muscle and usually are done in such a way to not promote stabilizing/joint strength. Also, I'm not sure if you meant it but I never said anything about target training, ie doing sit ups and people correlating it to fat loss in the abdominal region. Fair enough. Couldn't agree more that compound exercises are the way to go.

There'll be some middleware in Onyx. I don't know that I can say specifically what it is, but it's not a middleware-free engine. I don't know that a lot of people try that nowadays...the time savings that come from using middleware are pretty substantial. IIRC we already know the physics engine is out-sourced... but what game these days doesn't outsource the physics?

I think it's level 26. It's a holy symbol for a ring slot IIRC.

Nature has easily reclaimed the land previously devastated by Chernobyl. And that was only about, what, 20 years ago? But what about all the missing top soil? Top soil just doesn't grow on trees! Hahahahahahahahaha

There is no way I am buying that game.

What, so when the GI article says "individual weapons specialization" (43) I'm interpreting that to mean specialization in individual weapons? Am I misinterpreting the following? "But what if he has an ability to unerringly pop out from cover and take down six assailants? If you place enough points in pistols, he will. That particular ability, called Chain Shot, allows Michael to enter a state of heightened awareness to quickly take stock of his surroundings as events around him slow to a crawl. In this mode, you can mark the positions of nearby hostiles, and when Michael returns to reality, he jumps out and fires a precise and lethal shot at each target." Does this not refer to a specific character ability gained in a specific way involving a specific skill? Sounds to me like the author of the article is pretty aware of what Chain Shot is. Again, it also sounds to me like somewhere down the line 'pistols' is being used as a catch-all term. Again, forgive me if I continue to adopt a wait-and-see policy.

Actually slug, bicep exercises are absolutely fine. You do hit on a point of interest though: if you ever do bicep curls, ALWAYS do another exercise for the triceps as well; never exercise one of these muscle groups without also exercising the other. Your second point seems murky to me. Many studies have shown that weight loss does not occur in the area of the muscle exercised, but but as a distributed average over the body. But it's true weight training is also a decent way to burn fat (in the way alanschu said). But anybody who supports it as a replacement for cardio is an abject fool; cardio is not only a superior fat burner has many other important benefits to general health, fitness and longevity not found in muscle training alone - a point I believe gromnir was trying to explain.

Yeah but do you have any idea how annoying that is compared to a one-off door check?

You're just too young to understand. Yeah, I went there.

It's not "my approach," it's my interpretation of the evidence (see my various posts with extensive quoting from the GI article). If you would like to counter my evidence or interpretation thereof, go right ahead. 'Evidence' hey? Well if you don't mind I'll wait till we have something more tangible than speculation before I lament the distribution of weapons. A preview from people who've actually had a chance to talk to developers and see the game in action is just baseless speculation? All right then, whatever. Maybe. But speculation from a person who interpreted the words of a preview written by a person who glimpsed a portion of the game? Well...

Actually, 'warm-up' style stretching is a contentious issue and it would seem the 'benefits' touted by conventional wisdom are more myth than fact. It was an example. Thought that was fairly clear. Well that claim is almost contradictory. It's true fat-burning and cardio health are not one in the same, but their relationship is synergistic none-the-less. No, they don't. So why you are bringing this up? Can't really tell what you're point, if any, is Gromnir, or if you're just spouting out random fact/opinion because you find it interesting.

I had noticed that fwiiw Haha. I dunno how it escaped. What do you mean?

Haha, well said Wals!

Go go Visas and Mira!