metadigital

Well, time pressure is one way: people get harried when they have less time to make decisions (and too much information to process); that's what RTS games use to good effect.

Why no Nintendo Wii development

Excellent comment, I wholeheartedly concur. Gaining a +1 on your Will save for completing a task is infinitely more rewarding than having to cart yet another Sling +1 off to the local merchant for some shiny. Another great idea: it is much better to have odd magical items that encourage a player to specialize their PC along a path; what I mean is that a low level character might find a nice magic weapon that is of a type that is extremely rare, and so they would eschew the normal "long sword specialisation" for a katana, for example ... and that requires the extra exotic arms feat, etc. The player could also choose to not do this.

That's exactly how Kasparov was beaten by the IBM Deep Blue; the computer was busy scanning all the possible moves from the current position, so that when Kasparov eventually made his move the computer moved immediately. Part of the psychological strategy of the IBM team. (It is a commonly held belief that Kasparov was the superior player; the IBM team used all sorts of meta-gaming techniques to put him off his best game.)

I think that's a fair enough trade-off: you either get to know how well you're doing by hearing status reports from both sides, or you play with Fog and don't get any info until the end (either very good or very bad ).

There are many ways it could be handled; an entire conversation / series of conversations could be represented by a single dialogue option; or a more granular approach could be used where each critical option could be micro-managed (like a mini-game) and the player would try to balance the praise with guile and prevent the NPC from detecting any manipulation ... say "[Lie] Of course your bum doesn't look big in that!"

What do you mean by "ghost" your harddrive to DVD? You can take a backup of it that is stored on a bunch of contiguous DVDs.

Most people are prepared to pay for convenience, especially in this modern "time-poor" culture we have. If iTunes works, and it isn't obnoxiously expensive, then the people will use it (after all, it's an innovation, and better than what they were using before). It's all about marketing: finding the right spot and price for a product.

There's a moral here ...

So you're the one buying all those albums!

At least you didn't own a Vic-20. They were universally hated by everyone. Of course, I had an Apple //e.

Well, countries that have signed the UN charter have agreed to the conditions for a legal war that Walsingham referred to. Isn't that legally binding? I don't think the UN has sole authority over deciding whether or not those conditions were met, though its voice should carry weight. In the absence of a formal court that we can take the US and UK to in order to test the legality of the war under those conditions, I think a conensus among international lawyers is the best we can manage. The system isn't perfect - far from it. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yes, but that is precisely the problem. The courts of a country don't exist outside of that country: they are interpreting the law as written by the (elected) government and passing judgment and sentence. The UN is just a club put together to try to get the countries to talk to each other: it's a completely different configuration. There is no UN goverment that writes international law, and no UN prison to lock offenders up in. I'm surprised to hear you say that. Most supporters of the war that I know believe there are legal and illegal wars, but that the invasion of Iraq was a legal war. Expert international lawyers are on BBC World endlessly arguing about whether the war was legal or not, implicitly acknowledging that wars can be legal or illegal. What's caused you to come to the conclusion that there are no illegal wars? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Because there is no authority for a legal judgment. As it was, the UK Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, just rubberstamped the Tony Blair's policy (the fact that they were flatmates at university had nothing to do with it, I'm sure!). It's a feeble, flaccid and even dangerous conceit. For example, how legal is China's annexation of Tibet? Is it even relevant? What about Taiwan?

Believe it or not, those are the basic ingredients for a "Comedy" (one of the seven basic plots): disguises, impersonations, endless misunderstandings, etc ... until the finally denouement. It's just an extreme take on the formula.

Double Ewe Tea Eff?

Is that the small European songbird of the thrush family with a red breast and brown back and wings [Erithacus rubecula], (also American robin) a large North American thrush with an orange-red breast. [Turdus migratorius], or any of the numerous similar or related birds, e.g. Pekin robin?

Wow, I have just finished episode eight (disc three). Good stuff!

Yes but under normal circumstances, if only because you know just as much about them as they you, they wouldn't cross you.

Saw this somewhere:

It's very ... graphic. Sort of like Dallas with swords and sandals and an R rating.

Because you'd be interested in working, and keeping your productivity high .. :D

Isn't that backwards. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> No. Who can screw you over worse? A friend that knows you well or someone who doesn't? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Life hasn't been good to you, has it.

I'd rather people necropost than start a new thread every time they get an itch. @Topic: Classical.

Rome

I am now hankering after Rome: Total War, after watching the first seven episodes of Rome ...

Same reason why people live long enough to regret the tattoos they choose in their youth, of course.