metadigital

The formula the Paramount used with all the Star Trek films was to provide a budget approximately what the film would make (based on what the last film(s) made): about, about $50 million, I think (less Paramount's projected profit). (It's on the director's commentary for Search for Spock, I think: the director's commentary of Wrath of Kahn is well worth a listen, too.) To continue the analogy: each time a new Star Trek film was made, up until the fourth, I think, there was no plan to make another. After the fourth was the biggest EVER, they signed up to do a total of ten.

Supervisors. Management. Etc. " <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Supervisors and management will leave you alone if you work properly. With customers(clients are different), even if you're the best employee in the universe, some will always bitch about any stupid little thing. And some often bring kids, expecting employees to babysit somehow... Postal is the way to go. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Consulting means having businesses as customers, who are all predictable: they want good value for money. Good service, good products. And that's it. If some business acts like a cretin

Oi, that link don't work! http://www.dramatec.com/ Or did you just make me do what *you* wanted? Also, what are the factors that might lead to your co-worker having a higher base salary? Age? Experience (obviously elsewhere, but in a similar/usefully-related field)?

Also, older, gimped versions of Windows are very ... idiosyncratic (read: unpredictable) with router configurations. By "older, gimped" I mean Windows 3.11/95/98/ME/ anything with a Home suffix. The IP stack was always fragile in Windows, meaning it wasn't dynamically configurable (so any changes to the config mean you must reboot), unlike OS/2 Warp, or any flavour of Unix, for example. You may have to (but don't unless all else fails) UNLOAD all the attached TCP/IP interfaces from your working ethernet cards and re-load them, as the older, gimped Windows do keep "secret" (i.e. from you) config info.

My Firefox installation is so tightly managed that I have to give permission to download anything: I haven't seen an advert for the longest time (apart from when I use IE for mail, because Yahoo hasn't added support for other browsers to edit webmail in rich text :angry:). Opera is the best browser, though, I reckon, and Firefox is a close second because it allows total customizability. And If you ain't using tabs, then you don't know what you are missing: truly, there is a (small) learning curve, but I can keep two browser windows open, one with all the references I check (dictionary.com, wikipedia, etc) and one with all the fora to post in. That way I can instantly alt-tab (read: flip-out) between reference and post!

Not at all. VALVe already use the Havok engine plug-in for physics calculations, it's just a matter of using the PPU instructions (as an optional branch, for those with a PPU). It's actually not that difficult: more like cut-and-paste than re-buld from scratch.

Asus just showed off their 256mb version of the PPU. I just don't see a reason to get this yet, or anytime inthe near future. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> There will be a BIG launch when some game has it ... can you imagine: Half-Life 2:Episode 3 now with Physics PU support!

Could be: the wiki is referentially-inconsistent, and I couldn't be bothered to google to ascertain the exact pixel count. Just go with the letters, the numbers are a guide. "

Proven by whom?

I've got one staring at me now ...

Bactrian camels are endangered: only about 800 wild ones left in outer Mongolia.

No. They are different ways of dealing with reality in a fantasy setting.

Camels with two humps?

Well it was more a Morrowind problem than an "RPG" problem. From where I'm looking at it though they havnt so much solved it as replaced it with more problems. As well as removed some of the fundamentals of RPGs along the way. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> NO, there is definitely an "RPG problem", otherwise why would GURPS use a differnt system to d20? Until a perfect solution (read: never) even an optimal solution will have non-optimal aspects.

No, free hardware! Enslaved by vicious software, doomed to be their bonded chattel, with no purpose without their control!

1. Tendency for the human body to sleep later (approx. 1 hr) every day. 2. Sounds like you have a HUGE sleep debt, too. (Not surprising, given you are a student and that vocation precludes anything except drinking after dark.)

Don't be an ass, Volo. The democracy in Iran is less of a pork-barrel than the US "electoral College" system. To compare it to a totalitarian regime just makes you look as ignorant as you are, which is something you should avoid, methinks.

Free the software, enslaved by hardware for all time!

I don't think that lasts. By 20 the game difficulty was a joke. It's a game about items, not characters. Even my worst moment in the game Kvatch wasnt as hairpulling as say Star Ocean on 4d. It was just a shock to the system because rather than gradually build upto it, it was just there. Kinda like meeting the first boss in Ninja Gaiden. The problem now is because of the scaling there are no great challenges in the game world either. No Dark Valefor or Omega Weapon. Or more MMPORGy no planes to aspire to , or "gods" to slay. So while scaling certainly kept the game more challenging that Morrowind. I don't think it could ever be the only solution. It's just too predictable in the long term. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> As has been noted several times, by several of us, the system ain't perfect (by a long chalk). Still, I applaud Bethesda for re-engineering their solution to the "RPG problem". After all, they could quite easily have rested on their not-insignificant laurels and just pumped out another Morrowind.

I think the inclusion of trap physics in Oblivion is unbelievably underappreciated in this topic. Which I am rectifying right now, with this observation.

... And casts a bajillion heal spells.

Great, then let the player deal with the consequences of attempting to conquer an area that is obviously full of great challenges before the character is of an ideal level to do so. I've read Bethsoft designers defend the easily-abused learn-by-doing system by saying that it's not their responsibility to prevent the player from doing stuff like jumping around the world non-stop to build their Acrobatics skill. I don't get why that philosophy doesn't extend to things like auto-balancing. In games like Ultima V, the Phantasie games, Fallout, even Pool of Radiance, the player had many exploration options at any given time. After leaving Tilverton in Curse of the Azure Bonds, you could head straight to the Mulmaster Beholder Corps if you wanted to. Your characters were all in the 5th-7th level range, but hey -- knock yourself out. Auto-balancing effectively removes serious consequence from player choice. As unintuitive as this may seem, choice without serious consequence often makes the player feel pretty impotent. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> All very valid points: the downside is certainly that I have no real incentive to level up my character. Counter-intuitively, levelling up makes the game harder, as it must keep the balance for the PC, so the game has to LEVEL UP with the player! But for all the criticism, I can't help but think there are some good points to the system. After all, ther is no way a player can wander through the game, letting the game play itself, for example. In every encounter, the PC stands a good chance of dying (simply because the monsters are at the same level and the PC is outnumbered): throughout the entire length of the game and at every stage of player development (novice, journeyman, expert, etc). That's no mean feat. Also, I haven't found the levelling up / scaling issue to be as much a bugbear as people in this thread, though. Perhaps my OCD-need to have a perfect(-ly rounded) PC sits this system better than others who would prefer to specialize in just sneak and blade, say, or heavy armour and a two-handed sword? (My Paladin has spent nearly all the game sneaking around, for example, with acrobatic jumps in between, whenever fatigue permits.) I do find myself thinking it is better to go and do the main quest now, rather than wait, so that it is more moderate in difficulty. That's a new experience for me. I think there is less room for error with higher PC levels, because the AI is smart enough to know its strengths and weaknesses

Your graticule is right in his mouth in that third shot ... just fire, NOW! No! Don't press the [PrtSc] button instead!

But can you bear to sell it? "