metadigital

Gabrielle, you are sooooooooooooo naughty!

Based on Intelligence and Recall (Recall the last few pages +25%).

Rome: Total War is a masterpiece. A campaign map, similar to Civ (though not as intricate), has the over-arching story of (to begin with) a Julii general as his family takes over the Mediterranean (and further). The RTS part of the game takes place when the player zooms into a battle. It is easiliy the best combat in any game I have played: almost every unit has its own special techniques, like the testudo formation of latter Roman infantry, or the Canterburian Circle of certain type of cavalry. Additionally, there is is a large community, including www.rometotalrealism.org, which is best for a history lesson. I just installed the expansion, and it is a totally different concept: basically a smash and grab run to Rome (player starts as a bunch of armies, and the hoarding of the townships is not the way to win.) There are the two halves of the Roman Empire (East: capital of Constantinople, West: capital of Rome) to play, as well as all the Barbarian tribes. I'll let you know when I get a better idea, but it does have great reviews (additional features, like night battles and water combat).

Ultima ][ had riding! ... 3) Will I be able to really get into the character like I could pre-NWN and KoTOR? In Fallout, BG, and to a certain extent PS:T you really got involved with your characters, i.e., you "cared" about what was happening and if one died, or there were multiple ones that you enjoyed playing, it was difficult to decide which ones to use. Ferret: Chris Avellone is writing our companions and many prominent characters

Naw, they just have to filter "gay" ... :D

May all those who buy it get what they supremely deserve. (w00t)

*Magical Volo casts Powerword: Feeblemind* area effect: entire thread saving throw: save versus madness or ignore all of the previous posts and believe Volo's logic.

Also music, FX, voice acting, packaging, UI, and so on to all the aspects of a game outside of pure gameplay and story. Now that's not to say that CRPGs must be the equivalent of "cinematic" experiences either in the linear or non-linear sense - but that certainly seems the trend these days. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Indeed, game development, as with most forms of entertainment, began humbly. But "growth" in this industry has apparently been a progression towards more and more expensive graphics and sounds, while gameplay outside of a few important titles largely stayed the same. The developers are not really the ones to "blame" for this trend - they only did what the market desired, and therein lies why today's unpaid enthusiast finds it very difficult to attract any kind of attention when it comes to developing basement RPGs (and MMORPGs, which are a pipe dream for many enthusiasts). FPS modding can churn out some very good, near-professional results, but I've yet to see a truly excellent fan-developed RPG (and by this, I don't just mean the gameplay & story, but also the professional polish of graphics, FX, etc.) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Counter-Strike started with almost embarassingly basic graphics, little more than stick figures, and it is a FPS. The original methodology is sound, and now there are more communities to support embryonic developers. By methodology, I mean that the aim should be to use an iterative process to refine a game, with copious honest feedback from the alpha testers, rather than publish The Next Big Thing in a perfectly formed final state. It's the graphics and the marketing that sell a game (or else roguelikes would sell by the buttloads). Quality freeform gameplay and story keeps the customer around, but it's the graphics (and marketing, and genre/brand-identification) that first and foremost attract the masses. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I'm not convinced. Flashy graphics and a Hollywood Blockbuster marketing budget (perhaps even a film tie-in) only get a game a big first-night in the theatre we know as the game market. True longevity and return on investment won't materialise with an empty game, no matter how pretty the green hair is on the pixies. What was the last game with a film tie-in that actually made money? I can't think of one off-hand ...

I don't think I understood that post, meta. see, his nickname is pixies, not capitalised, since in his actual sn there are no caps. Technically I should have included an apostrophe after the s, but I should also technically capitalise the first letter in my sentence, as well as "I". <{POST_SNAPBACK}> No, I was checking to see if the omnipresent Pixies had infiltrated yet another identity. Hence the question mark: it was a question, viz.: "Are you Pixies, too?". Humour rarely is as enjoyableonce it is explained, however. So you are guilty of being an silly AND churlish:

Italian makes French sound like a couple of cats fighting. No coincidence that the Italians have a leg-up for Opera over everyone else.

(w00t)

MM Online RPG?

But what about my s00p3r-|

I am struggling to remember a time before Plano's SW fetish ... recall fails ... (w00t)

Is that sarcasm? @Jimmy Peter Cushing is a dude. I am partial to the underwater bar brawl, myself. Or the undercover operative disguised as a souvenir seller ... actually, pretty much all of it! :D

Right. Looks like a Swedish-only bigoted news source! <_< To be fair, the advantages for SATA-II's NCQ was slight (although I'm sure the technology will improve as it matures). They did say that the the Raptor's extra RPM wasn't as big an advantage as we might suppose, and that 16MB cache gave a better performance boost. I'll re-read the article to make sure I'm not misrepresenting it ...

Silly Wabbit!

It's also good for those of us who can think outside the boxed-up day; costs for weekend breaks and flowers and other relationship lubricants are significantly less at other, off-peak, times of the calendar. "

Slow to anger?

Nope, that is definitely the accent. It always sounds like the speaker is pissed off, picking a fight or just sulky. (Lots of Yarpies here in Britain, especially nurses.)

Right, now I can see again, I shall make two points. 1. I would be careful how you describe Christianity of recent history. The tolerance of today is a far cry from even 100 years ago: my father's parents were told, by the Catholic preist, that they were not married in the eyes of God (his father was a protestant). Naturally he threw out the bigot on his ear, but that was early twentieth century in Melbourne, Australia, not Middle Ages or Afghanistan under the Taliban. Additionally, the free society (wrt freedom of religion) we enjoy in the occident is more a result of disenfranchised royalty than the magnanimity of the Christian Church. Specifically the decrees of King Charles II's 1672 Royal Declaration of Indulgence, King James II's 1688 Declaration of Indulgence, and King William III of Orange's 1689 Act of Toleration primary allowed for Catholics (and non-conformist Protestants, like Quakers and Methodists) to legally practice their faith in Britain. Islam has notably been historically tolerant, too: the Spanish Saracens were demonstrably broad-minded and allowed Christians to live and practice their faith. (Don't forget Hitler draped the Third Reich in the cloth of the Church, too.) 2. You are not alone in your search for objective truth; I trust that it is not a rainbow's poto'gold, and, even if this be so, I am confient that the search will bring its own dividend.

Pack some wet-weather gear.

Ironically, most people who were captured for slavery were captured by enemy tribes and then sold to the slave traders. There are no innocents in that particular piece of history. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> There's talk of a reparation payment by the US government to the African Americans (via the AACongress? Not sure who gets the bucks) In the order of trillions of $US. It wasn't a one-of thing, there were decades (even centuries) of profiteering out of the sale of humans. @Volo: I never suggested that African Americans were the only slaves. What a Volo comment. But the industrial exploitation of them over the centuries makes it a holocaust. In fact Benjamin Zephaniah, an outspoken British author, makes a point of how if a black person complains about slavery they are dismissed as "have a chip on their shoulder", yet the Jewish people make endless films and documentaries and have laws to ensure that THEIR holocaust is remembered in perpetuity, at the expense of, say the 1919 British massacre of Indian women and children. I would suggest that the day is significant for the citizens of the US to come together and deal with the ghosts of the past and forge ahead, together.

... And all the trains run through London, where you can opt for a random derailment and probable serious injury! The fact that all trains connect through the London hub means that to get from one county to an adjacent one, you generally have to travel to London and back out again. Also, you'll be expected to keep your original mortgage statement with you, to give to the Train Operator. The French tourist guide actually describes the British train system as "quaint" and "historic". Certainly it ain't punctual (a report published a week or two ago stated that a train is cancelled every five minutes). Things do work in London, you just have to pay ten times the advetised price to get a working version. @Steve, that was a quote from Bridget Jones's Diary.

Pixies?