metadigital

Here's the mod homepage: http://corv.cfkasper.de/ They have just advertised and aquired (not sure of the correct terminology for a bunch of volunteers on a mod project, but let's not digress there) new staff, so maybe that will help. (they have just posted their first video teaser ...) Who is ThePal ? Linkie please!

Wading through the sycophantically effusive "preview" of Oblivion in this month's PC Gamer, I did read some interesting stuff, which I shall relate herewith. ... and what makes it most exciting is that it also addresses its shortcomings with almost surgical precision. The lifeless text-based dialogue system has been replaced by an unbelievable 50 hours of speech, including erstwhile Enterprise captain Patrick Stewart as the human emperor. They've wisely given up on the messy stream-of-consciousness journal system, and the new quest log is similar to that of World of Warcraft. Persuasion - which previously degenerated into bribing people until they told you what you wanted - has come a particularly long way. When executive producer Todd Howard decided to put the moves on a bookseller he liked the look of, the new interface popped up. It's a disc with the four compass points labelled with methods of persuasion: joke, admire intimidate, and taunt. You position your cursor for the right balance of methods you think will work, all the while watching their face intently. If you veer toward the obsequious end of flattery, you'll elicit a scowl of distaste as your sycophancy becomes transparent. Once you find a sweetspot between adulation and cool, it'll be obvious from their expression that they're amenable to your tone; so you let go of the mouse button and they react to your line for real. Todd went for a mostly jokey angle, and when he released the mouse button the bookseller chuckled appreciatively: "An orc in a dress? That's a good one." A few more classic jibes at greenskin cross-dressing later, and he got her talking about the attacks on the town. Now much more open with him, the bookseller admitted the violence was starting to scare her. In fact, she could use someone like him around for protection. Would he care to stay the night? He would. This is where the biggest change has taken place: in the private lives of the NPCs. For starters, they now have them. But what we saw was more than the daily routine rhetoric we've heard about before; it was something almost scarily involved. Hanging out in her bedroom, our new 'friend' got on with practising her archery. She had to down an aim-improving concoction before her practice was entirely safe to perform with company, and with her small ldog scampering about. After three bullseyes, she was satisfied and settled down to read. Her dog was still making a nuisance of himself, though, so she found a steak for him and tossed it on the floor. Here's the root of that term 'Radiant AI' you might have heard bandied about: the dog scans within a radius around him, locates the steak, realises it's food and that he's hungry, and gobbles it. Stats boosted, he yapped with renewed vigour, and eventually his mistress

When I buy it, I'll be sure to send you a copy ...

... And you have the gall to criticize Little Britain

You are forgeting the late great Harry Secombe and the comic geniuses Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers in the comedy that pre-dates Monty Python: The Goon Show. Spike Milligan wrote most of the episodes literally whilst in fits of mania (he was very ill with bi-polar disorder for most of his life); there are few who can mach his wit. Put him together with Peter Sellers and you cannot fail to create magic. Another contemporary of brilliantly irreverent Monty Python was The Goodies (Graeme Garden, Bill Oddie and Tim Brooke-Taylor): they were all in the Cambridge footlights together. Dudley Moore and yet another comic genius Peter Cook put together Derek & Clive. I have yet to find any humour at the same level, although some of the Black Adder epidodes were pretty good. Hmmm, I think I'll go and watch Dr Strangelove ...

There are in the order of 2000 Bachelor of Science graduates in India every week. One of the driving factors in China's growth is that most of her population are peasants (farmers). There is an unmeasurable amount of growth to be spurtedt oget the country to a level near some of her cities, like Hong Kong, for example.

The entitiy we now know as China has always managed to assimilate all foreign cultures and influences; there is still a strong streak of ancestor worship, for example. (This results in the very laudable respect that Chinese people have for their parents, such that

Firstly, Australia is still a British Commonwealth country, and the largest proportion of landholders (by a significant margin) are British. Secondly, your point is specious. Why would the status of another country have any bearing on the independence of the USA ? ... The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). ... That made me chuckle. I don't like whomever it was that typed up the document, though. It was thoughtful of them to use US grammar, but it is totally fallacious (unless it was an attempt at irony ...). "

Just on a cursory skim of the FAR TOO LONG post, I noticed quite a few liberties being taken with Bible scripture interpretations, for example, and far too few citations from other sources; not once was there a reference to one fo the numerous "scientists who noticed perterbations in the planetary orbits" since the early 1900s. It sounds exactly like every haox ever boradcast. But wait! He has a book I can BUY and read.

Wouldn't that negate his use as a mule, and make you liable for trafficking and kidnapping? (Not to mention importing a dangerous substance: pure spamorama.) Anyways, let's see ... how about Malaria from an equatorial country?

Please: one of my pet peeves is people who do not use Syst

"

Bourgeoisie: Pearl of the Wastelands is the name that some Polish fans havve given their post-apocalyptic, cybernetic implant, mutant game. It's a 3D engine, but uses an isometric view. Check out the site at: http://www.innyswiat.pl, if you can speak Polish ...

Heh. The last Ultima game I played was ]I[, although I did start messing around in Ultima IV, but I neve got into it ... Was Lord British still alive?

You can always go and tell them that, there's a forum at the end of the link I posted, above.

Um, that's the point of the mod.

This month's PC Gamer records how, since 2004, a band of Ultima fans have been working on a new ending for Ultima IX: Ascension, inspired by Richar dGarriot's original concept. ... Ultima IX: Redemption is actually a Morrowind mod so will require that game and both expansions to play, but will have a completely different interface, skills system and mechanics. It's far from complete, but head to http://ultima.cfkasper.de/ to show your support for an admirable effort. PC Gamer, issue 151, August 2005, p21. My highlighting. :D

I just read another drip-feed in the latest PC Gamer, apparently the on-line multiplayer will allow closer and more sophisticated alliances; for example it will be possible to jointly research technologies. Sounds like they have been busy implementing interesting stuff, at least.

The Sith can manipulate, and we want to see more of that. I think Palpatine was best at it. Kreia was antagonistic and somewhat obvious. Palpatine was better IMO. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Further to that, I wanted my DarkSide PC to be able to manipulate the drongos around me. :angry:

D'Oh! Thanks, I have fixed that. (Incidentally, the correction that I sent out was due to me abbreviating the mis-spelled Burgundy ("Bergundy") in Germany's orders. I thought it was a move to Berlin (which is also contiguous with Munich). This just underscores the need to check abbreviations. (And it was easy to trace in the audit trail, because the orders were written in full.)

No, I said that if I didn't hear from people, I would assume their vote was to restart. As it was, I heard from everybody (except Nartwak ) and it was not unanymous to restart. So, in all fairness and good conscience, I could not restart your game unless all of you agreed. Anyway, I have sent the results to you ... ENGLAND F NTH - Nor A Wal - Bel F ENG C A Wal - Bel FRANCE F Bre - ENG A Par - Bur A Mar - H GERMANY F Den - Swe A Ruhr - Hol A Mun - Bur ITALY A Ven-Tri A Rom-Apu F Nap-ION AUSTRIA F Alb-Gre A Ser-Tri A Bud-Tri TURKEY A Con-Bul A Smy-Con F Ank-Hold RUSSIA NMR Okay, remember the first post has the updated status of the game. Please supply your Build orders by noon (UTC) Friday. Failure to submit will mean no builds ...

I'm thinking about whether to ... ... add a nice little spreadsheet of positions and possibly a nice graph, so there is a nice split-level effect ... "

I sense a quote from War of the Worlds ...

Standard procedure is to place a link to it in your sig, then people can pull-down the site when you post something terribly witty or inciteful ... "

That requires an exceptionally sophisticated pathfinding AI, with impressive collision-detection, both of which were quite poor in K2. That's not boring, that's immersion-enablement! Seriously, though, it was my inference that there was a conscious effort to flesh out the areas by putting triggers and action areas in distant and non-linear connecting paths, to try to encourage the feeling of large, open spaces for the PC to explore. I thought it was quite well handled, though, e.g. especially on Dxun and Onderon, in that there were guides to escalate passage through completed areas, and cut-scenes were timed to intercept the narrative and propel it to the next interactive part.