metadigital

Pick up this month's PC format, there is a couple of free utilities to do exeactly that: back-up selected parts and also make a ghost of your entire harddrive. I can also recommend this site for good Windows advice, except it's not there at the moment ... A good technique I can recommend is to have different hardware profiles, available after you boot. For example, I have: Default Game - Performance Install / Full You can then edit the service profiles (type services.msc in a command line, like the Run... dialog in the Start menu). For example, I normally boot up the performance profile, because it doesn't start RAM hogs like the indexer, so the pc boots faster and has less clutter in memory.(You can leave the service running in "default" and "Install / Full", so that when you want to install some new software it is available. There are hundreds of windows services running at any startup, and a lot of them are not needed -- like the indexer and ASP.Net extensions, etc.) You can also google the services and you will find capacious background info for all the services, too. That website has a very thorough run through of this and other techniques -- I got it from the PC Format or PC Zone website, he's a regular contributor.

Or, more likely, it's for the idiots in the cheap seats "Eks-Zav-I-A", oh, that must be why it's called "Eks-Men" ! Incidentally, despite what Mr Cumming says on his website, he is still listed on the honor role at IMDb ...

Hehe, like the Steward of Gondor, Boromir and Faramir's father? He comes across as a lunatic chaotic evil, when his actions weren't that extreme (until his flips out and panicks in the big battle just before he dies). I think Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson did especially well giving as much light and shade to the characters as they did.

I don't mind so long as they get actors who don't pronounce his name as "Ecks-Zavior" ... <_<

I agree with Eru; the easiest, simplest and cheapest first course of action is to check your wires. Now go back and do it properly. Loose wires make up a large proportion of helpdesk calls. And it's free to fix. Then run a checkdsk / scandsk. (Of course you have backed up your files regularly, so just make your incremental backup so that your archive is completely current.)

I don't follow you. How is a film, based on a protagonist, different from a video game, based on a protagonist? Surely the same tactics are relevant; a game is just interactive.

I never said that LA execs would actually read our suggestions, just that, as part of their contract, OE were collecting our views on LA's behalf. On current form, I'd expect them to be "stored" in that little box-like thing conveniently placed under the desk ... "

That's pretty hard to do when they are talking about filming the first 20 episodes at once like a mini-series. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The current tv series modus operandi is to commission 4-6 episodes at a time (the producers don't want another actors' class-action-pay-negotiation, like Friends), so I find it very unusual that anyone involved would just film 20 episodes "even if they sucked". Sounds like wishful thinking, to me. "

Setting aside your admiration for the attempt at a workable influence system, there is still the woeful charaqcter development. The NPCs were not much more than moving wallpaper. Anyway, I think the writing should have been emphasized more, you have stated earlier that better graphics would have impressed you more. I think your hope for a promising-but-flawed improvement in the non-combat mechanism requires more writing than a stagnant-but-graphically-superior one.

High school? I think you're being generous: more like kindergarten. :D

Was that the Asimov (?) short story about the Anti-Christ appearing as a travelling bubblegum salesman, and detected by the Earth-government-replacement super computer? (Stop me if you know what I'm talking about...)

I wish you all the best in your endeavours. Anything to compensate for having been observed with a Boba Fett statue by any of the neighbours ...

Except it didn't work like that, nowehere near as well as that. It was much clumsier than that, and bugged as well. I liked the concept, but I didn't like the result. You may wish to defend it till your blue in the face, I am not disagreeing with the concept -- far from it -- I think it was a poor implementation, which led to my disapointment (which empathising with gives you much trouble, apparently).

You're just jealous

Just eat it, then?

But what's this? A cunning plan that requires the services of Baldrick, some arts suplies and the best portrait artist in all of England? What possible darstendly plan could be unfolding ...?

Nah, I didn't like Helios nearly as much as D

There wasnt any. Going on sidequest dosnt equal character development. Each character went on, what was supposed to be this pivitol side quest, that ended up having no affect what so ever on their personality or values. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> ... As opposed to K2, where one went about merrily way solving quests etc; if you had the correct NPCs, at the right place and time, and acted in accordance with their wishes, the PC received influence with them, and they eventually told some sad and pointless story that had no bearing on anything. Yep, much better.

Oh, I see. You mean LA won't have to pay others, like a team of developers, when those developers aren't productive. Ah! I thought you were talking about the productivity of LA, which seems to be negligible.

yes i saw that video, and trust me i dont do that, oh and i thought i saw you in the backround ,metadigital, what the hell are you doing there?unless your a star wars geek yourself. :D <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I do not own, nor ever have I owned, any star wars paraphenalia, including -- but not limited to -- lightsabres, costumes and life-size figurines.

Think about it <{POST_SNAPBACK}> But it is a nonsense. Anakin Skywalker fell to the Dark Side. Canderous was already a Dark Side sob.

That's not true. Sure OE did some hard work, but that doesn't excuse a half-baked game. The character development in K1 was better than K2, apart from Kreia, who at least was a deep character. Even Vrook was sketched better in the original, and that's saying something! I don't agree that K2 was "light-years ahead of what most other RPGs are offering"; I've played some with NPCs in NwN that are more fleshed out and interesting. Even the amateur community contains better work. And why do we have to settle for what a developer can rush out in under twelve months, anyway? Some of the Japanese RPGs make these NPCs look like the cardboard cut-outs they are. Heck, some of the characters in the FPS genre are better drawn than Mandalore! (Barney in Half-Life AND Half-Life 2, for example.) I'm disapointed because the first game was brilliant, and the second had potential to be even better, and ended up worse. I don't see that I am being unreasonable.

Yes it was.

So, that means they wouldn't be paying anyone, ever ...?