metadigital

The single dueling feat gives single-handed (unarmed) combat as well, which is necessary for the fights with the Handmaidens and Mandalorians. It also gives a defence bonus.

I think you like it because it sounds like a dungeon; it does sound like a cool dungeon. I would like to see a Nar Shadaa type city with active underclasses, but more than just two layers (legit and crime). Also some random thugs (like the berks in K1 that were beating up the Ithorian on Taris) and a gang war (also like Taris, in the underworld).

There are bonuses accrued by ability scores, too. For example, every two points of Charisma above 10 gives a +1 to persuade, etc. The relevant ability for a skill is listed in the general decsription of the skill.

R U fly ?

Exactly what's so exciting about next-gen games. Less artists, more programmers :D Kidding. The reality, though, is that procedural graphics is *likely* the way of the future in terms of large-scale games. I don't mean the death of personalized graphics - far from it. You'll still have your hand-crafted NPC's with unique skins/models, your uniquely stylish weapons, whatever. The difference, though, is that the *art* itself will be easier to produce. No more artists spending weeks perfecting a temple that's only "up to par". Imagine, instead, the ability to translate your idea of the scene into the computer in 1/5th - 1/10th of the time, which leaves room for both better details and more (longer?) gameplay. It's happening with animation. It will happen with games. Not that I've anything against slow-and-steady handcrafted art. It's just that, in today's consumers' eyes, the baseline of a game is having "decent" graphics. The bar will only rise with time, and we can imagine that in order to produce a game in the coming decades, you would either need to hire teams of hundreds of artists (thus making mass appeal and corporate dominance even *more* prevalent, not to mention the management ability to distribute work over such a large crowd), or discover new technology that would allow you to create better art at ten times the speed through a combination of procedural modification of previous or base models. and better production architecture Personally, I'm thinking the latter will come true sooner than the former. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Actually, I would say that both initiatives will happen / are happening simultaneously. I think we are in a period comparable to the Italian Renaissance and the crafts, like stomemasonry, with our modern games as the cathedrals. We don't have enough stonemasons in the world today to build Saint Peter's Basilica in a century; I think we will see more and more artists and even programmers playing a bigger part -- or rather more people playing smaller but more frequent parts of the entire industry, as work practices become more disjointed from careers to job-specific contracts.

No, but we can award a Peace Prize to every "Freedom Fighter" that sticks his hand up, but any decent mathematician gets to live in poverty and be remembered by ... nobody. Hmm, that works. No wonder mathematics is a dying language.

My nearest Barnes & Noble is now over six hours away, at comercial jet airspeed. But I shall look online (I was only interested in the alternative to the alignment system, at this point.)

I really don't understand that mentality. With wealth comes power. Your friend could easily donate all his wealth to worthy causes, except he would have a lot more. In fact, isn't there a duty of intellect? (What was his name, that philosopher. Dang, I'm off to bed now.) Just think how much change Bill Gates can effect in this world. He could literally build a small African country from the ground up, IT infrastructure and public, medical and all facets of society. Easy. (I often wonder why he doesn't.) *Sigh* I guess to get the wealth precludes the very people that would be good to have it.

I'm keen to see the Theory of Everything solved; I think that is definitely possible within our lifetime. I mean it makes sense, the relationships are all proportional to the inverse square law, all we need to do is find a new Planck constant or Avogadro number to be the Gravitaional Proportion. Unfortunately I have less than five years to obtain my Fields Medal for mathematics -- although I suppose I might make the Nobel Prize for Physics ... (Aside: why isn't there a Nobel Prize for Mathematics? :angry:)

Offsite robust multiple redundancy archive.

Thanks. (I believe that Infocom aren't going to prosecute anyone for copyright infringement.)

1. I didn't read the link, I skimmed it to make sure it covered Aleph cardinality. 2. I am recalling (accurately IMO) the infinite - aleph relationship from a mathematics book I read maybe ten years ago, so I don't have the working at my fingertips. If I don't feel to lazy, I'll read the link, digest it and do some more research (as it doesn't really give the calculations there that I have been referring to) and then get back to you with a more analytical explanation. 3. Or, we could get back on topic, rather than shoot off tangentially, at a near-superluminal velocity.

Did you draw that, meta? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yes! (Ok, No)

Oh, I thought you were trolling! Sorry Flatus, I would have elucidated with my last post. (I'm afraid you will have to return several street creds, though, for now being down with the 1337speak. Just as I now have to, after using the phrase "being down". )

I've heard of it, but don't recall anything about it ... certainly don't think I have played it ... is it a PC title? I remain hopeful that non-/low-graphical games might provide the engine and EA, or some big company, will buy the IP and plug it into a graphics engine (after all the research has been done, the sunk cost is waiting for someone to turn a small marketing investment into a huge return). I dred that too, but I don't think it'll happen that way; simply because it would be impossible for the small guys to get a look in, let alone compete. I think the little guys might end up having to plug their ideas into an exiting system, like an NwN2 or Renderware (even though that's now owned by EA); hopefully Epic's UT2007 engine will provide a quality SDK and competitive pricing for the little guys.

Yeah, I figured you were a science/maths major because you have the science and math AND the other arts knowledge, too. People who major in arts tend to be completely ignorant of maths and science, in my experience, and look down their collective noses at anyone who doesn't think that the every single tiny part of the combined arts

Knock yourself out!

What's not to like about black leather?

That doesn't make sense. Take infinity to the infinity power and you get Aleph 1, but take that to the infinity power again and you get Aleph 2? Infinity to the infinity power is the same as inifinity to the (infinity + 1) power. Aleph 2 includes numbers not in the set of Aleph 1 I would assume. Imaginary numbers and the like perhaps? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> No. Follow the link to learn about the cardinality of sets represented by Aleph. You are trying to apply normal arithmeitc operations to sets. That's like trying to assert matrix multiplication is communitive! Regardless, there is an obvious arithmetic error in your working, too. Infinity raised to the infinite power, raised to the infinite power is not infinity raised to the (infinite +1) power, it is infinity to the (infinity

Natch. Actually, I really like Navarra, she was the coolest character (although Deakin was the funniest) in NwN HotU. Always struck me as the perfect woman: butter wouldn't melt, so long as everything went swimmingly; as soon as you crossed her: bang! Surprise attack with more damage than is required to kill a pod of orcas.

How did you cast the fireball in the first place? Lots of scrolls?

Interesting. Is there an online resource that I might read up on this particular aspect at leisure? (In other words: linky?)

Me too! (What does PBEM mean?)

A friend of mine was the dux at our school the year before me and went to university where he promptly topped every subject in his first semester (straight sevens and first places), at which time he was interviewed by a few Stockbroker firms. He never finished uni, never went back. Last time I looked him up he was getting those $M bonuses you read about in the paper every tax year. Bastard.