metadigital

Like a M

Well done I am constantly surprised at the rapid progress your team is making! Any proofing or such work I would be pleased to help with. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Rapid? It's June already and restoration isn't finished yet! <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You certainly have a lot of >ahem< experience with spam issues, so dealing with it would be second nature to you. (Like Frank Abagnale Jr, from Catch Me If You Can, was a great counter-counterfeiter. " )

Jedi would be "When You Wish Upon a Star ..."

Talk about inmates in charge of the asylum! Does anyone get a chance to post anything on the Romanian forum?

Probably not. My Kreia haven't help them too. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I think it was all to do with the (opponent) party dynamics, where the "party" was Kreia and her sabres. For example, if you manage to Force Wave the sabres behind Kreia, she is able to get a clear shot and will attack. (Even though she uses distance attacks with Force Powers. )

I have but obviously he too considered it too much for the cinema audience and stripped the more complex elements out for general release. Which really only reinforces the point I made. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Um, that was a joke. True I don't envy them the task that they aquitted themselves of so well. (Iread the books when I couldn't wait any longer to findout what happened in the Return of The King. Longest two weeks in recent memory. Although I enjoyed it, the target readership is about teenage, I think, and I was not very interested in prolonging my agony by reading the extra historical appendices at the end of my copy. Tolkien, too, had quite simplistic characters, though: no bad characters doing good acts to bring about a evil masterplan, or good characters doing evil acts to mitigate worse evil, etc.)

I've got a laptop, so I can take my KotOR to the lounge.

I think you posted this as a response to the wrong thread. This is the thread started by the almost-pubescent "leet" boy who wants (assumedly female) penpals to his "sexgod" hotmail account.

They're pretty popular in Sith Space, though. (Ewwww, cannibalism.) BOT, I would like to meet a kindly, wizened old Terentarek that has learned simple BASIC and wants to reach out and build a bridge between the races ... maybe we could use the "The Man Who Ruled the Universe" template, by Alan Dean Foster (in one of his rare original manuscripts, and not a film-to-novel conversion).

I don't think so. In general, when the progressors started killing the way most RPGs implemented, they were considered insane (usually correctly) and were removed for treatment. The people in charge were none too happy with the idea of letting a killer with futuristic fighting techinques loose on a medieval world. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I haven't read any of the contributory novels, so I am flying blind here. Assumption: these "Progressors" are backward time-travellers from the utopian communistic future into the pitiful fascist medi

... while still limiting the work to a reasonable amount. Dragon Age is a good example of this, with about half-a-dozen detailed, seperate characters with their corresponding unique backstories. I concur.

I am pretty sure that I had some Gand running away at one point ... even so, I agree morale was woefully underutilized and the concept of detail and non-lethal combat completely ignored. I want to see " Lawful Good" Jedi exercising restraint -- even at their own personal peril -- by trying to detain rather than kill. For example, it might be twice as difficult to stun as it is to hit and damage normally. More practically, it would be some penalty adjustment to the normal combat, as well as some special animations, to keep the game in balance. And it would be possible to switch between modes, just as in real life. You might want to kick the stuffing out of a particularly large, ornery and battle-savvy opponent before attempting to knock them out. Or you might try to disarm them. Then you might be using non-lethal combat and suddenly your own life is in danger, so you would use all (lethal) force necessary. (It would probably be too much to ask that the AI could determine if the combat style adhered to the alignment of the PC. " )

Blair's New Labour platform garnered 35% of the popular vote, which is just slightly less than Hitler's National Socialists did (36%) in 1934. The electoral system in the UK is not proportional voting, it is "First Past The Post". Consequently you put an "X" next to the candidate you want to win, not a ordered number of preferences, which means the system is overly simplistic. (Commentators worked out on election night that each Labour seat cost 15,000 votes, each Conservative 30,000 votes -- 33% of the popular vote -- and each Liberal Democrat seat 65,000 votes. This is due to the relative population sizes of the electorates that were won by the parties.) Then again, the other extreme is Italy, where Berlusconi's Forza Italia is the longest serving government in Italy's republican history (i.e. since June 2, 1946).

I have not said that space is finite. In fact, current theories sustain the opposite. But you are still applying a mundane perspective. Why does it have to be anything outside space, even space itself? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I may be misinterpreting your concept of space, then. Infinite and with bendable properties like length, bredth and height AND vacuumous? It is not clear whether gravity is expressable in gravitron particles, for example, yet I would hold that space has no such particles. The space you refer to is jsut where those particles are present, on an energetic trajectory out from the Big Bang. (that's what I'd call the fabric of space and time.) So, technically you could term space inside a bigger infitinte vacuum, but this seems the most logical explanation to the observable pattern of star systems, so far. Sure is, I agree with that. I don't see how the universe of stars can be infinite, though, even if the Big Bang were many times further back in time than we presently believe. It would have to be infinitely far back. Yes, yes. That's great and all, but it's not what I meant. I know that scientific laws are reliable enough. What is not a self-evident truth is that science will be able to explain everything. You said so yourself in a previous post, in a quote of Stephen Hawking, I think. And even if we do what Hawking proposes, there is still no guarantee that reason can find answers for everything. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Nope, no guarantee. As a punter I'd wager on scientific reason before religious dogma, though.

This is the problem. It is unconscionable -- knowing the foibles of humans as evidenced in Communist regimes, for example -- to deploy a government that doesn't include a form of representation. It makes sense to broaden the representation as widely as possible, with the understanding that not all parts are equal. Much as the personal computer is a complex group of components, so too a society is disperate groups of self-interested parties. I think part of the problem with our democracies is that the roles, responsibilities, penalties and costs are not codified: not clearly defined. I see no problem with giving the public servants, and this means politicians, whatever is required for them to do their jobs without impediment. I see a big problem with a laissaz-faire implementaion of this principle leading to politicians lining their own pockets (e.g. their superannuation packages), pork-barrelling (buying votes in constituencies), and generally creating a new powerbase just as dangerous as a monarchy or a plutocracy. One of the benefits of the class system in the UK (and I'm not a big fan of it, believe me) is that the nobility were groomed for selfless public service -- they had no need for reimbursement, after all. Democracies are a compromise. Majority rules, but minorities are not ruled out. The will of the majority may not necessarily be a sufficient mandate to control the minority who disagree. (There are obvious exceptions, like murder is not acceptable; but there are always soft edges to hard rules: what about self-defence? What about a slight, young female using the only means to prevent assault by a large, combat-trained brute by shooting him? What about state-sanctioned death penalty? Who decides? Etc.) All good management systems include a feedback loop, even development cycles. Otherwise the system can very quickly shoot off in a tangent to its purpose. The biggest issue with decision making ANYWHOW is information. Fewer contributors making an informed decision is must better than everyone making uninformed decisions. I'm all for voting on every issue, unfortunately that isn't going to work. The whole point of seperating government out as a task to be done by a specific group of individuals is to let that group specialise (savings in time and effort due to economies of scale) and leave the other group(s) to specialise in their particular areas of interest. The problem is verifying the work. This is done in business by employing an audit company. Enron notwithstanding, this system works. So what we need is a government that is elected based on similar principles as now, with a seperate group of auditors whose sole role is to check the rectitude of the members of parliament. They should have sufficient power to prevent abuse of the political system by politicians. This could be a funtion of the judicial system, although it would be a better idea to have a seperate entity. Another final point. A good constitution is not sufficient to produce a robust democracy. Liberia has the exact same constitution as the USA. What is required is a constitution, a judiciary, a legislature and an exexutive (and I would add an audit group) all elected independant of each other, all working together and seperately. Legislative Assembly (House of Commons) creates bills of parliament. Senate ensures the bills are consistent with the spirit and letter of established laws, especially the constitution. Executive is the Project Manager of the Legislature. The juditiary implements (further interprets) the laws. Auditors scrutinise the politicians and their decisions for fraud of any sort. Likewise with the juditiary. At the moment we are all reliant on the news media to alert the public to any egregious behaviour, ad hoc, in the legislative and judicial offices (and there is nothing that can be done about any judicial contraventions, especially in the UK). It needs to be spelled out, codified in law and enforced. That will prevent any misconceptions about roles and responsiblities and -- I think -- reduce all types of fraud.

And why does it need to exist inside of anything? You are applying a mundane, limited approach which may not be valid since it's the framework we are talking about, not what's inside it. Space exists in itself, and has some observable properties. If you think that "the fabric of space" exists within a reality of nothingness that you refer to as "space", you are introducing an unnecessary entity into the reasoning. Occham's razor? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well, I think your concept of a finite space introduces a bigger problem of what's outside the finite space. At least I haven't added arbitrary boundaries. There is the assumption I was talking about before. You may believe that science may be a pathway to the ultimate philosophical answers, but that's just a supposition. Take for instance the notion of "luck". An idea as old as mankind itself, and still we have found no explanation for it. In all of this time, science has not come a single step closer to answering metaphisical questions than it was when we first began to develop numerical systems. You have faith in science and logic, but as any belief, it is not something absolute, not a self-evident truth. Is it so hard to picture that there may be something beyond the feeble grasp of our reason? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> It may well be hubris to believe that -- certainly in our lifetimes -- science will explain the universe, chapter and verse. I take issue with science not being self-evident; it is there for all to test and re-test and observe the laws of physics and chemical reactions in situ, without any dogma from the scientific establishment. As for mathematics, one of the defining characteristics of mathematics is the ability to prove a concept, be it the description of the series of Fibonacci numbers by induction or FLT (Fermat's Great Theorem). Baring existential philosophical debate on the reliability of our senses to consistently describe the "all we can observe" universe to all of us identically, science is self-evident. No. It's more like "I would rather say 'I don't know' and forget about it". If Sir Isaac Newton had had the same attitude, he wouldn't have formulated his Principia. I'm not talking about religious revelations, mind you, because for starters, I'm not a religious person. However, "God" is a metaphysical entity needed to explain reality and existence in certain philosophical schemes. You might not accept those schemes, and that's just fine. But trying to prove them wrong wielding other arguments based in different kinds of faith is absurd. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> No I am merely providing evidence that -- using the most reliable scientific rigour we have, i.e. logical reasoning -- religious doctrines are less reliable and therefore less good science than real science. God requires no science for faith. But science requires no god, either.

Agreed neither theory is proved; and agreed I know it is not possible at this time to prove either one. But more information is pending from the scientific community ... No I didn't "state" the universe was infinite, I ruminated. Conjecture. Blue sky mining. Thought experiments. And it seems to me that any discussion on the explanation of what is beyond what we know as "everything we can observe" is going to consist mainly -- if not solely -- of conjecture. Yes, but as I have already said above, religious dogma actually restricts your options quite significantly. (And, you are having a bet each way, saying either scripture is right or science!) Ah, but my absence of "proof" is seen by some expedient religious dogmatists (not you, of course) as proof of the divine hand. Not so much anymore, I grant you, but I will always make sure this conceit remains as unpopular as it is illogical. I mentioned Socrates to underline my use of the word "axiom", which seemed to be totally misapprehended. Newton beleived in astrologoy and alchemy; I need not believe in either to calculate the velocty of an apple falling from a tree. I will put it down to my personal uncomfortableness with the faith in what I believe an inherently untrustworthy plethora of documents, and scientific rigour, being bedfellows within the same mind. Yeah, you started it.

Is it? I'm not so sure, since space and time are closely related, and it looks like time began with the Big Bang. Theoretically, it is space that is bent in the presence of large masses creating the effect known as a gravitational field. While we tend to equate "vacuum" and "nothingness" with "space", they are not the same thing. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well, I think you are confusing "Space" and the "fabric of Space", which I think the latter is the (known) three dimiensional "spatial" volume that we exist in of length, width and depth. What does this finite "Space" you talk about exist inside of? A vacuum, perhaps? Space. There's nothing magical about God. And there's no need to scream in fear either. You see, it's the default explanation, until we can get us a better one. You are defending the idea that we are, and I agree with you. But simply accepting that we have always been is like not wanting to know more. And as for God always being there, it's not really a double-standard or a contradiction because while we need to find logical mechanisms for the Universe, the same may not be true for God if he exists outside this universe, and therefore outside logic. I don't believe it's that way, but I see no fault with that reasoning. Unfortunately, you have to make assumptions (some would call them beliefs) either way to reach a conclusion. But obviously, the validity of said conclusion depends on the assumption being true. And since, by definition, those premises can't be proven, we have effectively reached a dead end. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I don't see it as a default explanation. I see it as an additional construct. We are discussing the "laws" or "physics" of events and objects that are by definition outside the "universe" that we have experienced. I think we need to nail down some definitions, because we are in danger of endlessly arguing semantics. Universe seems to be a much mis-used word. It can mean "all we have evidence of", "all we know or hypothesize about" or even more simply "everything". (The "multi-verse" is really a semantic clarification, not an actual difference to the universe in this respect.) You can argue that God is outside the universe, and you would be right if God exists and we don't use the last definition. The beauty of science is that it does not limit what might be the cause of the universe, I'm sure if scientists found evidence for a super-being that sneezed the universe out of its nose then they would measure the blast radius and nasal rifling of the being. Seriously, though, there is nothing in science that restricts the existence of "life" above our comprehension; we just don't have a way of measuring it yet. Would this life be divine? Depends on your definition, again. Religious doctrines actually limit the possiblities, and are based merely anecdotal heresay that allegedly is divinely inspired (and I just had to work heresy into the same sentence -- maybe if I said that dogma is the heresay heresy of science! :cool: ). If we look at strict probablity, it is much more likely that my unlimited scientific "let's wait and see based on further evidence" approach will be proved correct rather than the impulsive "God did it" one. The latter mean the definition of "God" must be continually redefined, or at least the boundaries between us re-drawn. If there is a divine world I would prefer to think it is more in the mold of the Robert Heinlein approach in Job. So, I would rather say "I don't know" and stare into the void looking for answers without knowing, then stand back and say "I know -- God told me". I think that is more cowardly. Seek the truth, don't invent it.

So, he's like 99yo

Yep, I've not been back to read further yet, I'll be back soon. I would hope that writing is something you enjoy doing, despite anything everyone else might say.

I don't agree. I've only played K1 three times because there are no new things to discover. K2 is like the Matrix: The story is so complex that you to "see" it a couple of times to understand it. There are many conversations that are as deep as the one in Reloaded with the Architect: You have to read through the dialogue a couple of times to really GET IT. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Similar to the Matrix Reloaded, however, the re-reading is not because of the profundity of the philosophical content, but the ineptitude of the dialogue used to convey it.

I think an idea that was very underutilized was the interaction between party NPCs. The sort of conflict between Kreia and Atton, for example, should have been more pronouced, such that some NPCs would refuse to talk / fight / fraternise with in general. Sure, Hanharr and Mira did this to a small extent, but I think this could have been more broadly and deeply implemented to a greater effect. Geometric Progression An exponential series would start with the simplest example of 2: 2, 4, 8, 16, ... , 1024, 2048, ... 65536, ... etc 2^1, 2^2, 2^3, 2^4, ... , 2^10, 2^11, ... 2^16, ... etc Now, the amount of work to script 10 puzzles of key length 4 would be a geometric 10 x 4 = 40 scripted dialogues. This is a minimum, however, you could always increase the complexity by allowing interactions between the puzzles, though this would be adding to the number of keys for the puzzle: e.g. a if the PC has already got the skeleton key from the Undead Golem, then the PC doesn't need to complete the four-part key quest for this door (of which the PC will have one innate part of the key and three other parts to obtain). It's additive not multiplicative, so we'd get 4 key parts multiplied by ten puzzles with an additional nine possible extra keys (one from each of the remaining puzzles) = 49. Again, this would not be exponential, just a different geometric series. I am struggling to come up with an example of a true exponential series in this model. It entail each puzzle having solutions that effected each of the consequential puzzles, such that the four initial key parts would each have four different key parts to each of the next puzzles, in order. So that you would get four to the power of ten = two to the twentieth power = 1,048,576 dialogue options in total. There's a world of difference between 1,048,576 and 49. 1,048,527, to be exact. :D

Well done I am constantly surprised at the rapid progress your team is making! Any proofing or such work I would be pleased to help with.