metadigital

Micro$oft announce products and targets within the Quarterly cycle (e.g. "End of Q3, 2006"). Yes I have. Consoles will never out perform the leading edge computers systems. Atleast not anytime soon. Soon we'll have a 64-bit OS to run our 64-bit systems on. My 512mb multi-gpu graphics will smoke a console. In my opinion anyways. :D Of course you probably won't have almost 3 grand wrapped up in your console either. Btw, I shouldn't have said "crappy port". KOTOR was a very good console game. It just doesn't have the depth that a computer game can have. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The next generation consoles will have better performance than what is readily and affordably available for PC hardware for a short time, however (maybe six months or so); in any case KotOR games are ported from the console. What would be good is doing the Half-Life 2 idea of porting the game from the PC, though I am sure Micro$oft will not reliquish a major marketing aid for its new Xbox 360, like a new KotOR game, just be taken by a competitor (Sony) or delayed by non-primacy development schedule, after the PC. After all, "aquiesce" is not in the Micro$oft dictionary ...

Yes, but this could be handled by the Lightsaber Form one has currently selected (assuming this feature would be taken through to any future game). No, there is no confirmation of any further work in the KotOR series at all.

I guess that explains why she didn't bother to use it on the Exile, because if it was a "Death Field" that could kill three Jedi from the Council in a blink, then it surely would have made an impression on the PC!

Speak to the Kreia, she's the one that can convert you into Prestige; but only after level 15, apparently. (I do what you did, leave the witch behind. Nag, nag, nag does not a fun game make.)

You cry in games? Wow, I was wondering if any games actually affected anyone enough for that: can you name some, maybe I have forgotten some really moving moments?

One planet would suffice, as long as it had multiple areas. What's with this idea that a planet (i.e. a block of solid stuff 20000km in circumference) has an explorable area of about a hectare? And the characters have to walk around it, because everyone else has motorised transport except the PC and party.

Did you hear that? The web site is going down! I wonder what this means? Maybe there's a problem? Maybe they're not going to finish the mod! Maybe the sky is falling! The sky is falling! The sky is falling! The sky is falling! (Thanks for the update Dashus. )

I don't think the world is a dump, it was a comparison between "heaven" and here; but if it's no worse than heaven, then why go there? Why does god need an army of faithful people? And why decide who gets sent to hell before they are born? How is that free choice? God knows all! Even the future, doesn't God? So God is deliberately damning people who have no chance. Not fair. Not merciful. Not good. Not a god I like.

Dr Smith, as played by Gary Oldman in Lost in Space of the cult series, was a Lawful Evil person. You're lucky (or young, or na

Errr.....5 battleships a day??? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Ok, maybe it was five flying fortresses a day. Whatever the statistic, it was an ungodly amount of production. That was always -- and has remained -- the US miltary strength: production capacity. Actually I listened to one of Doctor Who's rants: Tom Baker's fourth Doctor, in the "Genesis of the Daleks", when confronted with the choice of whether it was "right" to destroy the cradle of the Daleks, mutant creatures that had been genetically altered to only have hate as an emotion, and whose sole xenophobic ambition was to destroy all that was not Dalek in the universes. (And whom, it has recently transpired, caused the death of the Time Lords and the Daleks in the last Great Time War.)

One word: Civilization.

Just a small point, Mr Dyslexic, the character's name is REVAN, not Raven. You have a transposition vowel error in your proper noun.

Depends on the type of game. Some genres just really don't translate well onto a console. RTS games for example. IMO the best games to play on a console are sports and fighting games. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Marble Madness never really worked as a console game. (Though, it was pretty crap as a PC convert, too.)

Ah, Steve, I think you've posted your Way Off-Topic response in the wrong thread, or we have an inter-dimensional forum breach in process ... :ph34r:

The ships were an example; unfortunately I'm not a WW2 munitions geek, or I'd produce some wonderful bumph about that, the ships were one reference I recall without searching. Here's some US WW2 weapon production figures, compared to the German figures. I have no doubt the Germans were a ferociously talented armed forces: it took the rest of the world and nearly six years to stop them (even if they did have a running start: Hitler building the autobahns to join hands with the rest of Europe masking his true intentions of using them to transport tanks!); and their motivation, to remove the stain of reparations from WW1, was a just cause. Their Blitzkreig tactics of the Sichelschnitt were pure innovative genius, for example; it would take the US another three years to begin to perfect the Marines amphibious forces in the Pacific. (Avoiding the Maginot Line was pretty clever, too.) Anyway, I come not to praise Hitler, but to bury him.

What about babies before they are "saved" by baptism? Do they get a free ride, or do they go to limbo (next to hell, take a left before the last turnoff), like the goood Roman Catholics believe? There is a theory that the universe goes from Big Bang to Big Crunch and keeps cycling (over 50 billion years or so, I would guess, for a cycle). Either this, or it has only happened this once, and there is not enough matter to bring the universe back to a Big Crunch, so it will eventually lose all energy through eventual critical entropy, where all energy will be so degraded as to be a fuzz, and matter so equidistant as to not exert any net gravitational force. Asimov wrote (at least) two interesting short stories on the meaning of life (quoting from memory, so may not be completely accurate; I have paraphrased callously, but the gist is still intact): 1. Death of a Man A man close to death thinks back over his life. He is at peace and takes no ill with him as he dies. After a time, he becomes aware that he is still thinking. He becomes aware of another presence. "Are you God?" "Such notions are not for here." "Where am I?" "You are here, with me." "Where was I, before?" "You were not here." "I see," said the man, not really sure what to think, "Why am I here?" "That is a very good question." "Ok, why are you here?" "I do not know." "Ah," said the man, "that's why I'm here!" "Exactly.". 2. How Do You Reverse Entropy? This involved a futuristic humankind wrestling with the ultimate question; eventually they create a computer to help (we'll call it Deep Thought in memory of Douglas Adams, although Asimov wrote this short story in the Fifties). Deep Thought was placed in hyperspace, outside the normal matter boundaries of the universe and set about thinking. Many, many years passed, into eons and eons. Human civilization rose and fell many times, until it disapeared completely. Eventually the universe sustained heat death. Still, Deep Thought contemplated. Eons passed, until, finally, Deep Thought spoke: "Let there be light ..."

We choose to come back or stay? That makes no sense (and has no correlation with any religious teaching I'm aware of, so I'm wondering what bizarre religion you think you are " ) If heaven is so great, why would anyone come back to this dump? So they might accidentally chose the wrong life and go to hell next time? And how can an all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving God permit some people to have everlasting torture? God made them, God knew what they would be, how they would chose, and yet still, with all God's unlimited power, knowledge and merciful goodness, there they are, right now, suffereing the torments of the damned. I'll pass on that god, thanks. Bloody noisy and smelt of weird things. Oh, wait -- you mean before conception, not birth! That was okay, I guess. Not much happpening. I guess some might call it boring. I thought it was nice and serene, no chores to do, no ladders to climb or slides to fall down. Just a pleasant nothing, like warm zephyr on a balmy day. I remember reading somewhere that some scientists had weighed a body just prior and post mortem, and there was a difference in weight ... the soul has a physical manifestation! (I wonder what the mass of energy is? Like the elctro-chemical energy in the brain.) Do you know the brain is 60% fat?

I stand corrected, I was just guessing on that date (using the '36 Berlin Olympics as a rough guide). I was actually referring to Hitler's term as a corporal in WW1. Italy took a long time to re-take because the Germans were dug in very deep. Germany also had superior weapons (e.g. especially their tanks). Don't forget that Patton wasn't permitted to run amok; I'm sure he would have made a big difference had he been let loose by Eisenhower. The US managed to beat the Soviets in the end, so I would say its a fair bet that they would have done it earlier, too. You forget the arms build up by the Soviets after WW2; at the end of WW2 the US was producing 5 battle ships a day, for example. That was my point, actually. Using Hitler (who is generally regarded as evil) as an example of how great good can come from great evil. It is all too likely that, if Hitler hadn't existed, a far worse tragedy would have occurred, just not at that particular instant in time. Finally, it was an illustration of intent as a marker for alignment. So your alignment would be Chaotic Good, because you chose to allow a great evil because you deemed the consequential great good that derived from it worth the sacrifice. :cool:

At no point did the authors of the intelligence (the secret services) give any false assurances. The reliability of all the evidence, as it always is, was marked clearly. The other salient fact that you seem to be omitting is that Hans Blix was conducting a renewed search for WMD. He has stated numerous times since the war that not only was he receiving unprecedented co-operation from the Iraqi government, but also he was seeking out the very places mentioned in the (soon-to-be) coalition's intel, with zero result. It would be a fair and reasonable conclusion to say that Bush invaded Iraq before the normal UN processes could produce a result. Now whether this was because he wanted some sort of vengence, or because he wanted to nullify Iraq as a force in the Middle East is not certain. Certainly the "it's for the poor people of Iraq" defence doesn't wash. What about the poor Palestinians? They had half their country stolen by the Israelis, and then the League of Nations did nothing. What about the poor North Koreans? Etc. I have no problem with the US invading Iraq as a global politcal man

I don't think the House of Commons can take all the credit for Galloway's rhetorical abilities. There are far more speakers who are just inept. He is the epitamy of an opportunist. I wonder if Gordon Brown (current Chancellor of the Exchequer -- that's the Treasurer to you people over the Atlantic -- and expected next leader of the Labour party and therefore Prime Minister) will invite Galloway back into the Labour party?

Anything that adds much-needed depth to the characters and narrative is a Good Thing in my book.

Tetris is a masterpiece. I don't know too many games that get into your head so much that you end up dreaming about them! ... I used to dream difficult tetris block configurations and the solutions to them. (Maybe I played with too many lego sets when I was young ... )

Fact: Number of allied soldiers killed whilst occupying Germany after WW2: ZERO.

1. The war in Iraq -- the Second Gulf War -- was not "legal". The UNSCR 1441 stopped short of the wording used to precipitate the first Gulf War, which is the reason Tony Blair was trying so hard to get the second UNSC Resolution. The fact that international law is a shambles doesn't excuse illegal activity. 2. The premise for going to war was that Iraq posed a "real and present danger", with Inter-Continental Ballistic Weapons of Mass Destruction that could reach the UK in 45 minutes, based on a single, uncorroborated source who has since been discreditied as he was attempting to obtain political asylum. 3. The premise in the US for going to war was ludicrously linking Saddam Hussein to Al-Qieda! 4. It is patently clear that no-one had planned for what to do after the invasion. Standing down the entire Iraqi armed forces and not shoring up the borders were two fatal mistakes, for which the poor soldiers (and Iraqi civilians) are paying for now. All that said, I am pleased the war happened, as I don't have a Lawful Good alignment. It is mandatory that the coalition stay and complete the stated mission, because a rapid withdrawal would only duplicate the problems created where the dominant world power has left a power vacuum, before; e.g.: the UK in Afghanistan and Palestine! I would be in favour of going after Mugabe and pattern-bombing North Korea, too. (Not that I'm a violent person. )