metadigital

I see this as yet more confirmation that GL should not be allowed to comment on anything in the SW universe as he is just not qualified. This represents his attempt to make a clear distinction to enforce the "love = possessive = wrong" leitmotif. While I agree that love entails giving allegiance to your lover above all else -- which is generally dangerous and may even be specifically untenable -- I would also point out that few people seem to get this and see love in more selfish terms (i.e. self-gratification rather than giving). And also, as has been stated earlier, fighting for love, truth, justice, etc is a very good way to focus one's efforts in the fight for light. The problem comes when a general conflict is turned into a personal hostage scenario, where loyalties may be divided, or compromised with regard to vengence.

"Come back here and I'll gnaw your legs off!" That's the point: it makes the fight more difficult because you have to target a specific spot (it's called "named shot" in NwN, for example, and there is an additional "to hit" score rolled to calculate the attempted precision).

It seems to be a European disease to have some sort of regurgitated US/UK Pop as the popular music for their countries (yes this means you France, Italy, Spain, etc). At lesat the Italians did the honorable thing and retired from the contest years ago in protest of the total lack of musical merit ... then again I see the Eurovision as more a politcal barometer than a song contest.

The winning Greek singer was born in Sweden. Then again, the Swedish presenter was very cute ...

I was born in the sixties, you do the math. And the guy I was referring to was born well before I was. Secondly, as I have already stated, sex appeal is not just skin deep. There are many women who are not recognised for their striking beauty, yet feature highly on "most-sexy" lists (especially in the UK, for some reason). Perhaps excruciatingly beautiful women intimidate most males ... Thirdly, it's a shallow, one-dimensional measure. Portman would have trouble displaying less charisma if she were somnambulating or dead: and I'm not into somnophilia nor necrophilia. It's for her next role, I believe. Either that or she's taking fashion advice from Sionade O'Connor. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Or Persis Khambatta "

No, can't say I have. I must also admit that I never finished the Foundation series, either. I got a little bored after Foundation and Earth (I think it was), when Daneel Olivaw turned up. (Not that I don't like Daneel, he's a dude -- for a robot. :D ) I really liked the whole psychohistory concept: of all the soft sciences this strikes me as the best candidate to yeild "hard" scientific results. After all, the mob mentality seems to be quite constant. I think anyone who hasn't read Nightfall should do so now (even if it is the short story that gave Asimov his big break, not the novel made from it, recently). Other than that, I really liked the Robot novels because they were (again, pertinent to this discussion) genre-spanning; combining SF with mystery writing. I wonder if I will ever create a sub-genre? :cool:

The combat still looks a little worrisome. <_<

sigue sigue sputnik

The Fisherman Deus Ex (the original) has to be one of the best games (notice there is no qualifier there), ever. Period. End of the universe. Half-Life 2 is overhyped, yes (how could it not be after five years since the first game and two years since it was slated for release filled with fanboy ranting and speculative ejaculations). But remember the two are totally different games: one is a cRPG and one is a FPS. The story in λ

You could have a computer-controlled activation, similar to a fuel injector in a motor vehicle. That would allow for the fastest transition: an intermittent beam! Then it would just take practice to time the gaps with a feint and then next "on" phase with the lunge.

It is not a foreign concept; many games (including PnP) include the option to name your target area to either trip or disable your opponent. I think it is a good idea; then again I think it is more than a little ridiculous for a LS exemplar to kill several hundred combatants when it is feasible to disable them instead. Sure, let the DS players toast their opponents with lightning: but LS players should be comatosing their enemies and disarming them (even if that is literally :D ). Extra XP for aiming to destroy the lightsaber in your opponents hand (naturally this would require a more difficult attack process and a smaller probability of success for the offensive move).

Welcome, oh neophyte game designer. Pray tell me what game you desire to design?

Yep, I think she might have my vote. Mr Cyprus seems to have taken dance routine from Justin Timberlake's choreographer. Doesn't look like Terry Wogan will get his wish to go to a beach next year ...

Norway's entry (number 5) was some glam rock song with lyrics "Come on \ Come on \ Come on \ Come on \ Coooooooooooooome on \ Come on!" So looks like your scores will hold true! I quite liked number 4, the Romanian entry (lots of that "Stomp" style dustbinlid-smacking noise making percussion and some little short-curly-dark-haired chanteuse belting out "Please let me ...!". I'm sure I spotted Baley as one of the percussionists: the blonde haired guy with the power saw ...

Yeah, I always thought that Mr Meier was a little on the pessimistic side when it came to our civilization: either that or he's a little too preachy. Even if you have all your power generated via hydo-electric or fusion reactors, your planet will turn into a swamp and lots of people die. I thought Civ 3 was a little anticlimactic; then again, I remember when I first started playing Civ 2 and I discovered how long I could go without food, sleep and rest of any sort ... it's not easy re-creating a classic. I like the sound of most of Civ 4, but I remain skeptical that it will work. It is very hard to include all the themes of real life, over the entire history of the world, in a simulation. I think part of why Civ 2 worked was that it was not so ambitious (yes it was quite extraordinary in the bredth and depth of scope, but it was by no means exhaustive, nor as exhaustive as Mr Meier is attempting to be now.) I'll probably buy it without waiting for the review, though. :D

Well that I didn't know (I guess I qualify as a very, very old fan ). That might have helped a bit: together with the ability to adjust the rate of combat. I guess I didn't realize I was playing the "Return of the Jedi" equivalent to the previous "A New Hope" and "The Empire Strikes Back"! :D Still the matrices of friendly and enemy combatants, the phase-based combat and the length of indivual confrontations combined to make Wizardry 8 a game that endeavours to irritate the player, rather than entertain. Let me explain: methinks the game provides a slippery, narrow virtuous cycle (winning battles) that can easily turn into a vicious cycle (losing health and thence party members). Any tactical mistake are compounded into a strategic nightmare (dead/diseased party members increasing the relative combat stress on the remaining members). Knowing your enemy is one thing, but being ambushed by ten random encounters when you just want to get back to where you made a wrong turn is just frustrating, IMO. And I just didn't feel compelled to overcome these issues to find out more about he story. A shame, really, because I was trying to like it. Oh, well. I did like the idea of having a group able to use munitions (but not everyone).

Well, you will undoubtably have some sort of "gatekeeper" who will require a passphrase. Something one has, something one knows and something one can do: that there is a three-factor security puzzle (made eminently more solvable by having completed a previous quest, no doubt). The murder mystery in KotOR was a very good implementation. The "Towers of Hanoi" puzzle in the last tomb of Korriban from the same game was not (I think I managed to complete it in about twenty seconds iIrc, as I have encountered it many, many times before.)

The Abortion debate has covered many points, but not one of the main issues: gneder politics. I beleive that the US is now making great progress in its efforts to bring fathers that abandon their children to justice. The biggest problem with the world is that males (they aren't men, by my definition) have felt free to copulate without compunction. Men aren't the ones left carrying the baby. Women don't have equal access to top careers, equal pay for equal work and childcare is only now becoming a topical issue because men haven't had to concern themselves with a career and raising children. No wonder so many children from lower economic demographics are not wanted: these people have enough trouble earning money to feed themselves without the added expense of extra mouths to feed. Think how difficult it is if you are a single mother, with poor work experience (qualifications notwithstanding) and the responsibility of another life to manage. I think it has been said eloquently before in this thread, but just to re-iterate: an abortion is rarely taken lightly by the prospective mother. It is the hardest decision they will ever have to make in their life.

slashdot There needs to be a paradigm shift with the whole copyright / patent process. There is evidence to suggest that free distribution does not have a strong correlation to sales of copyright material, and may even have the reverse effect. (I don't claim to be an expert, though.) Certainly the PC Gamer / PC Format / PC Zone tripartite in the UK have had a lot to say about this over the last few months. I think there is a lot wrong with the current system and we need to effect radical change to improve it; too many good ideas are not benefiting the inventors and too many bloated middlemen are making money at the expense of the idea generators.

With respect, if you don't think there is a class system alive and well in the UK, then you aren't looking hard enough. Everyone is pigeon-holed, principally by their accent, and subsequently possibly according to their abilities. Meritocracy is a long way off yet.

They're probably trying to think of a way to charge us for it. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Hey, yeah, I know: Director's Cut KotOR:TSL! :D

A ghetto was actually a place in a city where a group of people (historically Jewish) were segregated off. In the case of a region it was referred as a Pale. While the title wasn't used in other parts of the world but similar conditions happened in many places. In Spain of Al-Andalus for instance, it was the Jewish Quarter. This didn't mean that ghettoes were destitute places. Many of them were quite affluent due to the higher standards of learning and education of those living within (that's not to say they didn't have their share of poorer people and layabouts like any group) and certainly weren't "concentration camps." ... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Actually, the first ghetto was a small island in Venice, and it was where the Jewish workers lived (sixteenth century). Initially it was about on par with a concentration camp (the Nazis don't have a monopoly on those, either: the Japanese had forced labour camps in Malasia, to use another WWII example). Eventually, due to the hard work and meritocratic politics of the Venitian Empire, the residents of the Ghetto were able to create wealth for themselves, but the term stuck. As for colours, I'd like a spiralling red and white one, so that it would be a barber-pole, then I could really help bleed some people.

Then why do you insist on posting that it is not? Is it spamming or trolling? Actually I recognised it as (sarcastic) humour. And I did smile, because it was quite inventive. As for Mandalore, I thought his character was completely wasted in this game, and for a LS Exile, totally inappropriate for the tasks assigned. Talk about the stench given off by Atton, Canderous must really have ponged, unless that suit had a self-cleaning function ...

I like Science Fiction. I like Science. I like Non-Fiction. Fantasy is not my favourite genre. I can read it if I see some outstanding benefit, some acerbic political observation or clever insight on society. But I would rather poke my eyes out with a blunt bookmark than read a lot of tales about elves and orcs. Arguing the semantics is almost pointless, but let me try. Epistomologically speaking, knowledge is a proveable belief (Plato). So Science Fiction is writing about some scenario where science is a facilitator. Fantasy, on the other hand, uses any type of magical plot device to facilitate the author's ideas. While I can accept this for reasons I stated above, much as I can read Lord of the Rings; I prefer to read Isaac Asimov's Nightfall / I Robot / Caves of Steel / Foundation. Using our epistomological definition, this is a (speculative) provable essay, dealing with Knowledge. Star Wars is a very poor science story. It is a space opera. (And, yes, I am so sick of sound in space.) Yes, I can see how Star Trek can be tarred with that brush, too. It is often far too obvious where the writers have given general instructions like: "insert some reason why communications are down and the transporter is non-functioning" because they want the characters to be isolated, and then some scientific-sounding jargon is added to the plot. I would contrast that with, say the TNG penultimate story in series 3 (I think), where an away team led by Picard is returning to the Enterprise and time has stopped due to an incident involving her and a Romulan Warbird, their warp engines and the ramifications of the quantum mechanics, and some pan-dimensional beings. (Without going into the plot -- which the captain actually jokes at the end of the show is non-trivial to explain -- that is the best I shall do.) Finally, perhaps it is better to use a spectrum instead of a polarity; Non-Fiction Science leads to Science Fiction leads to Science Fantasy leads to Fantasy: a nice one-dimensional gradient. :cool:

... just over the rainbow, Toto.