Gromnir

how odd. bruce is all concerned 'bout treatment 'o women on message boards, but potential treatment o' 1 billion women doesn't seem to concern him? curious. Hindutva has some serious implications for women, gays and various minority groups (ethnic and or religious) w/i india. HA! Good Fun!

personally, am more interested in indian parliamentary elections. bjp takes the reigns o' what may be the most populous nation on earth by 2025. am genuine fascinated by the forthcoming social and economic changes, and how the western world will react to changes in india. HA! Good Fun!

am not doubting that you are correct, which is why we thinks obsidian needs be careful how they deal with animancy. there isn't any genuine real world parallels to animancy. is also not a well-trodden fantasy trope. being uncharted territory allows great freedom, but one need also be remembering the cartographers warning that past the edge of the map, "here be dragons." is all on obsidian to be fitting animancy into their world so it is plausible and reasonable. as long as animancy is having a good degree of internal rationality, people will accept minor inconsistencies and quibbles. 'course, if animancy stretches credulity o' the typical gamer past the point most can bear... *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

rare does we utilize fictional character names from literature or movies. instead we go with moderate obscure historical and/or religious names. Agnodike might be name of a female cleric if the cleric is the primary healer. male healers might get named after famous saints linked to healing/hospitals: Cosmas, Damian, Basil. conversely, Roland would probable be too obvious for a paladin. *shrug* alternatively, we rely heavily on our old pnp characters. Vindrogan Frostbeard were one o' our first dwarf characters... back when dwarf was a class in D&D... and yeah, we know it is a silly name, but we were a kid when we came up with it, so sue us. am suspecting that naming habits is somehow significant, but am not certain how. had a friend that Always named his main Chesty McVargas. HA! Good Fun!

another good live band. and how many songs you know utilize the charango? HA! Good Fun!

Fair enough I don't know anyone who is in the exact situation as you mentioned and truly doesn't have time to exercise. All I would argue is that a cardio workout is going to relax you more than alcohol or drugs. But the alcohol and drugs is a perceived method to relax a person, I don't think its a long term solution. of course it ain't a long-term solution, or even a good solution. that being said, am just letting you know that our scenario is common-- too common. HA! Good Fun!

and that is where we disagree. some of us simply won't be able to exercise. if you got the kinda job that burns you out mental, physical and/or emotional, and then you get home and you is perhaps a single-parent (or whatever,) then guess what, chances are you genuine don't have time to exercise. you just don't. finally, at 10 or 11 at night you sit down and unwind for an hour in front o' the tv. maybe you is having the genuine self discipline to not use alcohol or drugs to relax a bit and fall asleep. the world is a hard place for many folks. HA! Good Fun!

*sigh* gorgon said: "I compensate for the temple of debauchery that is my body by not going 60 kmh an hour on my bycicle. I mean, I would rather have yours, just not all the work that goes with it." woldan responds with some nonsense about self-discipline. is woldan doing 1 hour 4 times a week? no? so, am not thinking you is actual on woldan's side. Gromnir is in favor of moderate exercise. everybody benefits from exercise, but a little goes a long way, and to get more serious 'bout exercise is a vanity pursuit... or a career. most o' us got far better things to do-- far more important things to do. if you don't have better things to do and it ain't a career, then we does see a problem... or youth. the older you get, and the more responsibilities you acquire, the less time you gots for vanity pursuits. even basic bare minimum exercise plays a distant second or third to familial and work responsibilities. you is gonna get more of those. also, as we noted already, woldan sure as hell ain't actual talking 'bout self-discipline as he seems to believe. up til 2010 we were doing workouts 5-6 days a week, sometimes 2x a day, and workouts were each more than 1 hour. those workouts weren't the thing that required the self discipline. they were a release. and they were vanity fueled. we has no difficulty admitting that we weren't benching near 500lbs and doing ridiculous cardio just for health benefits. we liked it. we liked how we looked and felt. we liked being able to lift the gym. if you like working out, as some of us do, it ain't requiring genuine self discipline. it may seem like self discipline to some folks (particularly young folks) but it ain't. yeah, there is always those days where you don't wanna go to the gym or don't wanna do cardio, but the self-discipline spiel from a workout junkie is complete poppy****. the thing is, even when we were younger we didn't have no illusions 'bout what we were doing. get some cardio a handful o' times each week. do something that strains some major muscle groups. anything more is... well, you will eventual figure it out. HA! Good Fun!

on a complete unrelated note, we saw three snakes today while walking the dogs. surprisingly, no rattlers. a couple years ago we had a minor explosion o' the rattlesnake population in norcal. with the extreme dry weather we had here during the winter, Gromnir expected that by may we would be needing to show extreme caution with our dogs to prevent rattlesnake bites. so far this year we have only seen one rattlesnake while walking dogs. anywho, the snakes we saw today were two good-sized gopher snakes and a very handsome kingsnake with black and cream bands. the kingsnake were 'bout 100 cm and darn near the most attractive snake we has ever seen. dogs didn't seem particularly impressed-- ran right past it. HA! Good Fun!

"I can't tell you how many times I heard ''Oh I can't exercise, I've got responsibilities'' only to see them waste an hour in front of the TV or computer doing mindless stuff each day. you is making broken and subjective value judgments. use your free time to workout beyond bare minimum rather than...l" and Gromnir is saying you lack perspective. am not knowing how many kids we knew who spoke as you. we weren't so arrogant 'bout it, but we had similar (not same) notions when we were younger. am able to look back and see just see how self-righteous and smug it sounds with benefit of experience. *shrug* if you got free time, how you gonna spend? working out or: volunteer building houses for homeless increase your personal level of education mentor foster kids ... hell, pick-up litter on side of the road is vanity and you got a choice. and sitting in front o' tv... well, is kinda hard to criticize given how much time "we" (that includes you) spend at the computer each day. folks in front o' the tv or computer still has all those important responsibilities we mentioned in other posts. aside: you is gonna have difficulty showing that working out more necessarily=better health. in point o' fact, various kinds o' exercise tends to create health issues, especially down the road. *chuckle* for chrissakes, you just told us you fell off your bike going 100 mph. having a "duh," moment yet? oh, and our mistake... were gorgon not gd. our bad? HA! Good Fun!

Depends, if you are that kind of person who is happy with the bare minimum, well, thats fine. I've never been a fan of half measures and doing the bare minimum, when having an accident there is no such thing as ''too muscular back'' , muscles that prevents it from snapping. And that example is just one of many. is not a matter of being happy with bare minimums. as we said above, folks got responsibilities. take daughter to her ballet class or get in a good back & chest day? ride bike downhill at 100 mph or cuts grass with a scythe (HA!) or takes that final class to complete your MBA? am agreeing that exercise is good. never did we say otherwise. gd said he weren't gonna workout like you and you came back with self-discipline... which is nonsense. *shrug* Gromnir was/is one o' the better athletes you is likely to meet. our strength-to-speed ratios were ridiculous and is still better than most. we were a football player who could run track, rather than other way around... and we had competed at state level for fencing and swimming. wrestled but didn't make state. working out were a way-of-life for us. but again, we grew up. we got responsibilities. we got distractions. and we got older too. working out beyond the "bare minimum," is a vanity pursuit. if we had familial responsibilities, we doubt we could manage much more than the "bare minimum." *chuckle* we prefer working-out to work, so the self-discipline bit is reversed. takes far more discipline to do those things you don't like than those you do. HA! Good Fun! ps am recalling when we were in our 20s. we would see some slight overweight guy playing tennis poorly 3 times a week to "stay in shape" and would kinda roll our eyes. we saw as funny. am older now. we see same guy nowadays and we says, "good for him."

sure it is. the amount o' exercise you need daily to be healthy is actual small. "serious" workouts IS a vanity pursuit. are you doing more than 40 minutes 4 days weekly? yes? well? HA! Good Fun!

Its ''work'' only the first couple of years or so, after some time that ''work'' becomes part of you and you start to enjoy it so immensely that you can't live without it anymore. I know its sounds totally cliché but you truly learn to love the pain. All you need is the discipline to hang in there with full devotion to get over that hump where you start loving it. Unfortunately self discipline is what most people sorely lack nowadays, and it saddens me greatly. Many friends asked me for serious advice about exercise and getting into shape, I helped them knowing they'd never get off their asses because they lacked the proper mindset / tenacity. I'm sure if I was personal trainer I'd get super depressed in no time at all. And speeding with a bicycle is really fun, 100+ downhill is where it starts to get interesting. ah, the folly and arrogance o' youth. *shrug* we stay in shape, but not like we once did. Gromnir played d-1 college football, so we were in great shape at university. had third highest bench on the team and we were a db. for many years following university, we kept up a work-out regimen that were quite intense-- all the way til we hit 40. but guess what? it gets harder to do the hardcore workouts every year. we gets more responsibilities. we gets business trips. we get medical issues. we get family issues. also, we simply get... older. am single, so in spite o' some injury/health issues, we can still workout regular, but if we had a wife and kids, how much/little free time would we have... and yeah, working out IS free time. is a ridiculous long list o' things that has gotta come before workouts. and if we were not making good money And had all the aforementioned responsibilities, how could we justify taking so many hours outta the day/week for what amounts to a vanity pursuit? perspective is a wonderful and terrible thing. HA! Good Fun!

even assuming that poe world has same/similar common law traditions as would presuppose innocence, am having a hard time believing that absence of definitive proof would help the animancer. just imagine if some percentage of real world witches actually had been able to utilize black magic to do, as a complete random example, create undead monsters. do you believe that the genuine capacity to create undead monstrosities would be increasing or decreasing fear o' witches? how many thousands o' real world peoples were persecuted and killed 'cause o' complete fantastic and imagined crime o' witchcraft? btw, Gromnir does accept that some % of people accused o' witchcraft may have believed that they were witches or could do witchcraft... what a horrible reality that a person could be guilty o' practicing witchcraft in spite of fact that black magic were complete fantasy. regardless, we can't picture this scenario playing out like tobacco companies avoiding responsibility for link 'tween cancer and cigarette smoking. enlightened notions regarding presumption o' innocence and burdens of proof might not mesh so well when you got genuine "witches" actual binding souls to corpses and creating undead monsters. does animancers have an extreme powerful lobby? we mentioned money above. animancers bringing in same kinda cash to local populace/governments as phillip morris? HA! Good Fun!

a marginalized kid with aspergers (and possibly other mental health issues) going on a killing spree don't particularly shock us. nevertheless, after reading some o' the post hoc ergo propter hoc nonsense from every dirt-bag with an agenda who wishes to exploit this tragedy, we kinda dislike society a bit. oh sure, we ain't gonna go on a killing rampage, but Gromnir is not having to work hard to be disgusted by lots o' different folks. we attended ucsb in the mid/late 80s. biggest school related tragedy we faced were when the pub at the ucen were closed down for a month or so due to ucen remodel. our ccs advisor at the time were a serious alcoholic, so pub being closed made him particular grumpy. oh well, if you can find an excuse to do so, never graduate. HA! Good Fun!

jazz makes us... gassy? dunno. had a similar problem at university. as much as Gromnir were a fan o' james joyce, we always hated Ulysses. going through the effort to understand Ulysses did not result in us eventually appreciating joyce's great work. in fact, not only did our excruciating effort to understand Ulysses make us dislike the novel more, but we kinda liked our Ulysses worshiping colleagues and professors a bit less too. flaw in our character... one of many. ... is nothing wrong with jazz. intellectually we can appreciate it just as we could appreciate joyce's craft. we get that we is 'posed to like jazz. nevertheless, jazz makes us gassy. HA! Good Fun!

money would be an obvious means o' overcoming natural aversion to one who traffics in animacy. we could see any number o' complete fantastic, but reasonable in context, applications o' animacy. real world runs on electricity. poe would appear to run on magic/soul energy. a dynamo converts mechanical energy into electrical. an animancer who learns to convert mechanical energy into soul energy would, based on historical analogues, die forgotten and/or impoverished. nevertheless, somebody would come along after that guy and figure out a way to make the soul dyanmo (or whatever) useful. an animancer would manage to demystify animacy and come up with a way to make bags o' money for everybody... would change world view. is just a complete random kinda hypothetical though. and even then, the whole soul thing makes us wonder if money is enough. if our hypothetical soul dynamo actual harmed or destroyed souls in the process, rather than replacing with mechanical energy, how much money would it take to makes people ignore the downside? is there enough money that would make cultures ignore the downside? HA! Good Fun!

ah, that explain things. we thought somebody with a camera filmed a bunch o' Firefly nerds at a convention in fresno... and called it a game intro as a joke. HA! Good Fun! ps and what is with the edmund burke quote?

Excellent points, Gromnir. I kinda hope that the designers will resist the urge to jump on the nowadays oh-so-popular grimdark bandwagon, and make it possible to do actual research without having to do the metaphysical equivalent of roasting newborn babies alive. I, for example, would totally have my character throw significant funds at people who are working on methods to restore fragmented souls, or something like that. Hopefully researching seemingly-beneficient things will also be possible. we got no aversion to introducing the concept o' animacy to poe. in point o' fact, we believe much interesting fodder could come from animancy. in judeo-christian traditions, adam and eve got kicked out of eden for eating fruit from the tree of knowledge. parallels is gonna be obvious if you got knowledge that involves manipulation of souls and leads to creation of undead. am doubting obsidian developers wanna get too overt into religious territory, but is hard to imagine animancers with otherwise good intentions not suffering persecution. a bitter animancer wants revenge for what were done to his family or friends. a complete amoral animancer doing god-forsaken experiments. a cunning/greedy/mad noble forcing an animancer to experiment on kidnapped gypsies... or whatever is poe equivalent. etc. most o' the above is cliche, but you get the idea. regardless, we can't genuine see animancy being viewed w/o widespread fear. most new sciences is embraced only after a period o' suspicion and none we can think of has got such obvious and real dangers to body AND soul of peoples. HA! Good Fun!

either obsidian hopes folks won't ask too many questions, or they gots lots of explaining to do. "merely taking one more step," seems woefully insufficient to describe the manipulation of the souls of people other than the animancer himself. being able to bind the soul of another person to their slowly/quickly rotting corpse is one example we has been given... oh, and the undead thus created will eventual go all psychotic and cannibalistic. and again, lest folks wanna skip over this point, we is talking 'bout the animancer manipulating souls that is not his own, and in poe, souls is real. have some magician in real world 2014 doing experiments on the soul is gonna be very different than such experimentation in poe. at minimum we would expect extreme suspicion of animancers, and that is an optimistic perspective. to have animancers practice their art open and notoriously, you either gots an extreme blasé populace, or perhaps a Nietzschian nightmare wherein virtual everybody is some kinda moral nihilist. aside: just now occurred to us that there were philip pullman books that actual dealt with this topic. in golden compass/northern lights, people's daemons is their souls and those daemons existed separate of a person's own body. obviously poe peoples need not view animancy in same way as pullman had folks view experimentation on souls in his books, but one wonders if the obsidians has read pullman. HA! Good Fun!

people have. perhaps a thousand times on this board alone. *shrug* HA! Good Fun! is gauche to quote our self, but is far too late to edit our own post, and we don't want our next contribution to feel like a non sequitur. black isle made half o' the infinity engine games, so as you might expect, or perhaps not, the obsidian folks has seen many references to their ie games as they made kotor 2 and their nwn2 offerings. "don't do like ________, " and "do more like _________," threads where blanks is filled with bg, ps:t, totsc, iwd, how, trials of the luremaster, bg2, tob, and or tob is some o' the most common fodder 'pon these boards. somebody says why bg were so fantastic and that storm of zehir should be more like bg. five people agree. five people disagree. five people thinks storm o' zehir should be more like ps:t. another ten says it should be like bg2. unwinnable debates 'bout the merits o' various ie games is fleas on the dog that is these obsidian boards. additionally, virtual every obsidian/black isle development since the turn o' the century has had folks suggesting, pleading, arguing that the current game should be more like bg2. their newish tank game may turn out to be the lone exception to the rule. so, after more than a decade of seeing threads and posts demanding for the next bg2, and following their own failed attempt to make bg3, obsidian/black isle folks is gonna finally give folks what they has been clamoring for since before this board existed. perhaps obsidian is making just to make us all shut the hell up 'bout bg2. just saying. HA! Good Fun! ps am doubtful the obsidians would ever admit, but can you imagine what a coup it would be for them if a significant portion o' those unavoidable, "do it more like bg2," demands became, "do it like poe" from 2015 onward?

yet another limit on how common undead would be: religion. if there is religious reasons to find animacy deplorable, then am guessing we has yet other reason to shrink our pool o' potential willing victims. some folks is trying to have cake and it it too. you want undead creation mysterious enough so that otherwise reasonable rich people would be hoodwinked into making themselves a guinea pig for an animancer. at the same time, you want undead widespread enough to be a crpg staple monster. if you make mysterious and obscure, then you is reinforcing Gromnir's criticism that undead necessarily is gonna be rare. HA! Good Fun! See, I personally don't care if undead are "widespread enough to be a crpg staple monster." Given the lore description of them it seems unlikely, and I don't see why that's a problem. it's a problem 'cause Gromnir said that based on descriptions given to us thus far, corporeal undead would be rare. folks disagreed. that is how we has got to this point. HA! Good Fun!

people have. perhaps a thousand times on this board alone. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

according to more than one developer, the two most common complaints regarding the infinity engine games: it was too hard. it was too easy. ... am not the most sympathetic crpg fan-- we don't exactly tear up over the sisyphean task(s) the developers face. nevertheless, adjusting game difficulty in an attempt to make the mostest people happy strikes us as a near hopeless endeavor. HA! Good Fun!

yet another limit on how common undead would be: religion. if there is religious reasons to find animacy deplorable, then am guessing we has yet other reason to shrink our pool o' potential willing victims. some folks is trying to have cake and it it too. you want undead creation mysterious enough so that otherwise reasonable rich people would be hoodwinked into making themselves a guinea pig for an animancer. at the same time, you want undead widespread enough to be a crpg staple monster. if you make mysterious and obscure, then you is reinforcing Gromnir's criticism that undead necessarily is gonna be rare. HA! Good Fun!