Gromnir

What a waste of time and talent then. not necessarily a waste. maybe working on wot gave the developers something to do when they were not actually fixing ap. HA! Good Fun!

our primary problem with soz were that it were 1/2 of a game... and the less important half at that. the overland travel map were intriguing, though the implementation were a bit odd. unfortunately, the critical path encounters were extreme lacking in depth, and many o' the overland map encounters were equally uninspired. am recalling how the folks over at rpgcodex gushed over a hunting cabin encounter. huh. the hunting cabin encounter involved a two-room cabin encounter: a priest o' malar shouts a peta slogan and then he and his furry woodland friends attack. we never could figure out why the codexians thought such an encounter were REAL rpg fare. maybe that is why we don't get their fascination with arcanum neither. in any event, 80% o' soz were composed of similarly shallow encounters... and the more defined set-pieces were hardly more developed. the underdark black market that josh were so proud of hardly made one forget the bg2 market map... were more akin to the iwd deep gnome village. the trading/merchant stuff coulda' been interesting, if it weren't bugged to hell. on the positive end o' the spectrum, soz may be the first obsidian/bis game (other than iwd) in which the climax were not a disappointment... but that is simply 'cause we were expecting so very little from soz by the time we reached the Final Battle. 1/2 of a game. if the overland map, mini-encounters, and trading aspects o' soz had been included in nwn2, then we woulda' been genuine impressed. all the tangential features and mini-encounters woulda' been great... if they had been attached to an actual game. am suspecting that the developers were working under the misapprehension that the gestalt o' all o' soz's little 5-minute encounters would result in a compelling rpg experience, but that were not the case for Gromnir. the absence o' any kinda depth o' encounters or characters left us thoroughly unsatisfied with the soz experience. HA! Good Fun!

OK, so Sweden has just declared war on Denmark, what happens now and how is that relevant to anything? Oh yeah... Post Proof or Retract. http://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agr...nclos/part7.htm scroll down and find right of visit. you is of course free to look for individual treaties as each is unique. http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instrumen...8_high_seas.pdf is numerous provisions in the aforementioned that reference the superseding power o' treaties. http://www.jag.navy.mil/organization/docum...curityMyths.pdf please scroll down to "myth 4" as for the sweden scenario... ZOOM... right over your head. O.K. maybe not tasers, but I'm pretty sure, being one of the best equipped armies in the world, they could come up with something better than paintball guns and switching to their live ammunition sidearms at the sight of *gasp* a knife. Like it's totally unpredictable. In a crowd. ... but you don't see a problem with using tear gas... on a boat? btw, is the tear gas to be used before or after the israelis shimmy down their ropes from the helicopter? HA! Good Fun! ps everybody should have a westlaw subscription... would make these kinda posts much easier for Gromnir.

So it'd be OK if the police in America opened live fire on, say, tea party protesters who hurled rocks or tried to take their guns right? An eye for an eye is neoconservative policy these days, right mate? if the tea party protesters were attacking the police with knives and metal bars, we would expect the police to respond with deadly force. Don't be a ****, you'd expect them to use tasers and tear gas. ... HA! it may seem inappropriate, but your observation has provided us with the first genuine mirth we were able to appreciate in regards to this incident. tasers and tear gas? HA! Good Fun!

I had no idea. Nevertheless, if you wanted to inspect the cargo of the convoy, why would you send warships, helicopters and heavily armed commandos in the middle of the night? Does that really sound like someone who wants to innocently inspect your ship's cargo? is kinda sad that as a citizen o' sweden you probably got more rights when dealing with the U.S. while on Amercian soil than you does on the high seas. thanks to treaties, you don't even get the benefit o' "probable cause" and "reasonable suspicion" when faced with an inspection by authorities. even so, am in agreement that the israeli operation were not well considered. commandos dropping down from helicopters in the dead of night? what is the likelihood that at least one idiot peace activist would gets trigger happy out of fear or anger? once the israelis were attacked, the end results were predictable... and it cannot have been complete unanticipated that the israelis would be attacked. 'course, it typical requires the stoopidity o' multiple people to create a charlie fox scenario like the one that is the focus o' this thread. am always a bit surprised that such stoopidity is rarely contemplated until after the corpses is counted and the wounds is tended. HA! Good Fun!

Ahh, but that's how it goes, isn't it? Once the government plays its part (boarding the ship) then it's all on the soldiers' shoulders, who in turn can always play the "self-defense" card. Then even the individuals with the best of intentions and the best of judgement can easily overlook the fact that it's a "bad political decision". Additionally, in this case it doesn't even qualify as self-defense, imo. It was at best "bad crowd control". Very bad. At best. This would be spot on IF both sides of the incident were trained & equipped soldiers. The end result gives a pretty good idea about the "danger levels" for both sides (injuries vs. deaths). all of which complete ignores the fact that the knife-wielding peace activists attacked the soldiers. the danger level to the peace activists were in the control o' the peace activists, as is evidenced by the results on the five other flotilla boats. even so, the israelis shoulda' anticipated peace activist stupidity/aggression. am not seeing how the end result could be a genuine surprise to anybody. HA! Good Fun!

eh? where is they to back down to exactly. the israelis is on a ship at sea. they has been dropped off by helicopter. where is the safety to which they could easily back down to? some o' you folks is being genuine unreasonable. again, am not suggesting that this were the best considered plan, but to take calax example... "it's like stopping a family vehicle at the end of your street with a four person family inside, to check it for guns because you don't want them to shoot up your garage." once the folks in the family car start attacking the cop with metal bars and knives, does we ask why the policeman defended self with lethal force? no. hell no. 'course the israelis had even less opportunity to back down as they were on a ship at sea. again, we ain't suggesting that this were a well considered venture by the israelis, and they shoulda' contemplated the possibility that not all ships would come along peaceably (apparently five o' the flotilla ships did surrender without incident.) israel tends to ignore the political implications o' their actions...which is understandable to some degree. nevertheless, this don't appear to have been the best considered plan for dealing with folks who were clearly attempting to create an international incident by running the gaza blockade. unlike most folks, what bothers Gromnir most is that the israelis put their soldiers in an extremely dangerous position without seeming to consider what would happen if things went to $&%#. poor planning results in injured israelis and dead civvies. HA! Good Fun!

So it'd be OK if the police in America opened live fire on, say, tea party protesters who hurled rocks or tried to take their guns right? An eye for an eye is neoconservative policy these days, right mate? if the tea party protesters were attacking the police with knives and metal bars, we would expect the police to respond with deadly force. "do what is necessary to protect yourselves and your fellow police officers." is all kinda arguments as to why the israelis should or should not have been on those boats in the first place, but you is bugnuts if you thinks the individual soldiers were unjustified in firing on those poor civilians who were attacking with knives and metal bars. international crisis be damned: if Gromnir is the israeli commander, we tells our men that their first priority is to protect selves and their squaddies. you is on a boat, in the dark, being attacked by an unknown number of knife-wielding adversaries. you perhaps expected the israelis to use those paintball guns they were carrying to defend selves? again, am not suggesting that the israeli solution o' boarding the flotilla ships as they did were politically advisable, but once on-board, we cannot see how you fault the israelis for defending themselves. HA! Good Fun!

It definitely did, as it contained pre fab buildings and construction materials, both of which Israel embargoes, not deeming shelter and such to be "humanitarian essentials". The boats were not heading to an Israeli port, Israel has not annexed Gaza (as they would then have to give 1 million+ Palestinians the vote) so your comparison fails at the first hurdle. In point of fact the boat woulds never pass through Israeli waters, just Gazan. The only legal defence is that it was action in maintenance of blockade, which still has some rather significant flaws. Hoho, ninja'd by WoD, of all people. *sigh* fine... israelis is headed to denmark (not near the same as heading to gaza, but we give you the benefit o' the doubt.) swedes stop the israeli ship bound for denmark and swede sailors is then attacked. big difference? wanna debate the validity o' the israeli blockade? fine, be our guest... am not even gonna touch that subject, 'cause we do not have to. HA! Good Fun!

So if a burglar enters your home, you attack the burglar and he kills you, the burglar only acted in self defence since you were the one attacking him? These ships were on international waters. The Israeli soldiers boarded the convoy on international waters. What is so hard to understand here? If a ship is in international waters, that ship is to be seen as a continuation of the nation under which flag it sails. If the ship had a Swedish flag, this means the Israeli soldiers entered Swedish territory uninvited and the Swedish crew would be entitled to expel the intruders from their ship. I don't understand how the Israelis can claim they were attacked first.. they were obviously standing on the deck of a foreign nation's ship on international waters, holding firearms in their hands. So who attacked who? is a bit more complex than mkreku suggests. a foreign warship may board and inspect on high seas pursuant to "right of visit" and treaty. the U.S., for instance, has a treaty with sweden that allows for reciprocity o' searches on high seas to combat narcotics trafficking, weapons smuggling and a host o' other such stuff. is anybody current on israeli treaties with foreign powers? Gromnir ain't. furthermore, the "right of visit" allows warships to board and inspect foreign vessels on the high seas if they gots a suspicion of piracy, slavery and a few other things. what this typical means is that if representatives from a foreign warship wanna board and search your vessel, you let 'em do so... and then complain 'bout it later. mkreku's burglar metaphor would be more accurate if it were the police who were attempting to barge into your home at night. perhaps the police do not have reasonable cause to do so, but that does not give you the right to attack the cops with knives and metal bars, does it? rules is different for warships on the high seas... as odd as it may sound. change the facts: a swedish coast guard vessel stops and boards an israeli merchant ship six miles off shore, in international waters. the israelis is heading towards stockholm, but has repeatedly ignored hails from swedish authorities. as swedish sailors board the vessel, they is attacked by israeli's wielding broken bottles and baseball bats. the swedish sailors defend themselves, killing numerous israelis. *shrug* am suspecting that the public outcry over spilled israeli blood would be minimal. HA! Good Fun!

am so very tempted to respond with a host o' possible reasons to explain why anybody would choose soz as a recent favorite. soz? HA! Good Fun!

Are you being facetious or do you really believe what you just wrote? given your own use o' hyperbole in this thread, am not sure you is the ideal person to be criticizing. HA! Good Fun!

three years from now, only experts will be able to tell that there were an oil leak in the gulf simply by looking at the coast. nothing as grisly as oil-soaked pelicans, or a few thousand dead fish littering the shores, will be available to bear witness to the tragedy. hundred page reports on soil toxicity is not hardly as sexy as one dead bird. a committee, or ombudsman, or something similar, will be tasked with determining when bp stops paying, and how much they eventual pay. bp will happily fight a war with experts. bp will gladly go to court, and eventually agree on settlements or outlast the plaintiffs. bp will help fund candidate reelections and they will make very public demonstrations o' their continuing dedication to the community... create new jobs in these troubled times. *snicker* as each year goes by, the amount which bp will pay will become ever smaller compared to what they might actually owe... and we ain't even suggesting that a multibillion dollar corporation might use underhanded methods such as illegal payoffs to reduce and obliterate fines, 'cause that would be wrong. HA! Good Fun!

you're serious? really? how often does corporations drag their feet when it comes to fixing problems they created? auto makers discover a defect in a car and don't fix 'cause it is cheaper to pay injury/death benefits than it is to fix the car. "you can't put a value on a human life." sure you can. companies do it all the time. it looks like bp rushed their gulf platform construction and they didn't have adequate measures for fixing potential problems... but do you really think they didn't anticipate a disaster and affix a dollar amount to a worst case scenario? *chuckle* tobacco, asbestos, petrochemical, etc... name all the industries that has been accused o' reacting slowly (or not at all) to environmental or human disasters. btw, folks is still fighting with exxon over valdez. it is very possible that the most cost-efficient response for bp is to do as little as possible... look good for the cameras while this is a public disaster, and then find ways to mitigate and avoid eventual fines two or three years from now when only the locals care/remember. your naivety is... quaint. HA! Good Fun!

we would be more than a little disappointed in the bbc if the had reported that the main leak had been "plugged." given the scope o' the potential disaster, am actual a bit surprised that the U.S. government has been willing to let bp handle the leak-killing and cleanup operations. is doubtful that the federal govt. has better resources for cleaning up such messes than does bp, but typically it only takes a few phone calls to figure out who IS the best. am not certain why bp is still bumbling their way through this mess, particularly as their primary duty is to their stockholders. is not difficult to see potential for a conflict o' interest between doing what is right, and doing what is right for bp stockholders. HA! Good Fun!

were nwn2 as buggy as: arcanum: no toee: no vampire: hell no as for vol's recollection o' the stability o' nwn... HA! bioware were excellent in terms o' patching the neverwinter nights(mare), but the initial release were riddled with bugs. to be fair, nwn bugginess were hardly surprising given that the various aspects o' the game were an awkward chimera o' features. scope o' nwn were enormous. thus, while nwn were a far better game than many folks recollect or admit, the only aspect o' the game that initially matched the scale o' bioware's ambitions for nwn were the bug list. but this is 'bout da... so, we will note that the initial release were remarkably stable for a game of its size. sadly, the bugs that some folks suffered were often true game-killers... such as inability to enter orzamar. also, as nobody ever knew what the underlying rulez were for da, it were difficult to identify many potential da game bugs. every d&d geekling knows how much damage a fireball spell cast by a 12th level mage can do. d&d geeklings know how what creatures gots immunity to fire. d&d geeks knows the impact o' magic items on spell castings and defenses o' the fireball. if a fireball spell is implemented wrong in a d&d game, some geekling will know and post 'bout the error almost immediate after a crpg release. in da, we knew very little 'bout the hows and whys behind the simple fireball spell. were damage, range, and duration o' fireball implemented correct in da? how would we know if such were implemented wrong? HA! Good Fun!

I'm not familiar with the rogue bug but the JNPCs are bugged to hell and back Volourn, at least on PC. Things like approval going to 100 because of broken triggers during side quests, impossibility of making a party member ( ) do the Joining ritual if you break the sequence of events that the developers probably intended you to do (then again, if you give me freedom in the order to tackle different main quest mission I'm going to take advantage of it!), dead NPCs reappearing during the final sequence, etc. Add to that the frequent crashes and Awakening is by far the buggiest game I've played from Bioware. Granted, it is indeed awesome IMHO, and felt spot-on when it comes to story, interactions, feel and depth.. it's just that there is a remarkable similarity between this project's lack of polish and usual Obsidian games. the trap disarming bug is, according to boards, extreme common on the pc... but it only affects player-character rogues. 'course, there is 'posed only a handful o' traps in the game, so most folks never even noticed. as for the expansion being similar to an obsidian product... we cannot comment as we have not played. however, for Gromnir, Obsidian's signature move is the patented Chris Avellone Conclusion of Disappointment. obsidian has mastered the crappy climax as not other developer we can name. too many other developers seeming ignore qa to single out obsidian. heck, we cannot think o' an obsidian release that were as buggy as any troika release... or bioware's nwn. oh, and warden's keep were a short 1007fest that added very little quality gameplay content to the game. stone prisoner would garner our vote for the best da dlc to date. added two game areas and a quality/unique jnpc... though as it were a free day-1 release, am not certain if it should count. HA! Good Fun! ps is not actual that obsidian releases has worse climax and denouement than other crpgs, but obsidian games has relative strong story elements with the Exception o' climax and the ever-after portions o' the game. makes horribleness o' their The End that much more glaring.

Apparently no word on a patch, sorry Gromnir, at least as far as I know =/ I almost feel like Bioware has sneakily outsourced this expansion to Obsidian, considering how buggy it is. too bad. given the discoraging reviews and rumors surrounding AP, Gromnir were gonna give da:a a shot. oh well. back to work. HA! Good Fun!

any word on a 1.04 patch? we finally found the expansion at a more reasonable price, but am not feeling like playing a game wherein our rogue pc cannot detect/disarm traps, a joinable npc may not join, and at least 1 potential game-breaker bug... and a whole laundry list o' other minor bugs. we looked at bio boards briefly and saw no mention of 1.04 for more than a couple weeks. HA! Good Fun!

You can always opt for the Flamer Pistol, amirite? Or some home-made low power crap, or a specially damaged Energy Pistol. It's not like this isn't a Scavenger World. same rationale worked for big guns. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

Energy Weapons is easier to "fill out" than Big Guns. Flamers don't constitute early, bread and butter weapons, but it's not hard to think of and implement other low- and mid-power Energy Weapons. so, early lasers... or is there some other kinda weapon you have in mind? tasers? again, since you raised the spectre o' early game absence o' energy weapons, am curious as to how you "fixed." personally, am fine with "weak" energy weapons being available from start of game, but am curious how josh implemented. HA! Good Fun!

am in san joaquin valley o' CA... is 1:00pm and the temp is a balmy 62 F (am crappy at conversions... 16.5 C?) is late May, and am looking at forecast for this week: rain and no high temp above 70 F (20C?) surely these is the End of Days. HA! Good Fun!

"If you tagged Big Guns or Energy Weapons early on, you would not be able to gain much, if any, benefit from it for a long time. Even back then, I thought this was problematic. Before playing the game, players could not know how content would limit the applicability of weapons." am not seeing how the merge of big guns into other categories addresses the problem josh identifies in the aforementioned quote. a non sequitur? is flame throwers available early and constitute a bread and butter weapon? HA! Good Fun!

I think the Bobble heads and their stat-raising effects are fine. The biggest problem with the stat/skill system in FO3 was the huge number of skill points available within the game. I personally don't think there should be enough skill points in a game to allow a player to come close to maxing out more than a handful of skills. our problems with fo3 skills were legion... but will limit to but a couple key points for the nonce. fo3 skills point availability and awards were relative straightforward and simple, which is a Good thing. unfortunately, it were rather easy for a player to become proficient in every skill due to availability o' exp and the seeming minimal proficiency threshold for most combat related skills. didn't need 100 in a combat skill to be extreme proficient... so problem of excessive points were actual worse than some suggest. 1) am hopeful that obsidian fixed combat mechanics so that there is a genuine reason for adding points into a combat skill beyond some minimal threshold value. we never figured out the exact numbers, but it frequent seemed as if there were hardly any genuine advantage to raising a combat skill beyond 45 or 50%... which is stoopid. am hopeful that obsidian fixed so that adding skill points to a combat skill beyond minimum thresholds is actually meaningful to gameplay. 2) am hopeful that 100 points won't get you 100% typically, we is opposed to unnecessary complications of da rulez. nevertheless, we thinks that there shoulds be a mechanic for promoting skill choice diversity as well as specialization. unlike previous fo games, fo3's cap at 100 makes sense, but am not thinking you needs have 100 skill points equal 100% in a skill. if it actual takes 50 points to get from 90 to 100 in a skill, then perhaps a player will consider the advantages o' diversification over specialization, no? developers and testers may decide to play with the numbers a bit, but increasing skill point costs at 50, 75, 85, and 90 might be worthy o' consideration... at the very least, such a progression will chew up loads o' exp. 'course, in returning to our first point, there must needs be a genuine reward to makes such costs worthy o' consideration. HA! Good Fun!

merging big and small don't bother us in the least. however, am more concerned that energy is separate. given how previous fo games approached ranged weapons, energy weapons were a skill that became useful later in game but largely pointless at the beginning. am not a fan of having a Super-Skill that is worthless for 10-20 hours o' gameplay. josh is unlikely to make energy weapons as overpowered as previous developers has been willing to do, but one wonders how the face o' fo will change if there is useful 'mounts o' energy weapons and ammo early in game. every third bandit gots a laser rifle? HA! Good Fun!