Amentep

Same as her other movies, gotcha. Lol, I think this is the first movie I've seen with her in it. *checks credits* Nope I saw her in Cold Creek Manor, but that was almost 10 years ago and I can barely remember that movie much less the small part she'd have had. Well to be fair

Sorry about that. My Pawn is a mage all the way so far. Possibly thinking about making her a sorcerer, but I'm also thinking of doing sorcerer for a few levels to level up my overall magic, but haven't decided yet. With being totally offline, are their just random pawns walking around? I'm not quite how that works. Yeah there are computer created Pawns just wandering around or hireable in the rift. They don't level up, whatever items you equip them with are gifts but their non-equiped inventory goes to storage when they're removed from the party.

I'm offline totally so I couldn't rent your pawn even if I wanted to. :/

I'm a Sorcerer up from Mage, my pawn is a Warrior up from Fighter.

Since I loved the film, I'm a bit curious as to what you didn't like about it. Lets see I've seen recently since last posting... Prometheus - Thoughtful, suspenseful, interesting plot that connects to the Alien franchise without being an Alien film. Not perfect, but really good. Endless Night - 1972 adaption of one of the few Agatha Christie stories to feature elements of the supernatural. Its a bit slow going, but worth it in the end I think. The locals and the house are pretty neat to behold. Not really creepy enough or true mystery enough I think to have broad appeal. Snow White and the Huntsman - The film does some things really well, but then will have a clumsy sequence that is wince worthy or just confusing. The story is episodic and never really gets the through story moving, IMO. Kristen Stewart will probably get a lot of flack about being in the film, but to be fair she's given very little to do for the vast majority of the film beyond react to what others have done.

I've been playing Dragon's Dogma. Basically taking my time with it - one of the few games where I've actually enjoyed just traveling around. Its not a perfect game by any means, but I certainly am enjoying what it does well.

I'm not sure I agree with the classification of piracy (for it to be applied as how the term has been used in this thread you'd have to have downloaded, say, Marilyn Monroe singing it and not paying for the use in any way); I'd agree that the person has violated the copyright that exists (whether the copyright would stand up to a challenge or not) by creating a new version of the song sung by themselves without paying royalties. That wouldn't be the argument, since each "version" of the Temple of Elemental Evil are distinct works copyrightable on their own. The potential undermining of the "Happy Birthday" song comes from it being based on a song that the copyright owners of the Birthday song (or there successors) did not themselves have the rights to and whether or not that earlier song could have been under copyright (because you can copyright new derivative works of things in the public domain but not of copyrighted works). That wasn't the intent with my post; I thought you brought up an interesting situation that I wanted to comment on. Sorry you felt that I was "jumping down your throat" as that wasn't my intent. Copyright violations are easy to do. Ever copy and forward a funny comic strip to a group of friends? Technically you've moved past "fair use" in republishing a work you don't own the rights to. Ever bought a sticker of Calvin (from "Calvin and Hobbes" peeing on something (like a car logo?). Then you're violating Bill Watterson's copyright (which he's never allowed to be licensed for Calvin and Hobbes ancillary items). Ever wrote fan fiction? Downloaded fan fiction to read? etc. I'm not sure definition wise if I'd call all copyright violations piracy though (but this could be a semantics argument) You can't copyright a generic idea. So there's no rights issue involved (although perhaps some creativity related ones). Not really the case for "work for hire" in which case the author is the company (this would include most movies, comic books and comic strips in the US at least).

I didn't say it wasn't ridiculous, I also mentioned that several legal analysts have indicated that they don't think that it'd stand up in court but there hasn't been a challenge mounted. It wouldn't be the first time that a company claimed a copyright they didn't have and dared anyone to challenge them on it. I also think the copyright extensions need to end. Active trademark should be sufficient to keep people from interfering with a companies ability to create and sell works on things that they owned that have moved into the public domain if it comes to that.

Word is Marvel Studios wants to do both.

Rofl...I didnt even know you were trying to convince me of anything. See, your problem is that youre a weak minded fool who can only debate by being overly aggressive and trying to redirect to random points in history. Im not the only one youve taken this stance with so this isnt some one-off cause "you so angy". Rant on but you just look like a tool. Im really surprise by the attitude of some of you whos opinions I respect take property rights. Its "not really stealing"? What? Whether its the stone tablets of yesteryear, the books / 1 & 0's of today, or the pulses of light tomorrow, property rights dont cease to exist because the medium of distribution changes. Also, you dont deserve something beacause you are a special unique snowflake. Here's an easier take then the Bioware example I gave earlier on why MOST Americans (NOT Russians, not Indians....AMERICANS) have committed Piracy. This is why you may say there is a difference between actually STEALING something and Piracy. Piracy is taking the ideas of something that you didn't come up with and using them...in it's most basic form. AKA...piracy deals more with taking an idea or service rather than stealing a physical object. So you can pirate software, you can pirate music, you can pirate movies (saying you didn't steal physical items of these). So where is my example? There's a popular song sung in the US and Canada on people's birthdays. It's basically the Happy Birthday song. I won't repeat it here or write it down, but the instant I said it, you probably recognize it. Have you ever sung that song? Congratulations...you pirated it. That's right...that song is still under copyright and unless you paid the studio for it's use...you pirated. Actually its not a certainty that that the copyright would hold up; it was copywritten in 1935 but for one note, a note split to accomodate the two syllables in "Happy", the song is exactly the same as the public domain song GOOD MORNING TO ALL, written in the 1890s; also there's evidence that other people the songs author used the tune with the words "Happy Birthday to You" prior to the copyrighting of the song. I think the issue is no one wants to challenge the rights in court with a risk of loss. 4 more years and the EU can sing it royalty free, though, IIRC.

Thats one of the campy things I love best about those 90's action movies. I present you with Commando: Hes firing a belt fed M60 and you may notice ~20 rounds hanging by his left hand. He killed about 50 people with those 20 rounds. I think this falls under the cinematic "rule of cool". Seeing Arnie dispatch faceless baddies = cool Watching Arnie reload = not cool

Hahah, well I can admire overacting in certain situations (sometimes its fun to see actors chewing the scenery).

I don't think Dredd has much of a life in the comics outside being a judge (mind you, haven't read a lot of Dredd, so...). I don't think that's the case with the other judges, but particular to Dredd. That said I didn't care about Stalone losing the helmet. The biggest problem, IMO, with the movie was that its predicated on a lot of what I'd call continuity pieces (Dredd's "origin", his "family", the villain taking away things that are important to him) without the context for why they matter to Dredd. The plot would have made an okay third film; it was a disastrous first film, IMO.

I find the "1s & 0s" argument interesting. There's an area in art about taking something that exists (and which you may or may not own the rights too) and being transformative of it so that a new and unique item of the artist's making is created and I almost feel that this is where the argument is going except that when someone says something like "its just 1s & 0s that if decoded the right way would make a game" there's never an explanation of what other use there would be to downloading that particular set of 1s & 0s other than decoding the way to make a game. I'm not sure that digital piracy really falls under property rights (since there isn't a physical entity to have a right to) and I think that's why there's such a struggle to understand what it means by many people. Instead of taking a physcial disc, some electrons are inconvenienced. Some intellectual rights, copyrights, distribution rights, maybe even patents might be violated though. In some ways the Internet has opened a number of issues that I think our society and our laws are struggling to conceptualize. I recall a time a few years ago when a few companies got in trouble for appropriating art from people's deviant art accounts and using them for their own posters. The companies actually said "we found them online and assumed fair use". The end result of these were that the companies were in the wrong, but there was little the creators could do to prevent it from happening once they posted the work online other than close the barn doors after the horses were gone.

This is an interesting way of putting it, it'd be similar to everyone in the US being able to play a game except people in the Dakotas because there wasn't enough people there to make it worth distributing the product. Thanks. Forgotten Realms, D&D all of that are IPs belonging to TSR and their successor companies; I can't think of any work done for TSR that wouldn't (or shouldn't) have been done by an employee, a work-for-hire, or a licensee and most big companies don't let total rights to their properties go to other companies. Was there something specific you were referring to? The only iify thing I can think of were the rights to the cartoon which are still with Marvel Animation, but the use in BG II I think would fall under fair use / parody. At any rate even if you're correct and I'm not thinking of something obvious that was questionable in use, I'd think the "piracy" in such a scenario would be on the part of Bioware, not on the part of the (unknowing) customer. I think the comparison comes up because of the idea that (a) some creator isn't getting paid for their work (or in the case of games, some creator won't be paid for future work because this game flopped since everyone pirated it) and (b) in the US at least the people who pirate have legitimate ways to purchase the product but choose not to procure via that method. I don't like some of the draconian measures in place myself; and with the recent rumors about the next gen consoles - well I have great worries about companies moving to a "you have to be online to validate ownership of a game" model. Where I live its currently impossible to have any kind of internet connection other than dial-up (I happen to live in a giant ass gap between various service areas) and this kind of model would remove me from gaming at all.

I tried up front to say that I'm not making a value judgement about piracy, but I'm trying to understand the rationale for "I want X" becoming "I'll pirate X". I see in my second post where that intent was put at cross purposes with some of my responses which wasn't what I was trying to do. I'm sure if some "holy grail" want was put before me I'd be tempted to procure it through any means just as anyone else would - perhaps the issue in regards to commonly "pirated" things through the internet (games, music, movies, tv) is I don't have a strong enough emotive connection with these so that' I'd have to "pirate" to obtain? I dunno. I know and understand (again I'm not making a pro/con value judgement here) about the "grey market" - like out-of-print games from long defunct publishers that will never be seen on some "best of" collection or "bootlegs" that are supported by a band because it helps get their name out there, or even collector-to-collector trades of material (old movies duped off 16 mm or tv shows recorded ages ago to VHS or Beta and then traded for similar from others). But these things - and perhaps I'm wrong here - seem a bit different from seeking out sources with which to intentionally acquire things that you don't (or can't) have access to that are "current". But I also feel it is, perhaps, too easy to dismiss this action as simply "entitlement" from people who feel they should have whatever they want. One issue that comes to mind that perhaps fuels my inability to understand this may be from the fact that while "everyone" in the world but a particular country may be able to play a game, that argument comes to me as sort of "if everyone jumped off a cliff would you do it too?" scenario. I can't help but feel that worldwide "peer pressure" isn't a strong enough reason. But maybe it is that simple?

I don't understand why "I want to play some awesome games but there's no legal mean to purchase" automatically resolves to "I should illegally acquire the game". Not trying to make a value judgement here, but I don't see how one justifies the other. Because there was for very long time no legal way how to obtain ANY game in my country... Lot of people had money for good computers, but no one offered them any possible way how to actualy buy a game or music... If you were fan of Iron Maiden, which were not actualy available to buy legaly in our country as an example for a very long time, you would be retarded to switch to New Kids on the Block, just because it was possible to but it legaly in 1990 here... See I'd not buy New Kids on the Block and just deal with my disappointment that I couldn't get any legitimate Iron Maiden stuff. Actually, I just would get over my disappointment that I couldn't get a version of Mortal Kombat to play at home. Well, except Alcohol can be physically addictive so I'm not sure its directly correspondant (although I suppose an argument can be made that entertainment media could also cause addictions). Thanks for the answer though; I suppose that my own personal viewpoint is such that the rationale in the illegal acquisition of some things is hard for me to put into perspective.

So... it's a period piece version of Castle? Yes, if Castle was a Byronic hero, the police investigator was a man and not a woman, and it wasn't as good, this would totally be a period piece Castle.

I don't understand why "I want to play some awesome games but there's no legal mean to purchase" automatically resolves to "I should illegally acquire the game". Not trying to make a value judgement here, but I don't see how one justifies the other.

Did they exclaim "Hello Sailor!"?

You can keep your expired passports, no ? Yes; as I recall you can use them to get a renewed passport as well.

It seems the vast majority of stuff floating around (to put it nicely) on the internet is "easy" entertainment. Maybe people who read Tolstoy are more likely to buy the book than people who watch Indepence Day are likely to buy the dvd? Tolstoy's in the public domain (at least the earliest translations for non-original language versions) so you can legally make the text available any way you like. I can download War and Peace for free on a Kindle (if I had such a device).

Did you have anything against 5th Element? Sorry I thought you were arguing against Lockout, and no I have nothing against the 5th Element. It was the first movie in which Milla Jojovich married a director so she could get a role. How many directors has she married? Two, Luc Bessan (1997-1999) and Paul W. S. Anderson (2009 - present). Her other marriage (annulled, IIRC) was to an actor. I watched THE RAVEN over the weekend. Not a bad idea for a movie (Edgar Allen Poe is recruited by the police to help capture a killer who uses scenes from Poe's work to stage gruesome murders) but it doesn't seem to understand the period its set in, Poe or his work or even manage a compelling mystery. It also seems oddly preoccupied with the gore of various deaths than makeing things suspensful or really chilling. John Cusack does his best playing Byron playing Poe, Alice Eve is serviceable as the female lead; Brendan Gleeson's talents are mostly wasted as his role is mostly scowling. Luke Evans manages to do well with the inspector who recruits Poe to help. Set design and costumes were pretty good though, as was cinematography.

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Er...True Grit cost $38 Million to make so even though its world wide gross is less ($250 million vs $560 million) the difference in profitability is less than you think compared to Cars 2's $200 million cost. (Based on the common estimate, a movie would have had to make 1.5 - 2 times its budget to turn a profit, so...). However its also fair to note that movie companies have stated they'd rather spend more money for more profit than spend less money for smaller profits. The question for games comes - even though Angry Birds sells more games what are the costs involved. Lets say - for simplicity sake - that Angry Birds retails at $5 (which their website indicated the PC version does), it has to sell 12 games for every one of ME2 (at $60 a unit) to compare the money actually being made. So in this situation, if Mass Effect 2 sells 1 million games and Angry Birds sells 8 million games, Mass Effect 2 actually made more money (~$60 million vs $40 million). Then of course there's development cost, advertising cost and such...the situation becomes fairly muddled. Also fair to note is that most movie companies will try to make 1-2 "prestige" pictures each year with the goal of being to snag awards (with the idea that winning awards leads to larger secondary market interest as well as a trickle down effect for the company). There doesn't really seem to be an "award effect" in video games like there is in movies.