"United States' claims at being a democracy seriously threatened"

[Gfted1]

 

Heck, Calax has a cameo in FO:NV.  And we know that Hades will be featured in P:E.    

 

Where is Calax in NV? I never ran across him.

 

 

 

Im not sure if you can miss him. He appears early in the game and actually runs up to you for help.

[213374U]

 

 

Heck, Calax has a cameo in FO:NV.  And we know that Hades will be featured in P:E.    

 

Where is Calax in NV? I never ran across him.

 

 

 

Im not sure if you can miss him. He appears early in the game and actually runs up to you for help.

 

 

The character isn't named "Calax", so unless you are an Obsidz regular and know about the contest, know the guy personally, or have seen his pic and can make the connection you won't recognize the cameo at all. I know I missed it. And unlike Gromnir's in ToB, his role is fairly minor. Low key, as cameos should be, I think.

Edited April 22, 2014 by 213374U

[Orogun01]

 

 

 

Heck, Calax has a cameo in FO:NV.  And we know that Hades will be featured in P:E.    

 

Where is Calax in NV? I never ran across him.

 

 

 

Im not sure if you can miss him. He appears early in the game and actually runs up to you for help.

 

 

The character isn't named "Calax", so unless you are an Obsidz regular and know about the contest, know the guy personally, or have seen his pic and can make the connection you won't recognize the cameo at all. I know I missed it. And unlike Gromnir's in ToB, his role is fairly minor. Low key, as cameos should be, I think.

 

So Calax is the guy everyone kills.

[213374U]

Much like Gromnir? *snicker*

[Valsuelm]

FDR isn't in my presidential wheelhouse, but he is ranked extremely highly in every major academic list, so I'm going to go ahead and disregard everything you are saying.  

 

 

Of course FDR is ranked high by most academics. Most modern academics are communist/socialist/statists, FDR was like a godsend to them.

He also presided over WW2, and many historians are enamored with war leaders of all types throughout the ages, no matter how evil they really were.

[Valsuelm]

from a vantage point in 2014, it is easy for Gromnir to look at  Korematsu v. United States and observe with sadness that both the executive and judiciary ignored the Constitution. Scalia has opined that Korematsu were wrong, "but you are kidding yourself if you think the same thing will not happen again." not only does wartime panic make otherwise reasonable peoples paranoid, war itself makes seemingly ridiculous scenarios plausible. the LA Times, a rather liberal newspaper as any Californian can attest, had editorials demanding that something be done about the Japanese situation and were helping to build a mob mentality regarding residents, and LA Times weren't the only such media outlet doing so. furthermore, the incident on Niihau had been reported in newspapers such as the NY Times and the Chicago Tribune.  

 

never heard of Niihau? a downed Japanese pilot named Nishikaichi, following the Pearl Harbor attack were "captured" on the smallest of the inhabited Hawaiian islands. the locales weren't initially aware o' the events o' December 6, so although the pilot were forcibly relieved of his weapon, he were treated to a luau for chrissakes. eventually folks get suspicious, at which point the pilot is viewed as a prisoner and is guarded. the locales had a translator, an American by birth but having Japanese parents and family-- fellow named Harada. the treacherous Harada helped the pilot escape custody, destroy the downed pilot's zero, and attack his American neighbors with machine guns removed from the pilot's downed and now burned plane. Harada were aided in his efforts to assist the pilot by his wife (also Japanese but American-born) and an older Japanese fellow who ran off shortly after Nishikaichi were initially freed. after a couple o' days o' seeming pointless terrorizing o' the Niihau villagers by the pilot and Harada, a locale Hawaiian farmer, in spite being shot multiple times, manages to kill the Japanese pilot by hurling the pilot headfirst into a stone wall. Harada then commits suicide. 

 

​internment of Japanese (some Italians, Germans and others too btw) were not only illegal, but it were wrong. nevertheless, am thinking that Scalia is correct that we is kidding self if we believe it won't happen again. paranoia fueled by the insane reality o' war is making such wrongs almost inevitable.

 

in Nishikaichi's hometown in Japan there is supposed a granite column erected in his honor... memorializing his brave deeds.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

There's no will happen again about it. It's already going on in the innumerable violations of the various fundamental liberties laid out in the Bill of Rights. Probably most notably in the systematic violations of the fourth amendment by the TSA, NSA, et al. All justified in the minds of the evil and brainwashed under the absolute BS excuse of protecting the populace from the boogie man, aka Terrorists.

 

Justice Scalia just recently affirmed that this is somehow ok, voiced his opinion that the SCOTUS really shouldn't be deciding whether or not it's ok for the NSA to continue violating the fourth amendment, and interestingly suggested that rebellion might be a good idea down the road if taxes get too high....

Edited April 22, 2014 by Valsuelm

[Valsuelm]

 

Well, this was a big deal as I remember it with some folks acting like babies their name was not chosen. On BIS I was using a different name (and I wasn't real active anyway) so when I moved to the Bioware boards I figured I'd pick a NWN NPC and tell everyone they named that NPC after me just to get a laugh. So during my first play through I was playing as a Ranger and I took the Guard Dog that was standing in front of the Shining Knight arms store in the City Core with me through the prison and the undead section, I got so attached to him I took his name for my forum name. I use this name here, Bioware, Nexusmods, NWNVault, TW Forums, OOTP forums, Bethsoft, Libertypost.org (I think it's defunct now) FreeRepublic (before I got kicked off & banned), and a few others I think.

Torias was one of the halflings in the SoU caravan. He was also a popular mod on the Bio boards. I forget who the one in NWN is. If there is one in HotU I never noticed it. There were a few in Throne of Bhaal besides Gromnir I think. Wasn't Melisan also a member?

 

 

I'm curious. What got you kicked off and banned on the FreeRepublic forums?

 

[BruceVC]

 

 

Well, this was a big deal as I remember it with some folks acting like babies their name was not chosen. On BIS I was using a different name (and I wasn't real active anyway) so when I moved to the Bioware boards I figured I'd pick a NWN NPC and tell everyone they named that NPC after me just to get a laugh. So during my first play through I was playing as a Ranger and I took the Guard Dog that was standing in front of the Shining Knight arms store in the City Core with me through the prison and the undead section, I got so attached to him I took his name for my forum name. I use this name here, Bioware, Nexusmods, NWNVault, TW Forums, OOTP forums, Bethsoft, Libertypost.org (I think it's defunct now) FreeRepublic (before I got kicked off & banned), and a few others I think.

Torias was one of the halflings in the SoU caravan. He was also a popular mod on the Bio boards. I forget who the one in NWN is. If there is one in HotU I never noticed it. There were a few in Throne of Bhaal besides Gromnir I think. Wasn't Melisan also a member?

 

 

I'm curious. What got you kicked off and banned on the FreeRepublic forums?

 

 

 

Vals how many forums have you been banned from...I imagine its a long list

[Valsuelm]

 

Well, this was a big deal as I remember it with some folks acting like babies their name was not chosen.

 

Torias was one of the halflings in the SoU caravan. He was also a popular mod on the Bio boards. I forget who the one in NWN is. If there is one in HotU I never noticed it. There were a few in Throne of Bhaal besides Gromnir I think. Wasn't Melisan also a member?

For BG2 and ToB, there was Gromnir, Mencar Pebblecrusher, Del, and Lanfear. I may be forgetting a few. But there were definitely a lot of crybabies. Including Lanfear herself, who couldn't quite get a joke. ...Typical humorless German not understanding American/Kanedan making funny.

 

 

Lanfear is a name of a fairly major character in The Wheel of Time books, which were extremely popular books in the 90s (and 00s) if you're somehow unaware. It would be a very safe wager that the forum user took her/his name from these books, and that bioware did as well. And on that note, I'd wager that most of the names you guys are thinking were taken from forum posters that made it into games were really not, and the game creators were just taking the name from the same place the forum poster got their name from, wherever that was.

Edited April 22, 2014 by Valsuelm

[Valsuelm]

 

 

 

Well, this was a big deal as I remember it with some folks acting like babies their name was not chosen. On BIS I was using a different name (and I wasn't real active anyway) so when I moved to the Bioware boards I figured I'd pick a NWN NPC and tell everyone they named that NPC after me just to get a laugh. So during my first play through I was playing as a Ranger and I took the Guard Dog that was standing in front of the Shining Knight arms store in the City Core with me through the prison and the undead section, I got so attached to him I took his name for my forum name. I use this name here, Bioware, Nexusmods, NWNVault, TW Forums, OOTP forums, Bethsoft, Libertypost.org (I think it's defunct now) FreeRepublic (before I got kicked off & banned), and a few others I think.

Torias was one of the halflings in the SoU caravan. He was also a popular mod on the Bio boards. I forget who the one in NWN is. If there is one in HotU I never noticed it. There were a few in Throne of Bhaal besides Gromnir I think. Wasn't Melisan also a member?

 

 

I'm curious. What got you kicked off and banned on the FreeRepublic forums?

 

 

 

Vals how many forums have you been banned from...I imagine its a long list

 

 

Zero.

[Meshugger]

 

I am the only one who finds this worrysome for the next generation? When people do not feel like they are in control of their destinies, they become cynics, followed by their children becoming antagonistic and even revolutionary.

 

Not exactly a positive development.

But people are in control of their destinies more than ever before.

The same wonders of globalization that cut the ties between citizens and their government allow us today to find different places to live in.

If people are not willing to make a simple change of residency then they are not going to become reformers or revolutionaries.

 

 

Huh?

 

If no one can participate in the development of any society, then you are just a serf looking for a new master. 

[Amentep]

 

 

Well, this was a big deal as I remember it with some folks acting like babies their name was not chosen.

 

Torias was one of the halflings in the SoU caravan. He was also a popular mod on the Bio boards. I forget who the one in NWN is. If there is one in HotU I never noticed it. There were a few in Throne of Bhaal besides Gromnir I think. Wasn't Melisan also a member?

For BG2 and ToB, there was Gromnir, Mencar Pebblecrusher, Del, and Lanfear. I may be forgetting a few. But there were definitely a lot of crybabies. Including Lanfear herself, who couldn't quite get a joke. ...Typical humorless German not understanding American/Kanedan making funny.

 

 

Lanfear is a name of a fairly major character in The Wheel of Time books, which were extremely popular books in the 90s (and 00s) if you're somehow unaware. It would be a very safe wager that the forum user took her/his name from these books, and that bioware did as well. And on that note, I'd wager that most of the names you guys are thinking were taken from forum posters that made it into games were really not, and the game creators were just taking the name from the same place the forum poster got their name from, wherever that was.

 

In the case of Lanfear, it was about the poster, who was a fan of Coran in the first game and lobbied hard for his inclusion in BG2. When the game comes out, lo and behold Coran is in it. For about two seconds before he and the PC confront Lanfear who promptly kills Safana (and IIRC if the player is a female PC she kills Coran too) and then leaves (if not killed) after Lanfear is killed by the party. My memory is the original poster was outraged about this and made a big fuss before leaving the boards.

 

Gromnir was about him as well (is there another Gromnir?). I don't even remember Mencar Pebblecrusher at this point. But do remember Del and Draconis.

 

Still hard to believe these things that happened on the boards are now being lost to time...

Edited April 22, 2014 by Amentep

[Guard Dog]

 

 

Heck, Calax has a cameo in FO:NV.  And we know that Hades will be featured in P:E.    

 

Where is Calax in NV? I never ran across him.

 

 

 

Im not sure if you can miss him. He appears early in the game and actually runs up to you for help.

 

Is he the guy that gets you to go up the hill with the geckos then tries to rob you after?

[Hurlshort]

I don't know why it's a big surprise that people who spend a huge amount on a developer's forum end up having an impact on the developer's creative process.  That's really the whole point.  It becomes more difficult as the communities and the developer's grow in size, but even us Obsidianites occasionally get to interact with the big wigs. 

[Hurlshort]

 

FDR isn't in my presidential wheelhouse, but he is ranked extremely highly in every major academic list, so I'm going to go ahead and disregard everything you are saying.  

 

 

Of course FDR is ranked high by most academics. Most modern academics are communist/socialist/statists, FDR was like a godsend to them.

He also presided over WW2, and many historians are enamored with war leaders of all types throughout the ages, no matter how evil they really were.

 

 

So you dismiss the majority of highly educated scholars.  Brilliant.  

[Guard Dog]

 

 

Well, this was a big deal as I remember it with some folks acting like babies their name was not chosen. On BIS I was using a different name (and I wasn't real active anyway) so when I moved to the Bioware boards I figured I'd pick a NWN NPC and tell everyone they named that NPC after me just to get a laugh. So during my first play through I was playing as a Ranger and I took the Guard Dog that was standing in front of the Shining Knight arms store in the City Core with me through the prison and the undead section, I got so attached to him I took his name for my forum name. I use this name here, Bioware, Nexusmods, NWNVault, TW Forums, OOTP forums, Bethsoft, Libertypost.org (I think it's defunct now) FreeRepublic (before I got kicked off & banned), and a few others I think.

Torias was one of the halflings in the SoU caravan. He was also a popular mod on the Bio boards. I forget who the one in NWN is. If there is one in HotU I never noticed it. There were a few in Throne of Bhaal besides Gromnir I think. Wasn't Melisan also a member?

 

 

I'm curious. What got you kicked off and banned on the FreeRepublic forums?

 

 

Getting banned on FR is easy, just voice a dissenting opinion a few times. If you are not a big R republican there then you must be a commie liberal democrat. It seems the universe is divided into two camps. Big R freepers and commie dems. Of course Democratic Underground is even worse the other way. I didn't even last a night before being banned and having death threats e-mailed to me.

 

They have no love for libertarians on FR. I can tell you that. 

[BruceVC]

I don't know why it's a big surprise that people who spend a huge amount on a developer's forum end up having an impact on the developer's creative process.  That's really the whole point.  It becomes more difficult as the communities and the developer's grow in size, but even us Obsidianites occasionally get to interact with the big wigs. 

 

Interesting perspective, which RPG has a character called Hurlshot in it...please don't tell me you didn't  make the cool kid list because you are active on these forums and make very interesting points..so which game did you influence the creative juices in ? 

[Hurlshort]

I think my name is too lame.  I don't even use it when I play RPG's.  

 

 

GD, I think we should start some sort of forum for political moderates that think both parties are ridiculous.  

[Meshugger]

 

 

FDR isn't in my presidential wheelhouse, but he is ranked extremely highly in every major academic list, so I'm going to go ahead and disregard everything you are saying.  

 

 

Of course FDR is ranked high by most academics. Most modern academics are communist/socialist/statists, FDR was like a godsend to them.

He also presided over WW2, and many historians are enamored with war leaders of all types throughout the ages, no matter how evil they really were.

 

 

So you dismiss the majority of highly educated scholars.  Brilliant.  

 

 

Up-up-up. Logical fallacy there on your part of the argument: "Appeal to authority"

 

What you should question is by what metrics academia use to give favourable votes for FDR and why you agree with them.

[Hurlshort]

I'd probably need to read a book or two before I'd be comfortable even discussing the guy, and I'm already busy reading these gigantic LBJ books, so I don't want to commit to another president.  But I'll come back around to this in a couple years.  :D

[Gfted1]

Is he the guy that gets you to go up the hill with the geckos then tries to rob you after?

Hes the guy that runs up and tells you he won a lottery. Some mooks are chasing him too, iirc, and if you save him he gives you .

[Tsuga C]

Given my druthers, I think I'd be the NPC you'd either recruit or find yourself fighting against at some point in a subsequent chapter.

[Valsuelm]

 

 

FDR isn't in my presidential wheelhouse, but he is ranked extremely highly in every major academic list, so I'm going to go ahead and disregard everything you are saying.  

 

 

Of course FDR is ranked high by most academics. Most modern academics are communist/socialist/statists, FDR was like a godsend to them.

He also presided over WW2, and many historians are enamored with war leaders of all types throughout the ages, no matter how evil they really were.

 

 

So you dismiss the majority of highly educated scholars.  Brilliant.  

 

 

Yea.. actually I do. I've spent enough time in Universities to realize that the academics there don't magically have a higher intelligence than those not there, that to an extent many of them live in a bubble that has little to do with reality (especially those who never left academic life, which is a sizable amount of academia), there are agendas that don't meet the average eye by those financing academia, and there are egos amongst academia that drive agendas and squash real scholarship. My apologies that I don't look at academia as a group of clergy as so many do. Professors are just as fallible as the rest of humanity, especially when considered as a group.

 

In regards to FDR specifically. The guy was an evil MFer, who had zero respect for the Constitution and served the financial interests in New York and London first and foremost. I have a great deal of respect and desire for the liberty of man, FDR did not, and neither do a great many modern academics in the US (who I already mentioned are socialist/communist/statists).

Edited April 22, 2014 by Valsuelm

[Gromnir]

some developers is very reactive to fans. others is less so... and when we say "developers," we mean individual developers. is not necessarily an organizational trend. Lukas Kristjanson, for example, were at bio before Gaider, but am suspecting that posts ratios is something approaching 5,000:1 in favor of Gaider. chrisA makes infrequent blog posts on theses boards, but actual board posts wherein he interacts with fans is even more rare than feargus urquhart posts. am suspecting some developers read w/o posting, and apparently some developers post w/o reading. the influence fans has is tougher to gauge w/o interactivity. nevertheless, having impact on development is different than cameos of boardies. as we noted above, bioware felt as if they had learned hard lessons from cameo contests and other cameo incidents... which reminds us that we forgot to mention a nwn cameo contest. bio thought they had learned something from the bg2 cameo contest, so 'stead o' having developers decide "winning" submissions, the biowarians created a fan poll to choose winners. the thing is that it became apparent that there were rampant cheating going on in the voting process.  burned again was bio. is a conscious choice: the amount o' impact fans has on bioware games is not gonna be measured by number o' boardie cameos, 'cause biowarians finally learned just how petty the community can be regarding cameos. have impact on developers should result in a better game, or at least a more appealing one. to Gromnir's way of thinking, impact on game and cameos is not necessarily related. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Guard Dog]

There was one in NWN (besides me  ) I just can't remember who it was or where.