Micawber

To me, the plot of a game is important not because of the storytelling potential, but because of the satisfaction it attaches to the actions I, as player perform. For example, a game whose goal is "collect 3 unsellable trowels, just because" is much less fun to play than one with the goal "recover 3 crystal souls, thereby restoring dignity of an ancient race and saving our home nation by forging an alliance against our mutual enemy".

I swear I thought Dikiyoba had made that up. But nope, 16000 hits on google. Either Dikiyoba has been very busy, or it's genuine In other unbelievable dinosaur names: Irritator, Minmi, Concavenator and Drinker.

Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel ...what? Since when does Geneforge have a spell list? Since Geneforge 2, actually.

In Avernum, lowercase m and p open the spell lists (mage, priest resp). Uppercase C casts your last mage spell. My suspicion, Ishad Nha has the caps lock turned on.

Originally Posted By: Mod. Originally Posted By: Sage of Numenor 2. Does anyone remember the name of that Awakened researcher from the Magus Complex? Ah, I hate myself for my inability to remember the name. He pretty much tarnished the goodness of the Awakened though. It was Tuldaric.

Except, of course, the ending you probably saw most frequently. You know, the one with the fyora pining at your feet.

Did we establish / guesstimate how long has passed since the earlier games? The main playable characters from G1-G3 should also be plausible candidates, I would think. In case you picked one of the older classes (shaper, agent or guardian) out of pure nostalgia

The lever is hidden behind a pillar. Does Jeff love that trick.

Nope they're not undead, just decomposing.

As a product of the British education system, I tend to agree. Holding GCSEs, A-levels and a degree is no guarantee that someone is competent at anything other than passing exams (and maybe only X% good at that, since the pass mark is often not so high). I guess dependent on the subject the PhD might potentially take you a bit further, however I have heard discouraging things about PhDs in experimental sciences (i.e. PhD students can be basically lab flunkeys). As an manager who has had to interview candidates (and then work with them after, in some cases) I can also empirically say that the qualifications on someone's CV is not often a reliable indicator of their knowledge or skills. When it's said "what matters is who you know, not what you know" part of the truth is that if you once work with someone who is really highly skilled, then you will recommend them and/or want to work with them again. There is a severe shortage in the world of skilled people who have any clue what they are actually doing.

Still different. In the UK, from age 16 onwards, mathematics is optional. Historically you picked just 3 subjects (they increased it to 4 recently). I think under 40% study maths at that age so 60% never encounter calculus. (Out of those whose who stay at school post-compulsion.) Generally at 16 students tend to pick all subjects on either 'arts' or 'sciences'. E.g. maths, physics and chemistry or e.g. history, political science and english. That's just a stereotype of course, there is a certain amount of mixing (personally I did maths, history and french, but then I am a bit of a freak). However most study maths because it is required by other subjects (physics/engineering). Either way I don't think I would describe any of the maths I did at school as fairly sophisticated. In 2004 they also made it easier because too many students were dropping it. Edit: Updated after finding the 2010 stats from BBC website. It's even worse than I thought. Out of 1,197,490 AS level entries, there were 112,847 for mathematics (9.4%). Assuming 4 subjects per student the participation rate would be 37.6% at age 17.

The book I most enjoyed recently was The City & The City (China Mieville). Extraordinary. The only book I read that truly compares was The Art of Murder (Jose Carlos Somoza).

<snooze>DRM argument again</snooze> Yes some of the favorite changes are reintroductions: encumbrance overhaul, area of effect spells, dual-wield. Out of the newer changes, I'd probably vote for battle disciplines in A5. It's a really nice system and gives a strong incentive to buy combat skills for spell casters making them less one-dimensional. I also liked the Arcane cloaks in A6. Actually I basically like anything that increases my damage output It's going back a few years but introducing the quest list was useful as well. Not those popups in G4 though - they were annoying.

Fortunately, the action point system is better in Avernums 5 and 6 than it was in Avernum 4. Avernum 4 also has the weakest plot. But it's worth sticking with it, Avernums 5 and 6 are really enjoyable. The new engine does take some getting used to (it helps if you have been playing Geneforge). To start with, I didn't get it. A few years later, I find I now prefer it to the old engine (gasp! heresy!) there is much more tactical challenge in combat than there was with Avernums 1-3.

That's not cheatish, it's smart

Originally Posted By: cfgauss Originally Posted By: Micawber To comment on the mathematical articles. Having many different people edit an article over a period of time has made some of the articles incoherent. Unlike printed matter, there is no proof reading. Yeah, but the problem is more than no proofreading, but no internal consistency, articles can switch between writing styles, and, worse, conventions, randomly throughout an article. It really takes an expert to spot these consistently, and be able to fix them. Yes, and certain people don't read things fully before responding.

To comment on the mathematical articles. Having many different people edit an article over a period of time has made some of the articles incoherent. Unlike printed matter, there is no proof reading. Different people find different ideas or inferences 'obvious' and explanations can be added / removed depending on a particular individual's view. To the reader the article may not flow properly (as successive sentences may be in entirely different styles) and inaccuracies can be introduced by editing one part of an article without being aware of other parts on which it depends. In fairness, some preprints and even published textbooks or monographs can be as poorly written and presented. Mathematicians as a class are not noted for their communication skills (clearly this is a generalization, and there exist counter examples). My experience has been that the other types of articles usually contain much more detail e.g. the articles on various countries and cities, and the articles on popular media (tv shows and so on). But, I look at those as a casual reader who's merely curious about the subject, without any serious interest in them, which means I don't see the flaws (unless they're really bad). I am still, in principle, a supporter of the wikipedia concept since it is a very accessible source of information on a wide range of topics (democratization of knowledge and all that). And wiki is a great source of trivia. However, I think anyone with a professional level of interest in a particular subject is bound to find it frustrating. It operates in the same space as a tabloid newspaper.

Unless you are Relle, you probably should have put some sort of acknowledgement when quoting all that.

Yes, I also recommend Accelerando. There are other good things besides lobsters.

Wait, there's a traits topic?

Pit crawlers?

Its the most benign DRM I've ever encountered. Once registered you can backup your key (along with your save files) so you never lose it. If you do mischance to lose it, the company will send you another on request. The games installed from the CD are permanently registered. This system is so customer friendly, if all DRM systems were like this the whole DRM debate would never have got off the ground.

Yay, you can perform six different permutations of your names without changing your initials

Have you checked the secret passage? And don't forget your move mountains spell.

1. What is your name? Micawber 2. How old are you? 31 3. Where do you live? London 4. What is your favorite color? Purple 5. How many phones do you own? 1 7. Wait, what happened to question six? Question 6 was such an intelligent question it answered itself immediately, thus removing the need for you to ask it. 8. Someone has just loaned you a time machine that can take you to any location on the planet during any time period. Where/when do you go? That's a difficult one, especially if it's just one trip. 1940, House of Commons, Churchill's first speech after becoming prime minister. 9. If you were forced to change your PDN to something completely unrelated to its current form and your original username, what would it be? private static void() { } 10. If you could transform at will into any living animal, what animal would it be? One of those flying things that has incredible eyesight and soars way above the ground. Golden eagle, that kind of thing. 11. It's ninja sliths versus pirate nephilim. Who should win? Sliths always beat nephils, because pole weapons >> bashing weapons. It's doubly stacked because ninja > pirate as well.