Mea Tulpa

The problem is that most of those people will do far more good if they can apply their pragmatic ability somewhere with more freedom, i.e. a private school setting, and most of them act on that and make that move.

That's an extra big pond. I dunno, my experience is less one of dealing with insane bureaucracy and more that the insane bureaucracy completely shuts you out of doing things and forces you to do others. It's not a matter of getting through red tape, it's a matter of avoiding the brick walls that are everywhere.

"Although no country has ever had within its border an economy in which all markets were absolutely free, the term typically is not used in an absolute sense. Many states which are said to have a market economy have a high level of market freedom, even if it is less than some parts of the population would prefer. Thus, almost all economies in the world today are mixed economies with varying degrees of free market and planned economy traits. For example, in the United States there are more market economy traits than in the Western European countries (an exception being the UK, which is considered, even by Greenspan, to be a freer market than the US)." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_economy#Systems_based_on_a_market_economy

I dunno, Fallout isn't nearly universal -- or vanilla -- enough to be the Simpsons. I'd say it's more of a Transformers: niche but well-known, ancient and imitated.

"Entirely different spells" is not true. I mean, yes, it's a different set of spells, and there are a few spells in later Geneforge games that do not have Avernum counterparts. But very few. Edit: That said, I definitely agree that G1 is the place to start and is also the most engaging.

The XP scaling is pretty steep at times, so it shouldn't make any difference whatsoever until the end of the game. At that point you might be able to squeeze an extra level or two out of your XP if you try obscenely hard.

Boot Camp FTW

*applause*

I'm unlocking this thread because new information was continuing to trickle in, and it's cleaner and simpler to keep it in one thread. Please keep the thread on topic from now on. Thanks.

ResFool will work, I think.

The first two are mistakes. Deadeye's okay but not great since archery damage doesn't scale up as quickly as magic or melee damage, and Nimble Fingers is a complete waste. Divinely Touched is so good there's no reason not to put it on everyone. Likewise, having Humans is a mistake since they deny you battle proficiencies.

Well, it's labeled in two places as the world map and that's how the world map was used in A4 and A5.

You're porting Castle of the Winds, really?

It doesn't really sound like a save file problem. It sounds like a script file problem. Reinstalling should be your first course of action.

Originally Posted By: upon mars But i'd rather read Sophocles and say much like Oedipus that i am in control of my destiny; contrary to belief Oedipus rex isn't really a tragedy... he chose many things. Isn't the whole point of Oedipus Rex -- or at least the moral it hits you over the head with -- that Oedipus makes choices in an attempt to control his destiny and escape the fate that has been decreed for him, but he is unable to do so?

Scientific Progress Goes 'Bok'

Scorpius-BOK! BOK BOK BOK!!!! ....bbbbbBBBBOOOKKK!!!!!!

And it would be explainable too, presumably. I can think of very few fantasy worlds where magic explicitly does not follow any laws of magic, and cannot be explained. The fact that that world's laws of magic are not identical to our world's laws of physics is not really a big deal.

*nods* Group therapy is wonderful.

Hey, congratulations on launching your practice. When did/are you going to start?

a) That would be a bit too easy, and I'm not sure there's enough good material. The Not-So-Oldbie one actually did pull a few quotes from the last few months. There wasn't much more to use.

Updated. The missing answers: 5 was Alec. I would have thought the combination of lettered points with snark would make that obvious. 9 was not Kelandon but Drew. 8 was none other than the queen mum, Saunders.

Updated

Done