The Mystic

When I bought my first computer, I also bought a shareware CD called "1000 Games for Windows." On it, among other things, were demos of E3 and BoE. I found and installed BoE first, and played and replayed VoDT until I had several god parties (actually, the same god party over and over). Then I got bored, went back to the CD, and found and installed several horrors disguised as games. After about a year or so had passed, I rediscovered the CD, found and installed E3, and did everything (and I mean everything) I possibly could in the demo several times over.

 

After some more time had passed, I borrowed my father's credit card to buy BoE, followed by the Exile trilogy a short time later. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

Here you go:

0

1

If you're really, really good, I just might let you have the rest.

Where to begin?

 

-I almost ensured I could only count to nine (translation for non-woodworker types: nearly cut off one of my fingers) when I was about seven or eight.

-I got my car brand-new almost a decade ago, and I've only driven it 38,000 miles (the odometer just hit that amount on the way home today, in fact).

-I've been cooking on my own since I was in second grade.

-I have an aversion to all things gambling, mainly because I nearly always lose. Back when I did gamble, I won a grand total of $4, $1 in each of 4 different years.

-I created my own chicken kabob recipe.

-I've made about 50-60 of the levels that come with SubTerra, not including a handful that repeat in different sets.

-I look younger than I am--a lot younger. I was mistaken for 15 when I was 23, and for barely 20 or 21 when I was 30. To this day, I still need to show my ID to buy alcohol, though it's not as common as it was.

-I hashed together a recipe for eggplant parmesan from three different recipes I found online, and it worked great the first time.

-My mother tells me that I act just like my father, and my father tells me that I act just like his father. Translation: Apparently, I'm at least a third-generation kook.

-I donate blood on a regular basis, and recently started working on my eighth gallon.

-One of my grandfathers was born in the 19th century.

-When I built my computer two years ago, it worked on the first try. This was also my very first attempt at building a computer.

-I've been working at a pizza place for just over six years now. Out of everyone who was working there at the time, there's nobody left. Out of everyone who replaced them, there's nobody left. Out of everyone who replaced them, there's nobody left. And out of everyone who replaced this group, they've all been replaced about three or four times, except for a handful of die-hards.

-I have a somewhat higher than normal heat tolerance; there are several hot objects I can pick up barehanded that just about everyone else I know can't even come close to touching.

-Ever since I discovered VirtualBox, I've become something of a collector of operating systems.

-When I was a boy scout, I earned the Mile Swim award--twice.

-I once burned all the hair off my right forearm (since grown back).

G1: Unaligned

G2: Unaligned, though I do lean a little bit towards the Loyalist side (and I normally kill Zakary, so the slight pro-Loyalist lean may be somewhat contradictory).

G3: Shaper, only because I have to choose a side; otherwise, I'd remain Unaligned.

G4: I can't really decide on this one. When I played as a Shaper, it kind of left a bad taste in my mouth; when I played as a Rebel, I gave up since they seemed a bit amoral for my taste. I haven't tried the Trakovite faction yet.

G5: I can't decide yet; I've played it once, and then only about maybe halfway through at most.

You can either:

1) reinstall from the disks, if you have them (your saved games should be unaffected),

2) email Spiderweb for new keys, or

3) find the registration files on the Vista computer.

 

If you opt to find and move the files, the ones you want are Geneforge4Settings.dat and Geneforge5Settings.dat, respectively. If you installed the games to the Program Files folder (not recommended), the files you want are most likely in Users\(your username)\AppData\Roaming. Since Win7's file system is almost identical to Vista's, you should be able to move the files from Vista's AppData\Roaming folder to Win7's.

 

Welcome to Spiderweb Software. Leave your sanity at the door, provided you still have any left after dealing with Vista.

Eh, I just ignore them; I don't have the heart to explain to them that there's a big difference between trying to act "'hood" and wearing a hoodie.

Oops, fixing it; I think it was the smiley that threw me off. Some days, I swear I'm losing my sanity for real...

Also, IIRC, there are 3 red passes, 2 blue passes, and 1 gray pass. If you're looking for any other type of Empire identification to get in anywhere, you're basically out of luck.

(EDIT: misquoted; never mind)

You might want to try Nestopia. The documentation says it supports netplay, but I've never used the feature.

Welcome back!

Yeah, I remember.

 

Allow me to give everyone some general advice for using cracks: Don't. Just don't. Not only are they illegal and a violation of the CoC, they're an excellent source of malware. Don't ask me how I know all this, I'm just sayin'.

I think it's cool that they found a totally new family of spiders, but I'm planning to avoid this topic. As much as I like Spiderweb's games, truth be told, I actually hate spiders. *shudder* (Sorry, I'm something of an arachnophobe.)

 

One side note: Also, when I used Google to double-check my spelling of "arachnophobe" for this post, I came across this article featuring a rather unusual cape.

I have no problem with people using special characters in their PDNs, as long as it's done within reason (I'll let people use common sense here). I, for one, am currently content to do without in my PDN.

Since the general consensus is C++, I'll recommend C++ Without Fear and Practical C++. Also, you'll want to avoid C++ For Dummies--and the entire Dummies series, for that matter.

Wow, I leave for a couple of weeks, and an era comes to an end. I'm at a loss as to what to say, Slarty, but from the looks of things, you will be greatly missed.

 

I guess I'll just repeat the message of goodbye and good luck, and say that we'll keep the lights on for you should you decide to return.

For my first Fall semester back at college:

Principles of Accounting I

C++ Programming I

Visual Basic Programming

 

That said, congrats!

Witch Doctor?

No problem.

 

Everything now works great, with one exception: On your main page, the link to the Exile 1 hintbook keeps redirecting me here for some strange reason.

 

Also, a bit of errata:

I can relate. Before retiring circa 2002-3, my father was a COBOL programmer for about 30 years, and I grew up hearing some of the horror stories involving punched cards. IIRC, we still have a handful of those cards hidden somewhere in our basement.

Well, it's a trade-off, and kind of a double-edged sword. You can have a lot of features and flexibility, but be tied to a desktop and (depending on the OS) eat a lot of available RAM; or you can have high portability and simplicity, but have less versatility and fewer OS choices.

VirtualBox does have some drawbacks. For example, the Mouse Integration feature tends to move very fast and erratically in Scale Mode. Sometimes, installing a USB drive in a virtual computer can cause the drive to be unreadable until you reboot the host computer. And you never, ever want to shut down a guest computer by clicking the "Close" button on its window; it shuts down all right, but the host key usually ends up being read by the host system as being constantly pressed. Other than these bugs, it tends to work great.

I've also tried several OSes, and have amassed a small collection. I can't seem to get it to work with Ubuntu 9, 10, or 12 (12.04 won't even install for me); 11.10 isn't too bad, now that I finally bought a Linux book (in retrospect, this might have helped with Ubuntu 9 & 10). WinNT works good, but looks ugly beyond words. Win98 is slow and slightly unstable. And I haven't tried yet, but I don't think it works at all with Win95 or earlier.

Yummy. That picture is making me hungry, and I just ate my dinner almost an hour ago.

It's also putting me in the mood to make my legendary (among my friends & family, anyway) chicken kabobs.

Looks Great, Harehunter!

 

One slight problem, though: The map links don't seem to work right.

You forget: Win3.1, and the programs written for it, are tiny compared with most modern software. My virtual WinXP, which I have set up pretty much as a regular PC, uses about 7.5GB of hard drive space. My virtual Win7, with just the OS installed (32-bit Home Premium), consumes just over 9GB of my hard drive. The Win3.1 installer, by comparison, fits on six 3.5" floppies with a little room to spare.

Whatever works, works, I guess. I, on the other hand, could never get anything to work in DosBox. Then again, I don't have a copy of Win3.1; and I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate using command-line interfaces.

From my own battered, yellowing copy of the Silmarillion:Huh, I always thought they went south. In any case, I also just checked a copy of Unfinished Tales that I forgot I had. It appears that the blue wizards come to Middle-earth, head east, and disappear.

I'm not entirely sure anymore, but I think all weapons (or at least, all weapons of the same type) are treated pretty much the same in this respect. Unless you're talking about the Assassination skill, which IIRC is calculated separately after you hit in melee.

Also, welcome back, Scorpius!