Dantius

The secret final zone. Remember that bunker in the very east part of Okanavo Fen that you couldn't access? Get two access crystals, go to it, and prepare for a tough series of battles.

Originally Posted By: karry I still dont get it, seems very simple in theory, but in practice result is simply not quite predictable. Just started Avernum 3, a character has 7 Str and 3 Melee, with a weapon of (2-10)+(1-5) that comes to final damage of 12-60, right ? Well then how come he always does a minimum 30 damage ? I've seen him do damage in range of 32-37, never less than 30 and never more than 40. The damage is done on a bell curve because each dice is rolled individually, and then added. You're many times more likley to do damage very close to the mean than the extremes. It's just about impossibly to do the maximum or minimum damage. In calculator terms, you'd be doing randint(1,5)+randint(1,5)+randint(1,5)..., as opposed to 12*randint(1,5).

Bump. So, when is the beta going to be sent out?

Originally Posted By: You know that person who...? —Alorael, who now hypothesizes that the inanity of the internet is not fixed. The more threads there are, the more inanity there is at a proportional rate. But what is the proportion? Is it linear? Is there a decay in inanity per thread, or even an increase? Are there asymptotes? Inanity can be represented by a bell curve. Actually the graph of the integral of a bell curve would be a better fit. So in any given thread, you have long periods of no deviation from the topic, then a short, sharp increase in deviation, and then a long period where there is no relation to the original topic. And your asymptotes would be a y=0 (no inanty in the thread) and y=1 (one of Slarty's project threads). As for the total inanity, I couldn't guess at that. Ah well.

I hold this and the undead thread to be an excellent example of convergent evolution. It's reached the point where a post could be transferred from this thread to the other and still make perfect sense in context.

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity As a physics professor qualified to teach and examine electrodynamic theory Well, I have a PhD in theoretical physics, another PhD in molecular biochemistry, five postgraduate degrees at Harvard, Stanford, Cambridge, Oxford, and the Sorbonne in engineering, multivariable calculus, Shakespearian and also modern literature, computer science, in fields of history ranging from protoagricultural Sumeria to modern Zambian politics. And I am fluent in English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Arabic. And I have an IQ of +7 standard deviations from the mean, and Gene Ray's personal declaration of myself as "Cubic and Second Wisest HUMAN", due to my mastery and understanding of his website. Also, I'm a member of the Illuminati.

I must construct addition evocation-lons! Click to reveal.. Name: Kurex Occupation: Travelling Mage Alignment: Magnificent Bastard Race: Human Deity: Imaunte Strength: 5 Dexterity: 3 Intelligence: 5 HP: 30/30 (+5) Magic (Evocation): 10 (+2) Martial (Sword): 2 Artifice: 2 Diplomacy: 2 Streetwise: 1 Stealth: 1 Perception: 1 Click to reveal.. (spells) Light (evocation): Creates a small hovering orb of light, or causes an object to glow softly Ice Spray (evocation): Shoots a cloud of sharp ice particles at a target. Somewhat better than Magic Missile. Magic Missile (evocation): Fires a bolt of energy at the target Stun (evocation): Fires a powerful energy pulse at the target, knocking them off balance and stunning them. No damage. Burning Hand(evocation): Projects a sheet of flame from the casters hand. Relatively short range attack.

I can make it! On time, or even early! I feel most unlike myself. Do you think I should see a doctor?

Originally Posted By: Lord Safey almost sounds like what happens when you get too close to a tesla coil Did you allow Thomas Edison anywhere near your dog? He might electrocute him with AC to prove Tesla wrong!

The bizarre thing about I, Robot is the fact that it is completely different than the movie. The characters are the same, sure, but the plot is completely different. It'd be like if you made a movie version of Macbeth and turned it into a romantic comedy, where there was a love triangle between Macbeth, Banquo (who you made a female), and Duncan, and then had all the characters behave nothing like they were actually written. People would go there expecting to see a story about a dude who killed his king and is tortured by it, but then you gave them something so far out of the ballpark it just stunned them. Actually, both the book and the movie were excellent, although the movie did have that cheap 2001-esque trope of "malfunctioning computer takes over" while the books were more an explanation of why the computer malfunctioned.

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES ♥♥♥ You rock. I demand a cumulative Gaussian- because a normal bell curve just isn't enough!

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES I applaud the use of Exile/Avernum as a basis for this poll. However, where are the Quickghasts? Quickghast FTW! The only one I added were mummies, which to the best of my knowledge never appear in Jeff's games, but do seem pretty common. Just put down quickghasts as a subset of "ghasts"

Pretty much what it says on the tin. Straight up poll, what is you favorite undead creature? I was tempted to differentiate between Vampires(Nosferatu), ala Dracula, and Vampires(SPARKLY!), ala Edward Cullen, but then I decided that I would like to keep my spleen, thank you very much.

Originally Posted By: upon mars Well pay them... why not? plenty of people do it don't they? Jeff is like any good old artist; isn't he? I mean, more than a couple of hundreds dollars, if not a thousand may be a good way to start with, hek, i'll even donate in euros... it's possible you know; you for example decide not gain any profits from the game and no more legal mess, a simple clear contract with donation money on the other side... A little far fetched but simple to the least... The only way I could image a Blades of Geneforge would be if an eccentric billionaire mailed 100k to Jeff, and then promised another 100k when BoG was done inside a year. And even then, he might refuse.

Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba Vampires have a sexual subtext. Um, what? Not really. Except maybe Twilight and its ilk. Actually, Diki's absolutlycorrect onthis one. In Dracula, the definite subtext of the whole "drinking blood" and the behavior of Dracula is the fact that he's a sexual degenerate. It's quite possible to argue that the entire theme of the book can revolve around this fact. You can pick up all the little clues when you go through a reading with this in mind. However, the book being published when it was, Bram Stoker needed something to disguise the implicit meaning, hence, all of the "sucking blood" and stuff. Ironically, Stephanie Meyer being a devout Mormon and all, her books probably have even less of sexual subtext then a book written in the Victorian era- from what I gather, her books focus more on the "relationships" between the characters.

Yes, because a Japanese manga and LOTR totally belong on a list with the Bible and Shakespeare.

I think we need a poll on "favorite undead". I might actually have enough interest to actually do this one.

Do it. We're holding you to your word!

Originally Posted By: Darth Ernie i just reached the chief with the ring, and i kind of feel bad for the guy. i mean all he wants to do is live in peace and i'm killing him for his ring. its completely unjustifiable from an ethical point of view. on the other hand the avengers ring is nice. is there any endgame effect on killing him? Actually, the chief stole the ring from Alberich the Nibelung dwarf, who cursed it so any who do not have it desire it. If it's any consolation, Wotan will probably come kill your party and take the Ring in a few weeks.

Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel Originally Posted By: Dantius 1 + 2 = 3 = OOOOOO. Fixed your post. You know, the last time I checked, and admittedly my information may be a bit outdated, but three most empathetically does NOT equal six. I know that they teach you kids all those fancy maths with calcculators and thingambobbers, but I just checked my slide rule, and it confirmed the result on my abacus: 3 != 6. Sorry.

To summarize Jeff's thought, and Iphone port wouldn't work for three reasons. 1. Iphone users are notoriously whiny about prices. If you try to sell them something for more than $0.99 (or free), then they WILL complain and rank it poorly. Also, good luck trying to sell a game fore MORE than $5. No one will buy it. Keep in mind, Jeff currently sells Avernum for what, $25? Not only would he have to slash is current profit margin by close to 95%, but he would also have to cut it further in order to actually be able to sell a moderate amount of copies. He'd be better off buying up so advertising space around the Internet- that'd probably make him more money than an Iphone port. 2. The Iphone games are coded in a completely different language than the computer games are. I think that the games themselves are a derivative of C#, but the Iphone only runs Java. He'd have to reprogram the entire game. That's probably take him as much time as writing a completely new game, and he wouldn't make anywhere near as much money. 3. There really isn't much of a market for it. Were this a Halo port, people would buy it because it's a halo port. Were this Diablo or Elder Scrolls, people would buy it because of name recognition. However, it is not. As a result, his game would have to fly entirely on word-of-mouth and goo reviews, in a niche market that probably already has 1000 games that are VERY similar to the Avernum series already released. To summarize: An Iphone port won't turn enough profit to make money It would require too much work for too little return The niche market it would satisfy is already full The only way I could see this working is if Jeff took a time machine back to when he first wrote A1, and switched it to Java. Then, he received advanced knowledge of the Iphone release and whipped up a port before the phone actually came out. Then, he priced it a $9.99 and released it the first day, sweeping up the entire market before any alternatives could be released. That's really the only scenario where the port could work.

Actually, communicating to aliens is much easer than you would think. The trick is to rely on universal constants instead of arbitrary language markers. For example, instead of saying "Humans average five feet plus ten inches" you could say "A human is 1.6234x10e12 hydrogen atoms tall"(I made that number up). Likewise, language can also be modified. Instead of saying where our planet is, you could define our location relative to pulsars, and then draw a picture of our orbit, highlighting the third planet. Then, basic math can be used to give an impression of language. You would tart with 1 = O, 2 = OO, 3 = OOO, 4 = OOOO, and then advance to 1 + 2 = 3 = OOO. Then, you could give them hints into the language. |1/0| = infinity, and then, you could clue them into other words by a similar process. This is all really elementary stuff. Read Carl Sagan's Murmurs of Earth if you want a better picture. It is actually quite fascinating, the way it was went about. Also, congratulations Nikki, you win log(-1) internets. Enjoy.

Ah, crap, forgot about something. I'm headed off to go see Taming of the Shrew at the Shakespeare theater. It starts at 2, so there's a slim chance I might be able to show up for the end of the session. But as for the rest, I'll need a sub. Sorry for the late warning, but I just realized the conflict now.

For whatever reason, Babelfish can't seem to handle translating D'abord. It treats it as two words, not one. I've ran into this problem before, and it totally mystifies me.

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba Originally Posted By: Monroe What makes you think that? Examples? Rock art. Most Mariko Mori's work. A photograph of a major historical event if you've never heard of the event before and the photo has no caption. This. Dikiyoba. This can be handwaved aside with ease by simply claiming that that's not true art. Too easy. A challenge: I will give you a painting of a historical event you don't know about, and we'll see if you can guess the emotions and message the artist was trying to portray. If you know the even't, don't post it. Painting It depicts a foreign event in a country that doesn't speak English, so clearly something should be lost in translation according to you.