Profile for Zeviz

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Buy GF3 or Wait for GF4? in Geneforge Series
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
Profile Homepage #16
quote:
Originally written by Stormlord Windspire:

I just wanted to know others opinions.......sheesh
Sorry if my post sounded overly aggressive. I guess some of the points were already said by too many others before me, so repeating them sounded like harping on the issue.

quote:
Originally written by Micawber:

...
You will play through Geneforge 3 at least twice...

There is a difference of opinion about that.
Although I guess you might be right: http://www.ironycentral.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=19;t=000447 (The poll was posted in Gf3 forum, so the sample was self-selected, but it seems that most people did play it more than once.)

[ Monday, May 08, 2006 11:24: Message edited by: Zeviz ]

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Church of the Nine-Headed Cave Cow in General
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
Profile Homepage #29
quote:
Originally written by His and Her Meaty Appendage:

Can you make an engaging sock puppet out of your god?
Your god allows you to make sock puppets out of itself? Your religion is beginning to sound better and better. Not only do the followers get lifetime supply of free beef, they get divine sock puppets as well.

[ Monday, May 08, 2006 11:10: Message edited by: Zeviz ]

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Native Americans in General
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
Profile Homepage #19
quote:
Originally written by Zorro:

For those of you interested in this topic, I found Jared Diamond’s "Guns, Germs and Steel" to be a particularly good book. Diamond seeks the answer to the question of why Europe did the invading and not the other way around. The proximate causes are simple to identify - Europeans had guns, steel weapons and armor, and diseases to which they'd developed relative immunities but wiped out native populations with whom they made contact.
Chinese had gunpowder and steel before Europeans.

quote:
Diamond then begins to question why Europeans where the ones who developed guns, germs and steel before other cultures around the world. At the risk is simplifying this book WAY more than it deserves, it was because Eurasians developed on a stretch of land that was particularly conducive to human development. They had access to a greater number of domesticable animals and edible plants, and because the weather patterns don't vary as substantially across the Eurasian continent (as opposed to the American continents), crop discoveries and inventions from neighboring societies tended to work elsewhere. In the Americas, for instance, the Aztec agricultural developments could not be imported to other neighboring civilizations because the climatic changes made them generally useless.
It's very convenient to talk about "Eurasians", but the argument collapses once you remember that neither Chinese nor the Persians colonized America. (There is some argument about ancient Egyptians having visited and/or colonized the continent, but that's irrelevant to our discussion of "guns, gems, and steel".)

As for the "weather patterns didn't vary substantially across Eurasian continent", I am not sure which planet the author is living on. The weather in Siberia is the opposite of the weather in Central Asian deserts.

quote:
The point is that the high levels of domesticated animals and food production allowed for increased population density (which led to greater resistance to diseases). And the favorable conditions for technological exchange allowed inventions from China to migrate over to Spain, and vice versa. This led to the guns and steel.
China was so protective of its inventions that most of them (including gunpowder and various glass products) had to be invented separately in Europe. I agree that it's easier to re-invent something that you know exists, but Chinese gunpowder is a classic example of a technology that was a closely guarded secret until others figured it out themselves.

quote:
Now, my description above is a definite bastardization of Diamond’s excellent work. I’m just trying to give the “10,000 foot view” of the book.
...
I guess you just oversimplified things too much. :)

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
"Policing" ourselves? in General
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
Profile Homepage #85
quote:
Originally written by too long, don't read, too many CRs:

I have occasion to revive this topic due to the following post:
...

Topic revival is frowned upon.

Especially when there are already 3 other topics discussing the same thing.

Especially after this topic moved on to discussing something else.

Especially when you are responding to something said in a different thread which is still active.

Especially when you yourself have just posted something else in the thread from which you are taking this post without replying to it.

I like seeing some serious discussions here, but having 5 threads dealing with genocides, fascists, and murderers near the top of page 1 is way too much for a board dedicated to computer games.

[ Monday, May 08, 2006 10:43: Message edited by: Zeviz ]

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
A Few More Advance Words On Geneforge 4 in Geneforge Series
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
Profile Homepage #134
Or, in an even more bizzare twist, the player character from Gf3 could be the final boss of Gf4. Another boss could be a Geneforge-using player character from Gf1, who went off to make his own kingdom somewhere, but could get involved in larger politics again.

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Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Avernum V in Avernum 4
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
Profile Homepage #288
quote:
Originally written by Archmagus Micael:

quote:
Originally written by Zeviz:

No emperor in history willingly gave up his throne to a guy with a piece of paper.
Um - abdication? :D

- Archmagus Micael

Can anybody think of an example of an emperor who had willingly abdicated with no outside preassure just because somebody presented a better claim to the throne? Most abdications I can think of were prompted by a choice of "either you take off that crown, or we'll take it off together with your head".

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Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Buy GF3 or Wait for GF4? in Geneforge Series
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
Profile Homepage #7
If you haven't tried the demo, try it. That's what it's for.

If you have tried the demo and are still unsure, chances are you will not like the rest of the game either.

If you already made up your mind, what was the point of the poll? (Aside from letting several people increase our postcounts.)

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Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Xylgham udwlnit skretcko!1!! in General
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
Profile Homepage #135
If Dikiyoba installed a secret mind-controll device, causing everybody who is attacked by "the thing" in the script to exibit the symptoms on the real boards, what will happen to those who die in the script?

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Question 3: Disease in General
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
Profile Homepage #40
However, a desease that destroys its entire host population wouldn't be likely to survive. So does that mean that deseases have to be less deadly now, because of a possibility to quickly spread through entire population?

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Avernum V in Avernum 4
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
Profile Homepage #284
quote:
Originally written by Aussieavernum:

...It was not an Empire official, he was a rebel mage pretending to be the heir to the throne.
...

No emperor in history willingly gave up his throne to a guy with a piece of paper. The only way such a person could get a throne would be by leading a successful revolution against the emperor.

PS The rest of your scenario sounds too similar to Avernum 3. Unless what you are saying about monster plagues are just a background history for a smaller scenario in which you defeat the evil emperor.

Either way, if you haven't made any scenarios before, I'd suggest starting with something much smaller. Once you make a couple of good small scenarios you can start thinking of an epic of this magnitude.

[ Saturday, May 06, 2006 23:36: Message edited by: Zeviz ]

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
GF II: Phariton's Hall in Geneforge Series
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
Profile Homepage #3
quote:
Originally written by Alostrael:

In Phariton's Hall, the hallway in the middle has a row of doors.

Can you get inside those rooms? How do you do it?

(I already stole all of Phariton's goodies without killing him--I'm aligned with the Awakened--by hasting and unlocking the doorway closest to the exit, leaving the map, and coming back through that now unlocked door. He's a tough sucker to kill!!)
...

According to Schrodinger's faq (http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/game/918441.html) the mines in the central passage release creations that attack you. So I am guessing those creations come out of the rooms you are talking about. I do remember something like this and worrying about whether I'd miss any loot in the rooms with creations if I disarm the mines. (I think the answer was "no", but I don't remember exactly.)

[ Saturday, May 06, 2006 23:14: Message edited by: Zeviz ]

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
How would you deal with an acquainted killer? in General
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
Profile Homepage #34
quote:
Originally written by Yet another procrastinator:

I am struggling to align personal ideas about dealing with other individuals and just ask about your help thoughts. Please let us not get into politics in this thread.
(t Alec: no creepyness intended, honestly)

...

But then I read about an army veteran aged 24 whose fantasy fiction I have read and who appears to have killed his mother-in-law and sister-in-law last week. He called the police himself and was arrested on the scene shortly afterwards. The story was in the news but I will not give his name, partially to avoid this thread to be associate with his name by Google. He is still awaiting his trial, has pleaded not guilty and the media have mentioned the death penalty in the context.

...

How would you react - emotionally or by action - if this were a fellow member of an online forum that you frequent? I tend to side with victims but they are dead in this case and they never posted on the forum so I am stuck with the personal perspective from the other side.
I have found myself scrutinizing his texts for any indications but concluded that fantasy related online forums tend to attract far more "crazy" people,so it is not difficult to relate to the man now as he is sitting in jail and must realize not only what he has to live with for the rest of his life but also the utmost alienation from everyone he knows.

My first reaction to your post was "ouch". This is probably among the biggest unpleasant revelations you could have about somebody.

I'd like to address the following part of your post: "I tend to side with victims but they are dead in this case and they never posted on the forum so I am stuck with the personal perspective from the other side." The thing about online forums (which I realized only a couple years ago) is that everybody here is just playing a character. That character might be the same as the person's true identity, or it might be completely different. Just because somebody posts their pictures and appears completely open doesn't mean that everything [or even anything] you know about him is true.

In this case, assuming you didn't think the person was a potential murderer before you read about him in the news, the character he presented on your forums was very different from his real self. And just because you knew his character, doesn't mean you know anything about the person behind the mask. So you shouldn't scrutinize his character's actions for signs of anomaly - if he is a good role-player there aren't any. Instead of trying to twist your morality into knots emphasizing with killer instead of victims, just accept that you didn't really know this person and that his online persona was different from his real personality. Of course this applies only if your question is how to deal with the situation while retaining your sanity. If instead you were asking "what makes a person kill somebody", I am not a psychologist and have nothing to tell you.

[ Saturday, May 06, 2006 23:02: Message edited by: Zeviz ]

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
a hello and some questions in General
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
Profile Homepage #25
In case you haven't found it yet, Lyceum message board has a section with ratings of all scenarios, which is probably the best place to find out which scenarios are worth playing. http://p080.ezboard.com/fthelyceumfrm27

After you find a scenario you like, you can download it from Kel's archive given by ADoS above ( http://home.comcast.net/~tom_05/ )

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Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Church of the Nine-Headed Cave Cow in General
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
Profile Homepage #21
To rephrase from another thread, this bovine religion seems very fond of cruel and unusual punishment.

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Character Creation Help in Avernum 4
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
Profile Homepage #5
quote:
Originally written by MrAndersonMan:

Alright. Since I'm more familiar with the past games, it took me around 3 tries to get a team I liked. But I always ended up making some sort of error that made me restart. Can someone post an *ideal* or close-to-ideal team to make?
It's possible to win the game with the default party. So don't worry so much about making "the perfect party" and just start playing. :) As long as you have at least 1 mage, at least 1 priest and at least 1 character good at killing stuff you'll do fine.

[ Friday, May 05, 2006 19:57: Message edited by: Zeviz ]

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Game not saving in Blades of Avernum
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
Profile Homepage #5
It's usually a good idea to use Save As anyway, just to keep a couple backups around, because you never know when you might run into a bug, Save in the middle of a hopeless dungeon crawl, or make a game unwinnable some other way. This is especially true for Blades, whose scenarios aren't tested as thoroughly as main Spidweb games. Even if you don't plan to use it, it's good to have an option of going back to the state your game was in a couple hours ago.

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Xylgham udwlnit skretcko!1!! in General
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
Profile Homepage #125
quote:
Originally written by Dintiradan:

By Mr.Bookworm:
quote:
It seems like it knocks them out, then does something to them that make their spelling, punctuation, and grammar skills deteriorate.
Is that what it is? I had just attributed Thralni's spelling to ESL. And for some reason, I thought the random letters were a cipher. Too much OotS.
...

About code in random gibberish:
quote:
Dikiyoba hopes you didn't spend too long attempting that! It is, in fact, intentional gibberish. Except for the "d" at the beginning, and that was just to make an alliteration.
And bad spelling that appears right after attack is unlikely to be coinsidental. (Like Kel's bad spelling after he hit his head on a rock in episode 1.)

EDIT: Why do I always start a new page, especially when trying to post at the bottom of the old one?

[ Friday, May 05, 2006 09:01: Message edited by: Zeviz ]

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Abandonware Forums in General
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
Profile Homepage #10
quote:
Originally written by Shuan Wuan:

I've been thinking on making a forum purely dedicated to abandonware ,but I am at a loss as to what to name it ,any ideas?
How about "Abandoned Forums"? :)

quote:
Should I stick with Invisionfree or is there a better free forum hosting service?
From what I've heard, Invisionfree is not too bad for a free host, but isn't very good if you are willing to pay a few dollars a month.

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Xylgham udwlnit skretcko!1!! in General
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
Profile Homepage #121
It looks like the script is turning from Star Wars into an evil alien posession movie. (What was the name of that horror movie with aliens growing in people's stomachs?)

[ Friday, May 05, 2006 08:27: Message edited by: Zeviz ]

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
If You Were President... in General
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
Profile Homepage #70
quote:
Originally written by Jumpin' Salmon:

So, what you are saying is that Racism is based not on race (we are all one race) but on skin color alone?

So why again would it be wrong to stop identifying folks by the color of their skin. I chose ethnicity out of the apparently misplaced faith in humanity that somehow racism was tied into something other than blatant prejudice. Apologies to all those who were slighted by this misplaced faith.

Edit - Spellchecking cant correct everything.

FYI, in Europe ethnicity plays the same role as race does in America. People always have their prejudices and if everybody around has same skin color, they focus on ethnicity (combination of language, religion, etc.) instead.

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Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
An Empirical Analysis on GF3 Diplomatic Agents in Geneforge Series
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
Profile Homepage #5
Very nice game report. It's fun to read these in-character reports.

PS SoT, to make a game like this fun, you'd have to completely role-play your character: making decisions she would make, regardless of what you, the player, know about consequences, picking dialogue options she would pick, never reloading (unless you die, but only if you do everything possible to aviod death), etc.

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
If You Were President... in General
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
Profile Homepage #45
Slarty, thanks for keeping the discussion calm. It's good to see somebody be passionate about an issue without resorting to exessive rhetoric or flaming. (I couldn't do this myself when an issue I strongly care about came up.)

As I see it, your arguments come down to 2 things:

1. Present discrimination.

2. Social factors, namely:
quote:
Yes, it's possible to go rags-to-riches in America, and it's possible to go riches-to-rags as well. But the fact is that people who have more money have a greater than 0 correlation of their kids ending up with more money. The same thing is true if you replace either instance of "money" with "education" or "social status," etc.
This problem of low social mobility affects all poor people, rather than just blacks. So to fight it we need economic, rather than race-based affirmative action. I still think it would be better to fix urban schools and give these kids an opportunity to get equally good education. But since that is unlikely to happen any time soon, some kind of economic-based affirmative action seems necessary. (Determining and enforsing standards for such a program would be a nighmare, but that's another question. Besides, we have a lot of need-based scholarships to use as an example.)

As for the present-day discrimination part of an argument for affirmative action, I still think that fighting it with quotas would do more harm than good. Besides, how do you decide how much protection to give to which group? It would be pretty hard to determine the ratio of people who throw all resumes with African American sounding names into garbage to the people who throw into garbage all resumes with Asian sounding names to the people who throw into garbage all resumes with Russian sounding names.

So in summary, I probably agree that some form of economic-based affirmative action is necessary, but I would still vote against any prepositions that introduce race-based affirmative action.

[ Thursday, May 04, 2006 13:15: Message edited by: Zeviz ]

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
If You Were President... in General
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
Profile Homepage #40
quote:
Originally written by Dagon:

There are ways to get past the autocensor, involving ubb code. If you hit the quote button on his post, you will see this. If you copy and paste the post, you don't copy the ubb tags that outwit the censor, and you get censored.
That's a clever trick. I thought of some possible methods, but they were a lot more convoluted.

quote:
Bush has quoted the Bible incessantly since his election. His approval rating is also the lowest it have ever been - near 35% last time I heard. I am not suggesting a causal relationship, but still.
The drop in approval rating is due to the fact that no matter how good a demagogue you are, people will see through it eventually. (Unless you have complete controll of all mass media.) Considering all the things Bush did and didn't do, I assume anybody who would object to his Bible quotes has plenty of more important things to object to.

EDIT: As for income-based affirmative action, I agree that some form of it is probably necessary until urban schools are fixed.

EDIT2: On a ligher note, this is what I just saw on the board main page:
quote:
If You Were President... (I Would Have Been Your Daddy)
May 04, 2006 01:25 PM


[ Thursday, May 04, 2006 11:47: Message edited by: Zeviz ]

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
A Few More Advance Words On Geneforge 4 in Geneforge Series
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
Profile Homepage #115
About Leadership, I see it more as a "diplomacy" skill in some games: the ability to convince people, rather than some sort of hypnotic power.

As for Serviles' genetic need to obey, on one hand if they are reprogramming themselves they can get rid of that need too. On the other hand, if they change themselves so much, are they still "Serviles"? Just like Dryaks changed themselves into Drakons, Serviles who change themselves in such fundamental ways should probably be considered a new species.

quote:
Originally written by Student of Trinity:

Spray and Swarm Crystals, and Madness Gems, are in effect options to attack many enemies more weakly.
...

Ok. My suggestion of multiple attack modes wasn't very serious anyway. Making a well-balanced game is one of Jeff's strongest points, so I am not too worried about that.

[ Thursday, May 04, 2006 11:08: Message edited by: Zeviz ]

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
What style of graphics would you like to see in Avernum 5? in General
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
Profile Homepage #35
quote:
Originally written by radix malorum est cupiditas:

Jeff has said time and time again, he never takes art, storylines, etc. from fans. He doesn't want the potential lawsuit.
That shouldn't stop him from buying the art for a one-time payment of 1$.

And by the way, according to his webpage, he is still looking for artists. :) http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/come_aboard.html

[ Thursday, May 04, 2006 10:24: Message edited by: Zeviz ]

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00

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