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Hypothetical thoughts in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Friday, March 2 2007 10:27 Profile Homepage #75
quote:
Originally written by upon mars:


Can't we citizens talk in discussion rooms and find a better way to solve problems instead of letting administrations run our lives?
Any government form of government requires administration. We are fortunate enough to live under democracy (representative, maybe, but democracy) so that we can change the administration.

—Alorael, who has found that problems tend to be solved better by organization than by acting haphazardly and alone.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
what is the best A game in The Avernum Trilogy
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Friday, March 2 2007 10:24 Profile Homepage #27
Both Avernums (actually, all three) have some great dungeons. Let's call it a wash.

A2 has Garzahd (twice), Angierach's assorted nasties, Limoncelli, the Ziggurat, and Gaddika. All of those fights make sense in the plot and provide a real challenge.

A3 has the Bojar, the Alien Slime, Elhioc, the huge battles between the troglos and giants (the best of the game, in my opinion, even though you don't have to do anything but run), the crystal in the Golem Factory, three crystal souls you aren't supposed to kill, and Rentar. Most of the fights aren't too exciting, really.

Mystery? Maybe, but A3's plot is so unobtrusive that you can ignore it until the answer is handed to you on a silver plate. It also becomes fairly obvious from the increasingly heavy evidence (not the special item evidence, things like vahnatai cloaks left here and there) from the Filth Factory onwards.

—Alorael, who would actually strongly recommend starting with A1 rather than A2. It's best to start with the beginning, and A1 isn't much worse at all. In fact, the only thing it's really missing is a quest log.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Hypothetical Greek Weapons of Mass Destruction Suck in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Friday, March 2 2007 10:13 Profile Homepage #44
quote:
Originally written by Marcelo:

quote:
Originally written by Kelandon:

Marcelo: I'll forgive your mis-reading because you're reading in a foreign language, but note the word "only." You're wrong near the top of this page, and your reference to "euphemisms" is nonsensical.
And I will forgive you because even though you are using your mother tongue, that does not necessarily mean a high level of literacy or reading comprehension: I have not used the word "only" "near the top of this page" it was a different member, please double check.

Are you familiar with the literary concept of euphemism? Then I should not be explaining to you that I meant "Weapons of Mass Destruction" to avoid using "Nuclar bombs". WMD does include more categories, therefore we have to use the right words, even if it hurts.
Greetings.

Edit: it was Excalibur.
Excalibur meant that the USA is the only nation to have used nukes. (Nation is the wrong word here, but that's a pet peeve.) He said that it's the only nation to have used WMDs. The former is true and the latter very false. Kel pointed that out.

You may have meant that Excalibur's point was valid except for the use of the wrong term, but that's not what you said. WMD is not a euphemism, it's a more general term that includes non-nuclear weapons along with nuclear ones.

Then Excalibur explained that he meant nuclear weapons, but then reiterated that the USA is the only country to have killed with WMDs. That's still false.

So this is a lot of nitpicking, but I'd say that Kel's correction at the top of the page is over misuse of the term "weapons of mass destruction." That's not a euphemism because WMDs and nukes are not interchangeable terms even though the first includes the second. Excalibur apparently still doesn't understand or doesn't actually know about other uses of WMDs besides the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

—Alorael, who should know better than to pour oil on flames. In fact, he should know better than to click Add Reply now. Fortunately, life is an endless series of learning experiences. Maybe next time.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Avernum's Better in The Avernum Trilogy
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Friday, March 2 2007 10:02 Profile Homepage #16
If I remember correctly, E1 has much weaker monsters simply run away from you so you never enter combat and E3 gives you the choice to fight them or not. I can't recall which way E2 handles it.

—Alorael, who hasn't played any of the Exile Trilogy in the last year or two. Excluding E3 it's been even longer.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Parry Skill in Avernum 4
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Friday, March 2 2007 09:59 Profile Homepage #4
quote:
Originally written by Ephesos:

I believe it's 6 Dexterity and 6 Defense, which does not include bonuses from equipment.
Prerequisites for special skills don't include any bonuses. That includes bonuses from race, traits, and some non-standard skill purchases (the wishing well, a couple of Endurance sellers, and maybe a few more). The bottom line is that you have to put the points in the prerequisites yourself if you want a special skill.

—Alorael, who doesn't think Parry is broken at all. It's very powerful, certainly, but not broken. It's also so ineffective against magic and ranged attacks that those really don't contribute meaningfully to its usefulness.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
New Cold War US-Russia? in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Friday, March 2 2007 09:51 Profile Homepage #2
Maybe I'm two decades behind, but isn't Russia already sitting on large nuclear stockpiles? The thing about MAD is that you only have to be able to destroy the world once. Making more is just a very expensive gesture with no meaningful force behind it.

—Alorael, who is also not terribly enthusiastic about missile defense. It hasn't come all that far from Star Wars days, so any real threat is likely to remain a threat. In fact, making a shield is, as already seen, likely to provoke threats. And if safety from nukes is guaranteed, or more likely perceived, it makes launching them dangerously attractive.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
On the Road to Weapons of Mass Destruction in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, March 1 2007 20:43 Profile Homepage #44
Good rule of thumb and problem with the test are entirely different. Unless it's nearly impossible to get an uncontaminated sample to date, I think it would be like claiming blood tests are useless because you could always get the wrong blood by accident.

—Alorael, who has decided to take a physics approach and approximate the age of the Earth as infinite. It's close enough.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
On the Road to Weapons of Mass Destruction in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, March 1 2007 19:08 Profile Homepage #39
quote:
Originally written by Excalibur:

Scientific studies have shown that carbon 14 dating is inaccurate, so how can you justify saying that the Earth is billions of years old?
Cite, please? I'm unaware of any major problems with radiocarbon dating pointed out with any reliable scientific basis. In any case, carbon-14 will only take you back about 50,000 years. Other isotopes are used to measure billions of years.

quote:
The theory of evolution is much more complicated then that. For example, they can't make up their mind how amphibians came to be.
Again, news to me. There have been changes in the order of all the adaptations required to live on land (the consensus now seems to be that legs came before lungs), but the overall picture of how isn't a matter of much dispute.

quote:
What I meant by soup is that evolutionists say that the first organisms formed in a body of water with many life-essential elements. From that "soup," evolutionists say that after many years, a simple organism formed. Scientists make compounds (in this case, amino acids) by gettiing different elements to bond with eachother. In nature, compounds are also formed by elements bonding together.
The origin of life is a much more contested problem than evolution from very simple prokaryotes to everything alive today. I still don't see what's fundamentally wrong with primordial soup idea, though. It involves unlikely coincidences but not impossible ones.

—Alorael, who thinks he'll pick on factually questionable objections to evolution. It won't convince anyone, but it might at least make someone question the worst of the anti-evolution non-science.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Singleton in Avernum 4
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, March 1 2007 18:54 Profile Homepage #20
You might be better off throwing spells with your singleton, but arrows are quite effective and much easier on the energy. As Thuryl said, you'll need something besides a sword to deal with chitrachs.

—Alorael, who spent a lot of time firing arrows at point blank range. Not only did he hit more often, he found himself far less likely to commit suicide by riposte.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Is possible? in Avernum 4
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, March 1 2007 18:51 Profile Homepage #30
Mantengo una aura de misterio. No puedo romperla aun en español. Pero aprendí español en la escuela y evidentemente he tenido maestros excelentes. Trato de mantener mi habilidad de leerlo y escribirlo como y cuando es posible, pero ya apenas puedo hablar.

—Alorael, who can live with being a gringo as long as it's unambiguous. Come to think of it, though, he's never heard of anyone being called a gringa...
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
what is the best A game in The Avernum Trilogy
Or else o'erleap.
Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, March 1 2007 18:44 Profile Homepage #15
Dark Waters is all about atmosphere. Mechanically it's nothing special, but the flavor is great. It was even more effective in E2 when losing all your food meant something. Not much, given easy access to Manna, but something.

A3 is huge, but the vast majority of the towns are far too generic. The world itself is all pretty generic. It has fun dungeons and some good parts, but as a whole it just doesn't really work for me. Also, while seeing the exact effects of your items is nice, the inflated damage that leaves you doing 199 with a stick just didn't work for me.

—Alorael, who doesn't think this is a mispoll. People should know enough by now to vote before reading the thread. Everyone's already biased towards A2 because it's so clearly the favorite here, of course, but bias on a neutral subject shouldn't do much unless there's actually some basis.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
On the Road to Weapons of Mass Destruction in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, March 1 2007 12:18 Profile Homepage #26
Incidentally, I know that several labs have performed experiments in which fruit flies were effectively divided into two separate species in only around a dozen generations. I don't know if there were genetic differences to back it up or only reproductive isolation.

I've also heard about someone who managed to get his E. coli to evolve into something demonstrably no longer the same as E. coli, but I don't know anything about that or where to find details. Does anyone have a link, or abstract, or something on the subject?

—Alorael, who would like to believe that education correlates negatively with rejection of evolution. Education definitely correlates with lower numbers of offspring. It is therefore quite possible that the theory of evolution is evolutionarily unfavorable, and the causal links are absolutely ironclad.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
what is the best A game in The Avernum Trilogy
Or else o'erleap.
Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, March 1 2007 12:11 Profile Homepage #1
A2. Your poll happens to use moderately biased language and is missing BoA and A4, but my answer is the same whether or not you include anything past the trilogy.

—Alorael, who wavers now and then but at the moment thinks A2 is his favorite Spiderweb game, period. Nethergate is very close, though.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Is possible? in Avernum 4
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, March 1 2007 12:09 Profile Homepage #27
Soy de los EEUU. Se rumorea que vivo en Alaska, pero los rumores no siempre tienen razón.

—Alorael, who thinks estadounidense just has too many syllables at seven. Americano is only five syllables. Gringo is, of course, a lovely two, but it's also sometimes used for Europeans.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Not yeti another photo thread in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, March 1 2007 12:02 Profile Homepage #89
Wikipedia can answer this and all other questions. Wikipedia is wisdom.

—Alorael, who thinks it's about time for a Google vs. Wikipedia internet war. And then Microsoft can shoot them both in the back and win.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Hypothetical Greek Weapons of Mass Destruction Suck in General
Or else o'erleap.
Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, March 1 2007 11:56 Profile Homepage #12
quote:
Originally written by Marcelo:

quote:
Originally written by Emperor Tullegolar:

Hmm, I wonder how much oil Chile has...
Oh :D not a lot, we as a matter of fact have to import it :rolleyes:
We do produce good wine though, so if you're looking for that, you know where to go ;)
The US has a whole lot of oil and still imports, but if ethanol-based fuel catches on then maybe we will be invading for your wine. At least we'll have classy cars.

—Alorael, who wouldn't want any old, crummy, beer-based vehicles in his garage, no sir. If he has to drive he'll do it with wine at the very least!
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Exile III Main Menu cutscene in The Exile Trilogy
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, February 28 2007 20:32 Profile Homepage #1
It does not exist in E3 or A3. It's just a fun intro.

—Alorael, who recreated Yarik's Temple with BoE, complete with guards, dialogue (as messages, sadly), and fireball trap. It was a highly pointless exercise, but it was fun.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Is possible? in Avernum 4
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, February 28 2007 20:30 Profile Homepage #25
Canadians tend to speak English or French. Suriname and Guyana are South American and not Spanish-Speaking. French Guiana is actually part of France, but it's in the Americas and not a very Spanish place.

I acknowledge that everyone on the two continents labeled America could be called American, but the term is used for people from the United States of America. The problem is with the country's name: "United States" isn't unique to the USA. America isn't either, but at least there's no other country that goes by that name. And honestly, "estadounidense" is an absurd word that becomes even more ridiculous in English. Unitedstatesian?

—Alorael, who doesn't see what's offensive about residents of Canada being North American and Canadian, residents of Chile being South American and Chilean, and residents of the USA being North American and American. There is only a problem of ambiguity if one is unnecessarily manufactured or if for some reason there is a need to talk about all residents of the Americas.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Shaper/Lifecrafter. in Geneforge 4: Rebellion
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, February 28 2007 20:22 Profile Homepage #6
quote:
Originally written by Retlaw May:

Shapers go from village to village, seeking those who show promice and loyalty. They take the best of these and send them away to schools to learn the shaping arts. The first few years are basically the time in which the students learn how to absorb information quickly and end up not learning any true power until years into their schooling.
Is this from the games somewhere?

From my limited Geneforge experience, I've never really gotten the feeling that mages or even shapers are especially unique. It's not something poetically in the blood or prosaically in the genes. Much like becoming a proverbial rocket scientist, a neurosurgeon, or a brilliant musician and songwriter, it's something that takes the right abilities and the right training. Shapers run the schools that give that training. The first shapers probably had to work it out painstakingly for themselves, much like the first of any specialty, but eventually the records added up and came together to become a standard course of study.

Or, of course, you can have the Geneforge or some canisters muck with your head and come out able to make creations and likely to set people on fire for blinking at you funny. Your choice!

—Alorael, who gets the vague impression that Shaper schools are similar to universities. The students aren't children and they're already dedicated to shaping rather than any other area of study.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
The best creations? in Geneforge 4: Rebellion
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, February 28 2007 13:03 Profile Homepage #20
You probably could win with only shaping, but only by keeping your character out of combat and sending your minions ahead, then leaving and returning whenever you run out of essence. It's not an optimal build by any means. A small investment in magic makes your shaper useful rather than just a way to move critters around.

After 10 points, shaping skills start losing their effectiveness. You no longer get one level per skill point.

—Alorael, who doesn't see any reason to waste skill points on three different kinds of shaping. You can do just fine with any one. Battle creations just aren't that tempting, and you can decide whether you prefer fire or magic.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
The MAXIMUM in Geneforge 4: Rebellion
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, February 28 2007 12:59 Profile Homepage #7
I don't know what you mean by combat levels, so I'm assuming you mean levels.

At level 60 you only get 75 more skill points than you had at level 45, which is still not enough to get another skill even close to 30. At level 45 you can get four of your cheapest skills to 15 (e.g. combat for warriors and serviles) and have some points left over, but that's about it.

Getting to level 80 is the result of either a bug or cheating.

—Alorael, who thinks you might as well cheat if you have your heart set on getting skills that high. It's not necessary, though. You'll be going through everything like a drakon through ornks long before your skills get anywhere near the cap.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Jeff, please respond - Magic and Avernum 5 in Avernum 4
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, February 28 2007 12:56 Profile Homepage #41
There's apparently been an effort to Carbonize Realmz, but it looks dead to me.

—Alorael, who only misses Realmz in his more unstable moments. That's the only time he can feel nostalgia for such an unstable and unbalanced game.

[ Sunday, April 08, 2007 17:39: Message edited by: Drakefyre ]
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Is possible? in Avernum 4
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, February 28 2007 12:46 Profile Homepage #23
I get the sense that the vast majority of Americans are basically unable to communicate at all in any language but English. Most high schools teach other languages, but America is apparently not good at getting those lessons to stick.

Spanish is the most common second language and probably the most common non-English first language, but it's still not as widespread as it reasonably could be considering just how many Spanish-speakers there are in and near the USA.

—Alorael, who has no idea why French is popular. It was once essential for cultured individuals to know French, but that's really no longer true. Considering the differences in utility between French and Spanish, it's a bizarre choice. Maybe people prefer French literature?
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
The MAXIMUM in Geneforge 4: Rebellion
Or else o'erleap.
Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, February 28 2007 09:06 Profile Homepage #3
Raising even a stat that costs 1 point to start will cost over around 200 points depending on how many you start with. At level 45 you only have 235 points total. Raising something to 30 means you won't have any other decent skills, let alone powerful ones.

—Alorael, who can't think of anything that is even conceivably useful enough to justify that many points. Intelligence almost comes close, but you'd still be crippled.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Doesn't anyone play Geneforge I anymore? in Geneforge Series
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, February 28 2007 08:50 Profile Homepage #2
This topic is in Geneforge. I have no idea what you're talking about.

—Alorael, who is of course lying, as you can tell if you are reading this very post in General.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00

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