Profile for mortification8
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Displayed name | mortification8 |
| Member number | 3417 |
| Title | Warrior |
| Postcount | 70 |
| Homepage | http://www.ghbraille.com/~engage/ |
| Registered | Monday, September 1 2003 07:00 |
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| A highly technical question in General | |
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Warrior
Member # 3417
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written Thursday, November 27 2003 17:48
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OK, so the game in question is M.U.L.E., which has a mini-game involving hunting a Wumpus. This was one of the few advantages that the human had over the computer players. MULE was a classic game for the C64, one that could be said to have invetned a number of features that changed computer gaming, such as hot-seat multiplay, turn-based strategy, and so forth. The creator of the "Hunted Wumpus" magic card was a big fan of MULE. Or so I've read in a magazine article, anyway. AFAIK in the computer game Wumpus referred to only 1 creature, since when you actually captured the Wumpus you saw a picture of just one monster. -------------------- This space intentionally left blank. Posts: 70 | Registered: Monday, September 1 2003 07:00 |
| A highly technical question in General | |
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Warrior
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written Thursday, November 27 2003 14:29
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Here is a hint about the Wumpus name reference: It comes from an old Commodore 64 game made in the early 80's. Anyone? Side note: I see that Wumpi is settling into accepted useage for the plural. Is this concensus, or are their other votes? -------------------- This space intentionally left blank. Posts: 70 | Registered: Monday, September 1 2003 07:00 |
| What music (if any) are you listening to... in General | |
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Warrior
Member # 3417
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written Wednesday, November 26 2003 14:40
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I had no idea that Jeff was into the Sweidsh Chef. I was independently a fan. He is a character on the Muppet Show. -------------------- This space intentionally left blank. Posts: 70 | Registered: Monday, September 1 2003 07:00 |
| A highly technical question in General | |
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Warrior
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written Tuesday, November 25 2003 19:43
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Partial credit. In this case, however, the designers of the card had a specific video game in mind as the source for the "hunted wumpus" name. Or so I've been told. So if anyone can name the game, they get full credit. I like your suggestion. We had come up with: "Wumpii" "Wumpi" "Wumpuses" "Wamposes" "Whomp!" "Wimpuses" More feedback craved is. -------------------- This space intentionally left blank. Posts: 70 | Registered: Monday, September 1 2003 07:00 |
| A highly technical question in General | |
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Warrior
Member # 3417
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written Tuesday, November 25 2003 19:03
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I was playing a round of Magic: The Gathering with a friend of mine and we were using the pre-constructed decks that come with 8th Edition. Anyway, I had the occasion to have two copies of "Hunted Wumpus" in play at once for some reason. This led to some awkward fumbling around about the proper plural form of "Wumpus". Who can solve this mystery for me? (Answers that sag, no matter how effable, will not be considered). Bonus points: Anyone know where the "Wumpus" reference comes from? If there are no takers on this one then I'll give a hint. -------------------- This space intentionally left blank. Posts: 70 | Registered: Monday, September 1 2003 07:00 |
| Bork on in General | |
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Warrior
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written Tuesday, November 25 2003 18:59
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It still seems pretty slow, so here are some other suggestions to pass the time while waiting for BoA: UbiSoft is picking up some momentum on resurrecting the Heroes of Might and Magic series from the ashes of 3DO. You can read all about it here. Siege of Avalon was an enjoyable, episodic CRPG that reminds me of the SpiderWeb games somewhat. The graphics are more along the lines of Baldur's Gate however. Apparently the WWW site is down, but you can pick it up at Wal-Mart for $9.95. Another good deal at Wal-Mart for those with less-than-modern computers is the "Laptop Gaming Pack". For $19.95 or less you get: - Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri - Alien Crossifre expansion to above - SimCity 3000 - Tiger Woods Golf 2002 IMHO Alpha Centauri is one of the greatest games, if not the greatest, ever made. You are really missing something if you haven't played it. It is a story-driven, turn-based strategy game in the same lines as Civilization. It received the highest score ever awarded by PC Gamer magazine. The other games in the pack are pretty neat also, and none require a "newfangled" video card to work. Of course if you are into Rouge-likes then you simply have to try out Ancient Domains of Mystery. That one will keep you for a while. Last but not least, let me recommend giving Nethergate a re-play. I'm working my way through it again as the Celts and really enjoying it, much more so than the first time through. For some reason, perhaps because I played it after I tried Avernum, it just didn't take with me the first time around. Bork! Bork! Bork! -------------------- This space intentionally left blank. Posts: 70 | Registered: Monday, September 1 2003 07:00 |
| What music (if any) are you listening to... in General | |
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Warrior
Member # 3417
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written Tuesday, November 25 2003 18:45
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various songs/monologues by the Swedish Chef, including the immortal: Yorn desh born, der ritt de gitt der gue, Orn desh, dee born desh, de umn bork! bork! bork! -------------------- This space intentionally left blank. Posts: 70 | Registered: Monday, September 1 2003 07:00 |
| new "oldie" in General | |
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Warrior
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written Monday, November 24 2003 16:26
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Well, now that we've established in a prior post that sagging is not necessarily sagacious: To clarify about DW, it is not a true remake of the BT games since they couldn't get the license. Rather it is a new game in the spirit of the old series. Actually a true remake of BT is also coming out but it will be completely redone in a 3-D engine and be more "action" oriented to appeal to a mass market. Thank you, X-box. *sigh* -------------------- This space intentionally left blank. Posts: 70 | Registered: Monday, September 1 2003 07:00 |
| new "oldie" in General | |
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Warrior
Member # 3417
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written Monday, November 24 2003 03:08
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I'm not sure what the protocol for talking about other games on this forum is, but since it's pretty slow around here... Check out the Devil Whiskey WWW page which is a remake of the classic Bard's Tale with OpenGL. I think that people who enjoy the SpiderWeb games or any Rouge-like games would enjoy this. IT runs on Windows and Linux (not sure about Mac). You can get a demo now, and the full version will be released at the end of the month. I've been tracking this project for several years and I thought it worth mentioning because it is so close (finally!) to release. The original Bard's Tale series, for those who are too young to remember, came out in the early 80's. It was a first-person perspective, tile-based, party-based CRPG. Let's just say that you needed a paper and pencil and reams of graph paper to even think about playing the game. Although the "plot" was simply Kill Foozle, the puzzles were fairly intricate and the dungeons were, to put it nicely, devious. You had 6 characters in your party, which could be chosen from different races and classes in a D&D-like system. The special character was a Bard who could play songs which had spell-like properties. My kind of game. I'm hoping that the new one might also require a scientific calculator.  -------------------- This space intentionally left blank. Posts: 70 | Registered: Monday, September 1 2003 07:00 |
| here is something to think about in General | |
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Warrior
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written Wednesday, November 19 2003 16:05
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Is the word being modified by "ineffable" in the above Djur-title meant to be: a) "sage - ry" as in the actions of a sage (wise man/magic user) b) "sag – ery" as in what happens to the dangly bits as you get older. c) as written, some word that I don't understand. d) all/some of the above. Just thought I'd ask since the clarification seems important. Future poll topic? You be the judge. -------------------- This space intentionally left blank. Posts: 70 | Registered: Monday, September 1 2003 07:00 |
| Republican, Democrat, etc. in General | |
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Warrior
Member # 3417
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written Wednesday, November 19 2003 15:59
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Hey, somebody's got to keep track of all of the numbers. An interesting point on casualty rates versus combat deaths: WW2 was the real turning point for battlefield wound survivability (this was mainly due to the widespread use of penicillin late in the war, and the improved hospitals. In Vietnam over 95% of casualties that survived long enough to get to the hospital from the battlefield eventually made it home. Another interesting point is to look at the deaths on both sides of a conflict. During Vietnam, millions of people are estimated to have died on both sides. Recent estimates of combined deaths in the Iraq war are around 25,000 or so. One could argue that improved weapon technology has apparently made wars less deadly rather than more as would seem common sense. I wonder how long it will be until unmanned drone technology evolves to the point where we will just have our drones versus their drones, and the loser of the robot war just agrees to give up, no lives lost on either side. Our lifetimes perhaps? -------------------- This space intentionally left blank. Posts: 70 | Registered: Monday, September 1 2003 07:00 |
| here is something to think about in General | |
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Warrior
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written Monday, November 17 2003 06:35
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The way that can be written down is not the way. Except on this forum, where it can be expressed in units of root beer. -------------------- This space intentionally left blank. Posts: 70 | Registered: Monday, September 1 2003 07:00 |
| Republican, Democrat, etc. in General | |
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Warrior
Member # 3417
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written Monday, November 17 2003 06:32
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Whoa! Hold on, I missed something 'back a bit in the thread. There were less than 50,000 U.S. casualties in the Vietnam War. Where is this number of 200K coming from? Did I just miss something important? Big difference between 50K and 200K. In fact, the two bloodiest wars in the history of the U.S., the Civil War and WW2, are the only wars that enter the 200K territory. Some perspective on wars for each generation of Americans (figues listed are actual combat-related deaths, not counting accidents, died later of wounds, and so forth): Revolutionary war: < 5K War of 1812: < 3K Mexican War: < 2K Civil War: 140K Spanish-American War: < 1K WW1: 54K WW2: 292K Korea: 34K Vietnam: 48K -------------------- This space intentionally left blank. Posts: 70 | Registered: Monday, September 1 2003 07:00 |
| here is something to think about in General | |
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Warrior
Member # 3417
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written Saturday, November 15 2003 02:09
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Boy, you guys are sure a lighthearted, optimistic bunch. -------------------- This space intentionally left blank. Posts: 70 | Registered: Monday, September 1 2003 07:00 |
| here is something to think about in General | |
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Warrior
Member # 3417
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written Saturday, November 15 2003 00:18
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the next time life gets you down. Somehow a small acorn that can fit into the palm of your hand can grow into a giant oak tree. [ Saturday, November 15, 2003 00:19: Message edited by: mortification8 ] -------------------- This space intentionally left blank. Posts: 70 | Registered: Monday, September 1 2003 07:00 |
| Republican, Democrat, etc. in General | |
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Warrior
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written Saturday, November 15 2003 00:10
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I'm sorry if I offended you, and thanks for the numbers. (The point stands just as well if it's 8M people without a way of making the money they need to eat well as 25M.) And they say the economy is turning up, but as it turns out, projections for it END around 2009 -- which, incidentally, is the year the baby-boomer generation starts retiring! -- and they depend on the unemployment rate reflecting the number of jobless. It doesn't; it has fallen only because the definition of "unemployed" doesn't consider someone who's been jobless for more than a certain amount of time unemployed. (They obviously aren't looking for work.) No skin off my nose. Mainly I try to be optimistic nowadays and look at the bright side of things. From where I sit there has been, for the first time since 9/11, some real improvement to the economy. Let's hope that trend continues. We've probably got bigger problems to worry about by 2009 than the lack of economic predictors. We might all be underwater or something by then.  There is no arguing that employment has taken a real hit from a combination of factors, and that the pre-dot.com bubble highs will probably not happen again in our lifetimes. Final point - I think that the sad truth of modern government is that no one elected official, even the president, can make that much of a change (at least in domestic policy) to the welfare of the average citizen. Programs and budgets are typically set years in advance and most agencies have been on auto-pilot since the 80's. And just in case anyone here was worried, Congress recently voted themselves another pay raise. I know I was losing sleep about it just the other night.  -------------------- This space intentionally left blank. Posts: 70 | Registered: Monday, September 1 2003 07:00 |
| Republican, Democrat, etc. in General | |
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Warrior
Member # 3417
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written Friday, November 14 2003 14:34
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<nitpick> Actually, given the current population of the U.S. of 292MM, the incremental amount of jobless would be 8,777,760 at a rate of 9% as compared to 6%. I'm not sure it's fair base an performance argument on the entire jobless rate since, as you mention, there is a fairly constant historical y-intercept. This is not to say that 8MM jobless is any better than 25MM, just making a point. </nitpick> Also it seems that there are a lot of indicators that the economy is starting to pick up, which we should all rejoice in. Typically the unemployment recovery lags behind the more financially-based economic indicators anyway since it takes time for businesses to recover to the point of hiring after the indexes pick up. Hopefully another 6-12 mmonths and things will be back much closer to "normal". A personal observation - Ease up on the vitrol a little bit. I don't think anyone has been trying to be inflammatory on this thread. I was kind of taken aback by sudden escalation of the thread by the previous post. [ Friday, November 14, 2003 14:39: Message edited by: mortification8 ] -------------------- This space intentionally left blank. Posts: 70 | Registered: Monday, September 1 2003 07:00 |
| Best song in a game in General | |
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Warrior
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written Wednesday, November 5 2003 19:16
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The opera music in the Heroes of Might and Magic games was pretty awe-inspiring. I also liked the soundtracks for Anvil of Dawn, Might and Magic 6-8, Ultima 6 and 7, and the opening tune for Nethergate. -------------------- This space intentionally left blank. Posts: 70 | Registered: Monday, September 1 2003 07:00 |
| Latin Help in General | |
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Warrior
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written Sunday, November 2 2003 21:42
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I believe that this link will be of great service. I refer to it for my Latin needs almost daily. Sic Transit Gloria. -------------------- This space intentionally left blank. Posts: 70 | Registered: Monday, September 1 2003 07:00 |
| What was the first game u played? in General | |
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Warrior
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written Saturday, November 1 2003 13:29
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My first game was on the PET computer, using a tape drive. It was (I think) the first tank-wars game ever made. You set muzzle velocity and angle and had to hit certain targets downrange, given a windage factor. It took something like 15 minutes to "load". _files/biggrin.gif) I really began gaming on the VIC-20 and Commodore 64 a few years later, however. Games like Revenge of the Blue Meanies, Tank vs. UFO, and some sort of SNAFU/Snakes-type game come to mind. -------------------- This space intentionally left blank. Posts: 70 | Registered: Monday, September 1 2003 07:00 |
| Book-burning? in General | |
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Warrior
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written Tuesday, October 21 2003 18:08
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X: Great point – there is no question that there are often-overlooked environmental problems in computer manufacturing that would need to be analyzed. My point, however, is that you'd only need one reader per person to read infinite books, as opposed to (theoretically) one book per person, which must be a larger number. There are literally billions of pages of paper printed annually in the US alone, and I'm willing to bet that the environmental impact of 300 million readers made once would be significantly less than the total volume of paper printed over 5 years (the average lifetime of a reader). Others: There really are several different projects underway for electronic ink and paper that acts like a computer monitor. The most famous is the MIT Media Lab project for e-ink, but most of the major photocopy companies such as Xerox are working on the technology as well. No glare, and contrast comparable to that of the printed page. The main limitation right now is resolution (which can be solved pretty quickly with better materials) and cost (which is a tougher problem that will take time and manufacturing research, not to mention market demand). Meanwhile Microsoft at least is betting on the Tablet PC as a mainstream solution, which has yet to play out as either a success or failure. I genuinely think that we are less than 5-10 years away from a publishing revolution, with a mass conversion to digital media as the primary product, and paper as an afterthought. I also thought of one more reason why paper might be better – collector value. There are a lot of people (like myself) who collect books as a hobby, and for the intrinsic value as a collectable. For example, I'm not sure how you'd get an author to sign a digital book as a keepsake. Anybody ever pay for and read Stephen King's exclusively on-line book that came out about a year ago? The project was not a complete flop, but I don't remember it being called a success either….. -------------------- This space intentionally left blank. Posts: 70 | Registered: Monday, September 1 2003 07:00 |
| will spidweb ever change? in General | |
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Warrior
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written Tuesday, October 21 2003 17:59
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Some comments on earlier points made: FWIW, I thought that Riven was a real letdown compared to Myst. Also, I thought that Baldur's Gate 2 was somewhat of a letdown compared to BG 1. BG1 was a great game for D&D fans, although there were some complaints that it implemented "AD&D 2.5" instead of either v2.0 or v3.0. Also the pathfinding was so frustrating at times that I ended up playing as a hacked singleton (high strength to carry stuff) rather than deal with moving 5 people around. Killing Drizzt and stealing his stuff by circle-jerking him with level 1 skeleton summons has to rank right up there in the top moments in CRPG history, however. Angband, ADOM, Nethack, and so forth are very challenging games. ADOM in particular is fiendish. The learning curve is overwhelming at first. The gameplay is well worth it however. FYI, most of the older games that I mentioned in the first post were either CRPG's or strategy games, not action. Most of them came out around 1982-1985, which I kind of think of as the "golden age" of computer games. Check out the lemon site for some great gaming nostalgia. And I totally agree that Spiderweb should not change a winning formula. I'd really like to see an "Avernum 4" or something along those lines, however. Maybe this time you could play as Empire citizens and have to go "down under" to solve the quest. -------------------- This space intentionally left blank. Posts: 70 | Registered: Monday, September 1 2003 07:00 |
| Book-burning? in General | |
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Warrior
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written Monday, October 20 2003 17:54
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I guess I'm part of that newfangled unwashed masses that is crowding up the boards.  Seriously, on the topic of a book reader – imagine a solar-powered portable electronic book reader. Such a thing exists already, although not in mass commercial form. One would pay more for the reader than for an individual book, sure. However, future books could be downloaded for free, or, in the case of RIAA getting a-hold of it, at the very least for much cheaper than a hard-copy book, since bits are close to free and paper costs money. An electronic device that uses renewable energy sources is much better for the environment than milling gazillions of pages of paper out of trees, which are arguably a renewable source but take a long time to renew compared to sunlight (and also require a lot of chemicals to turn into paper). An analogy already exists in the currency situation. The widespread use of credit and debit cards has saved the U.S. Treasury Department millions of dollars in the cost of printing and maintaining hard currency already, and the trend is moving rapidly towards a cashless society. So, what's your credit card number (with apologies to the thread that started it all)? -------------------- This space intentionally left blank. Posts: 70 | Registered: Monday, September 1 2003 07:00 |
| will spidweb ever change? in General | |
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Warrior
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written Monday, October 20 2003 17:46
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The Spiderweb games are great games. As are Angband, ADOM, and the other Rouge-likes. I enjoy all of these "old-school" games because, like games made during the "golden age" of the early 80's, gameplay comes first and special effects are made only in support of the gameplay (this was originally done out of necessity, since complex graphics and sound were not possible). The original Pitfall, a great game by anyone's standards, had to execute all of its instructions in something like 57 clock cycles. Not a lot of time for complicated graphics. Similar games like M.U.L.E., Zork, and the early Ultima games were designed to make people think, first and foremost. But. Some of the newer games are really worth checking out. You are selling yourself short if you don't try a game just because of the "newfangled" graphics. The learning curve is often steep, but the games can be superb once you've ascended the peak. For example, I've really enjoyed all of the recent Might and Magic games, the recent Wizardry games, Morrowind, and some of the Baldur's Gate engine games, just to name a few. Morrowind in particular was the best implementation I've seen of a true RPG in a 3-D environment. The only part I didn't care for was the lack of a turn-based option for combat. I think that some of the best features of the Spiderweb games are difficult-to-impossible to implement in a 3D engine. These include the use of tiles for mapping and movement, which introduce lots of fun situations such as being able to deduce the presence of secret doors or tunnels, and the tactical fun of being able to position characters to block monsters and protect other characters in combat (just like the old "gold box" games). Another great feature is the fluidity of the scripting system, which is not hampered by what can be visually rendered on-screen, so that quests and story events can be complex and rewarding, with most of the "rendering" done inside the head of the player. A similar analogy in my mind is the fact that most people like the book better than the movie, because no movie can reproduce the fantastic imagery that people come up with themselves as they read. However, modern technology has really started to allow movies to pull even with books. For example, "The Matrix" is an incredible movie by almost anyone's standard, and it's hard to imagine some of the imagery in that movie to be describable in book format. Now, you wouldn't refuse to see the Matrix just because it was advertised as using CG, would you? The same is true for the recent spate of CRPG's using 3D graphics and other modern technological enhancements. Don't dismiss them out-of-hand just because of the use of technology. On the other paw, the Spiderweb games are and always will be masterpieces of gameplay, and I'd hate to see them change a good thing. There will probably always be a niche for such games, just like there will probably always be a niche for books over movies. A final point – the tools for developing a good 3D game are not so expensive as you might think. Most of the required elements are available as open-source tools, and the creation of the art is actually easier in some ways than making BMP files that actually look like something at 800 x 600 resolution. Check out the 3-D Bard's Tale for a good example. -------------------- This space intentionally left blank. Posts: 70 | Registered: Monday, September 1 2003 07:00 |
| Book-burning? in General | |
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Warrior
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written Monday, October 20 2003 17:27
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Well, I was referring more to the lack of use of dedicated voting machines as opposed to Internet-based voting. You can't really hack a dedicated electronic device to skew the results of a vote. For example, the majority of standardized tests for college entrance in the US are taken electronically nowadays on a dedicated computer (not over the Internet) and there is really no hacking or cheating problem. The distinction is important because the original point of the thread was a discussion of whether any electronic solution could replace paper books. My take is that computers per se may not ever replace paper books, but a dedicated device might. If the electronic ink projects ever get off the ground and become a commercial device, an electronic book reader would be indistinguishable from a paper book anyway. I think that it's a good bet that such a device will be available within the next 20 years. Industry pundits have been predicting 2010 for widespread adoption of such a device for several years now. The social aspect of book-reading will take much longer to disappear, however. Case in point: Barnes and Noble has discovered that they can beat Amazon and other e-tailers by making superior brick-and-mortar stores that are widespread and locally available. Going to B&N is more of a social event (read, get coffee, see live events, talk to people) than anything. Sure, it's easier to click and order a book on Amazon, or even better to download it to read instantly, but the appeal of stores like B&N seems to be deeply ingrained into the fabric of society - as if people that like to read have some need to connect with each other in person. I see society diverging somewhat as you have one group of people that seem to prefer reading off-line, and participate in the Internet phenomenon in a more desultory manner – as if the electronic aspect is more of a necessary evil standing in the way of information access. These people enjoy print newspapers and print out their e-mails to read. On the other extreme you've got the k3wl d00dz that hate reading, but are all about electronic information access. These folks aren't so keen on trivial issues like grammar and spelling since they just get in the way of information exchange. If it can't be communicated "above the fold" of a WWW page it probably isn't worth learning. There really are benefits to both approaches. Although I fall in the former camp, I can see some of the advantages of the latter. For example, I almost never buy a newspaper anymore unless I am traveling and without Internet access for some reason. It is much more convenient, and there exists much better and more timely news coverage, in the on-line news services. The change from paper-copy to electronic copy seems to involve some aspect of the freedom of information, and the creation of a truly egalitarian on-line society. In the same way that the Gutenberg printing press changed the face of tyrannous governments forever, the electronic book has the potential to make some truly profound changes to society – equal access to information being one of those changes. It's still a ways down the road however, at least IMHO. Very interesting discussion topic however. -------------------- This space intentionally left blank. Posts: 70 | Registered: Monday, September 1 2003 07:00 |