Profile for Dastal
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Displayed name | Dastal |
| Member number | 3610 |
| Title | Warrior |
| Postcount | 129 |
| Homepage | |
| Registered | Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
Recent posts
Pages
| Author | Recent posts |
|---|---|
| Creating New Editors for BoA in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Sunday, November 21 2004 17:52
Profile
You want me to show you an amazing scenario written by someone who can't program? Pick your favorite commercial game. [All games in a series are included]: · Baldur's Gate · Neverwinter Nights · Ultima · Kings Quest · Diablo And that's just RPG's. All of them were written, designed, and produced by and large by people who had very little knowledge of programming. The coders were essentially just drones. In the broader world, why should you be able to eat if you can't grow your own grains, fruits, and vegies, and raise your own cows. Can you do all of the number crunching required to figure out how to display your commands? Heck, can you convery your programming commands into ons and offs? If your premise is "we should not have mechanisms to simplify coding into a more accessable interface," aren't you a bit of a hypocrite in using Blades of Avernum's editor instead of making your own game, or even using a computer instead of creating your own custom single-game console? [ Sunday, November 21, 2004 17:54: Message edited by: Dastal ] Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
| OK, folks, looks like I can port my tools to a Mac... in Blades of Avernum Editor | |
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Thursday, November 18 2004 12:18
Profile
I think haveing a sucky interface would make "ease-of-interface" scripting tools useless. I also think TM's data actually contradicts his argument. Since the only currently published authors are Mac users, perhaps the Windows users are not as ready to go hard core on the scripting as the Mac authors have already demonstated they will. Incidentally, there are more than 5 designers, some of them have just published things. Now, in the interests of staying level, I should also point out that a large piece of why there are more Mac authors may have something to do with them having 6 more months to design. The fact that most of the published designers were beta-testers supports that supposition. Now, just looking at your list of pros and cons, there is one, admittedly fairly large, pro (ahm, there is no Linux BoA, so it doesn't really count). On the other hand there are 4 cons. The time and money issue is one you need to evaluate for your self. Crap interface, as I said above seems to make the whole project self-defeating, same thing with making a less functional version. Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
| OK, folks, looks like I can port my tools to a Mac... in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Thursday, November 18 2004 12:18
Profile
I think haveing a sucky interface would make "ease-of-interface" scripting tools useless. I also think TM's data actually contradicts his argument. Since the only currently published authors are Mac users, perhaps the Windows users are not as ready to go hard core on the scripting as the Mac authors have already demonstated they will. Incidentally, there are more than 5 designers, some of them have just published things. Now, in the interests of staying level, I should also point out that a large piece of why there are more Mac authors may have something to do with them having 6 more months to design. The fact that most of the published designers were beta-testers supports that supposition. Now, just looking at your list of pros and cons, there is one, admittedly fairly large, pro (ahm, there is no Linux BoA, so it doesn't really count). On the other hand there are 4 cons. The time and money issue is one you need to evaluate for your self. Crap interface, as I said above seems to make the whole project self-defeating, same thing with making a less functional version. Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
| 3D BOA Editor (Windows) in Blades of Avernum Editor | |
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Thursday, November 18 2004 12:09
Profile
KernelKnowledge, if it's such an easy process, and you have already figured it out, you should have no problem quickly converting the Mac 3D BoA editor to Windows. On the other hand, if you have trouble putting your money where your mouth is, then maybe you should accept what others say. Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
| 3D BOA Editor (Windows) in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Thursday, November 18 2004 12:09
Profile
KernelKnowledge, if it's such an easy process, and you have already figured it out, you should have no problem quickly converting the Mac 3D BoA editor to Windows. On the other hand, if you have trouble putting your money where your mouth is, then maybe you should accept what others say. Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
| Speeding up your computer without buying a cable modem. in General | |
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Tuesday, November 16 2004 17:11
Profile
If you want to wreck your computer, then there are a lot of ways to speed it up: · Overclocking · Ultra-cooling · Turning off virus protection · Screwing with Windows config files On the other hand, that can really mess up your files. There are tons of ways to get viruses into your computer, but a major part of what a virus scanner does is quash the virus when it unpacks itself. A simple self-decompressing archive can sneak by your virus scanner. Screwing with Windows config files will probably not do any irreperable harm, but unless you have every file you want backed up, when you find yourself haveing to format your hardrive, you'll loose lots of data. Of course, messing with cooling and overclocking can do irreperable damage to your computer unless you know exactly what you are doing. My cousin has spent his entire life as a computer engineer, technician and designer. He forgets in a few minutes more about messing with computers than I will probably ever learn. He still only does things like overclocking on computers he has decided are good only for playing around with. Besides, with modern computers, overclocking has little net effect. If you do it perfectly, you can get a maximum of about 250Mhz additional out of your CPU. Back in the day when tubes were shorter, and processors ran about 100Mhz, maximum, that meant a huge increase in speed. Since a mere 50-100Mhz was fairly easy to achieve, any old tech-savy guy who was willing to risk his 5 grand investment could double his processor speed. Today, that's nothing, and increasing the clockspeed of your computer does you much less than it once did. On a P4 running at 2Ghz, you'd be lucky to get a 2.5% increase in performance. That's half of the numerical percentage increase in clockspeed. (Incidentally, on Macs up to and including the G4, you would still have a massive increase in speed, but that's now changed.) Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
| I want the Mithril sword! in The Avernum Trilogy | |
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Tuesday, November 16 2004 12:03
Profile
There are three lumps of metal. The first is the one that the guy from the Inn of Blades tells you about. The second is given to you by Athron the dragon as part of Sulfuras's gift of the Beastslayer. The last, which is the one you are looking for, is found by first going Gidrik and buying the information from Zamora then going to Aminro and finding the map on the sort of pillar in the center of town, and then finally going to Eagle rock, which is southeast of Blackcrag Fortress, and heading northeast along the cliff. Search around a bit outside the second tunnel you come to (the one that has a cache of coins and a sticky charm inside) and you'll find your metal. Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
| Speeding up your computer without buying a cable modem. in General | |
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Tuesday, November 16 2004 06:24
Profile
Well, first off, look at all the things you are doing to you computer to avoid paying $50/month. Also, look at the net cost. How much does it cost for a cable internet, cable TV, and cable phone service, it may not end up being too expensive (always assuming, of course, you actually use the cable TV). Incidentally, if you have the memory, using higher cache setting will make your browsing faster. It really all depends on what you use your internet for. If you use it to browse all kinds of sites, for instance, doing research, or if you regularly download large files (not necessarily illicit ones, I completely legitly downloaded Edmondes's Observations vpon Caesar's Commentaries (sic) at a hefty 29Mb from Early English Books Online as USM), then there is really no substitute for a high speed connection. If, however, you are merely checking the same sites regularly, then caching the images on those pages should really be all you need. As long as you are mentioning upgrading your computer, unless you are looking at dynamic-graphics intesive pages, additional RAM, processing speed, or other computer upgrades. If you are looking at those types of pages, then you really need to be on a high speed connection, and cable honestly probably isn't enough. You could also explore setting up a decent range wireless network and with some people on your block, and then all split the cost of the connection among all of them. After the initial harware investment, it could end up being cheaper then your current internet connection. (If you find 8 people, that works out to about $5-$6.50/person, and you'll still probably be running at about 448Kbit/s.) Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
| Lost hardrive, lost 6 registered games in Tech Support | |
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Saturday, November 13 2004 19:56
Profile
Believe me, they keep records, but they only send emails to the email you gave when registering. When I got a PC, and had previously registered Exile games on my Mac, which I had registered about 4 years earlier, I got 'em recovered. Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
| Shameless Plug in General | |
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Saturday, November 13 2004 19:54
Profile
I'm pretty sure Colchis is in Karnold though, and I'm absolutely sure that Freeport is. I believe when you first cross the bridge to Freeport, you get a message about the guards keeping slimes out of Karnold, and why would there only be a road from Sharmik if it's in Krizan? Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
| future games in General | |
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Saturday, November 13 2004 12:44
Profile
I, personally, like the fantasy settings of Exile et seq. However, if you really wnat a space trader game, then try Escape Velocity. Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
| Shah mat in General | |
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Friday, November 12 2004 08:51
Profile
Caesar Nero would be Kuf-Aleph-Samekh-Resh Nun-Resh-He. That's (100)-(1)-(60)-(200)-(50) (100)-(50)-(5), or 666. That's a guess based on how it works, but it seems like the only right combination. Vowles have no value in Hebrew (they are subscripted, and non-characters), but each letter can only have one vowel, and the last character cannot have any, so I added Aleph (silent sound) and He (an h sound, but silent at the end of a word), which also makes it all come out right. Unfortunetely, the He at the end of Nero implies that he is, in fact, a she. For all that, this doesn't translate straight across into Zohar (the numerological branch of Kabalah, or Jewish mysticism), especially as it is two words, and the emphasis isn't added in either. But then, I really don't know enough about Kabalah to say for certain. Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
| Shah mat in General | |
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Friday, November 12 2004 07:02
Profile
Actually, Hebrew isn't the only language where letters double as numbers. There are a few others, I believe. The way it works is like this: The first nine letters equal 1-9, then the next 9 are 10, 20, 30... all the way to 90, and then the final four letters are 100, 200, 300, and 400. Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
| Shah mat in General | |
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Thursday, November 11 2004 19:25
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Humm....Let's see. First off, there is no firm deffinition of terrorism. Beleive me, I have spend a long, long time searching for a firm, internationally accepted deffinition of terrorism, and none such exists. The UN Security Council has not passed one, the 6th Committee has not passed one, the Ad Hoc Committee of the General Assembly for Terrorism has not passed one, nor has any other UN body, including the Secretariat or the International Court of Justice, put forth some deffinition. The North Atlantic Council, the Aftican Union, the Rio Pact, the Organization of American States, even any European multi-lateral: none have defined terrorism. As a matter of fact, one of the only multi-lateral deffinitions of terrorism come out of the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference. They define a terrorist act one where the intent is to enact violence on a civilian population to create fear to achieve a political, religious, social, economic, or diplomatic goal. That's a pretty decent deffinition. Unfortunately, Mr. Arafat's organization, up until the Dayton Accords, pretty solidly was classed as a terrorist organization. The Palistinian Liberation Organization (PLO), which Mr. Arafat led, was a Soviet-backed "sepratist group." However, it was kicked out of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebannon because of its terrorist activities. Ultimately, it morphed into the Pallestinian Authority, but two "splinter" groups, (the) al'Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade and the Fatah Movement, remained terrorist groups. What's more, they also maintained close ties to the PA and Arafat in particular. What Arafat's death will do to that relationship, we can only guess. Of course, now that Arafat is gone, the Sharone government and the Pallestinian Authority will have to put their money where their mouth is. No one can claim that there is no "partner for peace." With luck, the Palestinians will demand a democratic government. That's how it looks right now. While it is wrong to wish death upon someone, I must say that ten years hence, Mr. Arafat's death will probably be looked upon as a good thing for the peace process. Blessed is the the Lord who judges in truth. Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
| Economy of Rights not Ownership in General | |
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Thursday, November 11 2004 13:24
Profile
That's sorta what I was thinking. Except if I donate $100m to the govenrment, and you only donate $100,000, don't you think I could encourage the government to raid your buisness? Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
| How should my town/outdoor script editor work? in Blades of Avernum Editor | |
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Thursday, November 11 2004 13:19
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I think #1 is way better! I'd also suggest a feature I really like in my HTML editor of choice: color coding. For instance, dialogue commands might show up in green, cinematic commands in blue, etc. Additionally, open statements (no "end;", ")", or "}") might be yellow, red, and orange, respectively. Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
| How should my town/outdoor script editor work? in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Thursday, November 11 2004 13:19
Profile
I think #1 is way better! I'd also suggest a feature I really like in my HTML editor of choice: color coding. For instance, dialogue commands might show up in green, cinematic commands in blue, etc. Additionally, open statements (no "end;", ")", or "}") might be yellow, red, and orange, respectively. Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
| Shah mat in General | |
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Thursday, November 11 2004 12:20
Profile
And, in other news, Yassr Arafat continues to be dead... I think the impications of the situation are way too difficult to judge. I would just like to recall the lesson the the Israeli-Egyptian peace process: You need to make peace with an Israeli hawk (the Likud) otherwise, when the Likud ultimately get control of the government, they will overturn the peace. Incidentally, just remember that both (the) al'Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade and the Fatah movement were closely associatiated with Arafat up until his death. Both were undeniably terrorist organizations. My hope is that now that the "great father" is gone, the Palestinians will carry out their hopes to get a democratic government, and that the two governments will come to an agreement. Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
| Economy of Rights not Ownership in General | |
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Thursday, November 11 2004 12:14
Profile
True capitalism is governed soley by market forces. My argument is that true capitalism cannot exist, because the conditions required by true capitalism are also the conditions that destroy it. If a government is taxing you, remember, that is an artificial cost associated with buisness. And if the government cannot tax, it cannot exist. Perhaps you could have some concievable double system, but I have no idea how it would work. Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
| Diplomacy questions in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Thursday, November 11 2004 12:04
Profile
If I recall, the skull key opens the door to Vahkos's castle. I dun know the others. Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
| Do i missed you? in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Thursday, November 11 2004 12:01
Profile
Can we hold off the ad hominem attacks, please, and get this topic closed? Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
| Announcement in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Thursday, November 11 2004 12:00
Profile
Guys, please calm down. First off, there is nothing wrong with people from Cyprus. I don't know what was said since there seems to be massive editing, so i can't pass judgement. Maybe a mod would close this post though? Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
| Economy of Rights not Ownership in General | |
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Wednesday, November 10 2004 15:04
Profile
Well...I think Puppet Account hit the nail on the head. Every economic system ever used with the exception of capitalism have been integrated with the system of governance. Socio-Communism and Coprorationism are the most extreme forms of this, where the government system becomes economic system or the economic system becomes the government system. Mercantilism, Feudalism, Facism, Absolutism: all of these rely on government control of the market to one extent or another. The odd ball out is true capitalism. In a true capitalis society, there is no government except for the invisible hand. The scoial good is served by the individual's urge to profit. Unfortunately, in order for this whole plan to work, utter honesty, and utter non-violence is required, and, ultimately, an utter lack of humanity. Remember, in true capitalism, there is no religion, and no government. Marriage becomes an anachronism. When there is no government, what punishes people for wrongdoing? If one person goes out of line, the entire system breaks down. Breach of contract destroys the system. Incidentally, there is no money, so you return to a barter economy. Additionally, if I pull a gun on you, that, too destroys the whole concept of the invisible hand, as I am effectively circumventing the laws of supply and demand by artificially creating a shortage of supply. Even nature must be subdued, as a natural disaster also creates an artificial shortage. Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
| Where to find herbs? in The Avernum Trilogy | |
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Wednesday, November 10 2004 12:53
Profile
There's also a vampire in NW Valorim near the coast who'll give you a level of gather herbs if you kill a bunch of ogres. You can find the exaclt locale on Rache's site. Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
| Under Trog Castle/slay Elhioc in The Avernum Trilogy | |
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Tuesday, November 9 2004 19:07
Profile
You need to destroy the cracked wall. I think there is some rubble you can step on to taverse the last bit of harmful floor, but I may be thinking of somewhere else with rubble. Anywho, move mountains or stoneshatter crystal. Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |