Profile for Kelandon
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Displayed name | Kelandon |
Member number | 4045 |
Title | Off With Their Heads |
Postcount | 7968 |
Homepage | http://home.sanbrunocable.com/~tommywatts03/ |
Registered | Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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The Big Club Theory in General | |
Off With Their Heads
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written Wednesday, May 17 2006 20:33
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quote:Step into my lab and we'll watch fruit flies evolve. In a few weeks, they will have speciated. The fact that you haven't read the studies doesn't mean that they don't exist. ------- I have a rant that I'd like to do about evolution somewhere, and this seems like the most reasonable place for it, so here goes. One of the objections that people make to evolution is that we don't have gobs and gobs of fossils of all the intermediate creatures between species (even though we do have a fair number). People hear about "gaps in the fossil record" and think that such gaps must mean that creatures just spontaneously morphed from one thing into another. This doesn't follow, for a very particular reason. I study Classics, which means I read Latin and Greek. Back in classical times, sometimes people would go to a library and write down the books that they found there. Sometimes they'd write summaries of books. Sometimes they'd just quote snippets. We have references to literally hundreds of major works of the classical era, vast epic poems in addition to the Iliad and the Odyssey that tell the rest of the story of the Trojan War, vanished early Latin poems by Ennius, lost plays by Aeschylus and many others, none of which are to be found anywhere. One of the booming fields in Classics right now is papyrology, the study of papyrus scrolls that turn up when people dig in the ground in classical lands. Every now and then we'll find a page or two of an unknown poem or a lost speech or something. However, there are some works that are definitely lost, that we'll never see again. Still, the fact that these works did not survive in the ground by no means proves that they did not exist — and, indeed, we know that they did, because we have records of their titles, quotes from them, occasional scraps of them, and so forth. We know for a fact that what we dig up is a bare fraction of what once was. If this is true for classical literature, written a scant couple thousand years ago, it must be overwhelmingly more true for biological history, many of the important parts of which occurred millions upon millions of years ago. ------- Another way in which classics can shed light on biology is in the very process of evolution. It seems counter-intuitive to some people that random events without any guiding hand can create a highly ordered and aesthetically beautiful system. However, we know that this happens with language, and we can literally read the process happening. All of the Romance languages (of which the major ones are Spanish, French, Italian, and Romanian) descend from Latin. We can tell that they descend from Latin because it is obvious from the grammatical features and the vocabulary. (For example, the sentence "I love you" is the same in Latin and in Spanish: te amo.) Moreover, we can see the process happening: people have been writing their native language in Spain ever since the Roman era, and we can trace the progression from Latin to Old Spanish to Modern Spanish through the texts that are found from the past two thousand years. Latin had a very ordered grammar. Spanish has a very ordered grammar, but it is different, and the difference stems from the random chance of how people spoke and more often mis-spoke, and how those errors were passed on. In this case, we can literally see how random chance (following certain basic rules) changes one highly ordered system to another highly ordered system. We can watch linguistic evolution happen. Moreover, we can find laws for linguistic evolution by watching it happen (as it continues to do) all over the world. There are rules for sounds that interchange more often than others, and there are rules for ways in which grammars shift: an inflectional language (like Russian) doesn't simply become an isolating language (like Mandarin Chinese) overnight. We know that random chance can create ordered systems in language, so why not in biology, too? We know that these random shifts follow certain patterns in language, so why not in biology, too? These are just some ways in which I think that other fields can make biological science more intuitive. [ Wednesday, May 17, 2006 20:37: Message edited by: Kelandon ] -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
Native Americans in General | |
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written Wednesday, May 17 2006 20:00
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Thuryl's point is probably the best one to make here. Also, as probably a lesser point: if the wages of tradesmen really do go up enough to encourage as many people to become tradesmen as are needed to meet demand, I'm inclined to think that the economic damage will be rather a lot. Think about what would happen if the per-hour price of hiring an carpenter (now at a median price of $16.78, according to the Bureau of Labor website) matched that of hiring a software engineer (now more than double that, and it's much, much higher for specialized ones) — just for the sake of argument, let's say that such an increase would be enough incentive. I'm not an economist, but I'm guessing that doubling the labor cost of tradesmen would do crazy things to the cost of building and repairing homes, maintaining roads and general infrastructure, and a wide variety of other things. [ Wednesday, May 17, 2006 20:01: Message edited by: Kelandon ] -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
a4 is the best game yet in Avernum 4 | |
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written Wednesday, May 17 2006 14:23
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quote:That's one of the more bizarre teasers I've ever heard. Now I am rather more intrigued by A5 than I ought to be. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
Dreams in General | |
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written Wednesday, May 17 2006 07:58
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quote::D -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
A lil dilemma... in Avernum 4 | |
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written Wednesday, May 17 2006 07:54
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A2. It has some really fun combats at various points (including my favorite combat in any Spiderweb game, the attack on the Ziggurat), and the plot is definitely better. I prefer the engine, too, but that's more of a personal preference. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
What exactly are slith avatars? in The Avernum Trilogy | |
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written Tuesday, May 16 2006 22:01
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For example, the plague of undead in A3 on the island south of Gale is caused by Zkal. People like him make undead. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
a4 is the best game yet in Avernum 4 | |
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written Tuesday, May 16 2006 19:16
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quote:*cough* *Ben's parents* *cough* -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
Native Americans in General | |
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written Tuesday, May 16 2006 18:36
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quote:This is what I said last page. Let's see if it has any impact this time. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
Native Americans in General | |
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written Tuesday, May 16 2006 13:02
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quote:Well, now we agree at least in part: if plumber's wages go up, there will be a few more plumbers. However, that doesn't mean that there will be enough plumbers (or carpenters or whatever), so there probably will still be a problem, and "reducing ignorance and folly" — getting more recruitment and publicity for the trades, perhaps, I don't know — is indeed a good idea, too. This is what I've been saying all along: the market won't completely solve the problem by itself. It may help, but we can (and therefore probably should) take further actions ourselves. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
Native Americans in General | |
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written Tuesday, May 16 2006 11:49
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quote:Wealth is being collected, yes, but I take issue with the idea that wealth is being collected as forcibly from the wealthy class now as it was from the Native Americans. It's being redistributed with the consent of the people from whom it is being taken — rich people have a vote, too, you know, which the Native Americans didn't. And that fact that some of the money does not directly benefit the rich isn't relevant. Some of the money does, which means that everyone who pays taxes gets something in return. Many of the Native Americans didn't get much in return for the vast quantities of land and resources taken. quote:No. :P In all seriousness, I don't have the data at hand, but I've read a few articles about this, and I have no doubt that someone who knew where to look could pull up the relevant figures. I just don't know where to look. quote:You're assuming that everyone knows exactly what the "rewards" of all jobs are and can make reasonable comparisons, which I think can be demonstrated to be flawed right now: people make uninformed career choices all the time. You're also assuming that the primary "reward" for a job is monetary compensation, which is potentially flawed, but I'm not sure that we need to go there. [ Tuesday, May 16, 2006 11:55: Message edited by: Kelandon ] -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
A Few More Advance Words On Geneforge 4 in Geneforge Series | |
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written Tuesday, May 16 2006 09:06
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I just got a mod alert from someone unidentifiable — Freeman Ryan? — that said the following about ADoS's post in this thread: quote:Well, whoever you are, have no fear. If you click on that link, you go to Polaris, which is a Spiderweb satellite board (and therefore permissible to advertise) and is family-friendly (no porn). And seriously, dude, do try to use a little common sense and excercise some fact-checking before you hit that Report Post button, please. [ Tuesday, May 16, 2006 09:08: Message edited by: Kelandon ] -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
What exactly are slith avatars? in The Avernum Trilogy | |
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written Tuesday, May 16 2006 08:51
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quote:It was nephilim only, I believe, but yes. Some of the generic undead that one finds are actually nephilim undead, not human undead. Aran: Yes, vahnavoi are undead, not vahnatai. In BoA, the only way that I know of to make a creature vulnerable to Repel Spirit is by setting its cr_species to 7 (Demon) or 8 (Undead), and vahnavoi are definitely set to 8 in corescendata. [ Tuesday, May 16, 2006 08:55: Message edited by: Kelandon ] -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
Benefits of joining then leaving Anama in A3? in The Avernum Trilogy | |
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written Tuesday, May 16 2006 08:47
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There isn't much benefit to joining them in the first place. You get some cheaper spells and such (which you get to keep even if you leave), but you can learn them elsewhere anyway, so there's no real point. Nothing gets taken away from you when you leave except your rings, though. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
Post Chat Snippets Completely Out Of Context in General | |
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written Tuesday, May 16 2006 08:43
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quote:If you were spelling it according to English phonetics, then wouldn't it be, "Ya, ya, der vagenhumpen"? -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
Native Americans in General | |
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written Tuesday, May 16 2006 08:35
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quote:That's already the case, though, and they're already not doing it. Being a plumber is already better-paid than working in fast food, but people are applying to the latter jobs in vastly higher numbers than the former. (And here I mean for full-time work, as an actual job, not just a temporary thing, and higher numbers in terms of number of people applying per job opening.) quote:The government is supposed to provide certain services that benefit everyone (roads, schools, etc.). These services cost money. That money has to come from somewhere, and there literally is not enough money among the lower-income earners to pay for all of it. Therefore, progressive taxation. There's no need to resort to the argument that you've stuffed in my and others' mouths. [ Tuesday, May 16, 2006 08:41: Message edited by: Kelandon ] -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
United 93 in General | |
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written Tuesday, May 16 2006 08:17
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quote:I will agree with you as far as saying that U.S. involvement on the world stage is usually not a primary focus of American media. However, the U.S. intervenes all over the place all the time. Alec can probably provide more evidence off the top of his head than I can, but my first thought is of Central America and the dozens of interventions there throughout the twentieth century. The U.S. meddles in other countries' politics all the time, often because of *arguably* pressing reasons (Iraq 2003-?, Kosovo in '99, Haiti in '94 — do you remember that? I don't — Kuwait in '91, etc.). In fact, going back at least to the Spanish-American War, there's been an intervention somewhere in the world just about every three years by the U.S. quote:The only substantial Muslim population in Europe in the eleventh century was in Spain, and that had been in place since the eighth century. What are you talking about? quote:The first ones of what? Did you just say that the first crusades weren't called by the Pope and therefore aren't counted among the crusades? I can't find any evidence of an unofficial crusade before the First Crusade, which was definitely called by a Pope. quote:Yes, they were. (Among other sources.) They weren't when they lived in Kazakhstan, but by the time they had come to the Middle East, they were. [ Tuesday, May 16, 2006 08:31: Message edited by: Kelandon ] -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
United 93 in General | |
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written Monday, May 15 2006 16:29
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quote:Wait, I'm sorry, I didn't read this until just now. Are you saying that Muslims believe in the Old Testament but not the New Testament? If so, that's entirely false. Muslims believe that Jesus was a prophet just as much as Moses was. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
United 93 in General | |
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written Monday, May 15 2006 11:51
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quote:I would venture to say that that's not even remotely true, unless one qualifies that, either by saying that an enormous variety of countries have had something of interest or value to the U.S. over the course of the past century or so, or by saying that this is the impression that America's political leaders have wanted to convey in spite of all evidence to the contrary. We've intervened a lot in international affairs, although we like to pretend that we haven't. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
Questions... in Avernum 4 | |
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written Monday, May 15 2006 10:13
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I typically recommend starting with A1, and I think I'm going to stick with that here. A4 has the latest engine, A3 is the biggest, and A2 has the best plot, but I think that A1 sets up the other games well. If you like ToME, you might find yourself liking the Exile series, which is more or less the same thing as the Avernum series with a different (more old-school) engine. Blades of Exile is definitely worth a look, because it has a look-and-feel much like ToME (judging from some Googled screenshots of ToME), and BoE features several hundred scenarios for literally thousands of hours of gameplay. I personally prefer Avernum to Exile, but you will hear varying opinions on that. [ Monday, May 15, 2006 10:17: Message edited by: Kelandon ] -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
United 93 in General | |
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written Monday, May 15 2006 08:09
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The Crusades, in theory, were a territorial grab, not an attempted genocide. They weren't trying to wipe out Jews and Muslims; they were just trying to get them out of the Holy Land. The supposed purpose of the Crusades and the actual purposes of the individuals involved were often at variance, as in the Fourth Crusade, which never actually made it to Israel and ended up sacking Constantinople instead. I was under the impression that the Turks in the Middle East at the time of the Crusades were overwhelmingly Muslim. If anyone has any information to contradict any of this, it'd be worth citing sources, because what I've just said is the way the story is normally told in the books that I've read. EDIT: That book is not new. The copyright date on it is 2000. [ Monday, May 15, 2006 08:10: Message edited by: Kelandon ] -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
Top of Factory for Golem Quest in The Avernum Trilogy | |
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written Sunday, May 14 2006 20:02
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Direct further discussion to this thread. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
United 93 in General | |
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written Sunday, May 14 2006 19:56
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quote:FYT. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
Avernum V in Avernum 4 | |
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written Sunday, May 14 2006 10:20
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Not having read the past thirteen pages, I'm wondering about something: has any good idea been suggested yet? -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
Strange Exile II bug in The Exile Trilogy | |
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written Sunday, May 14 2006 08:13
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I've never noticed that (for obvious reasons), but that's awesome. Does it work in any other Exiles? -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
HLPM - James's dialogue gone.. in Blades of Avernum | |
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written Saturday, May 13 2006 19:52
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Darnit. I fail at copying and pasting. Re-download. It should work now. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |