Outlooker

I double checked all entries, all done so. Still the malloc 4194312. Adv. graphics options from a freshly torrented 1.04: http://img6.immage.de/1503b1unbenannt.jpg Edit: Additionally disabling all graphical fancy yielded same results.

I run 1.04 and cannot find a trace of any compression options in the advanced video menu ?! Anyway, I activated all compression in the configuration files and I still get the error in Return to the City v2. My hardware should be decent enough anyway - 4890 1GB, RAM 4GB. So I feel quite out of options to fix that myself.

Another masterpiece. A certain older bitch was no issue because I am generally suspicious and loaded up on wetting equipment and scouted the area around the book shop before I dared to enter, so Lady Unfriendly got an instant water cure *phew*. But I was certainly shocked, didn't expect that old problem to ... revisit. Guards were really numerous and difficult in places, but I liked that, keeps one on edge. Better than them being useless soon-to-sleep sword supports. Story: brilliant. That kind of thing motivates so much more than just good looks. Sidenote: By doing that I felt an unusual joy. Tempted to duplicate such behavior IRL , but afraid I lack the skill. Will compensate by stealing choc now. Thanks for two very pleasant hours.

Yes, for some weird reason vuze was the problem, using BitTornado was working well instantly. Thanks.

I Cannot DL 1.04 Vuze shouts "Connection Error (IOException:Server returned HTTP response code: 403 for URL: http://www.systemshock.org/torrents/announce.php?info_hash=a%94c%25%D0%EDFP%21%18%9D%22qw%14%27YK%27%B3&peer_id=-AZ4208-VTgHJnxEgZFK&supportcrypto=1&port=13707&azudp=49000&azhttp=8080&uploaded=0&downloaded=0&left=2076768910&corrupt=0&event=started&numwant=100&no_peer_id=1&compact=1&key=1Li1LQoj&azver=3)" Is the problem with me ? Last DM versions torrented fine, though. Please help. Edit Oh, and the problem persists for about a week now, not going away. Other torrents tested work fine on my side.

It was an (early) OCZ one. Couple of months ago there was a SSD test on heise.de or golem.de regarding SSD use in commercial data centers (heavy use) - the result was basically that all brands other than Intel had at least twice as much breakdowns - the higher price for Intel SSD seems justified by that. Edit: http://www.golem.de/1012/79989-3.html Intel SSDs turned out to be the only SSD brand that was actually more reliable than the best HDDs (failure rate about 1,2%) (Intel 0.6% failure rate;Kingston, Crucial, Corsair, OCZ between 2 and 3%) EDIT2:(For the sake of being interesting) Worst HDD was a Western Digital model; 10% failed. Ouch.

Yes. In Darkmod less drastic than in most other games, though (especially 1st loadup, quickloads become almost instantaneous). Don't try to shave off the last 20 Bucks and get yourself an Intel SSD (much more reliable long term) - I have an X25-M 80 GB under quite heavy load for over a year now and it's great - friend bought cheaper and had some SSDs suddenly dead. Just get OS on one small partition, and use another for games etc. Seldom used or speed-wise uncritically data like movies or music I amass on a cheap 2HDD-Raid-1 for data security; the games I play or software I use regularly are on the SSD. Afer all, that SSD felt like the most drastic computer speedup in the last decade for me (turns out most of the time computers feel slow while waiting for HDDs to come up with data). That said, get yourself a SSD, but take a small and fast one. Smallest Intel should be best overall. Edit: Just looked it up: There is an 40GB Intel SSD available for about 70 Euros. Seems like the best for the buck today.

This is actually an interesting topic: I know one of the driving forces behind DLC/DRM trends in the gaming industry is the financial crowd; specifically I know that Goldman Sachs (highly influential and profitable investment bank that has a record of nothing but winning streaks essentially) had a couple of months ago a "strategic" meeting with "game industry leaders" (I'm small time shareholder of GS and so I got yearly business reports, but this stuff is openly available nontheless). Such a thing usually means there are heap-loads of money to be made in that field in the near future. And yes, GS investment vehicles did load up on game industry stock heavily; as is Warren Buffet, if alone indirectly through his investment in GS. And their incentive seems to pay: Game sale returns are skyrocketing: just think about all that online RPGs or the stellar sales of those Modern Warfare shooters lately. They come with DRM and DLCs, some (more sane) customers speak out against it, but the huge crowd of more or less juvenile or maybe not so critic consumers buy like there is no tomorrow (because pirating became now much more problematic). And people WANT those games, they behave like drug addicts (think about huge queues of people besieging apple stores when the new Ixyz is going on sale; multiply that for World of Warcraft expansions or said Modern Warefare shooters - I've seen it myself at midnight at a local shopping center and was flabbergasted). I mean , we are speaking about almost a billion dollars in sales in a couple of days for a *single* popular video game - even the movie and music industry thrown together are nothing but *dwarfed* by the modern games industry. So , DLC and DRM are a thing that will stay with us, because it about unlocks the full economic potential of games for the industry. Not being able to lend or resale a game is only a comparatively minor aspect. I usually preferred to buy games I like about two to three years after they came on the market; they were not only cheap, they even got their copy protection removed in those "late editions", making them as convenient like a well cracked product. Plus after three years one can play with setting maxed out, because of newer and cheaper hardware; being patched practically bug-free after that time also doesn't hurt. That aside, this practice has two shortfalls: First, having to wait, second, game developers are getting nothing out of it just like I would have pirated. So, I do buy the few games I really like on release at full price (Thief, DeusEx, MassEffect, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, Severance:Blade of Darkness and some more) and use cracks if available for convenience if necessary. PS: Bikerdude, you seem to have a very similar taste in games as me, so I think you should strongly consider getting Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, maybe for Christmas; it's cheap now and generally really really good, even without mentioning the aspect of being able to play as thief (there is even an tribute to Garrett in the game). If you can't buy it, I could "lend" it to you, but I think it should be available one way or another.

And right after St. Albans another great one ! Loved the secret area of captain Casanova there; found it only by luck The distant countryside/city visuals made it feel quite right like an mansion outside but near town on a hill. Nice little side story. However, I missed clues or were not clever enough to detect them on how to bypass the security device in the first round; only after "trying" and seeing what moved where in the mechanism I could block it. I came out only short a few dozen gold; it's the loot I left with the card players probably, but I saw no possibility how to grab those coins from the table undetected. Thought there might be undead (I eyed a certain skeleton very suspiciously during looting) but they kept sleeping Great mission, it's such stuff I play thief for.

Oh, that would have been me there. I only voted "good" on story because it IS solid and fully suitable, but I had T2 missions that had a story so brilliant, with side-stories, twists, drama, cabals and so much background story that they were highly immersive and generated great atmosphere on their own, making technical aspects of the mission even rather secondary. Here, we have "just" a standard get-stuff-solve-riddle-over - type mission. Thats fine, and the glowing text on the stone tablet, the readables (with the Latin), the riddle and overall style all classy, but nothing really extraordinary - I have only 4 options, and I would have voted well above "good", it's just "excellent" needs a more alive and deeper story, I think.

You can climb on the roof in a not too obvious place, and go on from there.

That mission was great. Bikerdude is a devilish skilled loot-hider - I feel I turned every pot upside down and I'm still a couple of 100s short... Are you married ? You seem to know how to set aside a little extra Visually among many other tings I especially liked the tomb area - made me feel like 'ol graverobber - probably the floor fog goes a long way. Adored the level of detail sometimes - the clock house gears were turning, accessible through a maintenance opening - and yes, there was even a flask of oil sitting right there More AI would have been nice - but about half of the population seemed to be in the pub, so sneaking there was really difficult. The roof riddle really got me - I didn't expect to use those chains ... after a certain Komag mission I was not eager to hop on anything that might swing. The level of accessibility in town was worthy of the best Thief mission there ever was - I almost got mad searching for access and loot (a little bit too much of that can feel like being a mouse in a labyrinth in my opinion). The story was proper, but I think a little plain. But building a visually and technically great mission takes a lot of talent already - maybe there should be people more or less specializing in sketching out great stories with readables and twists and side stories and all of that so that mission authors can draw from their ideas/build on them. Artists are important for a reason - not only for architectural ideas and textures; maybe "story writer/developer" should be seen as an independent and worthy skill ,too. I hope we see this cathedral again - as it is or more or less changed, maybe in an undead mission or partially burned down, or taken over by the inventors or whatever. Thanks bikerdude, I had a great time.

Rafters? I jumped/climbed on them and moved from bar to bar through almost all the cathedral, but I couldn't find anything ...

I'm having lots of tools and more than 5 grand in gold, BUT I'M TOO DARN STUPID TO FIGURE OUT WHERE TO FIND THE "roof of the world" - CLUE. please help

Many of the things you talk about is in a material already available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerogel I happen to have a nice piece right here (of my own manufacture ). Incredibly lightweight, though not full of vacuum. For comparison: The H2 you talk about has a D of about 90 grams per m³ under normal pressure. Air has about 1300 grams per m³. So, for purposes of generating lift normal H2 is quite good compared to vacuum (density 0) already - not so much would be gained by using something better. However, like wikipedia says, the record low density solid is an aerogel of about 1000 g/m³ - that thing will float/rise in air. But such an aerogel is very brittle and unstable. About your idea with nanotubes or graphene : As a lifting body such a material would have not only to withstand the pressure/strain on its "vacuum enclosing cells"; a huge problem would probably be diffusion of gases through the material because of the pressure gradient , spoiling the vacuum. I work in the OLED/organic electronics development in Saxony, and there are considerable problems of keeping "air" (not just the usual components, there are more "sneaky" ones like noble gases, He,H,NO2,CH4,CO...) out of those circuits/materials with organic membranes (glass/metal seals are of course of no use, organic electronics are meant to be used as rolled displays and so on). So, a solid material that has buoyancy in air is feasible - in more than one way probably. But even nanostructured carbon is a huge shot short from making such a stuff mechanically very stable. Vacuum-light AND very tough combined is not even in far sight anywhere, I think. Maybe other know more, however; I spy Sotha was a chemist too ?

Behold: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/03/ff_masterthief_blanchard/all/1

Well, it may look childish naive to some; but such a view is not hurting anyone, as long it doesn't changes behavior negatively (like instead of looking for food, praying for food ->starving->dying). We don't know about reality; science is the best philosophic tool we have, but it is not solving any of the big questions. If tomorrow the holy pyramidal unicorn of the one god, which happens to be a blue tomato, actually descends from the sky and brings paradise and immortality to us all you would have to accept it as reality - even if it looked silly before. Guys, we all have to better the world, and should not waste arguing WHY EXACTLY we should do so.

And this is the important thing: The outcome counts, not the way you get there. Basically, all major religions AND (humanist) atheists want in practice exactly the same thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Rule So why arguing about the individual subjective reasons when it's the exact same thing we all want ? Some FEEL a divine intervention and responsibility, others FEEL it is not so. What unifies us is that we want quite the same thing: A certain set of ethics, morals, a certain way of living. And while there is sometimes (small) disagreement how good morals look like, there is quite instant universal agreement what bad morals look like (it's not always easy to decide what's good or bad exactly ; but practically all humans notice really bad or unjust behavior/conditions on the spot when they see them). So, if people want to have magic/religion/mystics I have no problem with it - after all, our very existence is still (and by all science) exactly that: mystic. I suppose many atheists have a so big problem with religion because in the name of religion many horrendous things happened - and are happening. Many religions are just ripoffs, like Scientology. So, lot's of people identify to be religion as a threat to mankind, and an especially sneaky one - and react with contempt for anything religious. But science is also used for bad things, and Nazi ideology had some roots in humanism (weird twisted ones of course; but most religions have been and are literally raped to fit an ideology to do bad things like crusades, suicide bombings, witch burnings and all that). So, as long religion - "as advertised" - is used to help people it's just fine and only a matter of personal choice, absolutely acceptable. But when it's forced on people, and used for bad things, it is something to be defiant against.

Certainly. But should that be not just luck ? In many other situation however, people fail, as it is probable. A low chance for something to happen doesn't mean it's so special: No one really expects to win the lottery, but to dozens of people worldwide have it happen weekly. Or another weird example: Some guy here in Germany was struck by lightning this year - right in his head. Sure thing X[ one might think, but two paramedics were right there and reanimated him - half a year later that guy is almost as new ! Luck or guardian angel - such things happen naturally. But I think I might know what you mean - having overcome some serious problem, against all odds, and seeing it as "help from God". I was myself tempted to think so in some cases, but it could have been just luck. However, I hope that it wasn't just cold heartless statistics at work but something more ... meaningful. I'd really like to have it that way, but I'm in doubt - I hope for it, but I KNOW nothing. Edit: Even an entire lifetime of such luck could be just statistics - as long as very few people have this luck. If we talk about many more or even all people having such luck, even if only in a limited timeframe, then that would be ... unusual to a degree I readily would accept a divine explanation.

What do you mean ? That health, IQ, beauty, luck, opportunity, wealth and so on are not evenly distributed, in other words, our existence seems not "fair" for most people ?

Well, my english is not the best and I haven't had time to read the thread entirely, but I think I might add a few facts (as I see them) to clear some things up a little: All philosophy (and all science) has until now not achieved to answer the greatest and most basic problem we are all concerned with: Where do we come from, why we are here , and where we are going to. We just somehow develop consciousness at some point and don't now how or why; we are stumbling through our lives by whatever seems useful; and then we die, knowing not what happens after that with certainty. Reason and science don't help much here, because there is just no data, no facts to work with. Organized religion is usually a scam and/or a political control thing; but (to quote Dostoevsky :"If God does not exist, everything is permitted") Think about it - if one would be 100% sure there is no god to "punish" ones "sins" in the unknown after death , this person could do ANYTHING - any atrocity on any scale, you just had to make sure not to get caught or rise to absolute power). I think it is very important to separate , if you will, (organized) religion from religiousness per se. I don't believe in any hogwash of any organized religion -I feel they are all just made up by humans for money/control/political power . However, I _HOPE_ that there is MEANING to all of this I am and that surrounds me - and that it is a good. Therefore, I sometimes "pray" - not to please some Jesus or any specific trendy religions god, but in a much more general way - for coping with fear, wanting the best for all (and me), to maybe gain hope and meaning to all of this; for I understand almost nothing, know nothing for sure (other than I know that I am) and in the end have no control about what happens with me. That praying is just by pure luck an anatomic and cultural thing - I could as well do it without folding hands or by wiggling my back fin if I had one - the outer form is just not important at all. I'm quite anti-religion myself; but I'm not atheist - I'm agnostic : I see it absolute logical that we have to doubt if there is just no proof, not even something to use for a good presumption. So ANY argument about god exists/not exists is without any value for me until there is proof. However, it is science that gave me much hope that "there is something" in terms of meaning and greatness: look at the universe - it's dimensions alone are so vast it's impossible to comprehend it for our current minds (which limits of comprehension are quite reached if confronted with the huge space of, say, the African Savannah - for anything greater we have to use mathematics to make sense of it). And then, there is information - the basic occurrence , that information somehow seems not to be bound to matter, but being , if you will, transcendent: We all know it's not important in which form a book or music or a picture or all knowledge is represented : You can have it encoded as grooves on a disk, on paper, as pigments on the flat remains of trees or whatever - more importantly one can encode it, and the information is just the alignment/array/arrangement of most simple structures - most simple we can comprehend are bits. We seem to know that what we "are" is certain patterns/structures in that electrochemical machine called brain - in a way, just information. It might sound stupid, but we maybe could exist at any given moment as an "image", just like that used for restoring computer software on a disk. Our self might so be expressible as an alignment/array/arrangement - as information, not bound to be bound to specific matter or matter at all. After all, I think science may have killed god, or more specific, our ability to be sure that there is a god: How should we recognize him ? 2000 years ago, some trickery like burning bushes or destruction of cities was enough to awe people to believe in a god - but today we know, SOMEONE could have lit that biblical bushes with CO2 lasers and applied a nuke or antimatter to that city so "it rained fire". If today god or the Messiah came strolling by demanding that we do by his rules, how could we accept him? He could be as well be just an technologically advanced alien from outer space that has enough technological prowess to do "miracles" or even manipulate our brains. I just don't see any possibility for "god" anymore to be accepted for sure as such - at least not while we are alive. However, I most definitely see no point of arguing so heatedly about such matters. There has been (and is) even much bloodshed about all of this, which for us today should be considered shameful. Philosophical stances like different religions, agnostics and atheists can easily separate people; their separative effects are however usually political motivated, and we should not fall for this, making us marionettes for crazy fundamentalist or power-hungry people. The most unifying answer for that is that we all usually want the same: The (unspecific) "good" - which is a powerful common motive.

Whoa.Of course not. No hard feelings. I just pointed it out here now and, like one or two years ago already also here. But I hardly think I was the first to wanting that in or mentioning it. It's just more or less the first time that feature has a chance to be implanted as a regular feature in thief, or A Thief, like Darkmod, I know of, thats all. Has nothing to to with me, really. Also, I don't see that as an achievement of any sort. Just wanna help.

Glad you like my idea. Nevertheless, it would be the first additional gameplay element over thief; until now, Darkmod was more or less "just" a copy. With the implementation of treadnoise arrows Darkmod is becoming more like thief evolution ... (Yes I know about the awesome object manipulation, flame propagation and all that already in DM and being a big improvement over vanilla thief). And let's all try to forget about those oil flasks ...

How inconvenient. One should think a judge has better judgment... It's really surprising, or better said shocking me sometimes, how gullible even persons in more "important" jobs are. Ah, yes, conviction rate. Good old you are indicted you are always (at least somewhat) guilty ... We in Germany have TV shows with police officers which basically advertise: Crime doesn't pay. For instance, they brag about a nearly 100% shop lifting crime resolve rate, pointing out that shoplifting is hugely stupid and only losers do it all get caught etc. etc. What they are not deem worth mentioning in public is that this shop lifting crime resolve rate is as high because most shop liftings are not even reported because any investigation is futile - only those cases that get the thieves red handed and have it all recorded on tape get even reported ... resulting in such a nice number - representing not even 1% of shopliftings.

Careful here. TV is, and has always been, the most powerful tool of mass propaganda that ever was. Almost everything in TV has purpose, very few things happen by chance. The typical 30 second - advertising spot is by far the most powerful yet most efficient advertising/propaganda tool ever devised. I could go deep into psychology here, but in a few words: Practically nobody sees himself influenced by ads, but if you scientifically test this almost everyone is hugely affected by it. Frequent mentioning/showing of a brand alone builds unconscious familiarity with it and reliably makes you choose the soda "you already know". That huge CocaCola ad budget really pays off. If people are tested to judge two unmarked soda cans for better taste, its mostly about 50:50, if you attach the CocaCola logo on one of them and some unknown on the other, it's becoming hugely in favor of CocaCola. Or kids programs: they're loaded with ads for stuff, and sales rocket reliably... Quality of programs is another issue. You want many viewers to sell much ads. Yet, attracting viewers means to offer some content. Interesting, quality content is expensive to produce. There are just no loads of really good quality stuff to fill the airtime. Really good stuff is a scarce resource, almost per definition. So why bother with such difficult stuff ? Most things advertised, that have highest profits, are stuff that mostly idiots want to buy. Perfumes, hight tech yogurts, sugar loaded sodas, fancy washing miracles, ringtones for mobiles, insane consumer credit offers and all that. The target audience is quite low tier. People with not much sense for quality, be it program or product. So,why waste resources ? You take the least quality program that gets the stuff done. Most what those people watch (and buy) should be a personal insult, yet they consume. It's like this: Smart people watch this stuff for some while; then they are disgusted of the bland content and repetivity and seek out more interesting things. Dumb people watch this stuff forever, all day, and do hardly anything else until they die. Dumb people are numerous and "good" consumers; if anything is good enough for them it will hardly be improved. It's good enough, doing it's job. The result is that ridiculous TV program. The sooner you notice how bad, distasteful, ad-laden , manipulative uninteresting stuff it really is and stop consuming it the brighter you are. And it's not just ads. They are forming mass consciousness with it too. I can speak only for German TV here, but shows where bold, righteous German public servants (police, public authority, ...) battle evil (murders, thieves, drug dealers) are hugely popular, and the states good servants always win. It's a huge brainwashing that you can trust your beloved government and it's representatives. If you do what you are told, everything will be in order..., the "officials" know best whats good for you and they always find out everything about everyone and always win in the end ... Every "opposition" is presented with an "evil" touch. May have something to do that we are a society of pensioners here, but you get the drift. Some things are even so ridiculously obvious that it looks hilarious : The "good guys" in German TV are practically ALWAYS driving costly high prestige German-made cars - so that never anyone is able to miss that fact, there are loads and loads of scenes where people get in/out of those advertised cars, or weird ages long takes in which they come along a driveway or whatever to make the beauty of that German car stand out. It's really funny, but few people notice actively. There are other things, like the police in the US has arranged with Hollywood since the 60ies: Shootings have to be unrealistically portrayed to feed real world crooks with wrong/deadly gun fighting behavior unconsciously : Instead of taking careful aim when shooting, or moving rapidly sideways in a shooting to lower chances of getting hit back while attacking most gun wielders are portrayed stationary shooting and taking no decent aim, looking "cool" - feeding that self destructive behavior in the brains of real time crooks which copy it widely - greatly benefiting police in thug/police shutouts in the US for example. The guy who had this idea even got a medal for it back then because it saved so much police officers lives and still does. Another propaganda tool are those "CSI"-like shows: They basically deliver the message that crime doesn't pay and in the end your cool good righteous government and it's employees notice, solve and punish every single crime, with incredible scientific methods nobody has any chance to stand against... They are airing stuff like that to reduce the crime rate. It's no coincidence, it has purpose. By making people think "they" will find everything out, know everything, with methods you cannot really grasp, it's better for you to not be criminal and don't try in the first place. It's successful propaganda/"education" that influences a good amount of people. And, I somehow see a general dumbing down of TV and big parts of the population. Decades ago, there was much interesting stuff in TV, like a professor teaching space flight stuff hour after hour, much to "dry" for todays audience. Today, even most documentaries are dumb stuff, leaving you knowing almost nothing more an hour later, like stuff about the greatest bridges or those nice US aircraft carriers and whatnot. You in GB have a rising Chav problem, and in Germany and France similar phenomenons are sharply on the rise. Some psychology professors/biologists here even predict (on the quiet) that humanity will split up in a more brainy group/subspecies and a much simpler one, because exponentially accelerating technological and cultural changes/challenges which only a small group of people can handle to their advantage. It's not necessarily that people get smarter, but those who are not so smart more and more ... stand out/behind. Oh god, my afternoon. Almost gone. I tricked my in writing too much gibberish ...