demagogue

You say that as if it were a good thing. The masses already have some pretty good stealth games. Actually, it's not the mass market appeal per se that puts me off a Thief 4, but I think these core concepts of which you speak, parallel platforming them on a console doesn't do them justice. The gameplay was honed so well that I feel like it's a "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" situation for most things, and if they make a sequel it's too predictable they're going to treat it as if something was broken and try to "fix" it. That and I feel like Thief(style gameplay)'s best days to come for a while are in FMs. Besides, if they really want to make a new stealth game, there are plenty of fresh ideas they can try out before reprising the Thief franchise. I want to see the genre branching out more into new territory; that's something that mass market appeal might actually be good for. Even a modern day thieving game might be cool, but it doesn't need the connection to classic thief; they should try out new ideas in a new world.

The FM that came to my mind was Ominous Bequest when you're being in close quarters and you have to find . It took a little keyboard aerobics to cycle through 50 objects while dodging bad guys surrounding you. That's the kind of situation when the cycle-inventory system can suck ... but fortunately it doesn't happen all that often.

I think Nietzsche had a colorful responses to the argument that the ideal in life is to be positive, compassionate, and search out "happy" lives (I feel like I already quoted this, but don't know where now...): Haha, it's a strong response. Edit: Well, I was going to recommend some reading for Odd, but looking back over it, I'm not sure if it will be his bag or not. But I may as well keep the post anyway, for the record: By the way, Odd said he doesn't like reading philosophy, but if you're going to have these opinions, I think it's worth knowing they're part of a tradition of like-minded people. If you want a more blog style instead of outright books or articles, there's Leiter's blogs http://leiterreports.typepad.com/ (and maybe http://www.brianleiternietzsche.blogspot.com/ ) and then you can follow the links from the first blog (edit: they may not be as good for this now that I see he's slowed down the political/cultural commentary, though, but still in your train of thinking and the links are still good). But for what it's worth, as far as books go: It wouldn't hurt to read a little Nietzsche ( http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/n#a779 ), like Zarathustra and Thoughts out of Season, some of Emerson's essays ( http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/e#a1071 ) and for a contemporary take, Leiter ( http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAu...m?per_id=119223 ). Two or three papers I think you might appreciate from Leiter are: 1. Why Tolerate Religion? - http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1012910 (email full text paper, at the bottom) 2. Morality Critics (the Nietzsche chapter) - http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=952771 and maybe 3. The Case for Nietzschean Moral Psychology - http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=816224

Yeah, I had this kind of problem. Basically I went to a special forum dedicated to dealing with malware: http://forums.spywareinfo.com/ You can read about my escapade if you want: http://forums.spywareinfo.com/lofiversion/...php/t51518.html I think they have a pretty solid system because these guys handle these problems over and over every day. You get a program called "Hijack This", run it, then post the log ... then one of the resident experts can read it and, pretty much no matter what it is, they'll know exactly what the problem(s) are from the log. Then they give you step by step instructions to get rid of it. Edit: As you can see the instructions they gave me were pretty elaborate, it was also a tenacious Trojan that had to have all its grabby tentacles cut and deleted in a special way before you could delete the trojan itself in another special way. But it got rid of it absolutely. What I like about the site, beyond the generous help they give you, is the whole spirit of the place. You get the idea these guys despise malware with great passion. So it's good to see another face, a sympathetic human face, to cyberspace. They have training courses people can take to slowly but surely become resident experts. If I had the time & initiative, I think it'd be pretty cool to be trained to be a malware destroyer ... few things can bring out our humanity better than knowing how to make vicious malware go away for people that aren't technical, like my parents, it's like their greatest, sickening horror come-true that they will literally suffer from for days. And to make that go away for them, with simple step by step instructions, is like an act of pure compassion.

You can call it retro, but it's also minimalist. I think a change like that to the interface would change the game's character a little ... although better or worse is a matter of opinion, but I like the modest minimalism of the inventory system. (I wouldn't mind the option to have an RPG grid-system for some FMs if it fit the mission style, though.)

Happy New Year, everybody.

Ok, I think I get it. It's like the system of what keys open what doors is independent of the system controlling what keys stack ... so you could make any individual key open any door(s) you want (via editor name), and any group of keys stack (inv name). You're just saying that means, for example, that the author needs to pay attention to make sure every key in the stack opens the door they're collectively supposed to (by linking every editor name to the door). That's the punchline.

This should save some familiar grief. I'm not sure I follow this. Just to clarify, a lot of missions are going to want multiple keys that have the same name, stack, and all open the same door ... it happens when multiple guards are carrying the same key; you can swipe it from any one, but you don't want to give the message they're carrying different keys, so you want them to stack. Are you saying this can't be done, because keys that stack get different editor names, and different editor names can't open the same door?

It's still in the general neighborhood, sort of a cool coincidence. The one thing about AI that we haven't seen in any of the videos yet is whether they can sword fight, and how the whole range of aggressive behavior is handled. I remember digging into T2 sword fighting behavior in dromed once and it's still one of the least documented parts, so it was hard to make heads or tails of what was actually going on ... people just want to leave it be. It's one thing I'm particularly curious about in TDM at this stage.

Happy to hear about it. We knew it was "playable", but I wasn't sure exactly what that meant, so I guess now we'll find out. I can expect it's going to generate quite a bit of discussion ... if you had any questions as to how it will perform on different systems or how people will take this or that decision, you'll know soon enough.

I hope you mean "Yes, Doom 3 supports colored specular" ... as opposed to "Yes, there is at least one game out of all that supports it".

I'm the exact opposite. If a copy of the script gets released, I sometimes like to read it before I watch the movie so I know exactly what to look out for, and I can pay attention better (or if there's a book, I'll read the book before the movie). But it depends on the movie ... it works for good, complex stories, but there's not much point for an action movie. Reading the script is fun enough, the story is just as fresh, but then it's fun to see how the story gets translated into film and the discovery happens all over again ... and I'll think "Oh, that's an interesting direction they took that", or "Oh ... they deleted a scene .... interesting", and then I'll feel like I have a little inside-track into the story that other people watching don't have, that makes the story come alive a little more because you know about things going on with the characters behind the scenes. I've already read the script for Indiana Jones 4 and am interested in what direction the movie takes it ... I already know they've completely changed the main artifact they were after, but the first part should stay. But I also like to re-watch (good) movies over and over and try to get more out of them over time.

I got the following email from a lawyer friend and had to post it here. If you thought my greeting was too PC...

I thought it was too long and a bit much for a simple thread ... who cares about the meaning of the Winter Solstice? haha. Actually, I changed my mind and wanted to put it back as soon as I 86'd it, but then it was gone. So much for acting on a whim for no good reason.

I didn't care about the PC police. Those were really just the first words that came to me.

Happy holidays everybody

I found a nice inlay for the fretboard ... thought I'd show it off. Still things I want to do (for one thing, make the upper-fretboard surface longer to make the inlay longer; & change that black to a black-wood texture, and as always the outside border needs fixing), but I like the direction it's going. I'm debating having the fretboard end with an arabesque pointed arrowhead rather than just meeting the rosette. It might be tricky to draw, but it'd look cool, I think.

Wow, congratulations! Too bad the conference is in SanFran and not NYC.

Unless you can steal one, of course.

Yeah, I like the comment that said something like if you want to make a game about hurricanes ripping through crate factories on small islands, then have we got an engine for you!

I'm happy you noticed.

I thought it was funny, the problem was that nobody could read any posts, and you wrote a post about it. The very act of being able to read your post would make it irrelevant. But I knew immediately what the post would be, anyway, so I started that "irony" thread (thinking the site might be down a while). Thank goodness it cleared up quickly, though.

nobody here but us chickens. Edit: I suppose you can delete this now ... considering the point is now gone, now that the forum is working again.

This rant has fuck all to do with American football. Who the hell mentioned anything about academic history? Macsen is talking about the fact that no US football team has ever gotten into the post-season with a 1-13 record with 2 games left. He's not talking about disentangling subtle social dynamics and divining the meaning of capricious leaders' actions. The meaning of 13 straight losses is pretty clear however you slice it.* If the Dolphins did make it past the regular season to the post-season, it would be nothing short of astounding. If you're going to gay up a thread with these irrelevant tangents, at least keep it to the threads that are already a little gay to begin with. * To be fair, looking back at the record I didn't realize how many games were less than 3 points difference; damn that must be so frustrating.

And the Cowboys lost! What a weird turn of events. They were never close to this bad all year. Not a single touchdown? Thank goodness it's practically the end of the season. Bring on the play-offs.