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Quoth the Upright Citizens Brigade "Everyone here needs to coooooooooooooooooooooool out." Reasonable people can and will disagree. In particular, we spend alot of time arguing about things that really come down to opinion, and alot of people on these forums don't know how to write with tact. I don't know if they do it out of ignorance, or because it amuses them, but there is no reason to take it personally whatever the cause. Ultimately there are an infinite number of games we could make and everyone here, if given their druthers would likely make a different one.

From our multipage discussion in January: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=3244&st=0 Virtually everyone thought the hieght difference between the thief and guards was too high. In fact the only people arguing the heights were ok were you and Oddity.

Well, unless you changed something Spar, I don't think I can adjust the values without affecting the players eye height. Aside from that, you told me NOT to change the values, becuase you were going to find a way to 'scale' the light gem while the player crouches. The lightgem is tied to the player view height, and I already made the adjustments to put the tip of the gem in the players head months ago, but the problem happens when the player crouches. Upon crouching, the eye height drops to the player models chest. Here is where you discussed scaling the model. http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=2890&hl=

This has probably already been discussed on the internal forums, but what the heck... I think it would be great if, when entering a poison-gas area, you would get a breath-meter like when you're underwater instead of just automatically taking damage. I figure a master thief should be capable of holding his breath whether he's swimming or not. It's not like there aren't other ways to automatically hurt the player, and this would provide mappers a way to hurry players through areas without being forced to damage them (thus avoiding the "here's a convenient health potion, you'll need it" syndrome).

Well, two things: I was flicking throught the the nVidia website where it (somewhere) claimed that the 7900 supports a realtime global illumination solution (photon mapping or radiosity, it didn't eleborate on what kind of model they used or anything - the implication was that it rendered radiosity lightmaps in realtime in hardware though). Two, the tech demo from Crytec showed an editor view where a light was being moved around in real time, with shadows and diffuse ambient light consistent with some kind of real time global illumination model, and there has been numerous reports of next gen engines supporting real time global illumination of some sort on the horizon. Whether or not all of this is true or not I can't say, but the Crysis demo videos didn't look like any lighting model I've seen in a game yet, it looked like much higher quality lighting than in Doom 3 or any other currently available game engine. OpenGL 2.0 supports realtime radiosity in hardware BTW. Here are some links for you to consider: http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article918.asp http://www.cs.unc.edu/~coombe/research/radiosity/ http://dee.cz/rri/ http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/to...topic_id=381120

Oops! Make that *Don* Ross ... I didn't have the book in front of me when I wrote the post and just did it by (bad) memory. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/026218246...glance&n=283155 Thanks for your suggestions Max. The Ross book starts of distinguishing just what economics is the study of ... utility-optimization in the face of scarcity. I don't think it ever claimed to cover *all* behavioral patterns, but then again it also took pains to say that no particular behavioral patter could be a priori left out of the "machine" either, e.g., religious, artistic, political behavior, etc. So there you go. But I haven't got to the really interesting chapters at the end that talk about the actually links between econ and cogsci, so I'm anxious to know where he's going in that regard. I know right now he's focusing on just what "utility" really amounts to, what it is to "want" something that prompts you to action, and how the maximizing of satisfying that desire lets you choose among options, theoretical stuff like that. The Glumcher book "Neuroeconomics" looks at it in the reverse direction, how evolution actually "designed" neural-areas to be optimizing-machines, so the lessons of economics could actually be used to understanding the wiring, and uses the example of the (LIP) system which directs your eye muscles, that is, visual focus, what you want to look at, how you want to look at it, when, for how long, etc ... and the case is really pounded home that it uses a simple method of relative expected utility to weigh various "look at me!" options and choose among them, at least in part. And then it goes on to suggest that this sort of thing is a general feature in a lot of behavioral decisionmaking and should color how we look at these sorts of brain areas, at least for low level, more "reflex" like behaviors. The higher-level/more reflective decisionmaking you go, maybe the more things get complicated. This has got to be one of the more meandering threads ... anyway, I like it; sort of a grab-bag of what's interesting in the world right now. And it's not like you guys police OT so much in these "undisciplined" forums to stave off the overly-curious masses...

Napalm, if you really have been just hanging around waiting to hear what to do, why haven't you contributed to the recent discussions about the menus? The following issue in particular was directed right at you: If/when you're around, you need to speak up. Projects like this require continuous communication. The relevant thread: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=3549

Maybe you can look around in an animator or 3D forum? MD5 is IMO rather popular, so there should be some converters to reconstruct it, or some app that can read and play it natively and export to other formats. Don't know wether some forums exist specifically for animators, but I would be surprised it not. At least in 3D forums they should know about it.

Whoa... http://forums-fr.ubi.com/groupee/forums/a/...2234#7911042234 A guy translated it, and it can be roughly read with babelfish, but supposedly it says that Ubi is dropping starforce for future games. Damn, starforce is in deep shit.

I don't know much about the series, I've never followed it (pics from the next one reminds me of NWN a bit though), but according to this http://forums.ubi.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc...3234#5521023234 Ubi won't be putting starforce into HoMM5. That is pretty darned significant. Ubi is the starforce bitch of the gaming world. Maybe they're finally hearing the fans and dropping it. I hope they make it company policy before Dark Messiah comes out.

I am building a low-end/mid-range PC with a target price of $550. My goal is to build something that will be satisfactory for the time being, but substantially upgradable in the future. So far, I think I've done pretty well (much more credit to those on the steam forums and hardware IRC channels that have assisted me), but I'm trying to get as much input as possible. Therefore, if my fellow DarkModders would be so kind as to analyze the configuration I have below, your criticisms would be very welcome . MB: ASUS A8N5X Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail $77 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16813131569 CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice 1GHz HT 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor - Retail $120 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16819103537 PSU: Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-550 550W Power Supply - Retail $90 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16817103931 RAM: pqi TURBO 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Dual Channel Kit System Memory - Retail $66.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16820141152 GFX: GIGABYTE GV-NX66T128D-SP Geforce 6600GT 128MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail $114.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16814125015 CASE: CHENMING 301KEB-0-0 Black Computer Case - Retail $35.50 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16811125450 HD: Western Digital Caviar SE WD400JD 40GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM $49.00 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16822144173 (I know I don't have a CD/DVD drive selected...I'm hoping one might just "pop up" at one time or another...it could happen...) Total: $553 In addition, what are your opinions on cheap vs. expensive Power Supply Units? Do I really need to spend >70 to get a quality PSU? I'm seeing the same stats of $90 units on $50 units, but I'm warned that the $50 units are prone to die and kill your whole system. And then there are others that say the $50 units are perfectly fine--even for a person who plans on making a substantial upgrade in the future. One part of me wants to go for a $50 unit--in place of a $90, and spend the difference on a higher quality video card, and the other part of me wants to ensure stability and upgradability for the future. I'm torn to say the least.. Also, how much of a difference is there between CAS2 and CAS2.5 DDR ram? Thanks

Haha, this is so cool - just go to the starforce forums, and there are plenty of threads on the front page with people with undeniable problems with starforce - one of them Starforce tried to test and didn't even test it properly. http://www.star-force.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=826 And this one is gold - here we have 2 people, who, while fighting, are putting Starforce in a bad light no matter what side you're on http://www.star-force.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=857 Also on the front page are these 2 complaints http://www.star-force.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=672 http://www.star-force.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=866 This is my own personal problem that I posted. Actually in truth its my brother's computer we're talking about but I can write it better than him so I just worded it for him. I also ask them why they closed their competition. http://www.star-force.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=868 When I say they have a smarmy attitude when describing how their "contest" proves everyone wrong, i'm talking about this attitude (under the heading "The truth about starforce drivers"); http://www.onlinesecurity-on.com/protect.phtml?c=55

Has anyone tried this blackjack mod? http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.p...howtopic=341499

You've been doing you homework, Zylon. Well, for me (the author) it's often. This FM was mentioned 66 times in different threads (as OCOD). For you (the player) it might be a rather poor number. The search for "Old Comrades, Old Debts" gives me 128 results in Thief Series and Game Editing forums. 128 + 66 = 194. Maybe I'm so blind and egoistic that I counfused the word "often" with pitiful numbers. Yes, that must be it. BTW, thanks for making me visit TTLG. I did not know there is a birthaday thread there for me.

I am truly saddened by the elderscrolls.com forums. At first I was excited that so many posts were flying by so fast - wow so much activity! - you can just load one page of posts, and perhaps 11 of 20 displayed will be from the last minute. But then I realized the why. Most of them are one line responses, or "LOL" posts, and it seems everyone on the forum is 12. So much for that. It's also saddening to think of all the children playing the game, who will have zero appreciation for what is put into such a thing, how things used to be one or two decades ago at the birth of gaming, and how far things have come - but that's just the old grinch in me coming out. Guess I go back to looking for info tidbits, here and there, while I sit out the long wait for Oblivion. How long, you ask? Ugh. What I MUST do first: get a new PC What I SHOULD do first, in a related-game sense: finish Gothic (almost there), play Gothic II (oops), finish Morrowind (double oops)

That Oddity likes it, and admits so, is certainly a bonus. Also I must say, that I trust this forums opinion more then the game reviews.

I couldn't give a fuck about others negativity, there's a bunch of whiners on the bethesda forums as well. As long as I'm enjoying it. that's all that matters, becasue my own opinion is the only one that interests me. I'm not saying it's perfect, because it's not, but the things that are wrong aren't enough to spoil the game, and they will be addressed with user mods quite quickly. It's impossible to please everyone at every point in a game like this, and the parts some hate, other people like the most. Anyway, If you dont' like a game, don't play it and forget about it, that's what I do, I don't hang around shooter forums whining on about how much I don't like them. What's the point?

If you need some negativity to temper the surprise, I suggest going over to nma-fallout forums and read what they're saying about the game. 99% of the people there absolutely hate it.

It's an acronym (used often in TTLG forums) for this.

Are any of you guys having stability problems with this game? I';m getting regular crashes, maybe as much as every half hour, and it seems from looking at the bethesda forums there is a lot of people experiencing the same, and it's a stability problem with the game, not just my computer.

So far, I've certainly been enjoying it. Yeah, there are a few problems - the inventory is rubbish (check the official forums as I saw a possible fix, but then the forums died and i need sleep). I've had some graphical glitches - dissapearing npc bodies mostly - conversing with a floating head or disembodied eyeballs is always fun if nothing else. No crashes or plot breaking stuff though. My PC is pretty close to the minimum - 2.4ghz, 512 ram, radeon 9600 pro. Graphics card sems to save me and with the exception of stuttering when it loads a new area it runs fine on medium detail. For my thief it plays infinitely better than morrowind so far. Yeah, its not as indepth as certain other games, but there's enough player involvement to keep you interested. I've suffered badly with the main quest and particually the first oblivion gate though. My level eight character entered having pretty much exclusively raised non comabt skills, expecting to maybe be able to sneak through. Oops. Hopefully the rest of the main quest will improve to allow more stealth or other approaches than combat, but in the meanwhile there's still the thieves guild and excellent dark brotherhood (designed by a former Thief 2 guy I think) to play with...

That doesn't work with me (nothing does), because unlike zylon 'I enjoy sucking moderators cocks, the bigger the better' bane, I dont' back down. He acts all big and brash and then when a mod slaps his wrist, he goes of and has a cry, and returns acting like a good little boy so he won't be banned. He actually cares, whereas I dont give a shit, which is why I've been banned from at least 10 forums.

As for the lockpicking, how does it work? I've read there's apparently a mini-game ruining exploit, see here: http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.p...pic=291211&st=0 The poster says, "Smack up twice, and click. Then it gets jammed." ?

Strange. I haven't tried it myself yet, btu people on the official forums seem to think it works. You're editing the ini file in the "\my documents\My Games\Oblivion\" directory?

Hmm? Oh, I got temp-banned until Monday. I guess one of the Editor's Guild mods finally got enough sand up their vagina to nag an admin into approving it. This is what it says when I go to the forums: Heh. That definitely doesn't sound like Dave.