-Best concept for an end villain ever.
-Best plotline of any game, period.
-It does the best job of completely rejecting average FRPG stereotypes without becoming one itself, while still keeping an interesting setting you can relate to.
-Best puzzle ever.(The tomb.)
-Best NPC interaction, as its characters do grow, do banter with each other, and are three-dimensional.
-Best areas.(Brothel of Slaking Intellectual Lusts)
In short, it's refreshingly original, has the best story and characters of anything we've seen, and never lets up on either.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?dis playlang=en
If you visit the Windows Update site in anything other than IE, you'll get redirected to there-but it works in Firefox. Also easier(because of the non-ActiveX packaging) to just download and burn.
I took a try at OOo after a particularly hair-rending night spent with Office. I never looked back. Anything I had trouble with in Office is fixed or greatly improved in OOo-to say nothing of the new features it brings. There have been plenty of times when other students have been unable to open files in Office-I pull a LiveCD out of my pocket, and it simply works. OOo is not simply Good Enough-it is Better.
(For all those "you're not a beautiful snowflake" people: No, we may not be, but we're different. It comes across so many times each day. It may not be apparent from the question, but you're inwardly fighting things each day. Many professions don't work for you(you need free space to let your mind go, or you can't concentrate). The school system doesn't work-it's not designed to teach you well. I can't stress this enough-we're the kids who can do well, but interest is the guiding factor. If you can't interest us, give up any hope of us caring. My Advice: Sort out your political, philosophical, and spiritual views-the standards don't fit you. If you haven't already, read the Hacker Ethic(don't have my copy at hand, so I only remember Linus wrote the preface)-it might help you sort those things out. To survive, do what I do-drop any preface of anything that doesn't interest you once you get out of your commitments for the day. Go home, and express yourself. Come home, and think about nothing than what interests yourself. In my case, I don't study-it doesn't seem to help me, and it's wasted time to me. Carrying around a laptop to class is a good idea-if you can't concentrate very well, try setting up an audio capture program, and listening to what your prof said later(If your university offers transcriptions by stenographers or such, those are helpful.). The muse will hit often, hard, and usually when you're supposed to be listening. A laptop will help you keep her around, and worry about school later. For later life: Live life on your own terms-the rat race does exist, and will try to claim you. I pray that you are going to be educated in an area of interest to you, and that you can find a creatively releasing job in it quickly after leaving schooling. Find and customize things to suit you-that's important.
If you are interested in contacting me, email me at the address provided, or leave a note in my journal here, giving an email address or other way to contact you. I am sure there are things I've forgotten.
There is still a problem. As some SWG players have noted, they feel powerless, because they can't alter the storyline or go directly against established canon. This also applies to well detailed movie universes-you don't have much space to create your own plotlines, or else you run into the movie. KotOR got around this by predating near anything done in that universe so far. Episode 1: Racer escaped restraints by taking an undetailed aspect, and expanding upon it in great detail. Enter the Matrix tried to, by taking relatively unused characters. Where it failed, however, was by trying to integrate its plotline with the movies. Especially in a setting with as much depth as that one, they could have taken a tangential route to the movie, and still been able to play around with the trappings, with near no restraints. A game either needs to have the space to take large liberties with the established plotline, or be able to create a near unrestrained one of its own.
In marked contrast, games based in the Forgotten Realms have nearly never had those problems-as the setting is large enough to allow for multiple developing events.(Although the designers of its pen and paper counterparts have had to clean up messes they've left behind-and some of them still aren't resolved.) I can see a fundamental problem here-the difference between a single epic storyline, and a world built to support many different stories. All of the MMORPGs based upon an established storyline are going to run into a problem at some point: they can't take true liberty with the world, as they have to avoid destroying the movie/book/whatever's story. In marked contrast, a world-based MMORPG, like EQ, can avoid this, by allowing for individual player development. There is one way to meld the two-by making the epic, singular storyline so far above a player's reach that they can never touch it. An example of this can be found in the World of Darkness(White Wolf's Creature: the x games), where there was a consistant meta storyline, but the players were(or should be) busy working with their own problems, like defending their town, and giving White Wolf a free hand to play around with Marianna of Balador. The two might interact, but there was near no development problems-the Storyteller worked on the smaller scale, the company on the larger. The game was specifically designed for this dual cycle of plotlines.
in the form of some of the older Gold Box D&D games,the ones based upon a series of novels. As observed in the article, part of the problem with the media transition was that the book and movie forms tend to be very linear. Curse of the Azure Bonds(and resultant related properties) dealt with the constraints of the storyline by a) removing the normal heroes and b) expanding the storyline by adding optional quests and such. They didn't wreck the setting, and barely took any licence with it. Now for a movie-tie in, you can't replace the characters, as they make the storyline in most cases. However, you can expand the options available to the player at any time-and by extension, both the length of the game and the fun quotient. Another thing to note is that the games I'm referencing didn't stick straight to the storyline-they played around with it.
Slashdot Mirror
-Best concept for an end villain ever. -Best plotline of any game, period. -It does the best job of completely rejecting average FRPG stereotypes without becoming one itself, while still keeping an interesting setting you can relate to. -Best puzzle ever.(The tomb.) -Best NPC interaction, as its characters do grow, do banter with each other, and are three-dimensional. -Best areas.(Brothel of Slaking Intellectual Lusts) In short, it's refreshingly original, has the best story and characters of anything we've seen, and never lets up on either.
For her work as Deionarra(Planescape:Torment), Fall-from-Grace(Planescape:Torment) and Mazzy Fentan(Baldur's Gate II).
Games(Warhammer Online), Festivals(Lollapalooza), and now Comdex? What's next, 3DRealms announcing that nothing ever got done on DNF? Oh, wait...
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?dis playlang=en
If you visit the Windows Update site in anything other than IE, you'll get redirected to there-but it works in Firefox. Also easier(because of the non-ActiveX packaging) to just download and burn.
I took a try at OOo after a particularly hair-rending night spent with Office. I never looked back. Anything I had trouble with in Office is fixed or greatly improved in OOo-to say nothing of the new features it brings. There have been plenty of times when other students have been unable to open files in Office-I pull a LiveCD out of my pocket, and it simply works. OOo is not simply Good Enough-it is Better.
(For all those "you're not a beautiful snowflake" people: No, we may not be, but we're different. It comes across so many times each day. It may not be apparent from the question, but you're inwardly fighting things each day. Many professions don't work for you(you need free space to let your mind go, or you can't concentrate). The school system doesn't work-it's not designed to teach you well. I can't stress this enough-we're the kids who can do well, but interest is the guiding factor. If you can't interest us, give up any hope of us caring.
My Advice: Sort out your political, philosophical, and spiritual views-the standards don't fit you. If you haven't already, read the Hacker Ethic(don't have my copy at hand, so I only remember Linus wrote the preface)-it might help you sort those things out. To survive, do what I do-drop any preface of anything that doesn't interest you once you get out of your commitments for the day. Go home, and express yourself. Come home, and think about nothing than what interests yourself. In my case, I don't study-it doesn't seem to help me, and it's wasted time to me. Carrying around a laptop to class is a good idea-if you can't concentrate very well, try setting up an audio capture program, and listening to what your prof said later(If your university offers transcriptions by stenographers or such, those are helpful.). The muse will hit often, hard, and usually when you're supposed to be listening. A laptop will help you keep her around, and worry about school later. For later life: Live life on your own terms-the rat race does exist, and will try to claim you. I pray that you are going to be educated in an area of interest to you, and that you can find a creatively releasing job in it quickly after leaving schooling. Find and customize things to suit you-that's important. If you are interested in contacting me, email me at the address provided, or leave a note in my journal here, giving an email address or other way to contact you. I am sure there are things I've forgotten.
Al Franken's next book after that started...
"Lying Liars and the Lies they targeted at Me", or something like that.
As stated on the page, it's not a satellite-it's just good old aerial flyover.
There is still a problem. As some SWG players have noted, they feel powerless, because they can't alter the storyline or go directly against established canon. This also applies to well detailed movie universes-you don't have much space to create your own plotlines, or else you run into the movie. KotOR got around this by predating near anything done in that universe so far. Episode 1: Racer escaped restraints by taking an undetailed aspect, and expanding upon it in great detail. Enter the Matrix tried to, by taking relatively unused characters. Where it failed, however, was by trying to integrate its plotline with the movies. Especially in a setting with as much depth as that one, they could have taken a tangential route to the movie, and still been able to play around with the trappings, with near no restraints. A game either needs to have the space to take large liberties with the established plotline, or be able to create a near unrestrained one of its own. In marked contrast, games based in the Forgotten Realms have nearly never had those problems-as the setting is large enough to allow for multiple developing events.(Although the designers of its pen and paper counterparts have had to clean up messes they've left behind-and some of them still aren't resolved.) I can see a fundamental problem here-the difference between a single epic storyline, and a world built to support many different stories. All of the MMORPGs based upon an established storyline are going to run into a problem at some point: they can't take true liberty with the world, as they have to avoid destroying the movie/book/whatever's story. In marked contrast, a world-based MMORPG, like EQ, can avoid this, by allowing for individual player development. There is one way to meld the two-by making the epic, singular storyline so far above a player's reach that they can never touch it. An example of this can be found in the World of Darkness(White Wolf's Creature: the x games), where there was a consistant meta storyline, but the players were(or should be) busy working with their own problems, like defending their town, and giving White Wolf a free hand to play around with Marianna of Balador. The two might interact, but there was near no development problems-the Storyteller worked on the smaller scale, the company on the larger. The game was specifically designed for this dual cycle of plotlines.
in the form of some of the older Gold Box D&D games,the ones based upon a series of novels. As observed in the article, part of the problem with the media transition was that the book and movie forms tend to be very linear. Curse of the Azure Bonds(and resultant related properties) dealt with the constraints of the storyline by a) removing the normal heroes and b) expanding the storyline by adding optional quests and such. They didn't wreck the setting, and barely took any licence with it. Now for a movie-tie in, you can't replace the characters, as they make the storyline in most cases. However, you can expand the options available to the player at any time-and by extension, both the length of the game and the fun quotient. Another thing to note is that the games I'm referencing didn't stick straight to the storyline-they played around with it.