Simparadox

quote:Originally posted by Urza: I don't know, it got something like a 13% at PC Gamer. At any rate, whoever made that game should be ashamed of themselves, as they took a sure seller and turned it into a bug ridden piece of s*it. Yeah, but Game Revolution invented a new rating for it. So in PC Gamer terms it'd be something like a -10% . What really scares me is the thought of all those mindless survivor addicts who buy it and actually think it's fun...

quote:Originally posted by Soback: LOL, and how would lazy people who can't support themselfs support each other? It could be an evil, sneaky trick to get them off welfare. You just have to hope they're smart enough to get a job when they realize they have to use the money the government gives them to pay for all of the other blood sucking leeches.

quote:Originally posted by Tyrn: It used to be common practice to actually read a forum/newsgroup for a period of time before actually posting. Lurkers always do better than the wet behind the ears n00b. Why? Because lurkers know the personality of the forum/newsgroup and so will hopefully use what they've observed to their best advantage Oh, sure. But I lurk for almost a month and still get smacked around

quote:Originally posted by $iLk: Anyhoo, on to my serious post. Woohoo! Lots to respond to! Here goes.. quote:Originally posted by $iLk: At the very least, I would say that only those who pay taxes, thereby contributing to the government should have a voice. Let's not forget that the great majority of those people who are poor are poor by choice. They choose not to work. Here's where I have to draw the line. If they choose not to work, it is synonym to choosing not to eat. If they have no choice in the matter (i.e. handicap etc.) they are eligible for *charity*. However, those who aren't paying taxes obviously deserve no representation, would you agree? I, for one, agree with you completely here. If they're not paying taxes then they aren't contributing to the country in any way what-so-ever. And since they're not eligible to pay taxes that clearly means they're not even contributing to the economy in any sort of meaningful way. They do not, in any way, deserve an actual voice in government. They have nothing to contribute to our government, our society, or our country and thus do not get to have a say in how it's run. Simple. quote:I would rather my children look up to Thomas Jefferson and George Washington than Elton John and Eminem. I believe in a mostly Libertarian ideal that everyone has the right in this country to do whatever they so desire as long as it does not impact anyone's right to do the same. I thought you sounded a bit like a Libertarian. It's too bad you don't live in Connecticut, even the rich people here (and there sure are a lot of 'em) are liberals - we can use more people who don't think Bill Clinton is God. quote: About Social Security, yes it's a socialist ideal the way it is now, but my idea is the same as yours Jag, privatize and number everyones account so that the money that they draw is limited to what they paid in. That goes with my idea earlier, that social security could be a supplemental income should you fall out of work for any reason, you should be able to draw up to 2/3 of what you were making while working, for a certain amount of time (until it's gone), that way, there is incentive to find another job QUICKLY. Whatever you have paid in over the years you can choose the 2/3 method after retirement *or* you can draw it all at once, to invest any way you like. I like this. Honestly, Social Security is a much better idea than Welfare. I know for a fact that, without it, my grandparents wouldn't have been able to keep up the quality of life they had before retirement. Is it their fault for not planning for retirement more carefully? Probably, but they still spent a huge amount of time as part of the work force, paying into social security - they deserve to get something back. And as a fall back for bad situations it works well. The idea of privatizing it is a good one - take it out of the government's hands and you no longer risk your money being spent elsewhere. You know it's there and that you have some help if things should get bad. quote:We don't need "save the world" good intentions. We need a practical system that meets the needs of the people. Couldn't have said it any better myself . Great post.

quote:Originally posted by Schmendrick: I doubt tabletop gaming will ever go away. Every time I poke my head into the local game store it's still filled with smelly, unkempt, 14-year-old losers arguing endlessly over some miniscule rule interpretation and bragging about their crappy Warhammer 40k armies that look like they were painted by preschoolers. And that brings up the main reason I don't do much table top gaming anymore. I simply can't stand to be around the average gamer. For one thing, they smell. It's a rare treat indeed to find a gaming shop where there aren't at least 3 regulars who are always there who haven't quite mastered the art of bathing. Another problem is that these sad, sick human beings have nothing better to do with their miserable lives than to spend months pouring over the rules trying to find that elusive unbeatable combination of abilities and equipment which will render their special character{s} invincible. If you're the type of person who just likes to play games and have a good time, don't go anywhere near these people. If you should challenge the validity of their characters, or even just suggest that they're overlooking the spirit of the rules, you'll likely get yourself embroiled in a two hour arguement. That said, if you have a good group of friends with whom you can get together, drink some beer, and have fun playing some games, then consider yourself lucky. I really miss those days when I did such things, but these days everyone in my group has scattered to the four winds or is just too busy to have time for such things. I'm not interested in starting an argument over this, but I think your description of the "average" gamer is a bit harsh. First of all, it's pretty hard to stereotype the whole lot of gamers. Most I've met just have too many quirks to fall under any umbrella description (although "geek" seems to apply to most of them, myself included ). On the other hand, most younger gamers (which seems to be what you're describing, as opposed to the "average gamer") are probably pretty easily classifed as munchkins, power gamers, and what have you - it's not there fault, and the few that stick with the hobby as they mature will probably end up as fairly good roleplayers. Anyway, I highly suggest that you stop by a convention if you ever find yourself near one. They're loads of fun, especially if you lighten up a bit. As for the hobby of pencil and paper rpgs going away - I'd doubt it. I still love them more than any computer game I've ever played. I've been playing computer games since the late eighties, and I've yet to find one that could hold my interest for more than a year or two (with the exception of maybe X-Com, which I still go back and play every now and then) of on and off playing. On the other hand, I've been playing RPGs for about 13 years now. Every now and then I DM/GM a steady campaign for at least a year of weekly sessions - and as soon as I'm done I can't wait to get another one going. The "human interaction" of multiplayer games just can't compare to the face to face fun of paper and pencil rpgs. And, to be totally honest, even the most annoying immature groups I've played with have been a helluva lot of fun.

quote:Originally posted by Jaguar: Now as far as owning property before being allowed to vote, there is a VERY good reason for this, if you own nothing then you have nothing to lose if you vote badly, whereas if you have something to lose, such as your property rights, then you would chose to vote for your property rights and not against them. So you're saying I have nothing to lose if I'm a renter and the majority of "land owners" are liberals and they decide to take away my guns? Raise my taxes? Take more of my money and give it to blood-sucking welfare recipients? Sorry, there's just no logic behind your argument. Land ownership simply isn't an issue that takes up a majority of the government's time. quote:And it MUST be military service, where you put your life on the line for your country, I don't care if you're a cook or a clerk, or some dweeb in accounting, but, you must be willing to put your life at risk for the good of the country, until you can do that, you should NOT have the right to vote. Civil service just will NOT do. Again, this is just completely wrong. Coupled with the rest of your proposed prerequisites you're creating an elite minority that will actually be allowed to vote. In general this minority will never vote for anyone willing to change the system, even if that reflects the general will of the people. Not only is that unconstitutional, it's just plain wrong. You destroy the idea that Congress represents the people, since all Congressional members know they can only be re-elected if they pass laws that benefit the voting minority. I'm sorry, but as much as I hate welfare and most leftist ideas I can't see punishing an entire nation for them. And I can't see stripping them of their rights and voice simply because they don't agree with me. "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire quote:we have a 50% turnout rate right now, if that, but my way, I guarantee that at least 95% of those franchised to vote, would vote. And they would vote to protect the constitution, it is after all something that they put thier lives on the line for. Unfortunetly, 95% of the minority that could vote would pale in comparison to the 50% turnout we have now. Ultimately you would deprive tens of millions of voters, many of whom would probably be more informed than most people who meet the prerequisites you specify, from voicing their opinion in a meaningful way. Remember that a reactionary can be as dangerous to freedom and rights as a radical. [ 12-09-2001: Message edited by: Simparadox ]

quote:Originally posted by Antimatter: .......Dare I mention 'Dungeons and Dragons'?.... I resisted going to see it when it came out. I knew it would be horrible. It was obvious. A friend recently forced me to rent the DVD and watched it (according to him it was "Great!"). Ugh... there's two hours I'll never get back.

quote:Originally posted by $iLk: People ought to be regarded equally by government in terms of treatment. However, only certain people should be enable to enact their wishes through government - those who contribute to it. Not those who never do a thing in their life but sit on their ass, those who actually pay taxes and/or work for the government. Unfortunetly, this seriously goes against the ideas that the country was founded on. I completely agree that far too many leftist ideas are now being put into practice, but the answer isn't to become a reactionary and start stripping rights away either. Any time that you (you as in the people) grant the government the right to seperate citizens into seperate groups and grant them special privaledges you're doing serious damage to the ideas that the U.S. is supposed to represent. And on top of that, you're not dealing with the problem. Welfare bothers me. The people on welfare who can't seem to make any money on their own and sit around having babies that'll probably never make money on their own bother me. But there's a much easier solution than saying "Hey, you can't vote 'cause you don't have a job.". Just take the welfare away. Anyway, to get a tiny bit back on topic: as far as mandatory military services goes, I'm against it. Warfare probably has or will very shortly move beyond the "I have more troops than you do!" phase. Technology is clearly a more important factor, and when it comes to the kind of equipment and skills modern-day soldiers need to master someone who's unwilling and randomly selected from the population just won't do.

Overall the review was pretty good, but I'm beginning to wonder whether these reviewers really put in as much time as is needed to appreciate the game. I've been playing for about two weeks now (I think) and the demos for a while before that and things still happen that surprise me. Clearly they need to write up their reviews sooner or later, but even with advanced reviewer copies (if any were sent out - I really don't know) I can't imagine they've already discovered a large portion of the game's details and quirks. Also, I think the graphics and sound ratings were a bit low. I do think Planetary graphics are a bit weak, but the models are good and so is the texturing. And space scenes and big fights look awesome. On top of that, the sheer sense of scale should have brought the graphics rating up to at least an 8. The sound track is also awesome so 7 seems a bit low there as well. And what's with the 9 rating for gameplay and yet only a 7.5 overall? Does gameclub just do a straight average? Even if they do, it seems wrong. Oh, well. I've never really liked gameclub and I especially hate the seperate rating for the game's "story"... Oh, and I think he meant Starfleet Command, not Armada

quote:Originally posted by $iLk: Charles, you kind of made my point for me, people should take responsibility in making a decision and take care in making it rather than voting for someone they don't know what it stands for. Idea #2 Even simpler - only people who pay taxes vote. Citizenship is bestowed on a certain income and contribution to the economy. If they are on welfare, are on some government program, are not contributing - let them waste away, but not be allowed to vote for those who would take away their benefits, or bestow them. Of course this won't happen because of liberals, but I can dream. Idea #2 seems like a fair enough idea, but idea #1 or anything remotely like it is a horrible one. First of all, by only allowing those who have somehow served the government to vote you create a bias. You also elevate "citizens" above the "regular people" which goes against the Constitution in a severe (and kind of frightening) way. Secondly, you seem to forget that those people who work at fast food restaurants, wal-mart, in factories, or at any minimum wage or low paying job are making a huge contribution to the economy. As a matter of fact, without them the economy would totally fall apart. A nation of white-collar high-income workers is a complete and total impossibility until we have robots to do all of our menial work. And until then it's the people with low-paying jobs that make up a large portion of the country. And besides, if everyone in the 18-20 range was serving the government you'd be cutting out on valuable time to do something worthwhile like going to college. And to be honest, private sector workers and businessmen are contributing to the country a whole hell of a lot more than any single or group of government workers. Without big businesses and the people who run and work for them the economy would collapse. The military would have nothing to defend and the government wouldn't have a very strong country to run. Also, even though the original wording of the Constitution didn't provide for a national presidential election it also doesn't provide for a selective population presidential election. If we followed the Constitution's wording strictly we would be voting for our legislators (and, according to the Constitution, it is a right to vote for your representatives) and they would be voting for the President. And the intent of a national election isn't really to "make the people feel more powerful", it's just more practical and makes more sense. And on top of all that, the idea of "special privaledges" for those who serve the government seems totally insane. You want to bribe people to support their country? That's crazy. You're advocating the creation of a new type of welfare for those who help the government out. And as for taxes... well... until the government is able to pay for its own bloated self without using my money I just won't be happy.

Hey everyone. Just got accepted to the fleet (well, a few days ago) and gamma wing. Just wanted to say hi and find out if there's anything else I should be doing.

quote:Originally posted by Gallion: NO! TTFN Will it be possible through any future tools or scripting? It seems that total conversions would benefit from custom crew members....

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: Yeah, I'm never buying another CL card if my life depended on it. In fact, they sent me some Audigy samples and I have them on a shelf collecting dust. I have several SBlive versions here and a three Santa Cruz cards. When in doubt, go with the SC card. Well, I've never actually owned a Santa Cruz card, although a few friends of mine do and they swear by them. But still, you might want to at least give one of the Audigy cards a shot. The sound quality is great and miles above the Live! cards. I have an Audigy Gamer in my "work" machine and I need to upgrade the sound card in this one... it's definetly good enough that I figured I'd buy another Audigy without giving it a second thought.

quote:Originally posted by StarShadow: Stuck with the sound card, will get more RAM Just grab another 256mb and you'll be set (which reminds me... I need to stop by CompUSA and do the same for this computer ). As for the sound card, it's no big deal. When you have $100 lying around buy an Audigy Gamer. That's what I use in my other computer and it's good enough that I'm thinking about moving it to this one. EDIT: You'll also want to register your copy of BCM if you haven't already. And get a system profile link in your sig. Check out this post for some more information. [ 12-04-2001: Message edited by: Simparadox ]

Okay, this isn't a "first impression" of the game. Not technically anyway, since I've had the game for over a week, played the demos before that, and had BC3k before that. But I did just notice something that blew my mind away... I made planetfall over Centris with my Battlecruiser Mk3. I went VTOL and basically hovered around 10,000 kilometers up. I wanted to play around with TACOPS a bit and practice launching shuttles, deploying troops, deploying mining drones, etc. While looking at the planetary map I saw the usual yellow squares surrounding important locations - but for the first time I decided to actually zoom down to one of those regions and take a look. I zoomed into a city, rotated the camera a bit. Overall I wasn't incredibly impressed, the city looked more or less how I imagined one would. So I zoomed out and then zoomed in at a military base. Again, not immediatly impressed... until I saw a few things moving. I zoomed in and saw a vehicle driving through the base. Zoomed in two another part - two marines were walking somewhere. That alone was cool, but it was even better when I zoomed in on another base and then another and there was activity going on at all of them. And to be honest, despite all of the (very cool) neutral, friendly, and hostile traffic flying around in space it never really occured to me how dynamic and "living" the game universe really is. I keep finding more things to love about BCM - Great job, SC.

quote:Originally posted by Soback: Box was also wrapped in plastic? Don't think so. My box just had a little sticker-type seal holding it shut. He might've gotten a returned copy, though. I know (I worked there for about a month last year - I don't know if this is still their policy) the EB near me seals any and all returns that are put back on the shelf in a plastic wrap. They always do a pretty crappy job, though, so it's easy to tell which games were return copies and which are unused . By the way, if there was no sticker on the sleeve what was holding it shut? [ 12-02-2001: Message edited by: Simparadox ]

quote:Originally posted by JaxFox: I agree, save your money and get a Geforce3 Ti 500. Best thing in the long run Actually, if you're going to spend that much money I'd recommend the Radeon 8500. The drivers are improved and it's actually a faster card than the Ti500. Check out gamershq.madonion.com, they have a hall of fame listing the highest benchmarks based on video card type. Then again, I don't know how much I'd trust that list. I just noticed the Ti200 is rated above the standard GeForce3 (which is definetly not the case based on my personal experience and every review/benchmark I've ever seen, not that the Ti200 isn't an awesome card).

I can't wait for the movie. Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit are my two favorite books of all time (and a love a lot of other JRR Tolkien middle-earth books - basically all of them I've ever read, even the unfinished works). Hell, I even have hardbound collector's editions of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Anyway, I still have this sinking feeling that they're going to screw it up in the movie. I've never once seen a fantasy-based movie that had even remotely good acting. And on top of that, I can't think of any "throw away" or "bad" parts of the books - so I can't imagine how they're going to shorten them for a movie. Oh, well... maybe I'll be wrong.

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: Stop overclocking your card might be a start. I did (I thought I put that in the original post? Maybe I forgot...). I experienced the problem at stock frequencies and my "normal" (ie, overclocked) frequencies. EDIT/UPDATE: I just tried running the game under Windows 2000 (I dual boot on this machine, but most of the time I run games under 98SE) and it seems to have solved all of the wierd little issues I was having (including an odd sound glitch that wasn't really important enough to mention). Thanks anyway, sorry to bother you about that. [ 12-02-2001: Message edited by: Simparadox ]

Can't beat the Battlecruiser Mk3. Besides it's speed there's just nothing better than that squarish big-tech low-tech look. Can't help feeling like I'm driving a tank in space and need to just go head to head with everything I see . [ 12-02-2001: Message edited by: Simparadox ]

quote:Originally posted by Kadil Ram: Umm. . . Is there any other place I could find this information? This sticker refuses to be found. I hope I didn't throw it out. . . In that case I'd suggest you run (not walk ) back to the store where you bought, tell them your serial # is missing, and get another copy. Because I have an eerie feeling that if you don't find it we won't be seeing you around here much anymore...

quote:Originally posted by Steve Conley: How's this for a crazy intruder story? while my crew scambles for the medibay and the galley (? To get a last snack?! Seriously, about 75% of the crew went ot the galley Maybe they thought beating themselves to death with kitchen utensils was preferable to suffocating?

quote:Originally posted by Fendi: GeForce 3 Ti 200. It's cheaper than a normal GF3 and with only slightly less (a fraction?)performance of the normal GF3 GeForce3 ti200 would definetly be the way to go. There's a noticeable performance difference between it and the regular GeForce3 (and a somewhat significant difference between it and the GeForce3 ti500), but it's still a great card and should run BCM without a problem. Don't expect complete smoothness, though, I think just about everyone gets framerate dips in huge battles.

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: It is a driver issue and not a bug in BCM Okay, that's what I figured. I'll give it a try with the non-beta drivers.

quote:Originally posted by Sunanta: Well, if your CC's tractor beam is still working you could tractor the disabled craft- if it's yours you'll get a prompt to recover it, I think... Cool. That's what I was planning to do next. Too bad I didn't get a chance...