Apollo

havn't there been any idea's yet as to attach probe's to meteorites ,to use their speed to travel trough space?

I thought the demo wasn't to bad.The engine actually looks quite capable ,but like most here the lack of realism and complexity turns me a bit of ,same goes for the 75% silly kids community. That said ,im planning to buy this game in six months or a year for a reduced price ,at a point that mulltiple mods will be available of the game ,some with a realism level that is acceptable. (doesnt have to be OFP level realism therefore) Probably a lot of Bf1942 mods will get converted to BF2 anyway quite soon. Btw ,i think ,indeed when it concerns urban infantry and armor combat ,BF2 offers a very capable engine.Gamespot's remark is afcourse over the top though.

Yeah such a varanda would be nice ,it's so typical western ,with a railing to bind youre horse at and a long basin of water for the horses to drink out. A sherrif office would be nice to ,and no western town withought a bank ,maybe also a postal office (telegraph) and some poles. (if youre making rail tracks to) k k ill stop asking new thing's ,but i see some good progress.

I think you would be surprized about Russia's limited capabiety's in Azia ,Siberia isn't exactly rich in infrastructure ,it would be a logistical nightmare for Russia to campaign from their East Asian possesions ,while it would be logisticly easier for china to invade it. Rather ,India comes in mind as a more powerfull counterweight ,a growing millitary and a manpower rich country with good ties to the west to supply it with modern equipment.However again there the Chinese hold some advantage with their control of tibet ,a conventional war between China and India would also be a logistical nightmare over land as the only land beween china and india either countain's rugged mountaines land ,jungle's with monsoen's ,or deserts ,neither having the infrastructure to support a large army. The best place to stage an invasion of china from would porbably be north Korea ,hence China's involvement in the korean civil war.Any nation trying to invade china would most likely have to do it with a powerfull navy ,and put troops on the important coastline's of China in places where it can easily expand trough favourable land.Japan did bto ,attack trough Mantsjoeria from Korea and land troops all over the Chinese coasts.Yet while in that time Japan had a vastly technologicly superior army over China it just couldn't defeat it due to sheer logisitcal problems. In any case ,invading china would be a nightmare ,logisticly and millitary ,to much manpower to defend the country.And it would be to costly ,in terms of human losses ,and in finances ,country's would go bankrupt over such a war. On the other hand ,may i note that while the Chinese civilization is one of the oldest and traditionaly most powerfull one of the world for thousands of years ,China never really looked outward to project power ,rather had always inward policy's of defense.I wonder if so many thing's changed with the communist takeover ,after China's culture had a lot of elements witch were comparable to communism.Sure communist China annexed Tibet ,but thats about that ,and they had historical claims to it. For the rest ,China's history is one of the most peacefull of the world ,except for some invasions from Mongols or japanese and a few civil wars ,you never saw any big chinese dynasty going on a conquering rampage in Asia ,except for the Mongol dynasty.

You know PC ,you don't nessecarily have to get everyone in agreement with you.Not everyone is against youre position ,in addition if you can prove that their really is a big market of donaters interrested in stimulating the production of certain addons then a system as described above here could be worked out ,and you can just create a site and community for it and those interrested can participate ,addon makers or donaters.Yes you could use some help for that ,but atleast if you can prove their is a market here ,by a poll for ex. ,then youll find people to cooperate with you more easily. Youre deffinatly not alone in youre position as seen on this thread ,even if you only convinced 20% of the people participating on this thread ,atleast you have that 20%.Take into account that you have a lot of hobby addon makers here who naturally are a bit adverse of youre position ,combined with the fact that people usually only read the first post and not the whole thread ,i bet that you could find more support for youre cause if it's presented well and backed up with a demand or community interrest. A poll comes to mind ,a poll with the question if people would be willing to donate money to get an addon made faster and more to their demands ,with the addon still released free.Just to get addons/mods done ,finished and up to a certain level of perfection. Or if people would like to donate for addons on demand ,like an clan leader ordering a specific cti conversion for his clan to an mission maker for a certain donation. But if you poll the people ,make sure to ask youre question right as to prevent confusion.

Well the difference is that the contributor can make some demands ,it could be good to have some gaps filled up in the Ofp community ,for ex. there are few missions comparably to addons ,somewhat understandable as mission making isn't always the most fun thing. However the demands of the contributor's would force the addon maker engaging in some task for donations to make that specific addon or mission to a specific setting or detail and quality ,so if some people for ex would like contributing some money to get more good missions made ,then this system can get them worth for his money. Basicly people are contracted to make a free addon ,actually yes this makes addon making proffesional rather than hobbey , So what? ,think about the fact that one addon maker wouldn't earn by far as any proffesional working in the private sector ,and yet he's there making addons of certain specifications on demand of contributor's ,seems like a very effeciant deal to me .If we buy an expansion pack of a company ,wich usually only are addons anyway ,the community is going to pay much more for the work on the addons than with a few donations for low labour cost addon makers. On the other hand their are some very young guys out there with talent ,students mostly ,who live on a short budget and could really like such a donation. Sure a somewhat older working guy who makes addons as hobbey could see such donations as irrelevant to his budget anyhow so he would continue it as a hobbey ,but then the addons he makes are all to his discretion ,the community can not demand anything from the hobbey addon makers ,and few addon makers will work on the more mundane tasks that are yet sometimes in high demand. The point is that atleast certain addons in high demand get done ,hobbyist do what they chooses ,wich isn't always in the immediate interrest of a game community ,and addon makers trying to get donations will have to be very proffesional and will not earn by far as much as a private proffesional working at such stuff. For young talent this can be a good thing ,especially if they are aiming to work as a proffesional later ,and the demand is there to. And frankly ,add to this that this system can prevent a lot of redundancy ,not only for the ofp community ,but multiple Fps gaming community's. Many ofp addons could get ported to other games and vice versa ,it draws the conclusion that addon makers in general working at various games could eliminate a lot of redundancy by creating base models and texture's for all games to be ported to ,while the donations of various gameing community's could be lumped toghether to just for this form of redundancy ellimination.Afterall base models are made on demand and released free after completion ,they will have a minimal cost for a maximal use ,donaters will strive for the ellimination of redundancy as it is in their best interrest ,and demands for adons will take this in mind. Take it from an other perspective ,gamers over the world at this stage pay a lot of money for games ,the gaming industry is rich and proffesionals are well paid ,but who sais amateur artists wouldn't be able to produce much more than proffesional company's for a much lesser prize? If you think of that ,then you might see community investment in amateur artists as a much more effeciant investment than in a game of a game company or an expansion pack.Afcourse it has it's limitations ,and a lot has to get managed right to get it all working ,but there are enough wise people in the ofp community. Because yes ,money can make conflict ,but then even withought money there is conflict anyway between various addon makers about the use or credits on some addon.Once they work for donations they will be expected to act professional ,if addon makers want to coorperate on a contract or prize theyll have to make sure they can trust theyr partner ,but then it's already like that in hobby addon making to.And a contract can be set ,see the addon makers only get the money on completion ,on wich the institution can analyse who should get exactly how much for what (unless there is an agreement among the addon makers themselfs) ,and if the addon maker worked from an base model of an other addon maker he will either have to get written agreement that he can use the base model or the institution will pay the creater of the original addon a part for his work. Now yes ,there would be still some conflict ,you can never elminate that ,but that doesn't mean that the goals of the donnator's arn't reached ,and that's the most important thing there. So basicly: Hobbyist: doesn't want money for addons ,probably works in RL ,makes addons as he wants when he wants ,it's free thats good but we can't expect or demand anything from them Free lance addon maker: Earns a bit of money for making high quality addons on demand to a certain deadline ,does basicly the work of a proffesional for less pay ,releases the addons free for community use ,the consumer or donater can make very specific demands on quality ,standards or release date. Probably good for students who envision a carreer in such work.

Well let me try to put it somewhat more analyticaly formated. 1: There are addon makers who would like to receive some payment for their effort. Wich is clear ,and expressed by a number of addonmakers ,though not by far all ,hence: 2: There are addon makers who would not like it when addons are sold rather than spread freely ,among them are a number of addonmakers that clealy wouldn't even want to receive donations ro released addons for free 3: There are people willing to donate money to an addonmaker(s) to increase efforts on the production of a specific addon(s) / mod.In a way this already happens ,certain modteams receive donations already. A number of conclusions can be made here. 4: It comes to mind that those addon makers who don't like contributions don't nessecarily have to dislike the fact that others are receiving donations as long as the eventual addon(s) / modification are released for free.Their point is only that they don't want to pay or receive money for an addon ,hence there hasn't been any conflict over the fact that some big mods are in fact receiving some donations already anyhow.So no matter how donations are devided ,it shouldn't affect that segment of the addon community that wants to release it's work for free withought any donations given. 5: When it comes to community donations ,most of these funds are going to the big mods ,while individual addon makers have a far smaller chance to release them even if their production is so much higher than that of a normal mod member. 6: Another thing to take in mind here is that the individual donater has few gained with his donation ,he donates to an unfinished product where he has no influence over and no guarantee of it's completion ,while some donaters might actually want this.And since big mods are usually the few wich have a easy payment system he has few oppurtunity to donate for a very specific addon ,neither is there an accounting of funds received and devided ,thus the individual donater knows few of the volume of other donations. 7: Donations ,because they are usualy spread up over multiple big mods ,thus often also given to mods that make certain addons multiple times ,such redundancy usually isn't in the interrest of the donater at all. 8: Addons are usually only released fully ,not modular ,this forces a lot of addon makers to be a jack of all trades in adon making to see a whole addon into completion ,and lets them often do tasks where they arn't best in.Some are faster and better modeler's while other's are more effeciant texturer's.In mod groups often certain people will only do what they are best in ,some wll model others will texture others will code etc. ,but individual addon makers have to do most of it themself ,and so loose time at workign at things they are not best at. 9: Mods teams as a whole often wait with releasing their addons when the whole project is finished ,however with this a lot of seperate addons or script's are unreleased for publc use for a long time while they could be very valuable for the continuation of an other mod. What i conclude from this all is that there is basicly room for some "free-lance" addon making ,on demand of contributers ,for free public release afterwards ,where the contributers can make demands on specifications of the product and pay on completion a reward wich the addon maker doesn't have to accept. The end result would be an increase of addon material ,those working as hobbey'ist could continue their work under their terms and wouldn't be affected by this ,while those more inticed into production for some reward would have the opportunity to be rewarded for community demanded addons where contributors would be most willing to contribute ,their addons are still released free so everybody can use them ,but those that work for the reward are set to work to by the community highly demanded addons of a high quality. Contributions could also go to addon creation material rather than complete finished addons ,and allow individual addon makers to work purely on their preffered field and get rewarded for that. Addons redundancy would be prevented inside the free lance system ,why would contributors pay twice for the same product? It would allow the contibutor's to get exactly what they want for their contribution ,and most of the times this would be in the interrest of the general community ,and to get a lot of effeciancy for the amount of money contributed.It would allow for the community to steer those many individual addon makers (atleast those that want donations) as for the donations to be earned a lot of proffesionalism would be needed by the individual addon maker. Well maybe my point shouldn't have been put in this thread in the first plce ,because ,as i said before ,it was more created for an open source community that would include modding community's of various games ,and actually the goal of ellimination of redundancy was actualy more important when i began to think about such thing's. But if i may quote Philcommando: And there ,this is only my personal thought to ,and noone is perfect ,what Pc wanted was a discussion of an issue that exists ,and because the issue does exist to a certain degree it helps brainstorming about it to try to solve some of that issue.

You guys seem to be missing the point ,PC doesn't want addons released strictly on payment ,rather is seeking ways for addonmakers to receive funding withought changing the system where addons or material is free ,this to promote the completion of certain mod work. It's not that addonmakers can only receive funds by charging for their addons ,their are multiple ways to receive funds on the internet ,like site trafic and on site commercials ,and there are donations wich are often offered these days anyhow even if addons are usually free.Some people are willing to pay money to modgroups to see certain addons go faster towards completion ,in addition this investment can allow them to have a greater influence in the evolution of the mod. There is a demand for the fast completion of modifications by the fact that people are willing to pay for that ,while with a prolonged patience they could get the addon free. There is the ex. of the person who offered x amount of $ to a modmaker to release a certian mod sooner ,but given he was an individual the amount he could offer wouldn't have much of an inpact on the addonmaker in changing his mind or priority's ,probably there were a lot more people there who would have offered a small amount to for the fast completion ,If al wanting to have that addon had lumped their offer in $ toghether to offer it for faster completion ,the increased amount might have made the addonmaker change his mind. The point is thought that the faster created addon is still released for free ,the only thing the contributor's gain is a cashflow wich might not hurt them much anyway ,for the benifit of a faster sattisfaction and possibly a deeper involvement in the creation of the product. See noone would have to pay for the addons or whatever product made under this system ,it just allows those willing to donate to the community to donate in effeciant way ,it allows the measurement of demand of certain addons and thus can also be very good in filling up gaps in the addon comunity ,and it allows for good addon makers to earn somewhat from their work ,it wouldn't be as high as the payment as a professional ,but it would for many addon makers more or less also mean an acknowledgement of their great work ,something i think many of them seek. Also think about the fact that for the prize of completion of a certain addon ,demands of specifications can be set ,for ex. the addon must reach an x amount of quality ,must be released before (insert date) ,addon must comply to standards of x ,y and z.Since addons are made free after completion ,these addons can be used by other modders then for further work ,it would elliminate a lot of duplicate work as a model would be put available to all compliant to all demands ,addons could get more modular rather than working as specific mod teams.For ex. a prize for one to release 200 house texture's of certain specifications ,the texture's on itself are not usuable for a gamer but freely released texture's for an addon community would be very helpfull. Deffinatly for an open source gaming community combining modders from various games into one community to create own engine's and share work ,such open source modular system would be perfect for effeciancy ,and a good rewards system would be the best way to go to spread donations that are otherwise received or offered anyway ,this to maximize output and realisation of the community's goals. Sure an open source community would be doomed if it only relied on money to get certain thing's done ,but then it would just be a software company like most others.But the money can be good to give an extra incentive ,acknowledge certain people for valued work ,and fill gaps where most addon makers wouldn't liek to go from hobbyist point of view. The fact still is however that there is a staggering amount multiple created addons ,basicly almost waste of effort,all over so many modding community's for various games ,not only inside the specific community's ,but also between community's. As an ex. the Ofp community could share so much with other addon comunity's and vice versa ,WW2 mods are made for virtually any good fps game but the weapon models ,texture's ,sounds ,houses etc are created for every game ,not one base model that is imported in all games.I figure if addon community's of most fps games would work toghether to make a whole game themselfs (including engine) ,and prevent the creation of duplicate would ,then their production power would far exceed the powers of the gaming industry. Ah well ,one can dream ,but i doubt that at this moment in time the factor's are there to get this to work ,i think it just needs a few more years.

Well ... thank you really for the ships and the horse etc idea's only have a value if something can be achieved by it ,atleast youre addons inspired a lot of people around here.

Well the fund are the donaters simply said ,they pay so they should decide as a whole.A voting system comes to mind to decide wich mod is the best and receive's the prize. Otherwise the donaters would decide individually in wich price they invest and wich amount ,and they can create new prize's wich need donaters then in some amount to make the prize worthwhile. For ex. there are an x amount of prizes open ,like best WW2 mod ,best modern modification ,best sci-fi mod ,etc. .Now i as individual donater might want to have a WW2 mod soon rather than modern for ex ,and with a bit interrest in Sci-fi ,so i decide to donate 20$ to the WW2 mod and 10$ to the Sci fi one.These will be added to the seperate prizes and with this you will also be able to see how high demand is for a certain mod compared to an other ,the prize for the best WW2 mod might be a lot higher than most others. In addition this lumps donations toghether rather than spreading them on different mods wich work on the same setting ,by this also preventing a bit that donations are done to projects that fail into completion ,it would mean that the best mod for WW2 for ex. would get all donations and that the volume of that single donation would thus have much more inpact ,since it goes to the best modification atleast the consumer gets worth for the money ,and with prize's for improved versions the team that came 2n'd still could compete with a new version. As for the site ,i think Ofpec might do fine indeed ,though their work wouldn't involve much more than forum administration and record keeping ,most other thing's can be worked out on forum.I see a democratic hierarchy among donaters as something that must be not to hard to achieve ,although afcourse donaters who donate much more will probably have more deciding power (weighted vote?) ,but such thing's can be worked out. In a way this idea wasn't made with this problem in mind though ,rather i had been thinking of an open source community before i began thinking about such a model ,but then really an open source community that made it's own game engine's to. The impact of gaming community's on major game title's the last 5 years has been growing expantionaly ,these days an substantial addon community can easily create a dozen new versions of one game in a few years except for the engine However this is about to change to ,more and more even fans are begining to create engine enchancements ,certain games are released fully free ,i can see forsee fully community created game engine's in the near future ,and the gaming industry becoming open source. (hopefully no developer or distributor is reading this) With the amount of non proffesional addon makers and coders spread over so many gaming forum's one could create serious development teams that by sheer amount of members could easily outcompete any software company in speed of development ,though these community teams would need a lot of catching up to match these company's in engine technoligy ,in the end i can see it happen.However even then contributions could make a very fine addition to promoting the fast creation of open source games ,the point is then that you have a certain segment of people that steer the community teams in making something that is to their demand ,so effectivly the open source games are made to what the fans want them to be like.But addons could also be paid for in detail ,for ex a small price for the one that makes a very nice ak47 for open source use.The point is that the models even egine could be paid for by award and then would be opensource ,one engine could be enough to make for ex an realistic version of an Fps game and an arcade Fps game version (just the alterations of certain value's eetc) ,kinda like gaming develoment on demand withought much waste and with open source sharing.

Well youre an addon maker worthy of respect in this community ,while the moderator's are quite fair i guess they'll give more credit to addonmakers as their input is sometimes very valuable ,it's easier for a respected addonmaker to take up an controversial view in a heated matter compared to a simple poster with no merrit in the community ,especially when it concerns the field of addon making.Just a thought. Personally ,i thought before about an award system to try to get some addons trough that are well needed ,for ex. an (insert amount of cash$ prize for the one (or ones) that release the best (insert type of addon) before a specific date.Could range from single addons to modpacks ,and afcourse award prize would variate to depending the demand for such an addon. Combined with this you could have a mutual fund ,where people can donate to ,but can choose for what type of addons the reward will be given to. For ex. the mutual fund could set a prize for the best WW2 mod to be released before december 2005 ,this prize could rise depending on the amount of donaters for that prize.This would mean an incentive for mods to compete against eachother for the reward ,and the reward would be greater for that 1 one when the donations of all mods wouldn't have been spread but put in one fund.Afcourse this would suck for the modder / mod team that came in second place ,but you can expect the productivity and quality of mods to rise if the fund is substantial. The mutual fund could set many prizes for different addon or mod competitions ,with different rewards ,a competition for best WW2 mod before a certain date would likely have a much greater cash prize attached compared to for ex. best working horse before a certain date ,it would depend however on the donaters to decide wich prize(s) their donation goes thus therefore also showing demand of a certain addon for the community. Then again ,one of the advantage's to this may as well be a disatvantage.Fierce mod competition could mean that the volume of addon making rizes ,even quality with competition ,and completion time might decrease ,but it might not be that good for the social structure of a comunity wich is more or less used to open source sharing and working (atleast to a certain degree) ,mod trading could decrease a lot with such competition.

IIRC there was one review site that said in their article (forgot wich site) that they recorded a little viedeo and wouls show it soon IF the quality was good enough ,but they seemed to have doubts about the quality at that moment ,so i think that held them from posting the video.

Aye i agree to that ,when i see a thread of a great new addon realeased (almost daily in this highly productive flashpoint community) the first 15 - 20 replies on the thread are all very positive comments ,so adding one has few point anymore just cluters a thread for (constructive) bug reporting.But i'm gennerally very trusting in the big Ofp mods and with good cause. I'm seriously wondering what people are complaining about ,given the amount of addon production in this community ,about every popular vehicle or weapon has been done in 10 versions ,most time periods covered.If there is any lack of in the flashpoint communty it's not addons but missions! Make some mission with the insane amount of high quality addons already available before you go whining about the new versions. Another thing ,i'm pretty confident about Inv1944's work ,it's a pitty that their forum have gotten some resident spammers ,basicly a number of annoying guys there who home on the forum and clutter threads so that more normal ofp users wont reply on the thread's anymore. I like the strictness and rules of this forum for the very reason that annoying spammers are booted out before you have a chance to even read their spam thread/reply.Atleast the whining out here is much less comon.

Yeah, and then you find yourself being a character in a Dickens novel. Those statements are quite correct and they would be relevant had we lived in the 19th century. The role of a modern government is however not maximizing the economic output at any cost. The role is maximizing the living quality of its citizens. And that includes reasonable work hours, solid vacations and social protection. That's shorter work hours and requires higher taxes. Funny thing though in the end for instance Germany has a higher GDP/capita than Britain - despite their labour laws, higher taxes etc France's GDP/capita is roughly the same as Britain's. So what exactly is so successful with the British model? i fully agree ,and i can add to that. Why would endless investment be so wise ,taking into account maybe an economy that cannot grow much anyway ,atleast or the volume of money you invest to be effeciant ,or for that matter that investment would automaticly mean increased labour? Growth ,it's overestimated.One can invest a lot in new industry's ,but one can ask himself if these new industry's will add to increased sales with it's increased production in it's field ,or if it's simply going to replace or compete away existing bussiness thus meaning wasted investment.If there isn't increased demand from the consumer ,then investment in increased production is waste. Furthermore ,with the ever increasing potential of automatization and informatization in the company investment can often mean replacing youre infrastructure as such that you actually need less employment to produce a same or higher amount ,thus youre investment effectivly decreases labour ,and thus also consumer demand. They thought it was so wise to invest Billions to in whatever new IT company came up in the 90's ,until 2000 when the Nasdaq crashed and a staggering amount of capital just vanished in thin air.Company's close ,expected demand was just never reached ,and the investor's had cleaned debts for a decade with the thought that the company would ever be profitable. Growth means atleast also stimmulating increased demand in youre home economy for product's ,thus creating room for growth.As thus ,it's important that as many people as possible in youre society has a healthy purchasing power. Take into account the progress of automatization ,and lowering work hours over time becomes most wise ,because automatization will automaticly in the end mean a hughe replacement of human labour ,but also a hughe increase in effeciant production ,one has to be able to spread that abundance of production among it's citizen's but the citizin's need to engage in labour normally to have purchase power.With equal workhours to the present ,eventually the automatization will mean a decrease in labour ,when the work hours are decreased according to the progress of automatization in the economy then it will be possible to spread a increased amount of purchasing power for less hours work to most of the citizin's ,something that seems logical IMO in a industry with increased automatization. I feel sorry though for those economy's that want to clinch on to their old ways in an technological era where automatization is increasingly replacing human labour ,either the economy will try to hold on to their old inneficiant production ,or theyll have by convential work hours a decreasing labour ,thus purchasing power or demand ,the rich will become even more rich ,but larger masses of society will become poor ,in a way America is already going into this direction. HAH ,strange though that actually the euro is strong and inflation in the EU is low.Meanwhile in the USA ,the bastion of free investment ,inflation is skyrocketing and the dollar plummets.Oh yeah ,go decrease the interrest rate yet another bit.

Yes trhey do it for financial reasons as the country gets payment for the soldiers but the soldiers don´t get the equal money on their paycheque. A lot of african countries and minor countries boost their budget by doing this. I don't know if i have to find this a good thing or bad thing. We let em do the dirty work and probably pay to few, on the other hand the job gets done and it provide's labour.Probably african bluehelmets are also moreeasily accepted in Africa then Europeans.

Yeah but what if one of the sides is slowly being pushed into a bottleneck?Say that you are campaigning on everon ,east has took in all the middle towns and pushed west North above Montinac.Would all the west and east missions then go to Montinac?or even if all missions wouldn't go to Montinac ,would east and west be forced t put all their troops trough that bottleneck to reach any objective?

Well i think many of the current resentmen in the Netherlands these days come from the Holland region (the randstad) ,where past building policy's have probably created one of the most frustrating regions to live in ,i deffinatly wouldn't like to live in the randstad ,few living space ,stressfull trafic and life ,lots of crime.Some parts of the ranstad look plain ugly ,deffinatly those blocks of social housing you find all over there. No wonder so many Dutch move to live in quiter regions of the Netherlands ,or outright in Belgium or Germany. I wouldn't say ,as Fortuyn once put it,"The Netherlands is full" ,but i think it does apply for the Randstad though ,and for the rest of the Netherlands ,it's a problem that the righ in The Netherlands buy up large sections of nice land in the Netherlands itself ,making it hard for any dutchman to ever find a nice affordable free patch of land to build upon. Btw. i think Swedes are more easily ticked off being called Danes than Norwegians ,Kalmar union fallout still exists i think  ...  .

De Gucht has send his written appologies to Balkenende ,but it seems as Balkenende isn't accepting that yet.Meanwhile voices come up in belgium to fire De Gucht from his position ,i really hope they do that. I heard btw. that while De Gucht was making his insult's belgian diplomats were just heavily bussy in negotiations about important issue's such as the Iron Rhine and the de-siltening of the Shelde river ,De gucht couln't have taken a worse time. O i agree completly ,Fortuyn was flat poppulism and Van gogh was outright xenofobic.I would say it's a pitty that both were murdered ,they would have been much more obscure alive ,now they are a sort of heroic martyr of dutch politics. It's like what i said ,how would germans perceive Hitler if he had died on the xenith of his succes? You can be easily succesfull though with poppulism if you have some charisma ,poppulism usually is more liked by lower classes in society and less by the more educated people usually though.Populist politicians usually gains much in a political establishment that is genneraly not liked by it's population anyway ,thats the reason that swine of a Filip Dewinter is so powerfull in belgium to. Yet i had to handed it to fortuyn at some point ,that when De Winter congragulated Fortuyn for his succes in the Netherlands ,Fortuyn wasn't keen on taking those in thanks ,atleast fortuyn still distantiated himself from the trash that is Vlaams Blok. The netherlands need a new moderate with Charisma ,a person like Kock maybe ,I might not like the Gught but i's kinda true that Blakenende has the charisma of a tomato.

Nope ,i was speaking of the Netherlands before Fortuyn.Pitty Fortuyn was murdered as it only enfored the strenght of his words.I wonder how Germans would perceive Hitler had he been murdered somewhere after the fall of France. Anyway ,before the murder on Fortuyn the Netherlands was quite stable political and the policy's by the previous goverments had always been extremely liberal ,and also a socially liberal people. people from the Netherlands are still somewhat less arrogant than Belgians for ex. .try to use our roads here ,traffic agression is extreme in belgium so is speeding ,drunk driving ,driving outside road boundaries to drive around traffic jam's ,double parking ,etc etc.The differnce with the Netherlands in traffic alone is hughe ,go to the Netherlands and suddently traffic is a joy ,people would stop at green light's just to allow a person from an other direction to pass earlier ,almost everyone is highly friendluy in traffic ,helping eachother if nessecary ,lettign go people before them ,it's a whole different attitude ,while Belgium is record holder in traffic kills in europe and most of the world.

But not the Belgians. De Gucht has a history of making such o so undiplomatic speeches as a minister in the foreign office. He once said about Congo that it should be put back under Belgian administration as the country is a mess and we could do much better ,with this disregarding Belgiums history with Congo wich is frankly appaling.Apart from King Leopold terrorizing the people and killing about 10 million Congoleze ,we have also that history of resource exploitation up to day (Antwerp blood diamond center of the world!) ,or not to forget our meddling with congo's politics like with the murder on Lumumba.Belgium is for a large part responsible for the mess that is Congo ,still de Gucht the nerve to call out colonization history an example. And while i know Balkenende is not that popular ,De Gucht's insult's don't fit a man of his position ,and many Belgiums ,atleast the Flemmish ,have very high respect fot the Dutch ,and don't want a idiot like the Gucht to tarnish that relation ,The Netherlands is in enough political turmoil after two political assassinations and many Belgians have compassion for them ,in the past the Netherlands politics was often used as a example of what Belgium should be like ,it's liberalism and economical strenght were things we admired the Dutch for and Belgium is one of those few country's that is nearly as liberal as holland atleast once was. But some Belgian politicians have had the impression after Fortuyn and Van Hogh's murder that actually Belgian politic's is better than the Dutch politics comparing theirs with the turmoil in the Netherlands these day's ,it's almost shadenfruede for the goal of ellevating thei own politics.

What are you then? Mix of French and Dutch? IMO were Europeans. Roughly 60% of Belgium is Dutch speaking and the rest is french speaking ,with a minority of German speaking people in the Oostkantons ,a small region annexed by belgium as part of the 1918 Versailles treaty. Geneticly were the mix-pot of Europe ,this region has multiple times being controlled by foreign major powers ,like France ,Spain ,Austria ,Germany ,Holland ,many European wars have been fought here.The old Belgians of Julius Ceaser's time are by far geneticly not the people that we are today ,the have no relation to us ,even the Flemmish of the medieval times have few in common with us geneticly.Due to long periods of foreign control ,long wars and emmigration of indiginous people to places like the new world it's hard to tell how many ,or few people in Belgium actually still have roots to people living in this area 500 years ago. Belgium as a trade country has also an excelent position in Europe ,in the heart of it ,Belgium has the most extended road network in Europe (free of toll) and many excelent seaports and rivers/canals or airports. There is Flemmish nationalism in Belgium ,Flemmish are the dutch speaking portion of Belgium ,but they identify them as Flemmish rather than Dutch because of the cultural heritage from medieval times ,Although Flanders actually covered only half the are of BLegian Flanders today ,and half of historical Flanders is controlled by France. Flemmish nationalism is somewhat ackward ,it also draws some strenght from the way French speaking Belgians in the past had been given more prominent positions ,for ex like in WW1 in the trenches (Flemmish soldiers with french speaking officers) ,or the university's wich were once mostly french only. The Flemmish movement has some power in Belgium ,though spread among some party's ,some more extreme like others ,for ex. the Flemmish blok party ,wich is the largest party in Flanders (we have 3 goverments) ,this party would most likely have Belgian split in a Flemmish country and Walonian one ,but they are kept out of governing coalition. There is almost no Walonian nationalism ,probably they are the belgians ,but probably they even feel more French.Though in the Belgian construction they profit somewhat ,being a poorer region in Belgian thus netto receiving funds from the richer Flanders ,partly a source for Flemmish resentment. The Belgian royal family is french speaking nativly ,and often speaks few Dutch. Actually i think many Belgians ,Flemmish and Walonians ,could be found for a split up where Flanders would be annexed by the Netherlands and Wallonia by France ,there is not much love between flemmish and wallonians and there isn't that much symphaty for the construction that is Belgium. I'm not a Flemmish nationalism ,neither a Belgian.So i think i'm European ,feel's right to ,much less complicated. Brussel - Halle - Vilvoorde. Very complicated ,and the negotiations have recently failed grandiously to. Â It's about voting right's between multiple towns around Brussels ,the last decade's the Walonians have tightend their control of brussels by immigration northwards into once Flemmish towns ,thus making Flemmish there a minority.Obviously a sensitive issue ,and Brussels is really bad ,Flemmish and Walonians there are constantly in the clinch. An ex. of this conflict is Walonian hospitals around Brussels.Belgian hospitals are free as a service ,but in French speaking hospitals they refuse to speak dutch to dutch patients ,even if these patienst only speak Dutch ,while actually most of them do understand Flemmish.You could be dying there and they wouldn't help you if you didn't speak french to them ,even if they understood you.Flemmish are always espected to know both languaghe's ,while Walonians mostly refuse to speak dutch. I live in Ypres myself Btw. It might be a NI light now ,i wonder what would happen if both parts split up with the oh so strategicly important city Brussels ,the languaghe barrier runs right trough it. I'm no part of those bullhead's ,btw these guys always shout most hard so don't think all Flmmish are all that fanatical.But should the both parts split up ,i could forsee conflict and limited civial war around some places.I hope not ,i hope Belgium can assimilate in europe before it split's up. But the situation is getting dire ,the extreme party's are getting more powerfull ,Flemmish Blok already being such a large and popular party ,and the failure of things like Brussel-Halle-Vilvoorde is only helping them

We like working   well most of us, the rest are on benefits. People who are working are appalled that the EU might introduce a law making a cap for how long you can work as this will limit the person's income.  And by using manual labour more people are employed to do jobs which is good for the economy. The automated industries, as in Germany, have a relativity low amount of people employed in that sector which is why unemployment is high. But automatization is on the rise ,especially in continental Europe ,and this automatization create's economical problems due to disbandment of labour. (yes it create's new labout to but not in the same masamount) Atleast with having a good social welfare program and possibilety's to cut max work hours then you can atleast minimize the bad effects of automatization evolution in a capitalist structure. It would be stupid to try to stop the evolution of the automatization industry though ,automatized labour is far more effeciant than human labout ,in a capitalism human laboutr is important ,outside that system compared to automatized labour it's increasingly inneficiant and wastefull. teh future is to automatization IMO ,and our economical system has to addapt to that ,rather than throwing away this potential in favour for a unperfect economical system.

I only tried the demo ,never bought the game. But i think something can be made of the Bf1942demo + FH mod ,if youre not to shy for some reverse engineering. Â edit: sry shoulda edited previous post ,thought i did that but accidently made a rply.

Well ,if someone here sometimes complain about certain aspect's of Ofp ,often many people will reply: If you want it differently you can mod it! Ofp has that freedom and flexibilety ,but a game as the BF series have similar flexibilety i think ,so if we don't like vanilla Bf1942 ,we should just mod it.Actually ,that was what a lot of BF1942 players did out of the frustration of vanilla Bf1942 being so arcade ,on the other hand some addon maker in the Ofp community have realesd addons to that rather dumned down the game a bit for own pleasure. Take HL as ex. ,and compare a mod like Day of Defeat with Counterstrike ,the difference in gameplay is very different ,and it's not because people don't enjoy CS that they won't enjoy DoD ,and i think a lot of players here can relate to that. In the end ,for modding community's concerns ,only the core engine really is determinal ,games can be modded the way you like granted the limitatations of the engine ,but games like BF1942 and Ofp have somewhat similar performance's in the engine area ,it's only the game around the engine that is so much different.

Persoannly i am of the oppinion that bf1942 sucked ,for the same reasons why most of the people hate it here ,lack of realism.Though im not saying that that part of the fps community doesn't deserve a run and gun shooter ,it's thx to games like bf1942 that Ofp still has a quite mature community. That said however ,seeing bf1942 purely as a platform ,it's not impossible to mod the game and make it realistic ,in fact some mods of Bf1942 looked actually quite good and realistc ,because there was a segment in that community that wanted a more realistic game.I know atleast one BF1942 mod that looked very nice for a realism gamer ,almost worth to buy the crappy vanilla game just for that mod. Vanilla Bf1942 sucks for realism fans ,but the engine and platform are technicly quite competent ,so with extensive modding work it can be molded in a nice game IMO ,from the realism gamer point of view. As to enforce my point ,you should check out this Bf1942 mod: Forgotten hope If you take the time to learn what this mod is (and i never actually played it) ,you should be impressed by the sheer volume of tanks and weaponry included.This team claims to have added many touches of realism ,as for ex FH has armor penetration value's. (something even OFP is lacking) My point being ,don't by vanilla BF1942 when it's just out as a realism gamer ,it will suck for you ,rather wait till good mods come out and the price of the game only a 4th of what it once was ,you actually get a fairly good game for a cheap price then ,maybe still not gaming nirvana ,but worth it's cost in quality.