Journeyman

It is indeed a nice sunny day today and I will be out to enjoy it shortly, unlike some that are forever stuck indoors! Wow did my last post really sound that depressing!? ... LOL! I was merely getting the point across about political realities not that I am forever depressed by them! FFS I live a fulfilling and enjoyable life, I make my own way through it and get out of it what I want, always have, always will. I certainly don't need any pity or guidance from my academic juniors!! Â

So the DX10 features of Crysis work just fine on a DX9 card? Â Hmmm! Is the industry at it again? Pulling the wool over our eyes to make us fork out yet more money? And why then do we need Vista? Well it looks like we don't but we will have to buy it soon on all new machines 'cos Micro$oft will stop making it next year!! Democracy at work!! Â

I would tend to agree that this set of incidents has as much chance of being ‘innocent’ as it does malicious. However, I tend to veer on the side of suspicion in any circumstance such as this. Maybe I’ve just been around a bit longer than you and know some of the ways of past government activities. Oh and I’m talking western governments here! Those of us who think that our leaders would never deceive us and always have our best interests at heart have been woefully misinformed! It could well be that Denmark has a totally different set of priorities; Denmark is not a country I know that much about. The inner workings of the UK and the US leaders though are a source of uneasy concern for many. I’ve been reading the snippets of a book recently that was pushed under my nose a while back called Living In A Fascist Country and it has some hair raising truths about how we are all being ‘controlled’ rather than catered for! The book could well be labelled as that of a sensationalist, but I cannot but sympathise and support most of his views. We live in a ‘democracy’ but how much democratic rights do we really have? From personal experience as much as from reading any books I would say ‘not that much!’ Â

So long as Placebo doesn’t see it as ‘Spam’ then you’ll be just fine! Otherwise it will receive a very special blessing!  Seriously though the methyl bromide explanation that Espectro hastily dug up doesn’t explain that much of this story. It might be somewhat relevant in the supermarket incidents but nowhere else. It also fails to explain why the air samplers did not detect it. Hmmm! Sounds familiar; a frightening scenario hastily debunked by a petrified and disbelieving populous! Don’t bother to investigate it fully, just find a halfhearted explanation that vaguely explains part of a few incidents then quickly move on! Â

Thank you Joseph Troska for your efforts in presenting those news items and past articles. I at least took the time to read some of them and have sympathy for your opinion. The reason that there will be no further investigations or that any organisation global or local will ever get discovered for secret trails is not so much that the secrecy laws are so well enforced as much as it is the general scepticism of most people to ever believe that this sort of thing could ever possibly happen in ‘our’ time! The last few posters are sentiment to this! It is the reason why our countries have such things as 'official secrets acts' in the first place. It doesn't surprise me at all to learn of your findings. It will as you say however get brushed under the carpet like all the others only to emerge 50 years down the road to the annoyance of our angry children! History will just keep repeating itself over and over, and those who will rather say 'poppycock' to it all then take a look at history! OH! But it never happens in 'our' time does it? This one could of course just be one big natural coincidence of some unexplained natural phenomena, and that is what is probably best for us to all believe! Most people don't believe in UFO's either, even those that have seen them themselves! How could anything that we cannot explain or be willing to accept possibly exist?!! That is just the way things are! Don't come in here with any fancy stories or even fancier explanations for them and expect an easy ride!!

If BIS have any brains it won't be calling this game ArmA2! ArmA1 was a flop; don't build a sequel to a flop! Give it a new name now while you can!! Operation Clean Plate would be better!

I agree there was a great 'atmosphere' in OFP and for any game to be good it needs atmosphere. OFP was slightly historic of course and any piece of history usually invokes a degree of atmosphere. I find this too with other historic war sims like Vietcong and COD where the historic events create the feeling of remembering something from the past. I never get the same feeling with modern war sims. There's more to it that just period of course and I think location is also important. I found CWC more atmospheric than Resistance for instance. The CWC islands were somehow quaint and surreal whereas Nogova was bigger and more varied but lost some of that appeal. The rest is just down to gameplay differences and the many issues that ArmA still has. I also hate the grass in ArmA! I preferred to play with it off, but that doesn’t work in multiplayer. The grass should have been much sparser and faded for longer rather that a thick mat of FPS killer appearing a few yards all around you! The story in ArmA was shit too compared to OFP's brilliant campaign! I could have thought of a better on in my lunch break! The voice acting was much better in OFP and last but not least there was some continuity with your character. It played a bit more like an RPG whereas ArmA doesn’t really give you a character.  Just my 2 cents! Â

I wouldn't bother with this Been there, tried that then sent it back, and if you have a TFT monitor don't even go there! As for the vest, yeah, great idea once it gets more support, but hey, I can’t even find a force feedback mouse these days! And what FPS games support force feedback when shooting? The idea that when you 'left click' the trigger there is at least some feeling of recoil would be quite cool! But no I can't find any hardware or see any game supporting it! No wonder these ideas just get laughed at! Â

I am certainly not labelling ArmA2 early nor do I think will anyone else, but expectations will certainly have changed and it will be more a question of 'wait see and hope' rather than 'wait see and expect'! I will look forward to anything new from BIS, just no longer with baited breath!  My expectations for OFP2 from Codemasters are the same. I’ll wait see and ‘hope’!

Many folks waited loyally with bated breath for ArmA thinking that it would be the best thing since OFP and would reawaken the old OFP spirit in us all! I was one of those folks! I played around with OFP for over 5 years; ArmA went back on the shelf after two months! The question is: how many are now going to wait with baited breath for ArmA2? ... I'm afraid I am not one of them! Hmmm. Maybe OFP had just died a natural death anyway and anything ‘too’ similar would just not rekindle the flames! What is needed now is a completely ‘new’ (bug free) game with an all-new engine and lots of fancy new features! Otherwise forget it! Â

Yep! Sounds like I'll stick to FSX for flying the DC-3! I did see QG a few times in different game stores and and very nearly bought it twice! Hmmm! Seems like I saved myself a few bucks then! Â

Never been able to read the Sun, it is too bright and full of mysterious events! Try running your own landscaping business or tree surgery business or construction business, in fact any business for that matter! There is a new bit of laughable legislation enforced upon us nearly every month! Â

Haha, talk about a Pavlov reaction... Baff1 always starts an anti-EU rant as soon as the word "independence" falls. Baff, when will you realise that you are already dependent? No country possesses the resources (be it labour, capital, or natural resources) to live in autarky. And that's a good thing; interdependence is the only thing that guarantees peace. If your economy is closely interconnected with your neighbour's, you will think thrice before attacking him. What you are promoting is a 19th century take on statehood. We've all seen what that leads to. Yes but independence does not mean 'trade embargoes'! We have good trade with the US and the China for instance but we are totally independent from them. The amount of crap that emanates from Brussels ATM is killing the UK! Well it wouldn't be I suppose if it weren’t for the pedantic nature of our leaders swallowing every pill thrown at them, while countries like France just spit them back out! Health and safety is the biggest laugh here ATM. You can't even have a half inch hole in your drive without an inspectors order to repair it! There is enough red tape and official bullshit in the UK right now we don't need any more! Not only that but the EU has opened us up to everyone from the former eastern block countries as well and so we have 'everyone' coming here to take our jobs too! The EU for me is the worst think ever that we as a nation could have joined! We did just fine as a country before it and we would do just fine now without it! Roll on independence!  Â

.. The site of wobbling whale meat wading up and down our high streets is getting ever more common! But can we really blame individuals for their lack of fitness or understanding diet and healthy living? As you can see from This Report this is no minor issue here in the UK and is heading in the right direction for a national health crisis as it is already in parts of the US. I’ve always been of the opinion that everyone is ultimately responsible for their own health, but now I’m beginning to wonder whether this approach is really fair when there is just so much pressure from the corrupt food industry to shove as much toxic shit into you as possible for maximum bucks and not enough education to warn of the dangers! Just about every isle in the food stores is stocked up with as much sugar pumped up crap as you can imagine and it’s all there for the taking! Read This Article about how bad sugar is for your health, there are many more like it! If only a fraction of that list was true I would say it was a deadly poison! Over 20 years ago I heard of nutritionists and food scientists advising that sugar should never have been made available to the public and that many thought it should be banned! But the power of the sweet-toothed consumer and the greedy food manufacturers has won the contest outright! I’m one of those ‘lucky’ few that have been forced to learn about diet because of my various food intolerances. I am gluten intolerant and suffer a mild form of IBS (irritable bowel syndrome). This means I can’t eat anything containing wheat flour or rye and barley and I also cannot stomach much sugar as it gives me severe cramps! The latter I consider good news as I have an early warning system over the toxicity of refined sugar, so I avoid it outright as much as possible. There are plenty of ‘natural’ alternatives such as honey for sweetening drinks etc. Both my wife and myself NEVER use sugar and only consume the small amounts in some processed foods that are ‘impossible’ to avoid. We both lead active and healthy lives! Sugar is NOT required in our diets. Our body makes its own sugar from starchy foods such as vegetables and fruits. But sugar is nice and it is shoved in everyone’s face on a daily basis, so those that know no different will indulge and enjoy taking comfort from those old snack bar adverts like’ .. "A finger of fudge is just enough to give your kids a treat, it’s full of sugary goodness and very small and neat …."  … Sugary goodness!?  FFS! So the more I eat the better it will be!!  The developed world is getting fatter and more and more poisoned by refined products such as sugar. So who picks up the health bill and will we eventually start to see government interventions on the 'not so selective' food industry, or will it always be an individual fight to stay healthy in a world full of refined high energy toxic crap and product misinformation? .. Or will most people just keep getting fatter and not realise it until they explode? Â

Yep I think I kept OFP alive for about another year mostly by trying out all the new vehicles, islands and weapons. I made my own missions in the editor for them if I thought they were any good! Most important thing IMO for OFP 2 is a mission editor! Modability comes next! Â

A really good game shouldn’t ‘need’ mods, but mods will extend the playability of any game especially good ones! Most of us would agree that OFP was a ‘really good ‘ game and it was extended and improved enormously by the many mods made especially those talented re coders like Keggetys breathing new life into the dull and dated graphics etc. Of course there should have been a sequel long before then! Addons and mods make games like FSX much more fun and Oblivion for me is worth continuing now that I have got an in-game female companion! OFP2 would be greatly enhanced if it were to be mod friendly. But I understand Sputnicks general drift about the countless half finished crap that keeps filling the download sites! Selectivity is the solution here! My apologies suma for the misinformation regarding your level of participation in producing OFP’s campaigns! My information came from a Codemasters rep in their own forums a few years ago! I guess they had a grudge at the time! I love your certianty. Tell me how do you know that it won't be a complete failure and that it won't deliever and end up being another mainstream shitty shooter that everybody will forget about in 6 months? I don't know that this game will be a success or a failure! What I said was that it will 'definitely' have 'something new' .. that is the Codies new game engine. Something new is what OFP needs! BIS might do a better job with ArmA 2 or Codemasters might do a better job! I'm not siding or supporting anyone! I'm certainly not going to spend my time being loyal and defending everything done by BIS! So far for me ArmA has gone back on the shelf! I'll check out another version when it arrives! Â

Not quite so! Most of the campaign, cut-scenes, voice acting etc was Codies work. This was proved too by the pathetic attempt at a campaign by BIS in ArmA! The idea that this sort of game is still revolutionary is just 'old thinking'. When OFP was first released the whole concept of being able to do so many things in a game like OFP was indeed revolutionary and BIS did a marvellous job at pulling it off. But technology has moved on since then, and there is now no reason on Earth why an established company like Codies could not do much better. They have the experience, they have the financial and technical resources and best of all they have one 'kick ass' of an engine! This new engine alone will be the selling point for me! What sort of modding community it will have remains to be seen, but if the boxed game is well prepared this won’t matter that much to most. ArmA was a big let down for many including myself. … True it was never supposed to be OFP 2 but it never even made OFP 1.5! Too much effort was put into making it more than it should have been and thus acquiring too many new bugs. Not enough effort was put into it to make it a good successor to OFP. What OFP needed was a completely new engine to give it a completely new feel without ruining the ambitious virtual military simulation package. That ‘something new’ was NOT in ArmA it 'might' be in ArmA 2, but it will definitely be in OFP2! Â

Very nice gun reload animations too! A bit overdone on the limb chopping; but that's SOF for you! Â

Boy you had me hooked for a while! Â Â Skyfish, Rods and half an hours worth of surfing and then my excitement fell like a stone! From Wikipedia... But then again there is a nice article here about how these things are apparently increasing due to global warming! ... Â Â Ahem! By the way I think that you might be the one to go off topic now though! Â

I can't make out that picture! Can you explain it more so that we can comment! Â

... Or out of the frying pan and into the fire! Another interesting read from Times Online: An experiment that hints we are wrong on climate change Also from Fox News: Ancient Utah Oak Indicates Warmer Climate

I don't think it needs locking, unless as the topic starter you request it! Topics like this are bound to meander off course here and there; so long as it doesn't go totally adrift I wouldn't worry! Moderating in these forums is pretty crap ATM and Placebo's return hasn't made much difference either! Love it or hate it, I've learned some useful stuff already! Â

But Baff1 I already know that! Â My interest in alternative power is about self-reliance and hopefully saving money in the long term. It won't be in this 'rip off' country though; no it will be in the Philippines (where my wife comes from). There is good reason for having solar power over there as the utility supply is frequently interrupted due to a poor infrastructure and the all year reliable power of the tropical sun. Thanks for your heads up on that new technology that we should hopefully see in the next few years. I'm in no hurry over my installations so I think I might wait this one out! Here is the link to that report. There is more here and here!. There is also an interesting article from Canada on solar power here!. Like I said it is not generally an economically viable energy solution ATM, but reading these reports it looks like it soon could be! I'll be keeping an eye on this one! Â

Good for you! Fortunately I have never had to pay for it in my entire life!   Oh and happily married for 9 years I doubt I ever will! Thanks for your stock market tips though I will bear it in mind. But I doubt very much that I am gonna be bothered giving up my exciting, creative and constructive life for one of stocks and shares! I'd hire a stockbroker for that fulfilment!  Money is great to have I agree. It enables so many things in life, but I cannot value everything that I enjoy and live for with money alone. Forgive me Baff1 but you are starting to sound like my accountant! I think we need to get back on topic though! Solar panels and wind turbines might not be the most economically viable energy solution ATM, but they do offer an alternative means to our dwindling (and polluting) fossil fuel supply. They also give independence in power outages if you have them on your home. And yes, like with everything else you need to do lots of research first before getting conned by false statistics, but these things can and do have their place. I know that you don’t believe in global warming/climate change in ANY form from reading your previous posts, so I am not going to even suggest that there might need to be alternative reasons for moving to more sustainable energy solutions! I am sceptical also that humans are the sole cause of this ‘uncertain’ warming. Nor can I be bothered to debate it any further in these forums! But I have heard and read (and seen) enough for me to be at least somewhat concerned. I for one I am not just going to debunk every new idea that could turn out to be a useful contribution to at least part of our upcoming energy crisis or climate issues simply on account of initial cost effectiveness. Maybe I just love adventure and experimentation too much! I once asked my accountant: “how can you sit down all day long, day after day sifting through slips of paper and tapping on a calculator?†He replied to me: “Well I’m totally unimaginative, uncreative and useless with my hands!†Â

Many parts of Europe could suffer a major ice storm this winter and many electricity pylons will be buckled with massive loss of power to millions for weeks on end! BP shares will have plummeted due to Russia extracting new supplies from the Artic and the Yen will have tumbled and taken much of the economy with it due to the long expected mega quake in Tokyo sinking vast areas of industrial land back into the sea through liquefaction. I’ll be having tea with Balschoiw and watching lots of dirty videos! Haha! Actually I will be in the Philippines erecting my own solar array. If money were my sole reason for doing things then I would probably just sit at the computer surfing the markets. To me life is much more than that, and finding solutions to problems and alternative ways of doing things that aid some degree of self-reliance are far more fulfilling. The world may not be doomed as stated. But if it was (and these things can and will happen) I know whose house I would rather be in!