xawery

If it is, then I'm truly bad at picking up subtle messages. And I'm not:) The film does however suggest that Hitler was asexual in a way, but that idea is easily created when the person in question is ascetic. Incidentally, Steven Spielberg was quite interested in directing "Max", but he decided not to, as he felt it would "dishonour the memory of the victims of the Holocaust". How the two can be logically linked is completely beyond me. As to Albert's review: that's exactly what I had hoped "Der Untergang" to be. No dramatising, no moral lessons, simply a film that acknowledges the fact that the viewer is an intelligent being and is able to draw his own conclusions. Hitler was a madman and a monster, but decades of two-dimensional bogeyman portrayals have turned him into a grotesque, almost comical figure. He's just that bloke with a funny moustache who liked to shout a lot. I am not surprised that 11% of British youth think that he was a fictional figure. I know we all would prefer to think that Hitler did what he did because he was a monster, an anomaly. It's much easier than to acknowledge that he was human, and that we humans are capable of such things. The same goes for Heydrich, Eichmann, the lot. How can a man who is brought to tears by Schubert's work simultaneously be the Butcher of Prague? Only accurate, unbiased portrayals of the past will prevent us from repeating our mistakes. It's drivel like Pear Harbor, Enigma or Uprising that shapes the historical awareness (although that may be too big a word nowadays) of our youth. You could label me a cultural pessimist, but that would be incorrect. Pessimism suggests a biased, coloured look at reality. Sadly, reality only affirms my point of view.

Speaking of Hitler films, has anyone seen "Max"? A fairly unknown film, set in the years directly after WW1. The story is completely hypothetical; it shows Hitler as a fairly mediocre painter of realism, struggling in a time where abstract works dominated the art world. Hitler sparks the interest of a rich, Jewish gallery owner Max Rothman. In the meantime, Hitler begins his engagement in politics. I won't tell you anything more; suffice to say the film is worth watching. Noah Taylor plays Hitler and John Cusack plays Rothman. Unfortunately, the film suffers from its share of quirks: for example the Jewish germans speak with an american accent, while the "bad" germans are given a ridiculous "vee vill azk ze kvestions" accent. Highly annoying. There are also some minor historical innacuracies, but none of them is blatant enough to be truly annoying. The ending is quite ironic and quite tragic. It leaves the viewer with some food for thought. Always a good trait, in my books. As to "Der Untergang", I can't wait to see it. It seems that here in the Netherlands A-Film has already purchased the screening rights. Can't wait can't wait...

It's a really good test. As the site states, most tests are oriented towards the average, and less attention is paid to those with above-average IQs, resulting in eeh, results that aren't quite as representative. Incidentally, if you have hubris problems and feel overly self-confident, I suggest the exceptional intelligence test: it's bound to bring just about any ego down to size:)

Hey there chaps, your average online IQ tests are really quite poor. If you'd like to try something that's at least challenging, take a look here. Quite hard, but quite satisfying. I especially recommend the culture fair test. As it consists solely of pictures, it eliminates the cultural handicap most people with English as a second language have. The verbal IQ test is also fun stuff. I consider myself to have quite a large vocabulary, but some of these questions really had me scratching my head. Go get 'em!

I was not referring to the death penalty. I was referring to being shot by a security guard. And if you read my post, you will see I was referring to the "premise of death" as such, not to the death penalty only. Be it as it may: the prospect of potential death does not prevent criminals from perpetrating crimes, it only makes them arm themselves better and act more aggressively. The behaviour of the criminals adapts to the severity of the laws. Imposing harsher punishment is ineffective and merely deals with the syptoms of the disease, instead of its causes. Not criminalising whole ethnic parts of the population would be a far better method. But that's an entirely different topic altogether. Suffice to say that the US legislature prefers short-term, ex-post measures that have been clearly shown to be ineffective (war on drugs is one such example). Again, I'm straying off the topic... as I said before, this topic is very closely related to other issues that are discussed elsewhere...

This statement is simply incorrect. Numerous studies have shown that the death penalty (the 'risk of death' you speak of) is not an effective way to deter crime: they are not correlated. Incidentally, a number of recent studies claiming the opposite have been shown to be statistically flawed. Take a look at www.deathpenaltyinfo.org.

temporary insanity, I guess! The funny thing is, when describing Nosferatu I was thinking how it gave me the chills just like System Shock used to. Duh! On a sidenote, a rather dedicated dev team started working on a SSII remake for the Doom III engine some time ago. Sadly, EA (it was EA right?) told them to discontinue their work. Unabashed, the chaps decided to make a completely new game, with a feel similar to SSII. They called it Sapphire Scar. Take a look at their website for more details.

Never played MMORPG because I was afraid what they would do to my life (as if OFP wasn't enough of a homewrecker ); I was however planning on getting Warhammer Online. Partially because I am an avid WFRP player, and partially because the game concept was quite revolutional (no cheesy monsterconning etc.). Then GW discontinued it. AAAGH! Just after the E3 trailer had been released... boohoo... I've seen some trailers of Planetside, and it looks muy promising! Can anyone confirm? I've always longed for that true massive combat feeling...

I cast my opinions about gun ownership aside, because they would prevent me from having a conversation about this hypothetical scenario - as you might have noticed, I am not of the opinion that items designed solely for killing should be available to the public. The government is selected by the people and it should be the only institution in the possession of weapons. The 'people's' (I hate this generalisation: as if one could speak of a unified mass...) check on the government is the congress, the house of commons, the parliament, or whatever your political system chooses to call it. If in such a system you justify your need for weaponry by saying that you want to be able to overthrow the government should it turn 'bad' (according to whose criteria??), you are effectively undermining the democratic structures of the state by implying that they are unable to do their tasks. This is my prinicipal objection to owning arms. In my eyes, the 2nd amendment is little more than an outdated quirk allowing some gun-toting psycho to bypass carefully crafted democratic institutions and start blasting away at IRS agents because he feels the gov't is robbing him of his hard-earned dollars. Tell me this: have you ever considered the possibility of the population NOT acting en bloc? You keep talking about "the people", but there is no "people". There are individuals, groups, all with different and often contradicting interests. What one group might find 'oppressing' the other might agree with. What happens then, if one group takes up arms? Civil war, among "the people". The 2nd amendment was written on the crest of some utopian wave of warm 'n' fuzzy unitarian sensation. Plus, the fact that in 75% of murders commited with firearms the gun had been obtained legally supports the idea that civilians simply cannot be trusted. If I cheat on my wife I would much rather have plates and lawsuits thrown at me than being shot in the head (common occurance: "in the heat of the moment"). The statistics are somewhere on the FBI site but I'm at work now and don't feel like sorting through tons of pdf files. I'll post it when I get them. Now you know my opinion on firearms. Back to our hypothetical situation. Your assertion that propaganda doesn't work is simply incorrect. 50% of the US population believes that Saddam Hussein was behind the WTC attacks. My friend, propaganda is THE way of controlling the people. Keep the people dumb and disinformed, distract them (the classic Roman "bread and games"), feed them lies for long enough and they will start to believe whatever you say. Discredit your opponent with lies and if you repeat them long enough, the people will believe it. Forge evidence and send him off to a 'correctional facility'. Take a look at Nazi Germany. If you think that people are any less gullible now than they were then, you are either very naieve or unwilling to look the facts in the face. You speak of such things as "time to grab the gun". According to whose criteria? Yours? Your neighbour's? What if someone uses different criteria, and acts when you don't think action is warranted? You get chaos. Again, your rhetoric is fuelled by some dogmatic belief that in the face of an 'oppressive government' (we should define this from the start...), "the people" will rise like a single man, setting aside individual interests and dislikes, and get rid of the foul oppressor! Furthermore, should an oppressive government happen to the US, it won't start oppressing people at the snap of a finger. It will happen gradually, as it is doing right now. Freedoms will be gradually taken away under some pretext or another (security, in this case...). Critics of the regime will be marginalised as un-patriotic US haters. Tell me that this isn't happening right now, or better yet: tell me it isn't working. Keeping track of the moves of its citizens is a totalitarian state's biggest power. In sum: weapons will not save you from an oppressive government; keeping yourself informed and aware of your rights will. /edit: I incorrectly assumed that Ares lived in the US, which has led me to use "your country" in the fourth paragraph instead of "USA". Mistake corrected.

I risk being labelled a fanboy by saying this, but Red Orchestra is very very good. If you liked DoD, you'll love RO. The voice comms are very immersive (I find these very important) and the in-game sounds are simply terrific. It was the first time I had no objections to the sounds. When you hear the MG34 fire you crap your pants and drop to the floor, not necessarily in that order... I suggest you look up the Red Orchestra 3.0 thread for more info. On the topic of immersive games, something completely different: a little game that recently fell into my hands, called Nosferatu: Wrath of Malachi. A Swedish-made horror game with the distinct feel of 1920's vampire flicks. Armed with a spine-chilling soundtrack, random castle infrastructure (you never play in the same castle twice!) and randomly respawning monsters, this game will make your hair stand on end. While graphically not up to par with recent games, Nosferatu completely makes up for this shortcoming with blood-curdling atmosphere. Even when I started to discern the pattern in the monster's behaviour they managed to give me goosebumps every time they appeared. Cardiac arrest, here I come!

My opinions on civilians keeping arms aside (you wouldn't like them), let's analyse what you're saying. Let's assume that the possibility of an oppressive government exists. Actually, scratch that: this government is already in place, so let's push it a little farther shall we: a government which turns totalitarian. Do you actually believe they will engage in open hostilites agains the populace? Of course not! Let's draw a parallel with totalitarian regimes from the past century. The totaliarian governments carried out their oppressive agendas in a subtle, covert manner. Propaganda, discrediting opponents, kidnappings, people disappearing... All very much cloak and dagger. There was no open conflict with the population, apart from a number of uprisings, which were quickly smashed down simply because the aforementioned totalitarian regimes had tanks. Your m16 won't help you much in the face of the army, unless of course you want RPGs and AFVs to be freely available to the public too. Just in case: that was sarcasm. No, a totalitarian regime wouldn't risk open conflict with the population, one way or another. It would use the aforementioned guile and underhand methods. Now, let's introduce periodical "mental stability tests". As everything, these are prone to manipulation. As a certain adminstration has quite clearly shown, even in times of "exemplary democracy" this isn't ruled out. I'm not certain if you're aware of this, but you can be involuntarily committed to a mental institute if your mental health is deemed brittle. It's for your own good, you know? Just a wee bit of tinkering with the records and hey presto! the government has the perfect way of sending political adversaries into the room with soft walls. If you seriously consider opposing the government, it's the organisation you need to worry about first, not the equipment. Weapons are more easily obtained than people who can lead and organise. By approving of something like the "sanity checks" you are giving a potentially oppressive government a potential means of disposing of political enemies. So tell me, who's not thinking ahead? Just in case: that was a rhetorical question.

We're descending into a semantic skirmish now, but you're confusing two terms: mental instability is not synonymous to mental illness. Measuring mental stability would necessarily require a longitudinal study, not a series of snapshots set on arbitrary moments. When it comes to a mental illness, you either have it or not. But all this is trivial compared to your apparent readiness to allow a federal institution to study and record your mental state, on a regular basis. You want to keep arms just in case the government requires overthrowing, but you think it's ok for it to keep a permanent record on your mental condition? Need I spell out the flawed logic of your reasoning? /edit: freudian slip...

That's the fun thing about mental stability - it's not stable. Nor is it easily measured. I don't know how well-versed you are in psychiatry, but there is no single 'sanity' scale. And even if there were, what do you propose? Periodical sanity checks, to see whether you're still 'mentally stable' enough to own that MG (ignoring the fact that such a check would only be a snapshot of the current moment)? Now that would be an excercise in personal freedom, don't you agree? Come off it my friend, you're just arguing this point for the sake of the argument.

It's rather funny you should say this because in fact, it's the other way around. The American right, especially the new right, seems quite keen on interfering with the lives of the citizens. What is worse, people seem to be receptive for this kind of interventionism. Personal use of drugs, abortion, euthanasia, marriage (really!), privacy (the infamous Patriot Act...) etc. etc. Please note that all these issues are personal and have an effect on the person itself. Ironically enough, while swallowing such railroading of their lives at the hands of the government, some Americans seem to be hell-bent on maintaing absolute freedom when it comes to items that were designed to kill. The US seems to be obsessed with items of destruction, while showing a blatant disregard for personal freedoms. This inconsistency never ceases to amaze me. So who is being "lorded over"? This thread is intricatly related to politics, so forgive me when I seemingly stray off-topic: how can any true Republican, in favour of a smaller government and less federal interference support Bush? The man not only hasn't "starved the beast", he fed it steroids and had it work out for days on end. I suggest people read the Economist's report on the Bush presidency. Back on topic. In the words of Eddie Izzard: "Guns don't kill people, people kill people... but the guns sure do help."

No they don't. They bring the whisky, no e. The Irish bring the whiskey. Gah. Anyway, sound plan chaps, and I would like to voice my support for the flash-idea. Much easier to implement the roll-over menus etc. Plus, it's much more pleasing to the eye. Having said that, I must admit that my Flash skills are limited to making tacky propaganda films, so I'm afraid I won't be of much help. Count me in as moral support.

Oh this is rich. Naturally I don't doubt that Denoir is more than capable of defending himself (even though defending may be too big a word in this case), but I feel compelled to comment. Denoir has done little else than post facts and well-founded analyses which can be easily confirmed by verifiable statistical data. This is more than can be said of the fundaments of your arguments, which are little more than hearsay. Still, you have the nerve to call Denoir arrogant and dogmatic. The biting irony of this all is only heightened by the fact that it is you, good sir, who gives a blatant display of nationalistic arrogance by suggesting that Denoir would "make a good American". I am truly amazed at this sentence. What in the Lord's name was going through your head when you wrote it? Furthermore, your calling this forum "a bastion of libralism" (sic!) is another myopic projection of American political conditions on the rest of the world. This surprises me. You seem an educated man, and judging by your statement that Denoir would "make a fine American", you are also aware that the majority of posters on this forum is not a denizen of the USA. You would thus do well to bear in mind that the rest of the world does not fit in the dichotomous political structure of the USA, and that by labelling this forum as "libral" (in the American sense of the word, which incidentally does not correspond with the meaning the rest of the world attaches to it) you commit a gross over-generalisation. On another note, it is my opinion that the aforementioned dichotomy in the anglo-saxon political systems is the breeding ground of mediocrity and lack of variety in actions: both parties start to resemble each other in the battle for the political centre. Just look at the UK - there is de facto very little difference between Labour and the Tories. As a matter of fact, the Tories are in deep crisis because Labour 'stole' the majority of their action items (I suggest reading the last issue of the Economist for more details). But this is a subject for a whole different thread. kind regards, Xawery

...which would result in extremely small scale skirmishes between perhaps 2 squads. Sounds kind of limited, doesn't it? I'm all for realism but removing respawn would make almost all maps too large and the fights extremely short. The round would be over very soon, and would result in another round: effectively, respawn!

Haha, yes the satchels are really sick! In karlovka, the big winter map where you need to destroy some roadblocks and cross the bridges, I was tasked with doing just that... So I carefully instrudcted our Panzer IV and the SdKfz to back up. They put their gears in reverse and retreated for some 40 m. It didn't help! Boy was I kicked off the server mighty quick:S Btw Draco, what you mention is a rather annoying aspect of RO: there seems to be no spawnprotection at all. At one time in Kalinin, the big tank map, some T34 simply drove into our hangar and started blasting away as soon as we spawned. I hope they fix it soon... Also, has any of you experienced the rifle bug, where the shots become extremely inaccurate due to some misalignment between the server and the client? Everybody is complaining about it but I haven't noticed it yet.

Exactly. While the vehicles are rudimentary at best (just like in OFP in fact), it takes a certain amount of cooperation to use them effectively, especially in urban areas. Tons of fun! I hope they'll keep on improving this mod, because this just might be the right thing to help get through life until OFP2 comes out. If it doesn't help, I think I'll go into hibernation There's tons of stuff in RO that I would like to see in OFP2. The difference between hipfire and using the sights, for example. The way it's handled in RO adds completely new dynamics to the game. The way movement is resolved is also rather interesting - you automatically crouch a bit, making yourself a smaller target. It's really great seeing prolonged streetfights where shots are exchanged from behind cover, with the occasional soldier running from cover to cover in that very atmospheric crouched manner. Great stuff.

I took the big step and purchased UT2004 just to be abel to play RO. It was a VERY GOOD decision. First of all, UT2004 is a pretty fun game in itself, but RO... RO is just EXCELLENT. The vehicles, while fun, are WIP so they do have a certain amount of suckiness in them (they bounce around just like in OFP! I felt right at home). The infantry combat however is simply AMAZING. The rifles are nice and not deadly accurate, there is no crosshair which makes for some intense close-quarters firefights, and the corpse-juggling artillery is simply deafening. There is nothing like lying in a cold wet ditch, attaching a bayonet to your Kar-98 while the shells rain on enemy trenches, kicking up dirt, earth and Russians. Than all goes silent, and the Gruppenfuehrer shouts "Vorwaerts! Stellung sturmen!" and we run into the trenches, bayonet first. Woohoo! The sounds are excellent, and so are the animations. I just look forward to depleting my MG34 just to look at that beautiful gloved hand replace the magazine. The physics are fun too, especially when a soldier flies into the air due to an explosion and his limp corpse lands on a pile of sandbags. I really recommend it! I think it's still only available on Fileplanet, but it was worth the wait!

I can't say that's reason to complain:) Damn... this means I'll need to buy UT2004. Argh... another 50 Euro's down the drain:S

Exactly. DoD has been my favourite WWII mod for quite some time now... But this... looks... stunning! The trailer was really worth downloading. All that remains is for me to purchase UT2004. Now, a small question to those who already own it: how is multiplayer 'governed'? Is it something like Valve's Steam? Or more like Ubisoft's system? I'm not quite sure who published UT... You see, the reason why I'm asking this is that I had to buy three copies of HL before that damn Steam thingy finally accepted my cd-key! I contacted Valve about it but buying another copy of HL was cheaper than sending the whole damn thing to their US HQ and waiting for them to get back to me. I'd like to avoid such hiccups in the future:) regards, X.

I need help... I actually thought it said "sold it to a girl at work whim I shot with it"

Bah Bonko, I see you have finally succumbed to the lure of bourgeois conventions eh? You pseudo-rebel you! Heh, this thread shows people are rather keen on revealing their inner selves... I won't go as far, but a little something about me can't hurt. I'm 21 years old, Polish of origin, but I've been living in the Netherlands for over half my life. I'm in the last year at uni, studying International Business Sciences. Once I'm done I plan on studying Philosophy and after that, Linguistics... Time permitting, of course;) Currently employed at an insurance broker as head of the life science division (incidentally, I am the life science division ). In my spare time I conceive plans for world domination. Phase 1 will be intiated by launching a giant mechanical panda into orbit. Watch the skies... A sample of my propaganda can be found here. As you can see I am somewhat fascinated by Sozial Realismus;) Interests include, but are not limited to: history, philosophy, music, art, literature, warfare, finance, politics, totalitarian regimes... you know... the usual. Incidentally, should anyone by interested, I still have some open positions on my future puppet government. The Ministry of Porn is already fully staffed, though (surprisingly enough...). Check out www.qnst.net for some of my works and www.qnst.net/forum for excercises in absurdity (currently only in Dutch). Enough shameless plugs. Ave!

"Bad people"? I'm sorry Billybob, but you're displaying a striking ignorance about what the (Waffen) Schuetz Staffeln were. They were not "bad people", they were an organisation designed to supplement and eventually replace the 'neutral' military with ideological, indoctrinated nazi soldiers. They were an organisation tasked with the most vile of missions, e.g. running the death camps. They committed disgusting warcrimes while being fully aware of their criminal nature. But hey, those people were inferior right? As you hopefully are beginning to see now, "bad people" as a description of the SS simply doesn't cut it. Anyone with even a mediocre knowledge of history is bound to have very strong feelings about the SS. Following this train of thought, accusing someone of comparing the US military to the SS puts that person in a very bad light. By doing so, you question his good judgement and his rationality and simultaneously turn him into a mindless US-basher. A well-known tactic, but a petty and unfair one, especially since Balschoiw has done little more than quote official news sources and voice his opinion. In my opinion comparing anything to the products of the Third Reich, or even accusing someone of doing so, is nothing but inflammatory and counterproductive.