Blackmoor Vituperative

The official announcement has arrived at last!

Star Wars: The Old Republic

OCTOBER 21, SAN FRANCISCO – LucasArts and BioWare™, a division of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS), today announced the development of Star Wars®: The Old Republic™, a story-driven massively multiplayer online PC game set in the timeframe of the Star Wars®: Knights of the Old Republic™ franchise. Star Wars: The Old Republic, being developed and published by BioWare and LucasArts, represents an innovative approach to interactive entertainment, featuring immersive storytelling, dynamic combat and intelligent companion characters.

In Star Wars: The Old Republic, players will explore an age thousands of years before the rise of Darth Vader when war between the Old Republic and the Sith Empire divides the galaxy. Players can choose to play as Jedi, Sith, or a variety of other classic Star Wars roles, defining their personal story and determining their path down the light or dark side of the Force. Along the way, players will befriend courageous companions who will fight at their side or possibly betray them, based on the players’ actions. Players can also choose to team up with friends to battle enemies and overcome incredible challenges using dynamic Star Wars combat.

“Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is the most critically acclaimed Star Wars game in LucasArts history and a preeminent example of our company’s interactive storytelling heritage,” said Darrell Rodriguez, President of LucasArts. “For a long time, we’ve long wanted to return to the franchise in a grand way, and we felt that the best setting for it was an online world that would allow millions of people to participate in the experience together. We knew that the developer capable of working with us to deliver an engrossing story with a fully-realized online world was BioWare.”

“Traditionally, massively multiplayer online games have been about three basic gameplay pillars – combat, exploration and character progression,” said Dr. Ray Muzyka, Co-Founder and General Manager/CEO of BioWare and General Manager/Vice President of Electronic Arts Inc., “In Star Wars: The Old Republic, we’re fusing BioWare’s heritage of critically-acclaimed storytelling with the amazing pedigree of Lucasfilm and LucasArts, and adding a brand-new fourth pillar to the equation – story. At the same time, we will still deliver all the fun features and activities that fans have come to expect in a AAA massively multiplayer online game. To top it all off, Star Wars: The Old Republic is set in a very exciting, dynamic period in the Star Wars universe.”

Added Dr. Greg Zeschuk, Co-Founder and Vice President Development Operations, BioWare and Vice President, Electronic Arts Inc., “Star Wars: The Old Republic is set roughly 300 years after the events of Knights of the Old Republic, a timeframe that is completely unexplored in the lore. BioWare has been able to add to the Star Wars history in developing the game’s story and has created an overarching narrative that players can enjoy, regardless of their play style. Our goal is to offer players an emotionally rewarding experience that combines the traditional elements of MMO gameplay with innovations in story and character development.”

Additional details on Star Wars: The Old Republic features, gameplay and release date will be announced at a later time. For more information about Star Wars: The Old Republic and to sign up for future product updates, please visit www.StarWarsTheOldRepublic.com.

Whooooooo-hoooooooo!

There is a reason that the OpenOffice.org 3.0 servers are struggling to keep up with demand. OO.org 3.0 really is a serious upgrade over version 2.4 and makes NeoOffice irrelevant for Mac OS X users (previously, OpenOffice only worked within X11; While NeoOffice did a great job porting OO.org to native OS X, OO.org 3.0 works out of the box in OS X as a native Aqua application).

[…]

I had never liked the OpenOffice equation editor; this version brings a very nice graphical and text-based hybrid editor to us math teachers. Mail merge was clunky in OO.org; this version brings a mail merge wizard and improved label templates. Outline numbering tended to be a bit kludgy for notetaking in OO; this version improves the stability and interface of outlining.

Annotations are now incredibly easy to add (Insert, Note) and Office 2007/2008 formats are supported across the board. While Microsoft has dumped VBA support in Office 2008, OO.org users can run Visual Basic scripting, as well as Python and Javascript.

(from ZDNet, OK, now OpenOffice is definitely good enough)

Are people still debating whether to switch to OpenOffice? Seriously? Are these same people still debating whether to switch from dial-up to broadband? Are they still debating the merits of aspartame over saccharine?

Seriously?

OpenOffice was “good enough” to replace MS Office at least five years ago. Any individual or company that is still using MS Office is just… sad.

See also:

• Gallery: Enhancements for OpenOffice 3
• Paula Rooney: OpenOffice 3 launch timed perfectly but will Sun, IBM exploit opportunity?
• Paul Murphy: OpenOffice vs. Microsoft Office

Why I do not have children.

Alien: “It’s true: we are aliens. But what are you going to do about it? It’s a two party system. You have to vote for one of us!”
Human: “Well, I believe I’ll vote for a third party candidate.”
Alien: “Go ahead. THROW YOUR VOTE AWAY! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
*cut to inauguration day, where the alien sits on a throne*

This is funny because it’s true. I may not even vote this year. I have completely lost faith in the political process.

This is a novel legal strategy. And so far it’s working. Last month, in an effort to preserve the state’s monopoly on legal gambling, Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear sued to have 141 online gambling sites’ domains transferred to the state’s control. According to the Washington Post, a big part of Beshear’s election was based on bringing casinos to Kentucky.

Kentucky circuit court judge Thomas Wingate granted the request, ordering domain registrars to do just that. Wingate found that Kentucky’s anti-gambling statutes allowed such a court order in that gambling website domains are “gambling devices” under the state’s law.

But what jurisdiction does the Kentucky court have? Opponents say none, since none of the sites or the registrars are based in Kentucky.

(from Poker sites fight to get domain names back from Kentucky, ZDNet)

If a court in Elbonia is permitted to seize assets in Freedonia because an Elbonian law says they can, this is a HORRIFIC precedent. What’s next, if this travesty of jurisdiction is permitted to stand? China charging Americans with “crimes” like “counterrevolutionary acts”, or the USA charging foreign citizens with “crimes” like “copyright violation”, would not be too far behind.

This is a gross injustice and perversion of the law, and it needs to be stopped stone dead right now.

It is interesting to look back over interviews given by Ron Paul and people like Peter Schiff (former economic advisor to Ron Paul) in the past couple of years to see how utterly oblivious the US government has been. There have been voices of reason: Dr. Paul, Schiff, and others. They have been ignored. They are still being ignored. And the idiots in Congress just don’t get it. The house is on fire, and rather than put out the fire, they rush to build more rooms, as if this will keep the fire under control.

When interest rates are artificially low, below market rates and insidious malinvestment and excessive indebtedness inevitably brings [sic] about the economic downturns that everyone dreads.
(Ron Paul from committee floor, House Financial Services Committee, 2007-02-17)

And the idiots behind this mess blame the market for it.

Where is Ron Paul when we need him?

The $840 billion dollar downpayment on the $3 trillion bailout was signed into law today by President Bush. This is like getting cash advances on your credit cards to make payments on the house that you can’t afford because you stupidly got a bigger mortgage than you can afford to pay. Ironic, isn’t it.

Actually, it is more like your irresponsible neighbor stealing your credit cards to get cash advances to pay off the cash advances he already has on his own credit cards, after you told him that no, you were not going to loan him the money. So the bastard broke into your house and took them anyway.

I am more disgusted than I can coherently express.