Bullethead

I doubt you want to be me: an old, grumpy, gimpy, curmudgeon who drinks a lot . I also don't recommend working in the game industry. Unless you're in deep with some big company, it doesn't pay much and you'll need a day job. If you insist on getting a job in the industry, I strongly adivse you to make games you've got no personal interest in, like say children's games for consoles. This is because by the time you get a game finished, you never want to see the thing again, or anything like it. But you have to because now you've got to provide customer support, which you will come to resent. Don't do that to genres you enjoy.

Hmmm.... Good question.... 1. Whatever my company decides to release this year. Everything we make is primo . Of course, I'll never play it because I'll be utterly bored with it by then and busy working on our next project . 2. OFF P4, assuming it comes out this year. Here's hoping. 3. Any DLC for the PC that becomes available for Fallout New Vegas. It really turns my crank that the only DLC so far has been X-Box exclusive. 4. After that.... Hard to say. I've had every Elder Scrolls game to date so I'm definitely interested in Skyrim, but since it's not coming out until November I might put it off until next year when it'll be cheaper. And I miss WW2 dogfights so both IL2COD and WOP2 are interesting, but I'll have to try the demo to see if the AI is up to scratch, MP being a no-go for me at present. And then there are my closet addictions to Mount & Blade and the X Universe. Anything that comes out for either of those is definitely on my list. I think that's a big enough list. I don't have much free time so I figure 3 or 4 games per year is the most I can do.

I get the impression that "personal" planes weren't always flown solely by their "owners". Like if the "owner" wasn't on the mission and somebody else's plane was sick, the other guy might fly the "personalized" plane. IIRC, one of the Jasta 11 aces was killed flying another ace's "personal" plane (I forget who). Kinda like Patrocles wearing Achilles' armor. This argues for at least these aces not having multiple planes of their own.

I read somewhere, in connection with natural disasters, that the US is too young to have ruins pointing out bad places to build cities. The same applies to Australia, OTOH, Europe is covered with ruined cities, many the result of recurrent disasters. Eventually people learned their lesson and moved elsewhere, and that happened thousands of years ago. Thus, with a few notable exceptions, European cities of today are built in proven safe zones. But in the US at least, giving up on a city, no matter how stupidly sited, is anathema. Thus, for example, the effort to "rebuild" New Orleans despite it being below sea level and surrounded by water (and in dire need of euthenasia anyway), or rebuilding San Fransico after its big quake (which is sure to happen again fairly soon).

Actually, civilization didn't collapse in New Orleans due to Katrina. It had already collapsed there decades earlier, if indeed it had ever existed at all. Whenever you have generations of ingrained, habitual government corruption on the scale of 3rd World regimes, you get the associated 3rd World levels of crime, poverty, lack of education, etc. Prior to Katrina, New Orleans was already one of the world's most dangerous cities, right up there with Bierut, Baghdad, Juarez, etc. 80% of the inmates in the Angola Prison, Lousy Anna's dumping ground for its worst offenders, were from New Orleans. So many crack rocks get dropped on the sidewalks that the pidgeons can't fly straight and have become a sort of pathetic tourist attraction. Fortunately, except for Katrina, the thugs of New Orleans stay in New Orleans. However, because NO relies on tourism, its government has always been adept at hiding such problems from the outside world. True crime rates were long suppressed with the same ease with which thousands of residents, dead for the past century, could still vote and count towards the census. Thus, the whole police force concentrates on keeping the small tourist area relatively safe (as in less than a dozen getting shot during Mardi Gras) and lets the rest of the city run wild. As a result, to the rest of the country, NO is (or at least was) viewed as a fun place full of happy people who do nothing but party. Sure, sometimes folks get hurt but hey, it's a wild place, and there's just enough perceived danger to add a bit of attraction. If you had this view prior to Katrina, then naturally you'd think civilization collapsed under the strain of the disaster. But what really happened was merely that a pre-existing population of completely uncivilized savages suddenly had to migrate in search of dry land, and took their traditional way of life with them. Fortunately, they soon discovered that their behavior wasn't tolerated in even marginally civilized places like Baton Rouge, so those that didn't wind up dead or in prison soon started drifting back to New Orleans where they could live the lifestyle to which they were accustomed. Naturally, this process caused a reshuffling of the criminal pecking order in New Orleans, so the first years after Katrina saw even more crime than usual, although a new "stable" configuration seems to be emerging now so crime is back to nearly "normal" pre-Katrina levels. But since Katrina, national attention has been kept on "rebuilding" NO, so what's happened there hasn't stayed there like it always has before. Too many witnesses now to hide all the bodies. So suddenly NO is now ranked as one of the most dangerous places in the whole world. Outsiders, remembering NO's pre-Katrina image, find this shocking and assume that this all part of the storm's aftermath. But it's really just them finally noticing something that's been well-known for generations in Lousy Anna.

Damn, that made me sadly nostalgic. "Flightsims have been the best-selling entertainment software for 10 years". Microprose and Spectrum Holobyte. Well do I remember those ancient days, now virtually forgotten. Damn, that made me feel old just watching it . Geez, when I look at the (almost entirely console) schlock that passes for games today, I don't see progress, I see regression. Most so-called gamers today wouldn't even be able to read the manual of F15 Strike Eagle, let alone play the game. Seeing all this makes me even more thankful that we have OBD to fill what has become a very niche market. I drink to the shade of the flightsim industry of the past and to the future success of OBD .

In the US, in most cases floods aren't covered by the basic homeowner's insurance policy: you have to get this as a separate thing at extra cost, if it's available at all. Insurnace companies won't write policies for places that flood frequently, which is a good sign that you shouldh't build a house there in the 1st place . I think this is perfectly reasonable. The insurance business is based on the statistics of long-term averages. Houses typcially burn, have trees fall on them, or whatever, at a predictable rate, so there's the normal cost of doing business. You can therefore sell policies against such things priced to provide a continuous profit margin and get along just fine. What screws this up is wildcards: fires in large commercial businesses, natural disasters, etc. These represent huge expenses for insurance companies and aren't very predictable. Thus, the companies try to minimize their impact by limiting their exposure to them (such as with separate flood insurance) and charging higher prices for the predictable losses. I can't really blame them--they're in business to stay in business. What I do get mad about is the large number of people who aren't aware that their homeowner's policy doesn't cover floods. It seems that most such folks really don't have the money to be owning houses anyway, but got them via government subsidies at my expense. You know, exactly the thing that caused the current recession . Because the government does most of the paperwork, these folks don't pay attention to the details of the transaction so don't realize they don't have flood coverage. Then when their houses wash away (subsidized housing tends to be in less-desirable locations, including those that flood more often) and the insurance company says it won't pay, they scream that the "evil" insurance company is screwing them and demand the government force them to pay. No matter how the issue is resolved, it's more money out of my pocket, either in taxes or higher insurance rates. On top of what these people already cost me beforehand in taxes, crime, etc., and of course the recession. Governments should stay out of the housing business entirely, IMHO. It only leads to trouble. I hope the Aussies have a better way of doing things.

Stumbled across this the other day. This guy claims the bike is 100% original (except for a few aftermarket accesories added within the 1st couple years). I imagine WW1 pilots tooled around on similar things when going to visit the local houses of ill repute. http://www.fark.com/cgi/vidplayer.pl?IDLink=5734912 After watching the procedure for starting the motor, I figure that 1913 Hell's Angels had to be pretty tough. I mean, if they got into a fight they couldn't handle, a hasty retreat wasn't an option, unless they were just going to pedal away

The so-called American Civil War, more correctly know as The War Between the States, was back in black powder days, before high explosives. Thus, for shells of the same caliber, more recent stuff is far more dangerous. However, even stuff from the 1860s can be quite dangerous. After all, more Americans died in that war than all our others put together. The amazing thing is that black powder is extremely hydroscopic and doesn't work when damp. But those old guys took such good precautions in packaging their shells that they've kept their powder dry up to the present time. I once restored an 1848 Harpers Ferry musket that was dropped in a skirmish that too place in my cow pasture. It had been picked up shortly after the event and had spent the next century or so in a barn loft, so it was in pretty good shape. Anyway, the lug on the bottom of the hammer had busted so the weapon was incapable of firing. Whoever had carried it, however, didn't notice in the heat of the moment so had kept going through the motions, resulting in 6 rounds and charges rammed down the barrel on top of each other. When I dug them out, the powder still burned quite well.

Heheh, "It was a KILL!" What we need to do is learn a little necromancy and conjure up the ghosts of our victims, and have them sign the form as witnesses

Well, when flying the Fee in Bloody April, I probably see 20-30 Albatri for 1 friendly scout of any type. Yet I know there are a bunch of them in the neighborhood, so I can only conclude that they spend their time avoiding the Huns, and yet they get all the publicity. So that's 1 reason to despise them. And on those very rare occasions when I do see them, the speedy little bastards steal my kills. So that's reason #2. I do enjoy flying Nupes myself, but I can't forget how much trouble they cause me in other lives. Thus, I shed no tears at their destruction

Thanks for the info, Rod. As for my promise to post the RGB values, I only had 1 taker on my offer and I've already sent him what he wanted. If anybody else wants to see it, let me know and I'll post it.

As a resident of Lousy Anna's armpit, I've been through my share of hurricanes and flooding. So my thoughts are with the Aussies currently on the wrong end of Mother Nature. I sincerely hope that my image of Australia as a fairly civilized part of world is true. If that's the case, then you all should be able to avoid the complete anarchy and region-wide outbreak of banditry we experienced when that 3rd World s**thole known as New Orleans got inundated and its tens of thousands of scumbags went rampaging all over. Here's hoping.

The only good Nupe is a dead Nupe. And that's said by somebody who loves flying them. See, as Clint Eastwood said in Unforgiven, "We all got it coming."

Congrats and thanks for the cigar . Drinks all around Looks like she came out fighting. Guess she's going to be a tough one

Well, if WW2OL is anything like AW, WB, or AH, the flak locations at any given airfield are well-known to all regular players. Then it's just a question of impromptu organization of your buddies, assigning guns to specific guys. 1st pass, everybody kills the flak with bombs, rockets, and/or guns. You might lose 1 or 2 guys, but the rest of your squadron is then in perfect postion to vulch the Hell outta the dweebs. Ah, happy times This is a recipe for "friendly fire". Back in 1987 (when the 1st MMOFS started) and for decades after, you'd shoot down the friendly but if you got 2 of them in 1 day, you were PNG (personna non grata). That meant you could still play but you had to change sides. Then Aces High came out with a different idea. In that one, there is no "friendly fire". Instead, any of your bullets that hit friendlies instead hit you, so you shoot yourself down. I liked the old way better because AH's method ENCOURAGES kill-stealing. Just cut in front of somebody and you're golden. But there are other ways to get payback on such folks, it just takes longer.

Fabulous shot, Hellshade :). When I played MMOFS games, my favorite kills were "vulches", which in the lingo of such games means strafing guys who are in the process of taking off. You fly a traffic pattern around their airfield so that you're back in attack position by the time they go through the respawn process, so you can get them again. It was especially gratifiying when 5 or 6 idiots were trying to take off at once and you could kill them all each pass. The main problem was other guys on your side trying to cut in front of you in the curcuit . BTW, for them as don't know, "vulch" is derived from "vulture", as in a vulture circling around looking for a meal to pounce on.

Sounds like my kind of guy . I'll have to look him up.

When I was a kid, we used regular BB guns, Airsoft and paintball not yet having been invented . Paintball didn't come out until I was in the Marines, when we were all over it. Regardless of the weapons, however, imposing rules that stop a player from continuing on despite being hit has never worked, at least in my experience. Nobody wants to miss out on the fun, so it's always come down to having to inflict enough pain to make the other guy need to catch his breath for a few minutes. Either shoot him hundreds of times or beat him up in hand-to-hand combat, which happened a lot because guys would charge through a hail of fire to tackle you. It's a macho thing, after all . At the end of the day, we'd all be as beaten up as if we'd been playing tackle football. But it's all good, clean fun , especially if there's beer afterwards. Also, there's the fact that the popularity these days of such games has introduced a wider, more sheltered audience to the useful concepts of infantry tactics and the futility of trying to impose "laws of war" on something as brutal as combat.

Yup, nearly all the outdoor scenes were shot within about 2 miles (as the buzzard flies, longer by road) from my house, at Lambert's gravel pit. The only outdoor scene not shot there was at Rosedown Plantaion on eastern edge of St. Francisville (the garden scene).

I'll get back to this. It's quite on topic . St. Francisville, as of today, has about 1500 residents. That's not counting the ever-growing unincorparated shanty towns immediately outside the "city" limits, which hold about an equal number of people. So that's about 10% of your town's population, but it's the biggest concentration of people in this parish outside the gates of the Angola prison . Despite this, the folk of St. Francisville think they're rather important and so conduct Lousy Anna-style politics on a scale that would make even Huey Long blush for shame. Indian settlements here go back about the same depth of time, into the Clovis period of Paleoindians. The history of Bayou Sara is probably most on point. This major port began in the 1600s as a whorehouse at the confluence of the Mississippi and a small tributary later known as Bayou Sara. Sara was the Choctaw Indian woman who ran this house of ill repute. All her employees had 1 form of pox or the other, so the original French name for the the creek and the shanty town that grew there was "Bayou Chaudpis". You can see this on period maps. The Spanish later owned this area but English was the main language of the Border Scots colonists, so they translated the name of the stream and town to "Clap Creek", again shown on period maps. But civilization intruded so finally the city and stream were renamed after the oringal madame: thus the "Bayou Sara" of today. St. Francisville, up on a bluff far above the river, was thus always the rich neighborhood of the nabobs who had controlling interests down in floodplain "Bayou Chaudpis". When the lower town washed away in the Great Flood of 1927, St. Francisville took to dying out slowly, postponed only by inbreeding amongst the few old money families remaining. Today, all that remains of the town of Bayou Sara is "The Oyster Bar", a drinking and whoring establishment worthy of its ancient ancestor back in Sara's day. There's also a ferry landing, but that will soon disappear when they complete the bridge they're currently building a few miles downstream.

Having spent a fair amount of time in Newark, I think it's a "bad" place in terms of the normal US standard of living. But that's a relative term. Such places as Rwanda, North Korea, Iran, Haiti, Myanmar, and Los Angeles are far, far worse. And that's all most civilized people can contemplate. Lousy Anna is in its own infernal region far deeper into the Pit of Dispair, unimaginable to most sane humans.

Due to it's position at the mouth of the Mississippi, Lousy Anna is literally the grille over the floor drain of an open sewer as big as all of North America between the Rockies and the Appalachians. It's the only thing stopping all the continent's unspeakable trash from being flushed out to sea where it belongs. In fact, this is probably what created the so-called dry land in the state . This is what makes the place seem so weird to outsiders. All visitors see something very familiar from back home because they threw it away some time ago and then find it stuck in Lousy Anna, but there it's mixed in with the detritus of the rest of the continent, so is jarringly out of context (and still worthless). Some of them enjoy this effect as a form of post-modern art but the saner visitors make sure they have all their vaccinations up to date and touch as little of Lousy Anna as possible. Some natives can't imagine anything better and see each new day as an adventure, anticipating finding something useful amongst the night's leavings along the bayou banks and roadside ditches. Such folks write odes to the mind-boggling squalor of Lousy Anna, thinking that a pile of garbage thrown together by chance is somehow more romantic than the piles of garbage in every landfill. Most natives, however, along with all marooned expats from elsewhere, long for a chance to escape. In the meantime, they eat as well as possible, drink way too much, and sing the blues, which gives outsiders the mistaken impression that Lousy Anna is a happy place.

This is St. Francisville, Louisiana, looking north along Prosperity Street. This is the closest so-called town (more of a big village) to my house, but I live in the woods about 12 miles from it and I don't think any OFF pilots actually reside there . St. Francisville's main claim to fame locally is that it was the capital city of the short-lived West Florida Republic, which few folks even in Louisiana have ever heard of. Otherwise, it got shot up fairly badly by the yankees in 1863, which is why most buildings today date from 1880-1900, when the economy opened up again after the end of yankee occupation. 100 years ago, it was something of a boomtown due to being located adjacent to Bayou Sara, then one of the biggest ports on the Mississippi. But that washed away in 1927, then there was the Depression, and since then time has passed St. Francisville by. Today, it's sole industries are tourism, political corruption, and the litigation both involve. It's probably one of the most useless collection of buildings in the world and is doubtless doomed to disappear in a generation or 2.

That's a bleak prospect, Lou, and I'm sorry the suitcase ain't real. Still, having driven that road and/or several others just like it a few times in winter myself, it's really not so bad. Nice and straight and flat. Plus with good snowplow and saltshaker service. Not like, say, "Fairwell Bend" on I-84 in Oregon, about 1/2way between Cabbage and Boise, Idaho. Up there, they hardly plow at all because they don't want to damage the road surface, and they don't use any salt or any other de-icer becasue they're a bunch of enviro-whacks who'd rather kill motorists than the grass in the roadside ditches. In fact, they make things worse by putting pea gravel on top of the ice to add a ball bearing effect, like they're deliberately out to kill you. There's a special place in Hell for the Oregon Highway Department. If you've seen "Jonah Hex", you've seen mine