Bullethead

Yeah, I think the new character stat system might just be great. It's mostly internal mechanics, not really gameplay, but it makes more sense the more I think about it, so it might catch on. Wandering bosses used to be a staple of early RPGs. Hell, even Evercrack had them at least early on when I was playing it. But somewhere along the line, somebody thought it was too hard on new players so they disappeared. Now personally, I always thought it added some zest to the game that your new character could be minding his own business killing giant rats just on the outskirts of town, far from all the dangerous places of evil legend, and suddenly the Big Baddie himself might stroll by and casually flatten you while on his way to the grocery store. The worst that can happen is, you lose everything since your last save, which if you're smart will only be the last couple of minutes. Big whoop. But folks whined.....

Very nice, thanks :)

Whenever I join a new squadron or my squadron moves to a new base, I always take time to fly around the local neighborhood learning landmarks. Hey, this base is near a creek/road/railway that I can follow home. Wow, there's a nunnery with a convenient landing field adjacent. And look, here are some friendly flak concentrations in handy places if I'm being chased home. When I was flying 2-seaters in the DiD campaign last year, this habit saved me on nearly every flight. The weather was almost always total crap with thick low cloud and freezing rain, but I knew that if I followed a certain creek and turned when over a specific bend until I was lined up with a particular clump of trees, I'd be perfect for my final landing approach even though I usually couldn't see the airfield until I was right over the threshold.

Unless Skyrim is a total disaster rushed out the door 1/2 finished, it's unavoidably going to set the new standard for FRPGs. After all, SOMETHING has to be the standard by which all other FRPGs are judged. Oblivion has had that honor for the last few years but it's obviously dated now so the industry needs a new standard. There are other quite excellent new FRPGs out there now, but none of them will sell anywhere near as many copies. Because Skyrim will sell so many copies, nearly every potential customer of FRPGs will have seen it, so it's the logical choice to compare other games to. Thus, game companies for the next few years will copy Skyrim's good points and try to improve on its bad points, and you'll see comparisons in reviews like "It's like Skyrim only without X but with Y in addition." But this really doesn't matter because Bethesda games with their open worlds are apples and oranges to almost all other RPGs. Of the "5 reasons Skyrim will change gaming", 3 of them have been standard Bethesda RPG features since forever and in all that time, hardly anybody else has followed suit. The only ones that spring to mind are the "X" series of space games (a new one of which is due out soon) and, to a lesser extent because there's no magic, the "Mount and Blade" series, both indies that have devoted, but relatively small, followings. For the most part, everybody else has kept on doing more or less script-driven RPGs. This hasn't stopped these others from being successul in their own right, either. For instance, I love "The Witcher" games, but in them you have no major choices--you're stuck playing this 1 specific guy who has to follow some specific main quests. So you can only compare them to Skyrim in terms of graphics and interface because they're trying to do completely different things.

I've identified a few more things... The 2 accomodation hulks tied to the jetty are the sloop Cormorant and the corvette Rapid. Both were composite-hulled ships, meaning they had iron keel and frames but wood planking. Long before this pic was taken, they'd been gutted, roofed, and turned into floating barracks. Cormorant was launched in 1877, hulked in 1889, renamed Rooke in 1946, and not disposed of until 1949. Rapid launched in 1883, hulked in 1906, and remained at Gib until 1948. Also, there are some important buildings ashore. To the left is The Convent, home of the governor, although the building dates to the 1531 and was originally a Franciscan covent. More in the middle is The Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, the Anglican main church in the outpost, built 1825-1832. The fortificiations along the waterfront are Brit-built from the 1770s, just in time for the Great Seige. I suppose the visible bastions all have names, as was traditional back then, but I haven't yet found a reference for that.

Thanks, but it's wireless, which doesn't work for me. Also, I think this model has been discontinued.