Ginger_Warrior

As far as I'm concerned, it's a threat to a player's security. IT's also trading under false pretenses, which in my opinion would constitute as scamming. So, in my opinion luring is completely wrong. If players want to gain items through cambat, they can do so at the duel arena and prove their prowess. But luring is a very pathetic way fo earning quick, dirty money at someone else's expense, and oughta be frowned upon. I also think people treat the issue of luring as though it's the other players fault for their own incompetence. This is wrong. If a women gets mugged in the street, do we blame it on her own incompetence, saying that the police warned her first? No, of course not. And although hey are completely different scenarios, the wole point of morals is stil there. We wouldn't blame the women for being mugged - why blame the innocent player who lagged, or the inexperienced player who doesn't know better, for getting lured? As for the wilderness waning... if you've been to the wildy once before in that log-in session, it doesn't pop up again. So no warning.

But, I think a point is, wouldn't the two changes roughly balance each other out, so no overall change? I can't see how it would "kill" RS... but I can see an end to the traditional PKing. In my opinion, I'd rather get owned by a PKing clan full of experienced players who deserve the kill, than a pair of ancient/rangers tagging me. All I think it would do is make the Wildy an increadibly dull and boring place TBH.

Ya know... I would really like to say that RS2 is dying now. But it isn't. Far from it. The RS population increases every single day. When Jagex have that weapon at their disposal, why would they care what we mature members think? Personally, I think Jagex is at that pivetol point in its development. The baby (RS) has grown, but its grown into a toddler and eaten something it doesn't agree with. Eaten several things actually: 1) Pures - Jagex can hide behind the "we're not going to force people to train defence" motto, but it doesn't get rid of the resentment pures face. Pures have effectively taken over the wilderness and made mid-level fighting an impossability. This really angers people, no matter what Jagex's rather lacklustre approch to this issue is... 2) Scammers - By this I include people who take advantage of a random (ie. locking a door so an aggresive random kills a player), luring and trade scamming. This problem is so big, you have to wonder if it can be brought under control. And maybe that explains why Jagex have responded so badly to this - where do you begin to solve this problem? 3) Autoers/Macroers - Again, the problem is so big it's out of Jagex's control. At the end of the day, you can't just ban anyone with a bald head who cuts yew trees, so this is a tough one to deal with too. Still, Jagex can do more than they're doing now - their apathetic approach effectively condones this. 4) High levels - I think when the Gowers started on this, they didn't want their target market to be people like us (ie intelligent people who can build proper arguments and debates). I think they expected it to be a hit with 13-15 year olds, and everyone else would either find it too hard, or would find it kiddy. They couldn't be further from the truth. Now they find themselves in a bleak situation where 13-15 year olds have grown up a bit and are now demanding high level updates - something which Jagex seems to refuse to do, because they're hell-bent on attracting new players. Giving up hope, this has caused many (arguably, valuable) high levels to just leave. 5) There's probably a lot more... I can think of dozens of just very little gripes with the game itself that really are a turn-off. CS for one, then the music, bugs, graphics etc. Jagex really has to just take a step back, I feel, and reflect. And perhaps ask themselves the very question this topic is about. Do they honestly think RS2 will be going strong in 5 years time? With these problems - almost certainly not. And, not to discredit Andrew or Paul on making this wonderful game in the first place; but I'm sorry - they're just too big headed to see what's wrong here! We ask for fewer, better updates, and for them to fix the bugs and all the little things that are wrong with RS, and they just chuck back at us a load of updates which sound nice on paper, and they think will shut us up, but just don't satisfy. In answer to your question, no. Not a chance. And I've given up hope with trying to explain this to Jagex. Everytime I do, my thread just gets locked, and if I sent an email, they'd just ban me for mis-use of CS. So I being to ask myself - what's the point? They clearly want to do this alone and want us to act like dummies and go along with it. I refuse to... and many before have done so by voting with their feet. Jagex really do risk EVERYTHING if they don't change their attitudes incredibly fast!

Jagex will never listen to us... I've only come to accept that and realise it. I doubt things will ever change, until Jagex becomes privatised. And frankly, me saying that I'd prefer privatisation to the way things are now is pretty drastic; baring in mind - I'm a socialist for God's sake! Privatisation is, like, my worst enemy!!! I'm starting to become VERY irate at Jagex in times of late. Many say that the mods are kind, and Jagex rule because they release new updates etc. etc.. These people are fools. Go on the Rants forum, and the mods there are the most rudest people I will ever have the misfortune of meeting in my life! One inappropriatly threatened me with my account if I didn't stop posting perfectly valid arguments that criticised Jagex ever so slightly. So much for a free speech... And as for the updates. Have your stupid low-level quests! What exactly are we higher level players meant to do in the meantime!? Oh... the 'Tower of Life'. God what a quest that was! Excuse me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the word 'quest' imply a journey? You literally had to take a few items out of a box and build something. wwoooowwww... thrilling. And yet still we face things like autoers, a (forgive my language [i have a feeling the Editor wanted to say this word but for obvious reasons could not]) crap CS service, and the smallest amount of player-input into a game I've ever seen in my days! What are you thinking? You're letting this game fall to rack and ruin, while ducking and covering behind your half-baked updates! One update that really angered me recently was a hidden CW update, meaning all players cross the rocks at exactly the same speed. This was just stupid! I have faster reflexes than someone else? I'm soo sorry for that... tell ya what, when I next go on Nintendo Wi-Fi, I'll try and control my reflexes a bit more so I don't win as much... yeah right!!! If you want an example of just how Jagex try to block anything which might actually kick-start some anger, see this piccy. BTW, I didn't go all the way to Page 50 on the rants forum to get this... this was the first page. Half the page was covered in locked threads, half of those didn't actually break a rule... they were locked without a reasoning: Jagex... Censored? Surely not... A final note to Jagex... I'm fast getting incredibly bored of this game, and so ae my mates. You know, the Wii came out a few months ago? I might just leave here and go play that if things don't improve, and when the PS3 is released later this year, I'm sure many teenagers will follow suite. RS has become one of the most oppresive dictatorships I've seen (and I've studied Stalin and Hitler in great detail...), and what's worse... it's not even well run!!! A month ago I made a thread apologising for my past rants, saying things were improving. This month, youhave done EVERYTHING to completely alienate me away from RS, and retract that apology immediately!

You're right. The EUCA policy has really damaged the UK agricultural industry, which was weak to begin with anyway, considering people could just buy goods in from poverty-stricken places such as Africa. It also created a lot of friction between the French (which are much more agricultural and rural) and the UK, because the UK contribute huge amounts of cash towards the EU, yet the French were getting bucket-loads of money because of the policy. I, personally as a socialist, have never supported the EU anyway. The only good thing that has ever come out of the EU was its control over European affairs in the time during the Cold War, and that's it. We should never have joined in the first place.

I was gonna say Swampjedi as well... he has a very similar writing style to the Editor, and he hangs about the Debate forums a lot. I suppose being an editor, you'd be interested in a place like the Debate Club.

I also think that RS taps into something deeper, after hearing people's replies. It seems to me that most of the people who play RS are relatively introvert people compared to people who spend their Friday nights drinking and clubbing. We tend to therefore, have not a lot of friends (RS or real life), but the friends and values (ie. RS) we do have tend to be very close and precious to us in our lives, while an extrovert wouldn't particularly be as attached to RS as much, because they're generally outgoing and daring people. Therefore, having a small number of RS friends isn't an indicator of RS obsession either. But I would say that most introverts tend to get obsessed over small things. I'm very much an introvert myself and I'll admit there's only 3 or 4 things in my life I care about, and that I hold onto (some would say) obsessively. I would say most people are obsessed with RS (they wouldn't make goals and dream of future achievements if they weren't), but only a very tiny minority of players have a psychological disorder about RS, and are thus addicted.

They'll never be extinct - for that to happen one of two things would have to happen. Every single person in the whole of RS would have to drop their phat, or Jagex would ban them. The latter is incrediably unlikely and unpopular, and that first option stands even less chance then the second. So in my opinion, phats becoming extinct is out of the question... unless Jagex goes bust and has to close down :anxious:

I can't really see how this is debatable, although you DO raise a good point. For me, the whole issue about autoers is academic. It's against the rules, but de facto autoing happens, and will never stop. As for the economy... wouldn't change a great deal. all that would happen is more inflation as people gain more money for their commodeties (bad spelling, I know). I think one thing that would change is this though - there's a lot more yew cutter autoers out there than yew long stringers. Theefore, the price of logs would go up disproportionately to the price of yew longs. So this could, in theory, create a problem for BS sellers, and yew long fletchers.

I don't think that it is right to lure, becasue it's trading under false pretenses, and I wouldn't. Ever. But the fact of the matter is, although I don't agree with Nadril when he says you deserve to be scammed, if you are stupid enough to get scammed, then frankly I don't have a lot of sympathy for you. Here's a hint to these people; trade on the RS forums. There's a lot more decent folk who are conscious about fair play and rules there than there are in Edgy.

I think that it is a good decision. TBH, I think that the British troops have done everything that they can in Basra, and although we've only lost 130, compared to the 3,000 American body bags, this is a huge amount for British War-time casualties, and this war is becoming more unpopular and stupid by the day. I also think that to fully understand why the pull-out has been started we have to look at the world scenario right now. The IAEA recently published a report into Iran's nuclear activites. I presume that the leaders of this world are starting to look at Iraq, and then Iran and Afghanistan, and realise that the latter two are probably going to be more detrimental for domestic security in the long run than Iraq, and we HAVE to deal with Afghanistan and the infamous Hellmand province, and then try and control Iran's nuclear activites (note: by this I don't mean invade. I mean allow them to develop nuclear power, but control them to make sure they DON'T develop missiles. I'm a supporter of CND and I think most of us would understand war won't solve Iran, but only make the risk higher). I think the third reason is a political issue. At the last general election in the UK, although the Tories didn't do as well as expected, it became apparent that lots of the left-wing voters became alienated away from the New Labour Party, and voted for the Liberal Democrats. This brings the associated risk of letting the Tories into #10 'through the back door'. If the war goes on for any longer with our participation, that risk will become very serious in three years' time. Also, imagine the Tories do get into power. They'll say that Labour left with them with this massive problem of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the issue will damage Labour seriously for the next decade probably. Tony (and the Labour Party for about 2 1/2 years now) realises and this, and it's come to the point where, in order to maintain power at the next general election, the withdrawal of troops, and thus the stories of comrades coming home with their legs blown off in the tabloids, has to come now. Bush is welcome to his "pile more troops in, blow the terrorists to pieces" ideology, with his 'street by street clear-out' tactics, but it won't bear any significance, except for further embarassment for the Bush Administration, and certainy will *not* work. And that's the kind of embarassment the Labour Party wants out of...

I don't really think N0va was addicted. For one, an addiction involves the development of withdrawal symptons, and is a psychological disorder. Novalyfe quit remarkably easy and returned to his old way of life at the same pace, and as far as we know, didn't develop any sort of illness after leaving RS. So I think this is proof he did *not* develop an addiction. However, although in his interview he comes across as very humble about wanting to be #1, I think he just felt that this was out of his reach at the time, I think secretely (like we all would if we'd played RS for that long and got into that position) he had a hidden dream, or an obsession, with becoming #1, and thus, an obsession with RS.

I think n0valyfe did realise that it was starting to become too much. I know for one that he was at university when he started playing RS and I would presume he either went back to finish off and graduate, or already was graduated and got a job. I think the reason he stayed on was because he'd come all that way. I guess he felt that if he quit now, even if he felt it was obsessiveness, the last two years of his life would have meant nothing. And I suppose that raises another point - can an obsession also be translated into a goal? For example, athletes before the Olympics could be said to be "obsessed" with training, but it's a goal to go for Gold and you wouldn't knock them for it. An obsession isn't bad, but obsessions can turn into addictions and it becomes detremental to your own well-being after that. We're communal beings at the end of the day - being locked up addicted to RS all day isn't actually healthy! OFF TOPIC: You know your sig? And how it's focused on bad grammer? There's a gramatical error in the word "dont" lol

Lovely article. Perhaps one of the best and most relevent to life article you've ever done. What I want to do, asuming it's within the constraints of the forum rules, is to relate ths to a real-life example. Zezima and N0valyfe I think would be the obvious ones to choose. Uloveme too, but then the post would be too long. When does it become a problem that Zezima and N0valyfe spend as much time on RS as they do/used to? Don't get me wrong people, I'm a great admirer of them, but unlike most people, I'm not actually jealous of them. If I was given the choice between plaing RS all day (which does sound attractive), and being with my GF, going to college, and generally going out an talking with friends; my education and my social life come way before RS. To me, this isn't something that I personally understand and I can't really articulate what I feel about people who spend ages on RS. Because simply, I can't imagine a life like that. To me, living like that would be a miserable, lonely and self-conscious way to live, because there would be no social life. For me, an addiction is a habit that the brain requires as what it perceives to be a necessity. For example, nicotine in smoking is a chemical which "tricks" the brain bio-chemically into thinking it's something that the body MUST consume, or else you'll die. This is why you get sick if you so much as contemplate trying to quit without any sort of strong-will. So in that sense, yes I would say RS, or computer games in general, can be an obsession and a psychological addiction. But when d'yu know if this point has been reached, though? I'll leave that to psychologists with PHds. On a side note, I'd like to say that playing RS for a huge amount of time, like TV, (and by that, I mean sacrifing work/eduction, a social life and recreation for RS) isn't healthy in terms of knowledge about the world about you. How would you know about issues that directly contribute to your well-being, like the war in Iraq, domestic security or politics? I have a friend who goes home after college and doesn't do anything but play on his Nintendo consoles all night, and his knowledge of the world is simply diabolical! I will tell you now that universities will look down on this, and his chances of employment are compromised becasue of his addiction. And lastly - what on earth do you (or players like Zezima, or N0valyfe when he used to play RS), who play RS all-day every-day, contribute back to society? As far as I'm concerned... nothing. People like this are wastes of space if they aren't being educated and don't have jobs (presuming they can be employed, of course)! How is playing RS all-day everyday any different (morally) from gangs of hoodies that knock about street-corners, living off benefits from the state? Just remember that - RS is supposed to be a form of escapism from the world - the world isn't supposed to be escapism from RS!

I dunno if this is really the appropriate forums to post this, but I thought this would be the place where my message could be heard by the most people that would care about it. If a mod feels they want to move this thread, please do. As everyone knows, the new Capes of Achievement have inspired people to do skills a lot more than they used to. Indeed, the number of people at 99 fletching has more than doubled from 5,000 to at least check, 12,000. This, of course, has inspired a lot more people into fletching. So what has this got to do with anything? Well... if anyone has tried to buy Yew logs off the forums recently you'll know already what's wrong. Too many people now are training fletching, and as a result there are hardly any sellers compared to buyers. Certain greedy people are buying yews in 30K batches (literally) and any yew sellers are instantly going to these people, leaving the poorer fletchers (who obviously cannot afford to do this themselves) very scarce for yew logs. So just to let you know, there is nothing wrong with the amount of people actually cutting yews. This hasn't changed - the number of people buying has and this is what is cauing the problems on the official RS forums. Thanks for reading, Ginger Warrior

The game isn't short, it's just LoZ - you just want it to last longer and longer! I have to say, I was amazed when I read CUBE and it contained 30 mins of video footage from the game from E3 '05. The graphics were simply astounding on the video. However, when I got the real thing it didn't exactly blow me away. TBH, I'd already seen this level of graphics when I played Starfox Adventures (a great game, might I add). So, nothing was new here. Graphics have never impressed me anyway, but even so, I guess when you have that level of graphics you can't really improve on it much at all. Having said that, it was as if every inch of the Hyrule map had been worked on individually. Great work Ninty! Graphics: 10/10 So, moving on from graphics, controls. I have to admit, I was not impressed in the least bit here. It would probably have been status quo on the GC, but the Wii left a lot to be desired to tell the truth. I was hoping that to draw a bow, you could pull the Nunchuk back and aim the Wii remote like a proper bow and arrow, and let go of Z to fire. Instead, I hold the remote like a laser pen, which in reality is exactly what it is anyway. Also, same goes for the swordplay. I was hoping for proper sword fights - I swing the remote, Link does the same move on screen. Instead, swinging the sword in proper fashion doesn't constitute anymore realism in the game than just sitting down swinging the sword lazily. A big thumbs down here and something that Ninty need to work on. Fishing was better but only mildly, it was still hard to control at the best of times. A mere 6/10 here. Control: 6/10 Audio, well I have to say I truly felt nostalgic after listening to the music. Whoever composes music at Ninty is a genius, 'nuff said really. It really brings out the atmosphere of the game. Truly amazing. The music going around the new Hyrule Field is great! The sound effects are also excellent. Just one gripe, when the batteries start dying in the remote, the sounds of the slashing of the sword and the grappling of the clawgrips can't be heard. I'm gonna look up on this though, the thought of having sound come from your body is pretty cool. Audio: 10/10 And now the last catagory I'm going to review, gameplay. A good 30/40 hours at least and without being big headed, I'm one of the best gamers in the world (and it's proven with my track record on NWC (Wi-Fi connection)) and it still took me this long to do the game! And then, the side quests. Hyrule field is simply massive, it's sinful to have Midna warp you everywhere when you can go horseriding with Epona and it literally taking you about 45 mins to get from one end of the map to the other because you get distracted by caves and ledges and chests etc! the storyline is one of the most compelling I've ever seen, a complete breath of life really from Ganondorf and the same old Triforce story! Another problem though, it would have been so cool with a map the size of Twilight Princess to have a Golden Skultula token hunt, like in OoT. The golden bugs just doesn't have the same effect when all you gotta do is press A to catch them (or blow them over to you with a boomerang - wowwee, so hard! ). Gameplay: 9/10 Overall 35/40 for me (mental maths tells me 87.5%) [i realise this is kinda a review within a review but I thought it pointless to create a new thread when one already exists lol]

It really annoys me when I see threads like this. As my sig says, I come from NoE, and it really annoyed all of us there when we saw people labelling Ninty as "kiddy" as though it's a bad thing... What is sooo bad about Ninty being kiddy? Their kiddy games are their best by a mile... Super Mario, F-Zero, Mario Kart, LoZ (well, not as kiddy, but certainly a lot more kiddy than other adventure games)... 4 great series of games!

It's basic aminal nature to have your family gain as much territory/luxuries as possible. The difference between us and animals is the fact we can write, but the mentality is still there. Only, because we class ourselves as 'intelligent', we've decided to hide our greed and selfishness with the name of 'capitalism', which sounds slightly more glorious. But don't fool yourself, capitalism only works at the expense of other people. In our world today, it could be argued that the people who suffer from this globalisation are poor African impoverished farmers, and Indonesian mill-workers in the employment of about 10 cents an hour for Disney. That pretty much sums it up, but I hear you ask, "why don't we do anything about it?". Well, you're right. People in the 60s actually cared about the world. It shows with the miner's strikes, and protests against Vietnam, and civil rights movements. Nowdays, the only protests I can think of in the past 5 years in Britain or America was the Iraq War protests. The fact is, it wasn't deemed as uncool to be interested in politics. Indeed, some people thought being a Communist was cool. Nowadays, if I walked into school (well college...) and said that I actually cared about the world and its politics, I'd be called a geek who has nothing better to do than watch the news. The world hasn't got any worse, it's always been our nature to be selfish. No-one (not even Gandhi, or Martin Luther King Jr., or anyone) rises above this, they are all driven by their own motives. It's just that nowdays, people seem to to think it's cool to be apathetic about politics, until it actually comes round and hits them.

Well,it certainly is a great post and definetely the best one I've seen on this topic of Iraq. But I do have a few points. Freedom is a very broad word. If I ask you "What is Freedom?", it's one of them questions where we have a vague idea but we've never really had to sit down and think about it really. For me, freedom is the ability for one to live by the way that one wishes. In this sense, I believe that, for example, the people living under Hitler's or Lenin's rule were actually free. In Russia, there is a clear sign of a socialist popular movement, the evidence being the November Elections where the SRs (Socialist Revolutionaries) actually have a massive majority. In Nazi Germany, any people admired Hitler for the way he basically ripped the Treaty of Versailles apart - they felt free for the first time since pre-WWI! Both of these represtn freedom within themselves - both were popular movements even though there was no democracy in place. People had the freedom to set an autocrat as head-of-state. So really, can you say that you are making the Iraqi citizens "free"? Firstly, you lied to the about the reason for going to war. This isn't freedom! People live in constant fear of sectarian viloence. This isn' freedom! People don't actually have the power to change the political system, because a) The Americans have decided the system of government, not Iraqis and B) they can't vote or else they're blown to pieces by a suicidal bomber. This isn't freedom! You are right, here's famous saying: "Anyone who would sacrifice a little bit of liberty, to gain a little bit of security; will deserve neither, and lose both" It is improtant that people have control over their own affairs to a lesser or more extent. But the Americans staying there is not making the Iraqis free; if anything, it is making them more oppressed as the situation becomes slowly worse and worse. The coalition has to allow Iraq to manage its own affairs now - I don't think that there is much more the armed forces can do for Iraq. Not to mention the biggest point of all - most of Iraq wants us to leave! If we proclaim to be leaders of the free world, we should at least grant them this request...

Here's an idea I just congured (sp? maybe conjured) up: How about a new room is released, called the Warehouse, where members can build like places to store all their skill related stuff. For example, why not have like a little basket thingie where we can store herbs, seeds. Or a cupboard where we can store raw meat/fish/vegetables. And then maybe to just make it more interesting, a place to store all of your rune essences/staves/runes/tabs? That's it, the only magic related thing you'd ever need in a bank would be a home teletab. That's it really, and TBH, that's all that would be needed skill-wise. Maybe weapons rack to store bows/weapons if they're feeling generious. Above all else, Jagex could twist this to their advantage, and increase the effects of the money drain. People would go apo over this improvement - bank space is a subject ALL players feel strongly about. Plus, it would create a profotable business selling point for all builders - eventually they'd have something useful to sell!!!

Agreed... but it does highlight the kind of attitudes that people have towards war really. They seem to think of it as: (for example, WWII) "millions of women, soldiers and children died. Dresden became one massive fireball, massacreing thousands. But hey, we killed the evil Nazis right? So surely all those lost lives must be fine?" (Of course, only to open the door to Stalinist Russia anyway). I'm sorry but this attitude seems to lie with some of the soldiers you see in interviews on news programs. It seems to be a case of "100,000s of Iraqi innocent citizens are dying, but we gotta stay there and blow the brains out of those damn terrorists before their 'acceptable sacrifice' means anything. We gotta protect freedom!" The question I raise with that is, freedom for whom? The US, or Iraqi citizens? In relation to the post... I'm sorry but that soldier has to wake up to realisation of war. People die. The conditions are (colourful word here). Blood pours etc etc, no-one forced him to go there. Maybe this will enlighten him that perhaps not everything in this "war against terror" is rosy, and perhaps he'll just perhaps start to question the propoganda that's being fed to him and the rest of the world.

See.. this is what you don't understand. They are not interested in picking off every single coalition soldier in that region. I agree... the political wishy washy isn't working, and Iraq needs an autocrat which will slowly guide it to a democracy, instead of just hoping that democracy will establish itself and presuming that this is what the Iraqi people want. But the Middle-Eastern Terrorist are exactly that - Terrorists. They're NOT soldiers. They are not fighting a war against you, and a military one anyway. They set out to spread terror, because they know that the press coverage will destabalise the democratic Iraqi (which they simply don't want to exist). Therefore, their initial thoughts when they see an American soldier (at the clever ones anyway) will not be "oooo an American soldier let's shoot him", it'll be "let's wait until they've gone to another area of Baghdad and bomb that marketplace over there, and then they can get the blame for being so neglegent". You simply aren't going to win this through guns... in fact I actually have doubts as to whether you can win this. I support my troops too. I'm no patriot (I actually class myself as Irish, not British), but that doesn't mean I like people dying unneccessarily. Thus, I want the UK forces to be withdrawn immediately, and I would say most of the Labour Party, and the majority of the population do as well. Unfortunetely, it just seems to be Tony Blair that wants them there... just so he can have some kind of legacy.

Let's be clear about one thing first... Democracy isn't the absolute "best" form of government. There have been many cases in the past where an autocrat has done better simply for the fact that they are a good leader, and that because of the nature of autocracy, there's a lot less Bureaucracy. So to say that Iraq HAS to have a Democracy with universal suffrage in order to advance is not a particularly valid statement. This is something that the Americans seem to be misunderstanding. Ever since the Cold War, and the irony of the black civil rights movement during that time (read about the racism in the south, the most horrific of which, the "Emmett Till" case, 1955); America has been on a mad campaign to portray itself as the leader of the free world. This means that it now denounces any form of "oppresive dictatorship", and saying that all countries in the world will be better under a free capitalist democracy. However, if you read the polls, watch the news, study the reports by revisionist groups, and read newspapers you seem to get an idea that a fair bulk of the Iraqi population feel that they were better off under Saddam. I agree with them quite frankly - Iraq cannot exist in this state. When the "great" British Empire collapsed, we literally drew a box in the Middle-East and called it Iraq, not caring to think of the racial groups involved. The problem stems from this. All three races want autonomy of their own affairs, and some will do anything to get it - including the slaughter of their own people. This is just something that the Americans cannot deal with. I'm sorry but it's physically impossible to "fight" terrorism. All you do is spread terror yourselves; you solve one problem, and create a bigger one in your wake. Obviously, you cannot talk and negoitiate with them. I'm sorry to think what seems to be the unthinkable, but Iraq has to split up into its three race groups. Now I'm not saying that this will solve everything - it'll create problems in itself; but if you want the situation in Iraq to end, and US soldiers to stop dying, then Iraq has to be devolved into three new states, and the coalition has to be withdrawn immediately! As for your comment about removing all non-essential personel. This is just as stupid as it is ill-thought-out and narrow-minded. It would escalate the problems. For two reasons: 1) OK, the Middle-Classes have gone. How will that force the terrorists out their caves, so you can fight them on "your terms"? This is more than just a battle tactic/strategy! They know they'll die in a battle with you - believe it or not they ARE clever people! All the stupid ones died in the months immediately after March 2003! 2) Let's think in the mind of a terrorist here: "The Middle-Classes have gone. Hey look lads, a complete vacuum of power in Iraq!!! Come on guys - let's seize control of government in the name of our race!!!" (And don't think the coalition could stop this... this would get world-wide press coverage, it would be a complete embarassment and they'd probably elect for a laissez-faire approach) This is more than just a issue of "Clever, Superior Americans" vs. "Dumb, Inferior Middle-East Terrorists"...

Hiya. I'm a part of a clan and we're looking for someone who will help us make our site look more appealing by making a signature for us. We already have all the images and Fonts etc. already collected. It's just all of us are (insert colourful word here) at art lol. -------------------------------------- The Clan's Logo Basically, this is how we want the logo to look like: Background: We'd like these 4 images to be used, showing people performing skill-related tasks: 1) Woodcutting Picture 2) Herblore Picture 3) Fishing Picture 4) Construction Picture (Obviously, you'd need to crop them first) Size: Preferably about 800 x 100 pixels please. So about 200 x 100 per image in the background. Name/Text: We'd like 2 names: 1) B.E.A.S.T. (in the top left corner) 2) Brotherhood of Eager Accomplished Skillers in Training (smaller, in the bottom right corner) Font Face: I'm a big fan of this one myself. I already know the text as normal takes a lot more than 800 pixels lol. So maybe you could shorten it in size a little? Border: Whatever takes your fancy really, I'm not too bothered. -------------------------------------- The Signatures Really, we're looking for the same kind of style as the signatures that advertise blogs and other clans, like the "90+ Combat Affliction" one. But obivously instead, we'd like the images from above to be used and "B.E.A.S.T. user" for text. -------------------------------------- I hope that you can help me and my clan. Obviously I can't pay you or anything like that but it would be much apprieciated (sp?) and I'd put an advert for you on our forums :D If you need any more info, PM me or put a reply here. I'll give what info I can. Thanks, Ginger Warrior

Says the person with 1 post... I'm sorry to turn this into a flame but it seems all of you have already done that against joker. All he asked for was a sig! A polite "I don't want to make one for someone with 3 posts and isn't respected" would have sufficed! It's perfectly within is right to ask for someone to help him for God's sake!