Zonorhc

Odd... Anyway, rehosted and fixed it.

Yes, I used a reference. It's my first time trying something like this. Comments and C/C are appreciated. [Edit]

They lost me at "affirmative action". As an immigrant, I feel that the whole concept of affirmative action and all the politically correct crap it entails is, on the whole, a pointless and condescending idea. People will accept immigrants if they want to or not, and ethnic minorities have a responsibility to work as hard as anyone else. Affirmative action is, to me, just another way of saying "your race sucks, here's some help." Seriously, we've got it right here in Australia. You get a fair go, as long as you can be bothered to.

It's not so much his atrocious English that bothers me. It's the fact that he doesn't seem to be able to type. From my own experience with coding, unless you want to spend absolutely ages trawling through code correcting syntax errors, you're going to have to learn to type consistently and without missing letters or mixing up their order. The other thing that bugs me is that, for a so-called competent programmer, he doesn't seem to have a clue of what he wants to actually do. Also, if I wanted a time-consuming project like this to succeed, I certainly wouldn't leave it in the hands of a 13-year-old of whose ability the only evidence we have is his own claims. I wouldn't put too much faith on this project. It could take several months at the very least to complete, seeing as how his prefered method of initial development seems to be to ask people to give him every idea they have and then have them all vote on it - on a forum. It's inefficient and, on the whole, a ridiculously stupid process. If you want to develop ideas quickly and create modules from there, you should at least put together your own framework first and then ask about how you could improve it.

Sydney rocks the rest of those cities because I live here.

Your blatant narcissism aside, most of the work in those sigs isn't even yours. Render-on-a-background... sheesh, these seem to be a dime a dozen here.

As Astri is now part of the top 10 original campaign setting games on Myth Weavers, I felt that it was time to pretty it up a little. The biggest thing on the agenda was making something that would express the overall theme of the world I created: that of traditional magic struggling against the advance of technology. So, I whipped out my none-too-great Photoshop painting skills and came up with this: I'm trying to develop my technique, and since my HSC is over tomorrow, I have a lot of spare time on my hands to do so. I don't have a tablet, so I'm working with what I've got. Comments are welcome, of course...

Already gave you my thoughts on dA. =)

Savages! Don't you have better things to set on fire, like chavs?

Whilst I think it's just another funny Brit thing, I am of the opinion that it's a quaint little celebration of the triumph of Western sovereignty over the forces that would seek to destabilise society and overthrow authority. Do you Brits still burn Guy effigies?

It's the US' fault for what the Iraqi judge sentenced Saddam? It's always America's fault! Everyone on the interweb should know that by now! Otherwise you're a dirty fascist pigdog! I may not completely agree with the War in Iraq, but someone had to stop him, and if the rest of the world won't help at least we had the balls to stand up and stop the genocide. You say it is our fault. I'd be happy to take the blame of freeing a country from a horrible and evil ruler. No, you miss the point. Everything is America's fault. They burned London. They were behind the Gunpowder Plot. They backed the Visigoths who sacked Rome. They looted Constantinople. They made the zealots commit mass suicide at Masada. Did I mention they were also responsible for the Hindenburg disaster? Oh yeah, and that they caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Actually, dark blues, grays and greens are a lot better as night camouflage than black - which is only really good in pitch darkness where no matter what you wear, nobody will see you anyway. As for me, black is clean and stylish.

It's the US' fault for what the Iraqi judge sentenced Saddam? It's always America's fault! Everyone on the interweb should know that by now! Otherwise you're a dirty fascist pigdog!

That's what I meant. If the Muslim country takes it to the extremes of killing non-Muslims in some strange "crusade" to make the world Muslim. Yeah, go the handwaving generalisations! Woo! Didn't you read anything I typed? It's not Islamic countries that the US is against. It's countries that advocate the destruction of the West and that harbour terrorists or other insurgents. The US isn't targeting Iran because it's a "Muslim country", it's targeting it because its government decided to express an utter disregard for democratic values like freedom of speech and expression, and all those other things that Americans get so worked up about, then went and got themselves nuclear weapons without UN sanction. Oh, well, so they don't like Israel. Let's face it - not many people in the Middle East outside of it do. That doesn't suddenly mean that a country run by fundies is trying to "make the world Muslim". And lets face it, some Islamic sects flat out dislike each other to the point where they're happy enough to fight amongst themselves anyway.

The reverse is also true. Treat your employees like you'd want them to treat you. Sure. You can, but it doesn't mean you will. And if it was guaranteed that nobody would find out, wouldn't you steal? So the man who steals from a corrupt person to feed his children because he has no other way to do so has no justification? It's called employment and taxation. Why don't you just make up your mind? Given that wrong = negative, and two negatives = positive, that statement is blatantly false. QED. I dislike it when people use that statement. It's so trite and when you really think about it, downright ridiculous. Giving criminals any sort of punishment is morally wrong on the basis that they are human beings as well and should never be subjected to psychological or physical trauma, but that's justice for you. It's a "wrong" that when used in retaliation for or to rectify another "wrong" makes a "right". Stop talking to yourself. Shooting a dog doesn't matter? It sure does, if someone owns it. And would it kill you to find out exactly what your opinion is before posting contradictory crap? Your arguments with yourself are of no value to anyone else.

I think a suspension is ample punishment for stealing, no matter the value - if only for the sole reason that you managed to get caught. Think of it as a little bit of criminal Darwinism.

Okay, there's more to it than a little program to make pretty graphics. You'd probably want to learn how to code. C++ is a powerful language, but it takes while to pick up. Python is easier and free, but not as powerful. VB is very simple to learn, but it's hard to do anything complex in it without obliterating your system resources.

Firstly, get your head out of your arse. The US isn't worried of "a Muslim country like Iran" having nuclear weapons. It's worried about a fundamentalist theocratic dictatorship like Iran having nuclear weapons. There's a difference between moderate Islamic nations such as Lebanon and those run by raving fanatics like Iran and formerly Afghanistan. The fact that you felt the need to be defensive about your statements before they were even criticised bes the question of whether you are actually prejudiced against Middle Eastern nations. Secondly, North Korea and Iran hate the US for entirely different reasons. While Iran's leaders hate the US for being a decadent, meddling nation - and face it, it is - North Korea is different. North Korea as a whole hates the West - not just the US - because Kim Jong Il, as well as Kim Il Song, have demonised it through propaganda in order to keep their people blissfully ignorant of just how well their buddies in South Korea are living compared to them. That stops them from going nuts about the fact that they're mistreated and mismanaged, and having a good old revolution.

Well, for all the propaganda they're fed, it's hard to ignore millions of people dying. There's bound to be at least one intelligent person who'll notice the disappearing population. Besides, friends and family dying is always a bad thing for the military. Morale takes a hit, and they aren't able to perform as well as they could. You can only hoard so much food before the supply dwindles to what you can produce yourself - which, in North Korea's case, isn't much. Eventually people should figure out that the "evil" West has been feeding them all along, rather than Dear Leader.

I only meant for it to be a short single piece. I might make a set later, though.

That has to be one of the most ridiculous things I've had the misfortune of reading, both in terms of its stupidity and sheer lack of style.

Pay for uni and get a decent gaming rig. Living expenses can be taken care of by a part-time job. Really, $50,000 doesn't go very far...

You don't even need any sort of formal training to knock down someone trying to hurt you. I guess that's one of the big misconceptions about martial arts - that they "teach" you how to knock people down in self-defence. Really, all it takes is a good kick to the ankle, knee or nadgers, and they're down for long enough for you to get away. If you hit them hard enough, you can help yourself to their wallet as well. I don't recommend that last part for anyone, though. That's called robbery.

Like hell. Black belt is where the real training should start. Everything leading up to it is supposed to prepare you, both mentally and physically. Most martial arts, however, are reduced to little more than sports and hobby activities, and so people are content to just pay a bit of money for lessons and "achieve" whatever. As for kicking other people's arses, let your cousin spar with a streetfighter, or someone who does FMA. Or, god help him, someone who practices hard Tai Chi. A black belt doesn't mean that you're suddenly able to hold your own against someone who practices a different style to what you're used to fighting.

Okay, I'll try to give you some in-depth criticism... Eh, it's a bit dull. You talk about the current situation, but it sounds clumsy. You don't give any reasons for anything to be as they are. The dragons just suddenly became cyborgs, without the reader finding out whether it was because of human intereference or some sort of paranormal evolution. You make the gods' situation sound so insignificant. The change has almost no impact on the reader. How? Why? Just throwing out names won't make it sound impressive. In fact, the way you do it, it all sounds rather trite. The way you write it lends itself to a "meh" reaction. Right, right... Now, if it's a distant island nobody goes to anymore, how does it survive? Brimhaven in Runescape canon isn't exactly a place that would be able to sustain itself, given a natural increase in population over time. You just said that the village was secluded. Now it's surrounded by cities. Normally, a city would be surrounded by villages which provide for it. Again, this violates suspension of disbelief because there is no way a village could exist, surrounded by cities on a forgotten island. Why was there suddenly a batallion of ships? It's hard to care about the situation, either, because the reader hasn't had the time to develop an emotional attachment to the island. All we know is that it's a secluded island, and suddenly it's being invaded. Why should the reader care? You have to give them reasons to. Also, a batallion is really a measure of strength on land. I thought there was a number of ships? Suddenly there's only one, and somehow it has enough space to store supplies for soldiers as well as explosives? Why are they digging tunnels and setting the explosives? How can the people who are isolated even know what the explosives are, let alone be able to get close enough to a military concentration without any apparent training? Also, why would the islanders send a spy without any good reason? Wait... so somehow they knew the explosives would be dangerous, despite having been isolated while everyone else developed technology. Somehow they were able to go into a volcano and set a bunch of demons free without any apparent effort. That was supposed to be the intelligent option, rather than trying to negotiate? I'd hate to see what the worst option was... So... there's a pit, and it's accessed both by lowering people into it, as well as a bridge. Why couldn't they just lower the bridge without throwing people in? How did they manage to still have heavy armour? From your description, they haven't had any reason to make war on anyone for the past few centuries - the minimum time it would take to go from medieval weaponry to functional laser weapons - yet they had heavy armour, and they were lowering people into a volcano while wearing it. And oh noes, the lesser demons ran for the ship, and the captain saw them. That doesn't sound very exciting at all. You need more description, and less violation of suspension of disbelief. It's very hard to take a story seriously when it introduces something briefly and then just goes "oh yeah, and one day they were invaded." Events take time to happen, and they also need reasons to happen.