They're country clubbers..."wallet" republicans, not "church" republicans. They vote republican so they get lower taxes on their six figure job, so they can buy a nicer beemer or take a nicer vacation with their "special friend". It doesn't really bother them that they can't be open about their partnership, because they think they're money will protect them. They don't give a damn about poor gay folks, or minority gay folks or transpeople...the almighty dollar is their god.

In case you hadn't figured it out, some governments subsidize suburbs as part of national policy. Originally it probably was for the following reasons:

1. Keep economy going full steam. New houses, people need stuff for houses.

2. Prevent urban unrest. After seeing Paris, will they want to go back to the tenements? There had been social unrest after wars before, with returning soldiers returning to lives that were economically worse than army pay. The government knew this.

3. To delay racial tensions from overboiling a few more years....without the suburbs to act as a safety valve...it would have been worse than it was. The government also knew this.

So governments subsidize the suburbs, and thanks to the wealth and power concentrated there...it's become habitual. With the suburbs doing everything they can to keep their advantage. They also try to recruit downstaters to support them with lots of anti-city coded racial language rhetoric, it works for the most part.

You must also remember that the city has to pay for MORE infrastructure than what's needed to support it's own populace because of the commuters. And because it's external growth is limited by the surrounding suburbs...real estate is limited. The suburbs are dependent on the city, but don't pay taxes to it to support the stuff they might actually benefit from MORE than the city's own residents.

Mentzer knew what the hell he was doing with those box sets...well except for a few inconsistencies...and the wacky gold box immortals set which basically made every lil pisscutter Screaming Demon (aka Type ! Vrock to you AD&D folks) a true immortal. Wrath of the Immortals fixed that by creating the "exalted" class of beings, wich fit Demons...I mean "Fiends" and their good guy equivalents (Archons, Titans) nicely.

Thourh Wrath is missing some of the interesting things about the gold box, like the "dimensions thing" so you could have flatland planes of existence.

Athas sucked as a setting, it was TSR's attempt to lure all those 90's anti-hero fans in. You know the ones..the ones that went all gaga for for heroes named Bludstryke or Dethblud with a jillion pockets, one glowing eye, one cybernetic limb and a gun with a trapezoidal barrel?

Same goes for Planescape. for those people who wanted the above and cyberpunkish lingo in their fantasy RPG.

Which is why the "Classic" Moldvay/Mentzer/Rules Cyclopedia D&D game survived for so long. Sure Elves are class, but it keeps the superflous complexity to a minimum in favor of speed of gameplay.

Unearthed Arcana you mean.

Two actually:

Seven

The Usual Suspects.

I have an HP LaserJet 1200 with Postscript support that is extremely slow under postscript and sometimes printing postscript will fail. The problem being the fact that it has minimum RAM. The pxlmono driver is the recommended one but it sucks as well. The one that works best is PCL6

Did you have the N64 RAM expansion pack installed, I have heard that helps. What surprises me is that the game wasn't released for the PSone, the N64 has no other RTS, and the PSone has several. The PSone also has the PSone mouse, for more traditional control, and EVERY RTS on the PSone supports it.

I should have said "health orbs in Diablo clones", yes other games in other genres have had them. But it is rather suspicious that Blizzard puts them in D3, AFTER they've been proven to work well in Marvel Ultimate Alliance, which is Diablo with superheroes.

It's May 15th and I'm going to rant, and you know why: Diablo.

I have a love/hate relationship with Blizzard. I love Diablo, but I absolutely LOATHE Blizzard as a developer.

First: Go here and page down to the Diablo section: http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/games/legacy/

Do you see the PSone version listed? No. And you won't see the PSone version of Warcraft II listed either! It's not as if those games got bad ratings either, both got ABOVE average ratings at the time. It's like Blizzard doesn't want to admit one of their premier franchises had a console release at all.

And for those who don't know, this is the PSone version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yv5dQwCFWoQ

It actually plays better (and faster) with direct movement control. And it's the ONLY version to have French language support, not even the PC version has that. (also German and Swedish even in the US version)

Then they did Diablo II...which I've never played because it never got ported. This is D2 as it's called:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea8Ma7qqQaQ

Like D1, it was isometric 2D and since it came out in 2000 the PS2 should have been able to handle a port easy. But Blizzard never did it, and I think the following is the reason why:

2001's, Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srBRB18mHEs

Notice how in the review, Diablo is mentioned? BGDA is a Diablo clone, and a very good one, with a true 3D engine with a rotatable camera. It was a VERY popular game. The company that made it, Snowblind, licensed the engine out and there were more similar games made a LOT more. Good times, good times. Blizzard simply couldn't release D2 on consoles with Snowblind having trumped them with their engine.

And as always Blizzard said, "Oh were not doing Diablo III yet, it''l be ready when it's ready"

And my thoughts were, "yeah, if you were still had theconsole developer get-up-and-go like in the old days D3 would have been out in 2002! Because the sequel comes out in 2 years or less or heads will roll. Lazy Bums."

It didn't come out in 2003, or 2004, or 2005, or 2006, etc etc. Really what were they doing? It's not like a developer can't develop an MMO AND single player games at the same time......Square-Enix did....twice.

So eventually D3 was announced in development, and eventually video was released in 2008.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NR6XNYs8f4

When I was that video my first thought: "Did Blizzard buy Snowblind's engine, because it looks EXACTLY like a snowblind engine game on the PS2."

in 2010 they posted job listings for people with console experience for a Diablo-related concept. So I expected the game to be cross platform from the start But then Blizzard executives said things that implied that a console release wasn't certain, very very stupid things
One was reported to say that D3's gameplay "might" work on consoles. Might? It's rather funny that he said, "Might" Since
the original Diablo game was released for the PSone... in 1998. Doesn't he remember?

  He also said that the controls might be an issue. Well now, considering D1 was released for the pre-dual shock PSone
  I don't think that's a problem at all. Heck, the modern consoles have USB ports so a keyboard+ mouse control
option could be thrown in alongside a traditional controller one. In fact, having played both the PC and PSone versions of
Diablo, I can say that the control pad suits the game better because it's less stressful on the hands. I can play the PSone
version for far far longer without crippling hand fatigue/pain.

In an interview Alex Mayberry is quoted as saying: "We want to give console players the Diablo experience. But or leading Platform is
always the PC. "

Both are rather stupid statements, since console players got the Diablo experience years ago, and Blizzard wasn't
always a PC only developer. In fact they were originally a console centric dev house. Rock n Roll Racing? Lost Vikings? Blackthorne?
All Blizzard. Is there no one left at Blizzard who remembers that, or is willing to admit that?

And then there was an interview with Jay Wilson in 2011 where he talks about how Blizzard's been experimenting with dual analog controls for D3 and that it works REALLY well.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/09/21/blizzards-diablo-3-experiments-%E2%80%9Coh-this-feels-even-better-with-direct-control%E2%80%9D/

But quoting Jay Wilson:

Oh Really, please. Don't dis console gamers with one mouth and try wooing them with another. One guy says their a PC developer foremost and the other guy says they're not. And Jay doesn't seem to be aware of the N64 version of Starcraft, or the PSone versoin of Warcraft II. Don't think I don't remember all the jokes and snide anti-console comments Blizzard has made over the years, very hypocritical since Blizzard started out as a console developer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxteAOIJ14s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_w78CdM6UM

Of course it suits the controls, has Blizzard been living in a cave for the past 14 years. PSone Diablo, PSone Darkstone, BGDA, Champions of Norrath? Hello? Have Blizzard people not been playing ANY console games to see what the competition is like?

And get this, one Blizzard dev talked about wanting the D3 Barbarian to be able to throw the Monk as a special attack, X-Men Fastball special style (Colossus throws Wolverine). Well that exact feature was in X-Men Legends on the PS2.... in 2004. And you may have notced the health orbs dropped in D3 by defeated enemies? Marvel Ultimate Alliance PS2/PS3....2006.

Really Blizzard, you basically clone a 2001 vintage PS2 game (and it's descendents) and you don't mention the influences. No Blizzard developer or executive has ever said the words "we were influenced by BGDA/CoN/Marvel Ultimate Alliance and Snowblind engine games in general" But Snowblind was quick to acknowledge Blizzards influence on their game.

That's why I LOATHE Blizzard, the lazy elitist scum. They STILL haven't formally announced a console game after hinting and hemming and hawing for FOUR YEARS. How could they be any more insulting.