text:
Snowblind Studios
Black Isle Studios
DSI Games (GBA)
Darren Monahan
Erza Dreisbach
Ryan Geithman
Programmer(s)
John Van Deusen
Jeremy Soule
Will Loconto
Dark Alliance engine
PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Game Boy Advance
PlayStation 2[1]
NA: December 4, 2001
EU: December 14, 2001
NA: October 22, 2002[3]
EU: March 21, 2003[2]
NA: November 20, 2002[5]
EU: April 25, 2003[4]
WW: February 10, 2004[6]
Action role-playing, hack and slash
Mode(s)
Single-player, co-op multiplayer
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance is a 2001 action role-playing/hack and slash video game developed by Snowblind Studios for PlayStation 2 and Xbox. It was ported to GameCube by High Voltage Software, and to the Game Boy Advance by Magic Pockets. The game was published for PlayStation, Xbox and GameCube by Black Isle Studios, a division of Interplay Entertainment, and distributed by Vivendi Universal Games. The Game Boy Advance version was published by DSI Games. CD Projekt was developing a version for PC, but it was ultimately cancelled.
The game is set in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting of Dungeons & Dragons, and the gameplay is based on the rules of Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition, which were released in 2000. It is the first video game to implement the real time application of the new rules.[7] It is also the first game in the Baldur's Gate series released on consoles as opposed to a PC and/or Mac.
Dark Alliance was well received on all four platforms, with the PlayStation 2 version going on to win the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences award for "Role-Playing Game of the Year" (2001). A sequel, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II, was released in 2004 for PlayStation 2 and Xbox. A third game was planned, but was cancelled early in development due to legal problems, and the closure of Black Isle Studios after Interplay went bankrupt.[8][9][10]
1.1 GBA version
2.1 Setting
3.1 Ports
4.1 Sales and awards
Gameplay[edit]
Gameplay in the PlayStation 2 version of Dark Alliance, showing Vahn fighting his way through the Marsh of Chelimber. His health and mana meters are at the top left of the screen. The empty meter between them is his experience meter.
The console version of Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance is a real-time hack and slash/action role-playing game presented in a 3D perspective, with a rotatable isometric three-quarter top-down view.[7]
At the beginning of the game, character stats are preset, with the player able to choose from three race/class combinations; a dwarven fighter (Kromlech), a human archer (Vahn) or an elven sorceress (Adrianna).[11] The player can customize their character's stats through gaining experience points from defeating enemies. Every time the character increases in level, points are awarded corresponding to that level; i.e. if a character increases to level twelve, the player will gain twelve experience points to spend on the character's spells and feats.[12] For every four levels which the character increases, the player is given one ability point to spend on one of the six core attributes (strength, intelligence, wisdom, dexterity, constitution, charisma).[13]
Each of the three characters have their own unique fighting style and their own specific set of spells and feats. Gameplay strategy is thus different for each character. As Kromlech is a fighter, his spells and feats tend to focus on increasing his brute strength and ability to resist damage, as well as granting him powerful abilities to aid in melee combat, such as the ability to swing his weapon in a circle or slam it into the ground to damage groups of nearby enemies. As Vahn relies on ranged attacks, his spells and feats tend to focus on increasing the power of his bow and granting him the ability to fire special types of arrows, such as exploding arrows, ice arrows or multiple arrows. As Adrianna is a sorceress, her spells and feats tend to focus on increasing the power of her magic and granting her numerous new spells, such as the ability to shoot ice or fire from her fingers, shoot a ball of lightning or call down meteors on her enemies.[14]
Gameplay is linear, and each main quest must be completed in sequence before the story can proceed, although there are some optional side-quests, which do not have to be completed immediately. However, all side-quests must be completed within the act in which they are assigned. There are relatively few NPCs in the game, with whom only those who are part of a quest or side-quest may be interacted. Weapons, armor and items are only available for purchase from one location at a time, and become increasingly expensive and more powerful as the game progresses. The HUD features the option to use either a transparent map that covers most of the screen, or a mini-map, with the player also given the option to turn the map off entirely.[15]
The game also features cooperative gameplay with another player. Both players share the same screen, and are thus limited in how far they can move away from one another. In co-op mode, the player who makes the kill gets 60% of the experience, and the other player gets 40%. Whichever player collects any gold drops gets 100% of the value, with the other player getting nothing.[13]
The game contains four difficulty levels; "Easy", "Normal", "Hard" and "Extreme". Extreme can only be unlocked after the player has beaten "The Gauntlet", a special mini-dungeon unlocked once the player completes the game on any difficulty level. The Gauntlet can only be played with Drizzt Do'Urden.[16] Extreme mode takes the form of a New Game Plus, and can only be played by importing a saved character from another game.[17] Once the player has completed Extreme mode, Drizzt Do'Urden becomes available to use in the main game.[18]
GBA version[edit]
The Game Boy Advance version of Dark Alliance features some noticeable gameplay differences from the console versions;[19][20]
There is no choice as to the playable character. Instead, only a human male is playable, although his class can be chosen from three available (fighter, wizard, archer). After the completion of the game, a new class, "Elven Fighter," becomes available.
Upon completion of the game, players cannot import a character to play through the story again; they must start a new game.
There is no co-op mode.
The town of Baldur's Gate is much more interactive, and players are able to talk to NPCs, enter houses, and use weapons (to break barrels, etc.).
The town is split into two sections: North and South. The southern region cannot be entered at the beginning of the game.
There are various new side-quests.
Players cannot jump.
Recall potions, which allow the player to teleport back to town to sell wares and then back to where they were in the dungeon, are not available.
The ability to save the game is present at all times through the pause menu, and in-game save points are less frequent, usually appearing before act bosses.
The GBA version lacks the experience meter from the console versions.
Plot[edit]
Setting[edit]
The game takes place in the Sword Coast and the Western Heartlands, areas in the Faerûn continent of the Forgotten Realms. Each act of the game takes place in a different region: Act I takes place in the city of Baldur's Gate itself; Act II in the Sunset Mountains; and Act III in the Marsh of Chelimber.
Story[edit]
The game begins with Vahn, Adrianna and Kromlech arriving in Baldur's Gate, whereupon they are attacked by a group of thieves led by Karne (voiced by Michael Bell). The thieves are about to kill the trio when they are interrupted by the city watch, who take the newcomers to the nearby Elfsong Tavern to recover. There, the bartender, Alyth Elendara (Jennifer Hale), assists them in earning some money by giving them the job of clearing the tavern's cellar of rats. In the cellar, they discover the thieves are using the tavern's sewer entrance to infiltrate the city. When Elfsong Tavern employee Ethon, follows them into the sewers and disappears, they agree to Alyth's plea to find him. They rescue Ethon from the thieves, and he directs them to the nearby crypts, where one of the thieves was heading. There they encounter Fayed (Cam Clarke), a priest of Illmater, who requests their help in stopping the "Orb of the Undead", which has filled the crypts with zombies and skeletons. They succeed in destroying the orb and discover the thieves, collectively known as Xantam's Guild, are behind its placement. Ethon then introduces them to Jherek (John Rhys-Davies), a member of the Harpers, a group dedicated to protecting the realms from evil. Impressed with how they have handled themselves, he invites them to join the Harpers and destroy Xantham's Guild. They agree, and Jherek shows them the guild's entrance in the sewers.
After navigating a gauntlet of traps they face and kill Karne, and then advance to find the guild master, the beholder Xantam (Tony Jay). He reveals the guild is only a small part of a much greater whole. They fight and kill him, and Jherek asks them to enter a portal which Xantam was guarding. The portal transports them to the Sunset Mountains, whereupon they head to a dwarf mining village, which is being oppressed by drow elves. They light a signal fire atop a nearby mountain, calling for aid from neighboring dwarven clans, and then enter the mines to rout the drow. After killing the drow priestess, they rescue a dwarven Harper, who tells them of another portal in the mountains. He also tells them that troops and monsters are planning to use the portals to move from the mountains into Baldur's Gate, attacking the city from within. The adventurers head to the portal, finding it guarded by the ice dragon Ciraxis. They slay him and pass through the portal into the Marsh of Chelimber.
There they are greeted by Sleyvas (Kevin Michael Richardson), one of the native lizardfolk. He tells them of the nearby "Onyx Tower", and of its inhabitant, Eldrith the Betrayer (Vanessa Marshall), who has sworn vengeance against Baldur's Gate. He then reveals that his kin, led by the lizard Sess'sth, are serving Eldrith. The trio fight through the marsh's hordes of lizardfolk, kill Sess'sth, and cripple the lizard army. Sleyvas then leads them to the Onyx Tower, which they can only enter by taking a detour through the Elemental Plane of Water. Once inside the tower, they see firsthand Eldrith's preparations for war and fight their way upwards, through legions of Eldrith's soldiers.
At the penultimate level of the tower they meet the ghost of Keledon (Dwight Schultz), first captain of the company of the Westering Sun. He explains that Eldrith once served Baldur's Gate as its greatest general, fighting a crusade against the Black Horde. Upon successfully defending the city, she defied orders and led her army in pursuit of the retreating Horde. Trapping them in a ravine, they proved stronger than she had anticipated, and she sent word to the city for re-enforcements. The re-enforcements never came, and Eldrith's army was defeated, although she survived. Furious, she rallied her remaining soldiers to attack Baldur's Gate itself, but was again defeated. The city's soldiers then pursued her and her few remaining men to the Marshes of Chelimber where they were all killed. However, Eldrith's rage was such that she returned to life, bringing forth the Onyx Tower, which gave her access to the portals. Seeking revenge, she orchestrated the attacks against Baldur's Gate, and created a dark alliance between Xantam's guild, the drow, and Sess'sth's tribes.
Keleon explains that if the trio defeat Eldrith, it will mean the destruction of the Tower itself, as well as freeing the ghosts within. However, as they cannot leave the tower the way they entered, it will most likely lead to their own deaths. They find Eldrith alone on the roof of the Tower guarding another portal. She reiterates her plans for the destruction of Baldur's Gate. They fight and defeat her, and as she dies, she repents her actions and asks forgiveness. With the tower crumbling around them, the heroes enter the portal, not knowing where it leads.
As the Onyx Tower explodes from within, Sleyvas' true motives are revealed: he has manipulated and used the heroes to defeat Eldrith for his unidentified master. He tells his master that the heroes have died within the tower and Eldrith is no longer an obstacle. As such, they can now proceed with their plans. Meanwhile, the trio emerge in an unknown forest, and are immediately surrounded by dark creatures who swoop upon them. The game concludes on this cliffhanger.
Development[edit]
Dark Alliance was first revealed on November 7, 2000, when Interplay confirmed to IGN that a PlayStation 2 game based on Baldur's Gate II had entered production, following the cancellation of the Sega Dreamcast port of the original Baldur's Gate. Little was known at this time other than the fact that Interplay would publish, and BioWare, developers of the original Baldur's Gate, would not develop the game. Instead, the game was to be developed by Snowblind Studios.[21][22] The game was officially confirmed on February 15, 2001. Black Isle Studios' division director Feargus Urquhart stated
We recognize the tremendous demand for a Baldur's Gate game on PlayStation 2. We're totally committed to making Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance a completely original experience that both console gamers and RPG fans will enjoy.[23]
Ryan Geithman, director of Snowblind, added
we are developing the game from the ground up to take full advantage of the sophisticated PlayStation 2 technology. Our goal is to push the hardware to its limits thus creating stunning environmental effects and highly detailed characters never before seen on the console.[23]
On April 17, Interplay confirmed that if the game was successful, a sequel would enter development immediately.[24]
The game was first shown at E3 in May 2001, where it gained critical acclaim, with IGN writing "it almost instantly became one of the most wanted games for PlayStation 2 owners across the country. The game's graphics are as good as anything else on the system. It's as simple as that. The lighting, shadows, textures, models, water effects, and reflections are all amazing to look at and are a testament to the power of PlayStation 2 and the skills of the developers over at Snowblind Studios."[25]
The game utilized a new game engine; the Dark Alliance Engine, which was built specifically for Dark Alliance, and would go on to become the foundation for other games on the PlayStation 2, such as Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel[26] and The Bard's Tale.[27] Graphically, the Dark Alliance engine is a major improvement over the engine used by the original PC Baldur's Gate games, the Infinity Engine. Infinity was only able to render 2D sprite characters and static environments. The Dark Alliance engine, on the other hand, made use of the PlayStation 2's advanced GPU, allowing for such improvements as dynamic lighting, real-time shadowing and 3D models of characters and environments. IGN wrote of the E3 presentation, "None of the problems that are commonly associated with PlayStation 2 games, such as low-res textures, flickering, or aliasing problems, are to be found here. It's hard to think of a game that pulls off the much-fabled anti-aliasing as well as this game does. Dark Alliance uses a technique similar to what a large number of Dreamcast games did to pull off their clean look: they simply render the scene at a much higher resolution, anti-alias it, then drop it down to a more acceptable resolution for TVs. The result is a beautifully anti-aliased game."[28]
On November 2, Interplay announced the game had been finalized and was ready for manufacture, with a release date set for November 12.[29] The game entered the manufacturing stage on November 5.[30] On November 8, IGN gave a full preview, again praising the graphics, and writing "This game is running on a rock-solid 3D engine with completely rotatable dungeons, brilliant animation for nearly every interactive element (of which there are many), and first-rate lighting effects of all different kinds [...] In the beginning, simple refined touches are impressive, amid the generally sharp atmosphere of the game (while there is no visible aliasing, the graphics aren't heavily filtered, either). Even when all you have to fight are rats, and all you have to fight with is a dagger, you can admire how barrels come apart when you smash them, in realistically shaded pieces and a puff of dust, or all the different limbs you can bloodily excise from your foes."[28] The game was shipped by Black Isle Studios on December 3.[31][32]
Ports[edit]
With the success of the PlayStation version, the Xbox port, also developed by Snowblind,[33] was announced by Interplay on May 17, 2002,[34][35] with a demo released on May 31.[36] The game was finalized on September 25.[37] The GameCube version was officially announced on September 19, 2002,[38][39] to be ported by High Voltage Software.[40] The game was finalized on October 28.[41] The Game Boy Advance port was announced by DSI Games on November 8, 2001.[42] However, little more was heard of the title until January 15, 2004, when a rumor circulated that the game was finished, and was set to be published by Ubisoft.[43] This proved inaccurate, however, with Destination Software ultimately publishing the title, which had been ported by Magic Pockets.[19]
Believing the game could also be a success on the PC, Interplay's Feargus Urquhart and David Perry contacted Polish developers CD Projekt. As Poland was known for only developing PC games, Urquhart and Perry believed Projekt would be the perfect team to port Dark Alliance to PC. Sebastian Zieliński, developer of Mortyr 2093-1944, which Interplay had published, was placed in charge of the project, with Adam Badowski, a film storyboard artist, hired as designer. A PlayStation 2 development kit was smuggled from Interplay's offices in London to Poland, and work on the port began. However, almost immediately, Interplay cancelled development.[44]
Reception[edit]
GameSpot 8/10[20] 7.6/10[45] 8.8/10[15] 8.5/10[46]
GameSpy [47] [48]
IGN 8/10[19] 7.5/10[49] 9.4/10[50] 8.5/10[7]
Nintendo Power 4/5[51] 4.2/5[52]
OPM (US) [53]
OXM (US) 8.8/10[54]
Aggregate score
Metacritic 76/100[55] 79/100[56] 87/100[57] 83/100[58]
Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Role-Playing Game of the Year (2001)[59]
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance was well received on all four platforms. Metacritic records all versions as receiving "generally favorable reviews," with the PlayStation 2 version holding an aggregate score of 87 out of 100, based on twenty-nine reviews;[57] the Xbox version 83 out of 100, based on twenty-five reviews,[58] the GameCube version 79 out of 100, based on ten reviews,[56] and the Game Boy Advance version 76 out of 100, based on seventeen reviews.[55]
IGN reviewed all four versions of the game. David Smith scored the PlayStation 2 version 9.4 out of 10, giving it an "Editor's Award" and calling the Dark Alliance engine "one of the best 3D engines yet devised." He dismissed criticisms of the game as a "Diablo clone," arguing the gameplay is much deeper than such a comparison suggests. His only criticisms were some anti-climatic boss fights and repetitive music. He concluded "There is honestly not a great deal to complain about here [...] Snowblind has put together one of the best engines on PS2 and one of the best hacks in the business, certainly the best a console has ever seen."[50] Kaiser Hwang scored the Xbox version 8.5 out of 10. He praised the graphics, but wrote "What hurts this game's score is the fact that it is almost exactly the same game that was released last year, not that that's a bad thing. The game is a fine example of exceptional game-making. But an extra level or character, or really any added extras would've been great."[7] Fran Mirabella III scored the GameCube version 7.5 out of 10, calling it "a downgrade from the PS2 version." He criticized the "bafflingly destroyed frame rate," and commented "When it was released on the PS2 a year ago, few could believe what Snowblind had pulled off on Sony's stubborn console. A year later, and quite magically, High Voltage couldn't get the engine running smoothly on GameCube."[49] Craig Harris scored the Game Boy Advance version 8 out of 10, arguing that "Even though it's missing a few key elements from the original design it's based upon, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance works out very well in portable form."[19]
GameSpot also reviewed all four versions. Gerald Villoria scored the PlayStation 2 version 8.8 out of 10, praising the differences between the fighting styles of the three characters, the controls, the range of enemies and weaponry, and the lip syncing. He concluded "You can really appreciate all the work that went into making sure that all of the little things came together so nicely."[15] Greg Kasavin scored the Xbox version 8.5 out of 10, calling it "one of the finest action RPGs ever made" and lauding it as "a perfect port."[46] Kasavin scored the GameCube version 7.6 out of 10, finding similar faults to IGN's Mirabella. He called it "technically deficient" and argued "the visuals [...] just don't measure up, mostly because it suffers from frame rate issues that are nonexistent in the PS2 version (or the new Xbox version)." He concluded "the game just wasn't optimized for the system."[45] Frank Provo scored the Game Boy Advance version 8 out of 10, praising the enemy AI, the sound and the graphics. He concluded, "If you're looking for a hack-and-slash game on the go, this is the one to get."[20]
GameSpy reviewed the Xbox and GameCube versions. Raymond Padilla scored the Xbox version 4 out of 5, writing "With the Xbox, the developers had a significantly more powerful tool to retell the story of Dark Alliance. Unfortunately, they didn't take advantage of it. There are minor visual and aural enhancements in this version. They're very slight and I'm sure many gamers wouldn't notice the differences." He criticized the lack of Xbox Live compatibility or any kind of downloadable content, arguing "the only improvements are superficial." However, he also wrote "Compared to competing titles, this is one of the best games available for the Xbox [...] I wholeheartedly recommend Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance for the Xbox. It's not serving up anything new, but it's still a grand adventure."[48] Christian Nutt scored the GameCube version 3.5 out of 5, calling it "a wonderfully entertaining game that doesn't quite live up to the technical quality of the PS2 original or its Xbox incarnation." He wrote "the graphics have taken a subtle but damaging hit" and criticized "the game's frame rate, which is passable if slightly sluggish most of the time, but chunks up quite perceptibly when you rotate the dungeon." He praised the gameplay, but wrote "for a gamer with a choice between platforms, the GameCube version is the one to avoid."[47]
In the mainstream press, Victor Godinez of The Dallas Morning News called the game "a blast to play."[60] Billy O'Keefe, of the Knight Ridder Tribune wrote Dark Alliance is "all about action," opining that a pure RPG would not work on a console, and the additional action elements in Dark Alliance improved playability.[61] John Breeden II of The Washington Post praised "the smaller number of more straightforward quests."[62] Bob Low of the Daily Record called the graphics "flawless."[63] Godinez also lauded the graphics, calling them "breathtaking."[60] Breeden agreed, saying, "the graphics on the PS2 version are eons ahead of the PC series."[62] Low's one complaint was that the game was too short.[64] Breeden echoed this sentiment, arguing that players used to the longer PC games in the series might find Dark Alliance too brief.[62]
IGN ranked Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance No. 7 on their list of "The Top 11 Dungeons & Dragons Games of All Time" in 2014.[65]
Sales and awards[edit]
The game was a commercial success, selling over one million units across PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube.[66] It won the 2001 Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences award for "Role-Playing Game of the Year", defeating the hot-favorite, Final Fantasy X.[59] It was later listed at #66 in IGN's "Top 100 PlayStation 2 Games".[67]
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^ a b c Breeden II, John (February 10, 2002). "Reviews: Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance". The Washington Post. Katharine Weymouth. Archived from the original on March 24, 2016. Retrieved January 20, 2013. – via HighBeam Research (subscription required)
^ Low, Bob (September 1, 2001). "Sand Blaster: Games Review". Daily Record. Trinity Mirror. Retrieved January 10, 2013. – via HighBeam Research (subscription required)
^ Low, Bob (January 4, 2002). "20th Sentry Foxed". Daily Record. Trinity Mirror. Retrieved January 10, 2013. – via HighBeam Research (subscription required)
^ http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/02/05/the-top-11-dungeons-dragons-games-of-all-time
^ "Dark Alliance II Announced". IGN. March 24, 2003. Retrieved September 7, 2013.
^ "Top 100 PlayStation 2 Games". IGN. Retrieved November 15, 2012.
Baldur's Gate series
Tales of the Sword Coast
Enhanced Edition
Siege of Dragonspear
Throne of Bhaal
Dark Alliance series
Dark Alliance II
Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance
City of Baldur's Gate
Minsc
Developers and publishers
Baldur's Gate III: The Black Hound
Dungeons & Dragons video games
dnd (1975)
Dungeon (1975)
Dungeons & Dragons Computer Fantasy Game (1981)
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Cloudy Mountain (1982)
Dungeon! (1982)
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Treasure of Tarmin (1982)
Gold Box games
Pool of Radiance series
Curse of the Azure Bonds(1989)
Secret of the Silver Blades(1990)
Pools of Darkness(1991)
Savage Frontier series
Gateway to the Savage Frontier (1991)
Treasures of the Savage Frontier (1992)
Dragonlance series
Champions of Krynn (1990)
Death Knights of Krynn (1991)
The Dark Queen of Krynn (1992)
Spelljammer: Pirates of Realmspace (1992)
Forgotten Realms: Unlimited Adventures (1993)
Baldur's Gate (1998)
Tales of the Sword Coast (1999)
Enhanced Edition (2012)
Siege of Dragonspear (2016)
Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (2000)
Throne of Bhaal (2001)
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (2001)
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II (2004)
Baldur's Gate III (TBA)
Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance (TBA)
Icewind Dale series
Icewind Dale (2000)
Heart of Winter (2001)
Trials of the Luremaster (2001)
Icewind Dale II (2002)
Neverwinter Nights series
Neverwinter Nights (2002)
Shadows of Undrentide (2003)
Hordes of the Underdark (2003)
Kingmaker (2005)
Pirates of the Sword Coast (2005)
Infinite Dungeons (2006)
Darkness over Daggerford (2006)
Wyvern Crown of Cormyr (2006)
Neverwinter Nights: Mobile (2004)
Neverwinter Nights 2 (2006)
Mask of the Betrayer (2007)
Storm of Zehir (2008)
Mysteries of Westgate (2009)
Neverwinter Nights (1991–1997)
Sojourn/TorilMUD (1993–present)
Dark Sun Online: Crimson Sands (1996–1999)
Dungeons & Dragons Online (1996–present)
Neverwinter (2013–present)
Scourge of Worlds: A Dungeons & Dragons Adventure (2003)
Silver Box games
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of the Lance (1988)
Dragons of Flame (1989)
Shadow Sorcerer (1991)
Hillsfar (1989)
War of the Lance (1989)
Eye of the Beholder series
The Legend of Darkmoon (1991)
Assault on Myth Drannor (1993)
DragonStrike (1990)
Order of the Griffon (1992)
Dungeons & Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun (1992)
Dark Sun series
Shattered Lands (1993)
Wake of the Ravager (1994)
Dungeon Hack (1993)
Fantasy Empires (1993)
Stronghold (1993)
Mystara series
Tower of Doom (1993)
Shadow over Mystara (1996)
Slayer series
Slayer (1994)
DeathKeep (1996)
Ravenloft series
Strahd's Possession (1994)
Stone Prophet (1995)
Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse (1994)
Menzoberranzan (1994)
Blood & Magic (1996)
Birthright: The Gorgon's Alliance (1996)
Iron & Blood: Warriors of Ravenloft (1997)
Descent to Undermountain (1998)
Planescape: Torment (1999)
Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor (2001)
Dungeons & Dragons: Eye of the Beholder (2002)
Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes (2003)
The Temple of Elemental Evil (2003)
Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone (2004)
Dungeons & Dragons: Dragonshard (2005)
Dungeons & Dragons Tactics (2007)
Dungeons & Dragons: Tiny Adventures (2008)
Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale (2011)
Heroes of Neverwinter (2011)
Dungeons & Dragons: Arena of War (2013)
Lords of Waterdeep (2014)
Sword Coast Legends (2015)
Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms (2017)
Tales from Candlekeep: Tomb of Annihilation (2017)
Warriors of Waterdeep (2019)
Cancelled games
WorldCat Identities (via VIAF): 780144783299846755926
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Baldur%27s_Gate:_Dark_Alliance&oldid=923893837"
Action role-playing video games
Baldur's Gate video games
Black Isle Studios games
Cancelled Windows games
Cooperative video games
Destination Software games
Hack and slash role-playing games
High Voltage Software games
Interactive Achievement Award winners
Interplay Entertainment games
Magic Pockets games
Multiplayer and single-player video games
Role-playing video games
Snowblind Studios games
Video games developed in France
Video games developed in the United States
Video games featuring female antagonists
Video games featuring female protagonists
Video games scored by Jeremy Soule
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Author of 'Awakening', 'Netherworld' and 'Novice'. Aspiring writer and career mathematician, currently teaching high school.
When Anabeth Caerhart is thrust suddenly into the middle of the magical Underworld, she must struggle to learn her new magic powers before she loses them forever to the Director and her Consort.
Anabeth Caerhart must help her friends adjust to the ways of magic, all the while staving off attacks by demon magi.
After Alexander is fired from his job, his life takes a turn for the worse. Drinking his sorrows away, he comes up with a plan to get some much-needed money. But concocting a plan is one thing...dealing with the fallout is another matter entirely.
Well-written, believable characters, and reminiscent of the Hunger Games... Pre-order this book now. You won't be disappointed.
It takes Magic to become a Noble, and Sky is shocked when she is discovered to have the gift. Forced to leave home and travel to the High Court for training, Sky finds out just how dangerous her new life is. While in the West a great evil waits.
Filled with rich prose and action around every turn, Witherfist is a novel that draws you in and makes you want to keep turning the "page". Characters are well-developed and the world is fully realized. Excellent job, J!
Thoroughly engaging from top to bottom, the story is filled with beautiful imagery and compellingly believable characters. A must-read for anyone who enjoys a good faerie story.


How to make Candles.info • How to make Taper candles?
How to make Taper candles?
There's something magical about a taper candle that slowly takes shape before your eyes, as you dip the thickening wick into the hot wax.
Even if the process in itself is utterly simple, it is very important to constantly monitor and, if needed, adjust the temperature of the wax in which you dip the wick(s).
With some experience and a little trial and error, you'll be able to easily create the oldest candles known by man, all by yourself.
As your confidence grows, your taper candles will take new shapes and aspects: twisted, over-dipped, special effects... taper candles offer a very wide playground!
1 large spoon to regularly stir the wax.
1 As usual, gather all the supplies, tools and ingredients you will need for this project.
So better start the melting process well in advance (like two hours) and, above all, don't forget to regularly check the water level in the double boiler!
Before you start, place something at the bottom of the main double boiler pan to avoid direct contact between it and the bottom of the dipping pot. For this purpose,I use two small metal angle brackets bought at a DIY store: they're cheap, efficient and easy to move.
2 When you need to dip things into wax, temperature is even more important than in other projects: it means the difference between success and failure. So be sure to always leave a thermometer in the melted wax.
Because only a portion of the paraffin in the dipping pot will be in contact with the hot water in the double boiler, you will need to stir the paraffin in the dipping pot thoroughly at regular interval. Use a long metallic spoon to mix the warmer paraffin at the bottom with the cooler one at the top.
Ideally, the totality of the wax should remain at a temperature between 160°F and 170°F during the whole dipping process. You will soon realize that this requires some experience and a good knowledge of both your heating equipment and the dipping pot you will be using.
Of course, "ideal" is not of this world so don't worry too much if the temperature of the wax varies slightly. But don't let it drop under 160°F or raise above 170°F.
3 As explained in the previous article, titled "What do you need to make Taper candles?", it's a good idea to build a small wick holder. This will allow you to manipulate the wicks with less risks of both paraffin coated halves to touch each other (this would more than probably result in a "welding" of the two halves, a nasty curse word and the necessity to start all over again).
If you can't find anything to make such a wick holder from scratch, you can of course hold the wicks with your bare hands but then you should watch your moves. You could also use a small piece of strong cardboard with a slit at each hand to hold the wick.
4 For the first dips, it is necessary to help the wicks sink into the wax. Because of their light weight and the material they're made of, they will float if you don't add some weight at their extremities. You can use a small bolt tied at the end of each wick half or, better and easier to remove afterwards, two large fishing line weights. Those have a slit (think PacMan) that will let you pinch them on the wick.
When the wicks have been dipped 7 or 8 times, the accumulated paraffin will have made them heavy and rigid enough. At this stage, you'd better remove the weights or they will become an integral part of the candles. Your growing tapers should now plunge into the paraffin on their own weight.
5 I know I've said it ten times already but it's really of utmost importance: be sure your dipping wax is still at the ideal temperature, between 160°F et 170°F. If it's colder, the surface of the candle will be rough and lumpy; if it's hotter, the wax won't stick to the wicks and your candles won't get any thicker.
6 The dipping motion must be smooth and without hesitation otherwise the surface of your taper candles will show a "stairway" pattern where your dipping motion stopped.
For the first dip, plunge the wicks into the wax and leave them in there for about thirty seconds. This is equivalent to what you do when you prime the wick of a molded candle: it allows any air contained in the fibers of the wick to escape and the wick to saturate itself with paraffin.
When you can't see any more air bubbles escaping the wicks, lift them out of the dipping pot in the same smooth and even motion.
Wax will drip away from the wicks ends during a few seconds so you'd better prepare and cover your work surface with the sheets of an old newspaper.
Let the coated wicks cool off for about one minute. The wax on the wicks should feel cool to the touch otherwise this not-cool-yet wax will melt during the next dip and your tapers will have a hard time getting thicker.
7, 8 & 9 The next dips are identical: dip the wicks in a smooth motion down to the same level as the previous times, wait 3 seconds and get them out of the wax again, in the same smooth and even motion. Let cool for one minute before the next dip.
If your candles refuse to get thicker, let the wax temperature drop by 5°F before you continue.
Somewhere after the seventh or eighth dip, or when the candls have reached a thickness of, like, 7mm, wait 2 minutes instead of one between each dip: a larger quantity of wax needs more time to cool off. If you haven't remove the weights at the end of the wicks yet, it's now or never. If necessary, use scissors to cut the end of the candle where the weight is enclosed.
During the whole dipping process, do not hesitate to add more paraffin in the dipping pot to compensate for what is used to build up the tapers. Stir the wax at (very) regular intervals and, above all, check the temperature.
Repeat until the taper candles are as thick as you want them to be.
10 When you're happy with the size of the taper candles, put them on a plane and clean support, like a countertop, and roll them under your hands to flatten them and, if necessary, straighten them.
If you want to give them a shiny finish, raise the temperature of the wax in the dipping pot to 180°F-190°F and dip the candles two more times in the hot wax.
To make your taper candles virtually dripless, dip them one last time in a high melt point wax, for instance a Hurricane blend.
One last tip if you want your taper candles to have a really shiny finish: dip them in cold water just after the last dip in wax.
You have just repeated the same gestures as many of your ancestors before you!
And you've just created, hopefully without too much frustrations, your first handmade taper candles. Congratulations!


ACLU PA Offers Testimony at Hearing on Police Accountability Following Murder of Antwon Rose, Jr.
Back in June, I attended a convening with my ACLU colleagues who are working on the Campaign for Smart Justice to reduce mass incarceration by 50% and address systemic racial disparities in the criminal justice system. For three days in Pittsburgh, Campaign for Smart Justice organizers and communicators from across the country had planned on intensive strategy and skill-sharing sessions to make our campaigning as powerful as possible.
Then, on the morning of our second day, we learned that just a few miles away, an East Pittsburgh police officer had gunned down a teenager, Antwon Rose Jr., with three shots to the back as Rose fled a traffic stop.
Putting aside our planned agenda, we quickly decided to rally and march in solidarity with the Rose family in community protests that evening in East Pittsburgh and the next day in front of the Allegheny County Courthouse.
As the Rose family continues to demand justice for Antwon, we all ask the same question about this case: How was the officer who murdered Antwon just hours into his first day of work in East Pittsburgh hired in the first place despite a long record of disciplinary issues at other departments around the county?
Last week, I testified at a public hearing regarding police training and accountability in Wilkinsburg which is, like East Pittsburgh, a borough just outside Pittsburgh city limits.
The joint hearing, convened by the PA House and Senate Democratic Policy committees and co-hosted by Rep. Ed Gainey (D-Allegheny) and Sen. Jay Costa (D-Allegheny), was in direct response to the murder of Antwon Rose, Jr.
The goal of the hearing was to educate lawmakers about what can be done to improve police training and how best to hold an officer accountable when they violate their code of conduct or themselves break the law. The hope is that this, and other public hearings and conversations, will lead to legislation that codifies better training and accountability in police departments statewide.
While it's clear that more training for police is needed across the board, what is equally clear is that training without clear accountability to the community is nothing more than window dressing.
The good news is, when it comes to police accountability, there was a clear interest in tackling the issue among the lawmakers in attendance.
Sen. Sharif Street (D-Philadelphia) called for the open sharing of information about officers and a statewide officer database. Sen. Art Haywood (D-Montgomery) referenced legislation he introduced this session that would require the Attorney General to appoint a special prosecutor to handle cases in which police officers used deadly force. Sen. Jay Costa (D-Allegheny) recently proposed a bill package to improve police-community relationships. And House representatives are expected to introduce a series of other reforms in the coming days and weeks.
When it came time to deliver my testimony, I echoed many of the concerns already raised by advocates, agencies, and law enforcement officials at the hearing. I decided to highlight a few important police accountability reforms enacted in other states, including stricter hiring practices, stronger disciplinary procedures, standardized use of force policies, mandated implicit bias training, enhanced data collection and reporting, and the creation of independent investigations to prosecute officer-involved shootings.
After each instance of police violence, communities all too frequently are left waiting for their lawmakers to respond. Pennsylvanians deserve comprehensive and meaningful reforms that improve community-police relationships, de-escalate police use of force, and that will truly hold police officers accountable for their actions.
After I spoke, several legislators asked if the ACLU-PA could provide them with additional resources or assist with writing legislation to address these critical issues. I agreed that we could and would.
The ACLU of Pennsylvania looks forward to being an active participant in drafting and supporting bold and meaningful reform legislation. Justice for Antwon Rose, Jr. and far too many others like him is only possible when we ensure police are better trained and held accountable for their actions when they commit acts of violence.
This entry was posted in Criminal Justice Reform, Due Process, Police Practices, Racial Justice by Andy Hoover. Bookmark the permalink.


Everyone from the experienced specialist in UX to someone just starting a UX career needs a portfolio. Every employer or recruiter checks this first when looking for potential candidates.
We all know its importance, even though most of us constantly put off creating it. When we finally start, we then need to finish ASAP. This makes us end up rushing the task. Definitely do not follow this strategy.
Competition increases every day, making it essential to keep up with the trend. It sounds hard but once you understand what a great UX portfolio looks like, it comes pretty easy.
We have collected ten UX portfolio examples we find inspiring for different reasons.
They share one thing in common: They take good care of their UX portfolio. This actually means taking good care of the UX of their UX portfolio.
In this article, we will also teach you the fundamentals to include in your UX portfolio. Also, we'll give you some guidelines to creating a truly meaningful portfolio.
Try to see it this way: When you look for a UX job, your readers represent your target audience and your portfolio – your product. In this case, your readers count among the people more likely to hire you. Provide them a good user experience, the information they need and make it easy to understand.
UX leads, hiring managers and recruiters won't spend much time reading your portfolio. If they don't find what they are searching for or they find the content chaotic and hard to understand, they'll just go on to the next candidate.
So let's see what they actually want to see in your UX portfolio.
What UX leads and recruiters want to see in your UX portfolio?
We all know that UX means much more than some pretty screens. So why would a UX portfolio present a different case?
Consider your UX portfolio as your product, and specifically your most important one. Think through what you want to show your potential future employers. What do you want them to know about you?
Decision making based on results, user feedback, etc.
It sounds good, right? But maybe you are wondering how to showcase all these in a portfolio.
Well, we had the same question a few months ago. So we decided to speak to internationally recognized people in the UX industry to get to know more about this topic. We talked to Design Spring inventor Jake Knapp, behavioral scientist Susan Weinschenk, UX industry veteran Jared Spool, former Twitter design principal and Abstract co-founder Josh Brewer, InVision lead designer Pablo Stanley and many more well-known UXers who are actually hiring people in their teams. You can find the interviews we made with them on our UXfol.io blog.
We asked them what skills UXers need nowadays and how they can showcase them in their UX portfolios.
Surprisingly, they largely said the same things.
They all mentioned that the best UX portfolios show the design process and decisions. UX leads and recruiters don't just want to see the final UI design but the whole process you followed to reach the final results. They want you to explain your decisions and to tell why you decided to go with those specific solutions.
Just showing your final product or UI design can't do this. You need to tell the story behind your design. Tell design stories, present your design process step-by-step, from the beginning to the end.
This holds true for all the outstanding UX portfolios. That sets them apart from the less meaningful and memorable ones.
What fundamental parts must you include in your UX portfolio?
So, following the UX leads' advice, let's see which things you must include in your portfolio to get their attention.
First, make the front page of your portfolio both eye-catching and straightforward.
Contact details, or a contact form so people can easily reach you.
Once you have your front page in order, readers will want to dig deeper and check your best work in detail. Case studies present the best format to showcase previous work. Writing case studies basically tells your design stories.
It'll go much easier than you think. I will present you the logic all great design stories follow.
You will understand how to use this guide in a few minutes by checking some great UX portfolio examples we collected for you.
All the portfolios we will show you follow the same logic. You might wonder why but it has a simple answer. As I mentioned earlier, UX leads and recruiters want to see this structure when reviewing a UX portfolio.
They don't have much time, so make your portfolio concise, well-structured and meaningful. To do so, create a stunning front page. Include the most important information about you and your best works.
By this I mean to showcase a thumbnail and the title of your best work. If those impress well enough, your readers will dig deeper and click on them. This should lead to a case study where you explain your contribution to the project in detail. Showcase three to five case studies – no more, no less.
Now let's see some examples, some great UX portfolio and case study examples.
We collected ten inspiring UX portfolios. We will highlight one case study from each UX portfolio and explain what makes it truly meaningful and powerful.
When opening Mina's case study on subscription service, you can immediately see what she worked on. She summarizes her design process in the project's subtitle: "Qualitative Research, User Experience, Visual Design, Prototyping, Testing".
She follows a logical structure throughout the case study. First, she gives a brief of the project in the introduction. Then comes an explanation of the objective, introduced the team, their responsibilities and the tools used.
After giving an overview, she explains the whole design process. It starts with the research, highlighting notable findings, potential solutions and the prioritization of these. Then she added a storyboard and a user journey flow.
Next comes the design, which she starts with low fidelity wireframes and prototypes. She even added a gif to showcase the prototype and shared some test results. After showing some high fidelity prototype and mockups, she explains how she A/B tested the versions and measured their success.
At the end of the case study, she talks about her learnings and plans for the future.
The way Emily's project starts arouses the reader's curiosity. First she introduces the challenge, capturing reader interest right at the beginning. She bolded some parts for quick scanning. Then, she explains the project background, her role and the goals. And after sharing the main information of the project, she walks through her design process. She even added some photos of herself while working on this project.
She talks about the design sprint workshop she ran with the cross-functional team and what came next, the wireframing and prototyping. She shares the feedback she got and the decision the team made. For the user testing phase, she highlights some feedback, learnings and the next steps. In the UI design section, she talks about some UI challenges and workarounds.
She shares some details about the content and the final design for which she added scrollable mockups. At the end of the case study, she highlights some impressive results, takeaways and the next steps.
Katarina's SALT project involved "designing a mobile app for consumers of sustainable fashion brands to provide full transparency on sustainable clothing production". I personally really like these projects that aim to solve a social problem.
First, she presents the project itself. She explains the objectives, the challenge and her role in the project. Then comes her design process. She writes about the research and its analysis, takeaway and results. Then she gets into how she implemented these results. After presenting the personas and a user flow, she starts to explore the design solutions.
She added some sketches about the ideation and some mid-fidelity wireframes on prototyping. In covering visualisation, she not only highlights the most important details in general but also lists the most important parts one by one: the onboarding, the newsfeed, the scan & track feature and the user profile.
At the beginning, she explains how the lack of sales and business-driven features posed the main challenge. Then she added a bit about the tests she did on materializing the product. At the end, she summarizes the lessons learned during this specific project.
Eric grabs reader attention right at the beginning with the statistics. He explains his role and the tools he used, the background information of the project and the challenges.
Then he shows his design process. He starts on the research with competitor analysis, interviews, personas and user journey maps. For the part on building, he explains how he used card sorting, created user flow and a sitemap, and how he managed to get to the UI design phase starting from sketch and wireframes. Here he shows powerful iterations. He also did usability testing and highlights the feedback from them and how he managed to solve the problems that came up during testing.
After describing all his design process, he introduces the app itself, pointing out some main features and showcasing them with cool GIFs.
When summarizing his learnings, he writes about specific areas of growth. That shows his enthusiasm and thirst for knowledge. He closes the case study with a "gratitude and credit" section for the people who contributed to the project's success.
Not taking all the credit just for yourself in your portfolio shows your part as a great team player. The same applies when you present your team and the roles in it at the beginning of a case study.
Marcela explains the aim of the project right at the beginning with only a few words in the subtitle: "Chat with your doctor anytime, anywhere!". She starts the case study with a description of PMS (Pre-Menstrual Syndrome) and explaining the benefits of using a period tracker app.
Then she explains her design process. After many surveys, she highlights this with some statistics. She also added the questions from the interviews she'd done. Then she analyzes the discovery phase. After creating personas and highlighting their pain points, she adds some of her sketches and introduces the UI design.
Next comes an embedded prototype which makes it easy to understand the user testing. Really cool thing: You can easily interact with it without leaving the case study. After the tests, she iterated the product. She explains the iterations by writing problem-solution pairs, a great way to explain design decisions.
She ends the project with some learnings where she even highlights what she really loves to do. This might provide future employers valuable information.
Elissa made sure to present the project, her role, the problem and the team for quick scanning. She split the project and her process into two phases and presented them one after the other. She starts with competitor analysis and creates personas. Then she talks about the ideation workshop they held to sketch up some ideas based on their three objectives. She even added some photos made on this workshop.
Then, she explains the solution to the challenges, shares some sketches and prototypes and explains the concept behind them. She came up with three different concepts and explains them all one by one.
Later on, they did user tests and she shares the top five insights she got from them. She also presented it to the stakeholders and immediately implemented some ideas.
In the second phase, she explains how she'd change the current website to achieve the objectives agreed upon with the stakeholders. She talks about all four objectives and possible solutions. The illustrations added here makes it really understandable, especially where she places the old and the new versions next to each other.
She shares some learnings and some photos taken at the final presentation. She doesn't showcase any final UIs, but still explains the whole design process. Including this even without showcasing any UI design, she manages to perfectly present the process and sets a good example.
She closes the case study with a really powerful quote from a product manager.
Beto starts his case study by describing the company, his role and the challenge. He goes on to his design process. This includes interviews, personas, card sorting, site map, mind map, wireframes and the UI design. He added photos to all the steps he talks about, making it really transparent. He even highlights some parts such as the UI design with big, whole-screen images.
At the end, he summarizes his learnings. Also, he explains how the design system improved thanks to this project. The statistics at the very end work powerfully, highlighting some KPI's that improved a lot.
He also added a link to the final product, the website itself, so the readers can check it out.
In this case study, Beto follows the same structure as in the previous one. After presenting the company, the team and his role, he shows his design process. It includes interviews, wireframes, personas and the UI of the sales flow. Despite creating the final UI in Portuguese, he's made it totally understandable by explaining it in his case study.
After sharing his learnings, he highlights the illustrations and the iconography. It sets a good example as you can highlight basically any part of the project you find interesting or important.
He ends the case study with a great quote and a link to the final website.
Rey highlights his team and roles right in the subtitle and of course, the project in the title (CX (Customer Experience) Strategy for the RMIT University).
In the introduction he explains the context, the brief and his role in detail. Then he presents his process in detail. They had a heavy research section, which he explains the steps of. He even shares many statistics about the conducted research.
I especially like that he does not take all the credit. He explains all the different deliverables and outcomes the team delivered. He emphasizes the project status as a team effort. Still, as he served as the only designer in the team, he produced most of the visual elements and illustrations.
At the end, he added a really powerful quote from a member of his team which definitely gives him credibility.
Within one project, Storm introduces many challenges he had during this specific project. He follows the same logic while introducing every challenge, making it easy to understand. This creative method shows more of the project's challenges without overcomplicating it.
He always explains the challenge, his process and learnings and some statistics. Sometimes the next steps and a link to the existing site also feature.
This lets him show the original and the new versions of the user flow. It also provides a great way to show the differences implemented as a result of his work.
Additionally, he added scrollable mockups. They show the website right on the project's site so the reader doesn't need to navigate to the website and back to the case study. Still, he even added a link to the final site to offer the option to check it if someone wants to.
As you have just seen, all the portfolios followed more or less the same logic: the UX leads' and recruiters' way of thinking.
With a great portfolio structure, you can easily create a concise, well-structured and meaningful UX portfolio.
Let's summarize the main parts to include to achieve this.
Your design process: Present your design process step by step, present the methods you used and the decisions you took and explain why you did it that way.
Follow this great recipe and you'll create a powerful UX portfolio.
And in case you need a tool to help build your portfolio quickly and easily, we made a great one, UXfol.io. The UXers created all the examples above in UXfol.io, so you know you can actually do everything you saw.
We created it specifically for UX professionals, so we packed in a lot of features to help you in the portfolio building process. They include copywriting help, prototype embedding, scrollable mockups, gallery section, statistics section and many, many more. You can even ask for the UXfol.io community or by senior UX experts to review your case study.
If you want to give it a try, sign up here and try it out for free.
UX portfolio expert. Foreign-language learner, yogini, dog owner, volunteer, with an incurable case of wanderlust and a desire to help others.


Wow, cool project. well done.
There is also an emulator but it is online only.
Looking for a Cisco AGS or AGS+ router. Can be whole, case or boards but must be in good condition physically.
Shoot me a PM if you have a spare you would like to trade or sell or give away. While I'm at it, any RK07 parts as well. Brian.
I've used too many PDPs to list, but it includes everything from a PDP-10 to PDP-11/70 and some VAX machines. Experience includes both UNIBUS and QBUS platforms.
My "Computer Museum" [as it's referred to by my friends] includes about 30 machines altogether, of which 10 or 15 are DEC. I am ashamed to say, none of these have been powered in the last 10 years.
This is about to change however, as I'm doing some of those "bucket list" projects I've been meaning to "get around to" for the last 20 years.
Ok, got my first pick of a decent PDP-11 book for you guys.
185 short pages plus Appendices and an Index.
This is targeted for programmers already experienced in high level languages, who may not have ever programmed in assembly or machine code before on any machine.
The question of the purpose and action of bit 12, in the T-11's "MODE" register is not easy to answer from available information.
Tester mode is for Digital Equipment Corporation's use only. If mode register bit 12 is high, (MR<12>=1), user mode is selected.
I thought it might be fun to put together an "album" of photos of original development boards and prototype designs in my collection. This is by no means complete, but I have to start somewhere and I'll add to it as I organize my stuff.
First is a Digital Equipment Corporation DCT11 Evaluation Module Kit.


Is there a restocking fee on Returned Merchanise?
Happy Birthday Boutique offers a flat rate shipping of $10.95 on ALL orders to the United States! (DIY products*Do It Yourself* digital items –there is no charge for shipping). We are currently shipping all of our products via UPS, USPS, and FedEx, whichever is the fastest and most economical.
We do not offer phone orders at this time. We are a business operated by stay at home mom's. To keep our product cost low and shipping fast, we ask that you please order via our website. This is the most convient method for us. If you have any questions, please email us.
PLEASE NOTE: Since the merchandise you order may be shipped from several locations, items may arrive separately. As a result, they may arrive to you at different times and in separate Packages. You will not incur additional shipping charges. Our items are individually constructed at the time your order is placed and considered made-to-order, please allow 2-4 weeks for completion and 3-7 days for shipping. Please be sure to read the descriptions, as they estimate the processing times. If you have any questions about the processing times or if you need an item by a specific date, please feel free to email us at: info@happybirthdayboutique.com before placing your order. We would be more than happy to see if we can accommodate your order.
Delivery times vary from product to product. Many of our products are individually constructed at the time your order is placed and considered made-to-order, please allow 2-4 weeks for completion and 3-7 days for shipping. We do have some rush options and Quick Ship Tutu Sets available on the site. Happy Birthday Boutique will make every effort to expedite your order, however we work with many artisans and manufactures therefore shipping schedules may vary per artisans. You will be notified by email or phone when your order has shipped.
We accept all major credit cards including Visa, Mastercard, Discover & American Express. We also accept payments via PayPal and Google.
Most of our artisans do not ship internationally. Our quick ship titled items can be shipped with additional International Shipping charges. International shipping charges will apply to all purchases shipped out of the United States. Shipping charges will be calculated and a custom listing for your shipping charges will be created for you. Your order will not ship until you confirm the shipping method and rate that will be charged. All International Orders are subject to review, and we reserve the right to mark an order as canceled if we feel the payment is not legitimate.
Happy Birthday Boutique's goal is to provide our customers with the highest quality service and merchandise. Because many of our products are custom designed at the time an order is placed, we ask that you please make your selection very carefully as these items are not returnable.
Since the majority of our items are custom-designed or made-to-order products require payment in full upon order. Because artisans craft these items to your specifications, Happy Birthday Boutique cannot accept returns or cancellations on these products and all sales will be final.
If you are not satisfied with your purchase, please notify Happy Birthday Boutique within 10 business days of receiving your order. All returns must have prior authorization. You may reach us by email at: info@happybirthdayboutique.com. All returns must be unused and returned in the original packaging for full credit. If you fail to notify Happy Birthday Boutique of your desire to return or replace your purchase within the 10 business day window, or if Happy Birthday Boutique suspects an item that you have returned has been used, your merchandise will be shipped back to you at your expense. Upon receipt of your approved return, Happy Birthday Boutique will either issue a refund for the purchase price of your item(s) to the credit card used for your purchase or ship the item you have selected in exchange.
There are no returns, exchanges or credit after 30 days from receiving your order. Shipping costs cannot be refunded by Happy Birthday Boutique. All shipping charges are the customer's responsibility. If you received free shipping with your purchase, the cost of the initial shipping and handling will be deducted from your refund. Shipping costs will apply to replacement items. Insurance and tracking are recommended as we are not responsible for packages lost in transit to our return address.
Happy Birthday Boutique reserves the right to cancel orders or refuse service to anyone at any time. We reserve the right to cancel orders for items that have been advertised at a wrong price, discounted rate, have incurred an unusually long back order time or have been discontinued. We also reserve the right to cancel any order which was posted to the site with errors of color, style or price. If we cancel your order after we have charged your credit card, we will refund your card the amount charged.
Happy Birthday Boutique is not responsible for lost, delayed, or damaged items that are being returned. Please send all returns with insurance and delivery confirmation. Items sent via US Postal Service are not traceable nor insured unless you specifically request those services. Shipping insurance is available at checkout for an additional $2.00. You can email us at: info@happybirthdayboutique.com if you have any questions.
No sales tax will be charged if the delivery address is located out of the state of California. All deliveries in California will be charged an 9.25% sales tax on merchandise.
All drop ship items must be returned to the manufacturer at buyers expense and will be subject to a 10%-40% re-stocking fee. Each manufacturer sets their own re-stocking fees, please email us for amount and RMA number.
Customers who refuse to accept delivery of any order will be held responsible for all postage and handling fee's associated with the delivery.


text:
Q: Using treeview to filter data with Rest API (Vue & Django) I have an django backend using a rest api. I am planning to build a filter for my vue frontend using this package. https://github.com/riophae/vue-treeselect
I need to alter my models so I can filter the data in a hierarchal manner
like so.
 .Sport
 |
  ...Competition
  |
   ....Open date
   |
    .....Event name
    |
     ......Market type

What do I need to do in order to alter on my models.py and and how do I call get data to flow into the tree view on update button click in the filter.vue file? Also how to I post to the empty model on add button click?
models.py
from django.db import models

class Event(models.Model):
    sport = models.CharField(max_length=50, null=True)
    event_id = models.BigIntegerField(primary_key=True)
    event_name = models.CharField(max_length=200, null=True)
    open_date = models.CharField(null=True, max_length=50)
    market_type = models.CharField(null=True,max_length=50)
    competition = models.CharField(null=True, max_length=50)

Empty model to post filtered results to.
class EventMonitor(models.Model):
    sport = models.CharField(max_length=50, null=True)
    event_id = models.BigIntegerField(primary_key=True)
    event_name = models.CharField(max_length=200, null=True)
    open_date = models.CharField(null=True, max_length=50)
    market_type = models.CharField(null=True,max_length=50)
    competition = models.CharField(null=True, max_length=50)

serializers.py
from rest_framework import serializers
from .models import  Event, EventMonitor

class EventSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):

   class Meta:
       model = Event
       fields = '__all__'

class EventMonitorSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):

   class Meta:
       model = EventMonitor
       fields = '__all__'

views.py
from rest_framework.viewsets import GenericViewSet, ModelViewSet
from api.serializers import EventSerializer, EventMonitorSerializer
from api.models import Event, EventMonitor

class EventViewSet(ListModelMixin, RetrieveModelMixin, DestroyModelMixin, GenericViewSet):
     queryset = Event.objects.all()
     serializer_class = EventSerializer

class EventMonitorViewSet(ListModelMixin, RetrieveModelMixin, DestroyModelMixin, GenericViewSet):
     queryset = EventMonitor.objects.all()
     serializer_class = EventMonitorSerializer

urls.py
from django.conf import settings
from django.urls import path, include
from django.contrib import admin
from django.contrib.auth import views
from rest_framework.routers import DefaultRouter
from api.views import EventViewSet, EventMonitorViewSet
from rest_framework import routers

router = routers.DefaultRouter()
router.register('event', EventViewSet)
router.register('eventmonitor', EventMonitorViewSet)

urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
    path('api/', include(router.urls)),
    path('api/auth/', include('djoser.urls')),
    path('api/auth/', include('djoser.urls.authtoken')),

filter.vue
     <template>

         <treeselect v-model="value" :multiple="true" :options="options" />

      <button type="button" class="btn btn-dark">update</button>
      <button type="button" class="btn btn-dark">add</button>

     </template>

A: One approach would be to use Q objects or use direct filter lookups for the search query.
For the second one, you need to do something like:

*

*Send queries to backend using query parameters. Eg: base_url?Sports=foo&Competition=bar

*Implement the get_queryset method of Event Viewset by using something like:
def get_queryset(self):
    query = Events.objects.all()
    if self.request.method == 'GET':
        query = query.filter(**dict(self.request.query_params))

Please note this is just POC for giving you an idea, not tested code.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Tag Archives: Kosovo
Ireland Awarded the 2003 Special Olympics World Summer Games
On March 31, 1999, Ireland is selected as the location for the 2003 Special Olympics World Summer Games. It is the first time the event has been staged outside the United States. The organising committee, which is formed in 1999 following the success of the bid, is chaired by entrepreneur Denis O'Brien. The chief executive is Mary Davis.
The Games are hosted in Dublin, with participants staying in 177 towns, cities and villages and the Aran Islands in the lead up to the Games before moving to Dublin for the events. Events are held from June 21-29, 2003 at many venues including Morton Stadium, the Royal Dublin Society, the National Basketball Arena, all in Dublin. Croke Park serves as the central stadium for the opening and closing ceremonies, even though no competitions take place there. Belfast is the venue for roller skating events at the King's Hall, as well as the Special Olympics Scientific Symposium held on June 19-20.
Approximately 7,000 athletes from 150 countries compete in the Games in 18 official disciplines and three exhibition sports. The participants from Kosovo are the region's first team at an international sporting event. A 12-member team from Iraq receives special permission to attend the games, despite ongoing war in their home nation. This is the largest sporting event held in 2003.
The opening ceremony is held in Croke Park and features an array of stars and is hosted by Patrick Kielty. The ceremony is officially opened by President of Ireland Mary McAleese and attended by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. Performances include U2, The Corrs and the largest Riverdance troupe ever assembled on one stage. There are 75,000 athletes and spectators in attendance at the opening ceremonies. Irish and international celebrities such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jon Bon Jovi walk with the athletes, with Muhammad Ali as a special guest and Manchester United and Republic of Ireland football player Roy Keane taking the athletes oath with one of the Special Olympians. Nelson Mandela officially opens the Games.
The Games Flame is lit at the culmination of the Law Enforcement Torch Run, in which more than 2,000 members of the Garda Síochána and the Police Service of Northern Ireland participate. This is a series of relays carrying the Special Olympics Torch, the "Flame of Hope," from Europe to the Games' official opening.
The 2003 Games are the first to have their opening and closing schemes broadcast on live television, and Raidió Teilifís Éireann provides extensive coverage of the events through their 'Voice of the Games' radio station which replaces RTÉ Radio 1 on medium wave for the duration of the event. There is also a nightly television highlight programme. A daily newspaper, the Games Gazette, was published for each day of the Games.
Among the activities carried out during the Games are thorough medical checks on the athletes, some of whom have previously undiagnosed conditions uncovered, as some of the athletes come from countries with limited medical facilities or have difficulty communicating their symptoms.
Among the contributors to the Games is the Irish Prison Service. Prisoners from Mountjoy Prison, Midlands Prison, Wheatfield Prison and Arbour Hill Prison construct podiums and make flags, towels, signs, benches and other equipment.
Categories: Irish History, Sports | Tags: 2003 Invasion of Iraq, 2003 Special Olympics World Summer Games, Aran Islands, Arbour Hill Prison, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Association Football, Belfast, Bertie Ahern, Croke Park, Denis O'Brien, Dublin, Entrepreneur, Europe, Flame of Hope, Garda Síochána, Iraq, Irish Prison Service, Jon Bon Jovi, King's Hall, Kosovo, Manchester United F.C., Mary Davis, Mary McAleese, Medium Wave, Midlands Prison, Morton Stadium, Mountjoy Prison, Muhammad Ali, National Basketball Arena, Nelson Mandela, Patrick Kielty, Police Service of Northern Ireland, President of Ireland, Raidió Teilifís Éireann, Republic of Ireland National Football Team, Riverdance, Roller Skating, Roy Keane, Royal Dublin Society, RTÉ Radio 1, Taoiseach, The Corrs, U2, United States, Wheatfield Prison | Permalink.
Mary Robinson Inaugurated 7th President of Ireland
Mary Robinson, Irish lawyer, independent politician, and diplomat born Mary Teresa Winifred Bourke, is inaugurated as the seventh President of Ireland on December 3, 1990, becoming the first woman to hold the office. She later serves as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) from September 1997 – September 2002.
Robinson is born on May 21, 1944 in Ballina, County Mayo. She is educated at Trinity College and the King's Inns in Dublin and at Harvard Law School in the United States. She serves at Trinity College (University of Dublin) as Reid Professor of penal legislation, constitutional and criminal law, and the law of evidence (1969–1975) and lecturer in European Community law (1975–1990). In 1988 she and her husband establish the Irish Centre for European Law at Trinity College.
A distinguished constitutional lawyer and a renowned supporter of human rights, Robinson is elected to the Royal Irish Academy and is a member of the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva (1987–1990). She sits in Seanad Éireann, the upper house of the Oireachtas, for the University of Dublin constituency (1969–1989) and serves as whip for the Labour Party until resigning from the party over the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, which she feels ignores unionist objections. She is also a member of the Dublin City Council (1979–1983) and runs unsuccessfully in 1977 and 1981 for Dublin parliamentary constituencies.
Nominated by the Labour Party and supported by the Green Party and the Workers' Party, Robinson becomes Ireland's first woman president in 1990 by mobilizing a liberal constituency and merging it with a more conservative constituency opposed to the Fianna Fáil party. As president, she adopts a much more prominent role than her predecessors and she does much to communicate a more modern image of Ireland. Strongly committed to human rights, she is the first head of state to visit Somalia after it suffers from civil war and famine in 1992 and the first to visit Rwanda after the genocide in that country in 1994.
Shortly before her term as president expires, Robinson accepts the post of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR). As high commissioner, she changes the priorities of her office to emphasize the promotion of human rights at the national and regional levels. She was the first UNHCHR to visit China, and she also helps to improve the monitoring of human rights in Kosovo. In 2001 she serves as secretary-general of the World Conference against Racism held in Durban, South Africa. In 1998 she is elected chancellor of Trinity College, a post she holds until 2019.
After stepping down as UNHCHR, Robinson founds the nongovernmental organization Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative (2002–2010). Its central concerns include equitable international trade, access to health care, migration, women's leadership and corporate responsibility. She is also a founding member of the Council of Women World Leaders, serves as honorary president of Oxfam International, a private organization that provides relief and development aid to impoverished or disaster-stricken communities worldwide, and is a member of the Club of Madrid, which promotes democracy. She also holds various posts at the United Nations and, in 2010, she establishes the Mary Robinson Foundation—Climate Justice, which operates until 2019.
Robinson is the recipient of numerous honours. In 2004 Amnesty International awards her its Ambassador of Conscience Award for her human rights work. In 2009 she receives the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama. Her memoir, Everybody Matters: My Life Giving Voice (cowritten with Tessa Robinson), is published in 2012.
(Pictured: Mary Robinson during her inauguration as president in 1990, photograph by Matt Kavanagh)
Categories: Irish History, Politics & Government | Tags: Ambassador of Conscience Award, Amnesty International, Anglo-Irish Agreement, Ballina, Barack Obama, Chancellor, China, Club of Madrid, Constitutional Law, Council of Women World Leaders, County Mayo, Criminal Law, Diplomat, Dublin, Dublin City Council, Durban, European Community Law, Fianna Fáil, Geneva, Green Party, Harvard Law School, Human Rights, Independent Politician, International Commission of Jurists, King's Inns, Kosovo, Labour Party, Law of Evidence, Mary Robinson, Oireachtas, Oxfam International, President of Ireland, President of the United States, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Royal Irish Academy, Rwanda, Rwandan Genocide, Seanad Éireann, Somali Civil War, Somalia, South Africa, Trinity College Dublin, Unionism, United Nations, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, United States, University of Dublin, University of Dublin Constituency, Upper House, Workers' Party of Ireland, World Conference against Racism 2001 | Permalink.
OHCHR Mary Robinson Criticises U.S. for Violating Human Rights
On August 30, 2002, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, criticises the United States for violating human rights in its war on terrorism and of trying to scale back plans to save the world's poorest people.
Robinson becomes the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on September 12, 1997, following her nomination to the post by Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan and the endorsement of the General Assembly.
She assumes responsibility for the UN human rights programme at the time when the Office of the High Commissioner and the Centre for Human Rights are consolidated into a single Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
As High Commissioner, Robinson gives priority to implementing the Secretary-General's reform proposal to integrate human rights into all the activities of the United Nations. During her first year as High Commissioner, she travels to Rwanda, South Africa, Colombia and Cambodia, among other countries. In September 1998, she becomes the first High Commissioner to visit China and signs an agreement with the Government for OHCHR to undertake a wide-ranging technical-cooperation programme to improve human rights in that country. She also strengthens human rights monitoring in such conflict areas as Kosovo in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Her term of office expires in 2002 after sustained pressure from the United States leads her to declare she is no longer able to continue her work.
Robinson comes to the United Nations after a distinguished, seven-year tenure as President of Ireland. She is the first Head of State to visit Rwanda in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide there. She is also the first Head of State to visit Somalia following the crisis there in 1992, and receives the CARE Humanitarian Award in recognition of her efforts for that country.
Before she is elected President of Ireland in 1990, Robinson serves as Senator for 20 years. Born on May 21, 1944 in Ballina, County Mayo, she is called to the bar in 1967 and two years later becomes the youngest Reid Professor of Constitutional Law at Trinity College, Dublin. In 1973, she becomes a member of the English Bar (Middle Temple). She becomes a Senior Counsel in 1980, and serves as a member of the Advisory Commission of Inter-Rights (1984-1990) and as a member of the International Commission of Jurists (1987-1990).
Educated at Trinity College, Robinson holds law degrees from the King's Inns in Dublin and from Harvard University. She has been awarded numerous honorary degrees, medals and prizes from universities and humanitarian organizations around the world. In July 2009, she is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honour awarded by the United States, by U.S. President Barack Obama.
Categories: Human Rights, Irish History, Politics & Government | Tags: Ballina, Barack Obama, Cambodia, CARE, China, Colombia, County Mayo, Dublin, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Government of China, Harvard University, Human Rights, International Commission of Jurists, King's Inns, Kofi Annan, Kosovo, Mary Robinson, Middle Temple, President of Ireland, President of the United States, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Rwanda, Rwandan Genocide, Secretary General of the United Nations, Somalia, South Africa, Terrorism, Trinity College Dublin, United Nations, United Nations General Assembly, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, United States | Permalink.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Welcome to my blog! I'm Alec (or sometimes Alex) Wright and I'm a mostly electronics hacker/maker. By day I work in power electronics for satellites.
Since I don't like defining myself solely by my job, here are a few more of my interests: RF stuff, unix, both kinds of beer (real ale and belgian beer), cycling, cooking, digital rights and online privacy, hackerspaces, contact cleaner spray, thinkpads, photography, infrastructure, nintendo console gaming, lithium grease, urban exploration and good quality hand tools.
My disinterests include: gimmicky and pointless kickstarter projects, pseudoscience, airport security, disposable batteries, PHP, formalwear, mornings, nationalism, shoddily made power electronics, instant coffee, soldering down transistors before bolting them to a heatsink, people who seem to take personal offence at your decision to avoid eating meat, trusted computing, psychological pricing, most invertebrates and stilton.
On this blog I post mostly about the projects I do. My old blog, which isn't going to be updated any more but hasn't yet been archived, is here.


Rules regarding the plural form of nouns seem to be pretty straightforward in English. Simply add an –s to the noun and you're getting there. Of course, there are certain exceptions to this general rule. However, we don't want to elaborate on irregular plural forms in this article, but rather expand on a specific plurals issue that seems to confuse many native German speakers. Namely, the fact that there are several English nouns which are used exclusively in their plural form. Here is an introduction to them.
Sounding quite odd to native German speakers' ears, some English nouns are always plural in form. Making matters even more intricate, these plural nouns may either take a singular or a plural verb.
Jeans: Native German speakers tend to think/say to own "one jean" or "two jeans". In English, jeans are always used in the plural (e.g. "Where are my jeans?"). If you want to combine the word jeans with a number, you should say: "I bought three pairs of jeans".
Glasses: Another word that the German language provides in a singular as well as a plural form. It's easier in English. There is no single glass, but only glasses (e.g. "I'm lost without my glasses").
Other nouns in this category are binoculars, headphones, pajamas, pants, scales, scissors and shorts.
Now, let's move on those strange plural nouns that are used in connection with a singular verb. Many sports fall into this category, such as athletics, billiards, darts and gymnastics (e.g. "Billiards is played all over the world", "Darts is a popular game in bars in the UK"). Also, a lot of academic disciplines (economics, mathematics, physics) have a fixed plural form and take a plural verb (e.g. "Physics is said to be difficult"). And another quite important noun that you should remember in this category are the news (e.g. "The news starts at 8 pm").
Here are some more English nouns which are always used in the plural.
Belongings: Everybody who has been on board of an airplane has heard the sentence "Please ensure that you take all your belongings with you as you leave the aircraft".
Clothes: Sometimes a little confusing for native German speakers, given that the German language knows a singular as well as a plural form of the word "clothes". In English, clothes are always used in the plural form (e.g. "She bought some new clothes yesterday"). If you are talking about a single item, then you should use the term "piece of clothing".
Earnings, savings, wages: No idea, why these financial terms are always plural in form. Just take it as it is (e.g. "Wages are paid on the last day of the month").
Stairs: Another English plural noun that the German language uses in the singular are stairs (e.g. "The kids ran down the stairs"). Stair in the singular translates into the German "Treppenstufe".
People: Probably the most important English plural noun. If you are referring to several persons, you should use the term "people" (e.g. "Three people were arrested last night"). If you are referring to one person only, then say "person" (e.g. "One person was arrested last night").
Police: Sounding very odd to German speakers, the police in English is used as a plural term only (e.g. "The police arrested several suspects today").
Other nouns that only have a plural form in English are congratulations, likes/dislikes, goods, outskirts, premises, surroundings and thanks.
Some nouns refer to groups of people, such as audience, committee, crew, enemy, government, public or team. That is why they are usually called collective nouns. Now the hard part is that these collective nouns can take a singular or plural verb, depending on whether they are considered as a single unit or as a collection of individuals.
Sounds complicated – let's explain that by giving you an example.
"The audience was larger than expected" – in this sentence the audience is seen as a single, indivisible unit. "The audience were giving standing ovations" – in this sentence the audience is seen as an entity of individuals.
One more example to clarify the use of collective nouns.
"Manchester United is the world's most popular soccer club" – here ManU is seen as the club itself. "Manchester United are looking forward to meeting Real Madrid in the Champions League final" – means that each and every single ManU player is excited to play Real.
Another particular feature of the English language is the fact that several nationalities are written in the plural (without an –s). So, please say the British, the Dutch, the English, the French and the Welsh. The singular form of the English is an Englishman. Likewise, somebody from the Netherlands is a Dutchman.
This entry was posted in Grammar and tagged nouns, plural. Bookmark the permalink.


The Baker's Jacket Long from Universal Works is a multipurpose jacket with workwear origins and was named for UW founder David Keyte's Dad, who was a Baker and wore a simple chore jacket whilst working in his bakery. The jacket features 5 pockets, button fastening, collar and a specific Mowbray fabric that adds strength to the fabric. Team with just about anything, this jacket is easy to wear and adds an element of layers to any outfit.