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I'm not here to break apart whether "gifts" really are, or if they're a state of mind. What I'm here to do is provide some kind of assistance to those who are put off by public speaking. Here's a quick list of top tips from an actual PR representative and hobbyist-lecturer. Always go first for presentations and speeches. I know that sounds terrifying and silly, but trust me. The longer you leave it, the more tension that rises. This will lead to more mistakes, and even if you have really good points, you'll be let down by inner-torment. Moreover, the longer you wait, especially in the case with the markers, the less concentration your audience will have. The markers will award less marks as they will be bored, and the students "listening" to your speech won't care. That might sound good, but it means there's no point for you to speak. They might even hold it to you if you make them stay there for a really long time. Your voice is a weapon. Be loud. Be confident. Speak at a nice easy pace. Interestingly, almost all people who go to a speech speaking at twice the speed of their practice runs. If you really must, you can try centre yourself, as if you're in a small room with just yourself. Most important job of your voice isn't just to communicate information, but also to make people excited. You need to break the ice, and combat awkwardness. By not being one of those boring people, and by using inflections, exaggerations and other vocal tools, you can make people really care what you have to say. Throw in a dash of comedy if you can pull it off, but don't if you can't. Comedy has very little do with the strength of your jokes. It's all about the atmosphere and your timing. If you can't nail the timing, and if you aren't lively enough to melt the awkwardness in the room, your jokes will become cringe-worthy. That said, having good jokes will absolutely increase audience retention, and should make your markers feel a little more inclined towards your presentation. If you do put in jokes, make sure to only give a very brief laugh (don't go on and on forever, because it soon becomes painful to watch), and don't overload your speech with jokes. There needs to be serious content in there somewhere. Don't overly prepare and memorise your speech. What you'll end up doing is, in the event that your miss a line, end up panicking and screw yourself over. To reiterate, don't memorise your speech. Instead, memorise the content, and know it well enough that your could speak about it in your sleep. Therefore, if something goes wrong, you should still be able to discuss the content without having to scramble to figure out what line you missed. Don't hide on stage, and stay still. Be relaxed. Your body language is as important as your speech itself. Just calm down, stand in the centre of the stage and keep your legs still. Don't slouch too much, just give just a bit of lean to show people you're comfortable, and they should be too. Use your hands as tools of expression, to show what you're speaking about. Also, remember your facial experiences, and use them to your advantage. Don't be sitting or stand behind a podium, unless you're sufficiently taller than it. The less you rely on palm cards, the more your audience will care. I don't use them at all. Your audience didn't come for you to read to them dry content. Furthermore, if you're looking at the palm cards, your voice won't be directed at the audience and so people up the back won't hear you. Don't put ANY words on your Powerpoint presentations, except for presenter notes. I rely on presenter notes to keep me up to speed with what I'm talking about, but all my slides are just visual stimuli that relate to what I'm speaking about. If the audience sees anything to read, they won't listen to what you have to say. Force them to listen to you. Oh, and that thing about imagining the audience in different clothes/naked? Total crock of s***.

I've seen a lot of people attempt their own overhaul on various different games. Many fail. Therefore, I want to address how to go about the process of starting and finishing your very own overhaul, for any game. This will be a multiple part series, so I will add a list of contents to this OP. Feel free to reply and add your own thoughts, comments and ideas. Prologue: What is an 'Overhaul'? In order to create an overhaul, we need to know a little bit about the Game Development process, and more importantly, we need to know what the difference between making a mod and a game is. We won't go into the rich history of overhauling, but you've likely heard of "conversions", including the very famous Counter-Strike. Counter-Strike seems to be a game in its own right, as the gameplay appears to be completely different to the game it was based on (Half-Life). Realistically, the only thing they share is the engine and a few assets...so is it an overhaul, or an entirely new game? Defining the word "Overhaul" is just like trying to define the word "Game" or "Art"; there's not really a set definition, but rather a bunch of that we can lean towards. One of the ways I like to define terms to assign them a group of properties, so let's try and list some properties of an overhaul: An overhaul runs on a previously built, compiled and released engine, preferably one that includes game assets. Alternately, an overhaul is a free expansion for another game. An overhaul uses at least a few assets from another game, usually config files, sounds and/or textures. An overhaul has at least one MAJOR change in the gameplay compared to default game. An overhaul always feels different to the original game. Unlike a normal mod, and overhaul is a substantial piece of work and requires a lot of time to develop properly. Next Time: The Objective. What's the point of making your overhaul, and why does it matter if it gets made or not?

This is my original new video game titled MAN OF ANGER you take control of MAN OF ANGER, a soldier follower of Nyarlathotep sent to Earth to disrupt and throw the outcomes of great battles and wars to lessen the chance of the return of the Old Race. unfortunately, the destructive horrifying images of death weighing down on MAN OF ANGERS poor mind cause him to go berserk and fight back against the crude beings of the cosmos, for the freedom of his mind, sanity, and his new found love for a beast-race known only as humans... VERSION 1.0 RELEASE 02/11/2014 https://www.mediafire.com/?eabjdnu0rn1ktku Please give feedback and discuss and share theories about lore here expect version 1.1 in the near future

Just a quick update today. I've been working on the colours a bit since the last update as well as a few smaller details here and there. I've changed the plates where the red line is to be a bit smoother and I've also added a bit of colour to certain places as well. The LDD screenshot. The Pov-ray render.

:grbrick: Hey, welcome to RRU! Don't forget to change your cup too!

Pew pew pew pew kazoo 10/10 - IGN

So I see now that there is much going on with regards to a potential RR sequel. Despite that, I have my own project I started a few weeks ago that I'd like to show off. It looks terrible for now, but a lot of the foundation is there. First get the Visual Studio 2012 Redist (x86) then you can try it yourself. I wrote it from scrach in C++ using SDL2 and OpenGL 2.1, so while this build is only for Windows, it could easily be ported to other systems in the future. I plan to go into game programming and I learn best by diving in the deep end, so I started this project to learn C++ and have something to show potential employers. QWERTASDFG control the camera, Z and X will destroy two hardcoded walls (to show real-time collapsing and exploration), CVB will spawn objects under the cursor. Everything can be selected, raiders can be ordered to move to a location with a right click. I'm not insterested in hearing the many ways you can crash the program, but if any of the above features don't work for you, let me know. As for the map file, it's an ugly but effective text based format. Designed so I could make maps by hand and expand features without breaking old maps. The parser is extremely stingy and will complain about anything, but it should all be in the console. Use Notepad++ and watch your end of lines if you want to mess around. I'm going to need some help with the non-programming stuff later. I hope to be able to import the original RR resources (if you own the game) at some point, and could use input on other features as I add them. Right now though, if anyone does want to make a simple map editor/creator, I would appreciate it.

I'm PlatonicWaffles but most people call me Colly - a classic LEGO game fan here. I've played a ton of them in my childhood and watched numerous modding videos on YouTube pertaining to the series. Then today I found my copy of LEGO Island, and subsequently found this forum. Soooooo I decided to sign up. Hi!

Hello everyone! DM here with an update to lifeness and such. If you remember, I said that I was temporarily leaving RRU to work on a major project along with other things like learning how to drive and getting a job. Well let's be honest, I never really left in the first place. But I have been working on meeting the goals that I need to, and this is probably the biggest goal so far, getting a car. A relative was tired of it, and when the water pump went out, so he used that as a reason to get rid of it and get a new car. Well my uncle heard about it, and let him know I was in need of a vehicle. So he said just come pick it up and take it. So now I am the owner of a 1998* Mitsubishi Mirage DE * I said 1996 in the forum awards topic. Notes: Mitsubishi Mirage DE 1998 FWD Manual Transmission Red (it looks pink, but it just needs a good buff and wax, and it will be red once more) Need to fix the water pump. Slow oil leak. Left rear tire leak. Possible exhaust leak. 200,000 miles. So it has some problems and it's been well used, but it was free and it won't take much to fix it. It should be a good first car for me. That's about it for news on my life so far. Yay! (I can get the "I got a Ride" award now )

"Dead and forgotten are two very different things..." >Flickr Gallery< My first entry for the BFTGM contest

Yelle is a French electropop trio (composed of a vocalist/ song writer and two composers) that I'm massively into. They've just released a third album, entitled "Completement Fou", which came out at the end of September, and is now already one of my favourite albums of all time. You may have heard of them with their 2008 single "Je Veux Te Voir". Unfortunately, they're not that well known, as they are an independent group. They write all their music and only make songs for the sake of artistry rather than money. My best friend Conny, even though he's not a fan of their music, admires them for their ethos. I thought I'd help spread the love by posting a thread on this forum. If anyone's heard of them - great! But otherwise, give them a try and see what you think. Below is the music video to their most recent single. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13o1i-cgTOA

90s are cool, but that video... I don't even know what to say about it. xP

Oooo, like the song, thanks... But what on earth is going on in the video? Maybe it would help if I knew french... sounds like "complete my food" ?

I think that mods are easy enought to install these days, so that anyone could do it, as long as they are willing to use modded minecraft. I could provide a complete set of installers for the mods, along with instructions on how to install them, if such things are nessesary.

Simple. He exists in the Sixth Dimension* of Waffles. We cannot comprehend this dimension in the ones that we know. "Last time I checked" Pray tell, when was that? A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, when RRU was unknown to you? *The fifth being Probability, as anyone who has read "Mostly Harmless" will know.

My first reaction to this: "Holy hell, Xenfare actually posted something." AND THEN I PLAYED THE GAME. I have to react with not one, but TWO JonTrons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uneSOPqqAFw Also, what's the kazoo song?

This one. (Spoilered for language) Why is the sky blue?

I... I don't know what your talking about, man! Be ye disablin' of yon shield?

I'd love to see a screenshot of this.

Greetings Colly, and welcome to the weird and even more weird WONDERFUL world of Rock Raiders United! Please wipe your feet on the mat provided before entering, and watch out for any wild BEEPs on the shoutbox, they may signal the end of life on this tiny little planet as we know it or not Also, contrary to some people's *coughcoughAIDENPONScoughycough* beliefs, I am NOT the Infomaniac. Well, I wasn't last time I checked anyway

1. Create an account on RRU and make a few posts, leave your account for 1 year 2. A year later return and you might find yourself a Silver Member 3. Begin creating the 590 posts you need (also remember to attend one of RRU's anniversaries) 4. When you have 5 posts left to go, just spam and bump topics 5. You'll receive a warning (possibly several) from the mods, just continue spamming 6. Become a Gold member 7. Enjoy your five seconds of glory as a Gold member 8. Get banned from RRU for spam and bumping "How to become a Platinum member" coming never.

LEGO has entered into a partnership with MSC Cruises. The deal is, naturally, mutually beneficial, so while the immediate effect will be the establishment of LEGO play rooms on ships in the MSC fleet, MSC also earns the opportunity to have one of their vessels immortalized in the brick. More details on the set will likely be a long time coming, as past example would indicate it will be D2C, and information about those sets often remains pent up all the way to the official announcement. Sources: Cruise News UK Brickset

From source: "The LEGO Group and MSC Cruises are both family businesses recognised the world over" Well excuuuuuse me if I've never heard of MSC Cruises before in my life. But yay, it looks like this could be good.

Hello! Im gonna post some custom stuff here, hopefully I will be able to do something decent. First dude (I think it´s recognizable):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hFLV4xnxoY

Oh dear goodness, my instant reaction wasn't "This has gone from LEGO to MEGA BLOKS", but rather "MEGA BLOKS has made it so much more aggressive". Just compare the faces of the characters to the LEGO ones, for example. Okay, so 'aggressive' may be a bit of an exaggeration, but they certainly contrast from LEGO's happy smiley faces. Why is Spongebob so devilishly keen to catch those jellyfish without wearing his seatbelt?

What the hell, jamesster. I was wearing white pants. Then I saw that video. And now, I'm wearing brown pants. I wouldn't have been able to handle not soiling my pants non-stop for the next six hours if I saw even just one skeleton in this video. Just the sight of one skeleton is spooky enough, but an entire universe of them? Look at them popping out, so spooky and scary. There are not enough toilets in the world to contain the amount of poo-spewing fear that I'm going through right now. It's a good thing skeletons aren't real.