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“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

Why am I all of a sudden struck by frightful visions of a certain hedgehog of the spellcasting variety...

Yikes! Sorry for the absence everyone! Sorry for the issues you've been having. Our web programmer was working to get the login time fixed and has officially submitted and integrated the fix. Anyone frequenting the forums or any of the other Obsidian sites shouldn't have to log in again so long as they return within 5 days of the last page they've visited. Anyone coming back after a 5 day hiatus will have to log back in, but that should be way better than the 24 hour window that wasn't updating prior. In regards to BBCode, unfortunately I don't believe Invision supports this feature anymore and are taking a WYSIWYG approach going forward. As a person who admittedly doesn't know much about BBCode, it seems that it is considered a bit of an older technology that more and more places are supporting less. I grabbed a forum thread from their site as I was looking into why this isn't an option for us anymore. If interested you can find that here. Lastly, edits. It looks like the timer on that is set to 7 days which would likely be enough time for most posts, but you make a solid case for polls and lists. The mods have been giving special editing capability to those that request it and have proven to be trustworthy of the capability (not trolls). Because I have interacted with Boeroer and AndreaColumbo a lot in the past, they have been granted this ability. Should someone be looking to make a list or a poll and need this ability in the future, feel free to reach out to me or a moderator about this and they will look into it for you. I think that covers the major points of concern. Sorry again for my absence. If you notice myself or any mods not responding promptly, please feel free to DM me as the notifications for those don't get drowned out by the flood of notifications I get from forum thread posts. Should these issues or any others remain, definitely let me know and I'll have it looked into as soon as possible Thanks again for keeping us appraised of these issues and for your patience!

Part of the problem with long established mmo's is everyone is focused on the endgame and little on the slow path to the cap. That slow journey is the most engaging part for me, and it is nice to have it rekindled for WoW classic. It feels like a nice slow walk through the world instead of a mad dash.

A piece from the Atlantic on Mattis leaving the Trump administration. The Man Who Couldn’t Take It Anymore, by Jeffrey Goldberg.

Thank you for this. I spent more than one hour last night watching their version of the saga. Been the most I've enjoyed myself with Star Wars since Vader Sessions. "Sigh. Would you like to buy some drugs, Larry?" "Well, that's why I'm here!"

That's almost word for word the plot of Wu Assassins.

Del Toro's Pinnoccio is for Netflix, not Disney. It'll be animated via stop motion.

I saw Beauty and the Beast in theater. Something felt off and sub-par the whole watch. It wasn't until I watched Lindsay Ellis' video that it really sank in just how bad they mangled the narrative. I think in the back of my mind I was sort of implicitly defaulting back to my conception of the film, and was leading myself along. When you really break down it's newly contextualized take, the whole thing becomes utterly hallow and nonsensical. Not that the original didn't have it's issues, but it was more of it's message being askew than it's foundational structure.

Hey, at least it will wipe away the Jared Leto Joker period, so that's something.

Dynamic respawn times based on zone load is relatively new, yes. Eh, and by that I mean it was introduced to immense effect back in Cataclysm where Athene (ab)used it to get the world first level 85 character by simply grinding a patch of quickly respawning mobs that some out of group friends killed, i.e. he tapped everything, they nuked it, the enemies respawned instantly.

Yeah, I agree. Josh reacted to the Joker trailer in a tweet saying he found this sort of approach better than the "embodiment of chaos" he's portrayed as in The Dark Knight and I strongly disagree because of what you say above - the uncertainty might make the character less of a character, but it also makes him more effective and interesting as an element of its respective film. It also frees the character from the constraints of being his own singular crazy and act more as a symbol or part of a myth instead, to go back to what you were discussing relating to Tolkien and the likes. It reminds me somewhat of the overwhelming tendency there is today amidst audiences to desire for the rational explanation even when there is no need of one that Lindsay Ellis talks about and mocks in the likes of the following: So probably I spoke too soon about not having any problems with the conceit itself. 😄 That said, appealing to that setting and character's iconography to tell this Falling Down story in a day and age where radical sentiments and hate crimes seem to be on the rise and where these franchises are such a major part of the cultural mainstream could yield interesting results, though as you put it, the bigger concern is how, the "tad soapy" was a cheeky understatement on my part, and given both what we've seen so far as well as the director's track record and so on, I'm not particularly confident.

SpaceX launches Starship “hopper” on dramatic test flight This is must-watch nerdgasm stuff for any true space boffin.

2020 is shaping up to be a fantastic year theoretically, for me, at least: Baldur's Gate III? Yes, please. I'll try some of that! Realms Beyond! I was an avid backer, Josh Sawyer will design the lich tower. Who doesn't want a turn-based massive SP 3.5 galore CRPG? and now, Amplitude has announced Humankind, as a true competitor to my beloved Civilization series. They did a fantastic job with their latest 4x game. Here's a little teaser:

If you shot the ring to mordor with a trebuchet, the eagles might just knock it out of the air. I hear they are unionized and are entitled to some of the labor of destroying the ring.

I thought the eagles made sense. They had to sneak into mordor, the eagles were just there to get them out. It was understood there was no making it out otherwise. The eagles were used sparingly because moving against the forces of Morgoth was costly, plus the eagles themselves are sentient and self-preserving.

New King Henry film by the Animal Kingdom director. Looks promising.

Any one of the Valar could have just showed up in Middle Earth and said to Sauron "Bro, you need to cut that **** out." and he would have had to cut that **** out because the Valar's power level is OVER 9000, Sauron' even with the One Ring, is maybe at like 500. But they have their rules and all that, except when said rules get expressly broken by Melkor et cetera et cetera.

Some pretty neat minimal/dub techno to accompany your work hours...

Newest Harlequin model: In her right hand is a Fusion Pistol, basically a handgun-sized version of the standard Melta-gun, and no less capable of, well, melting the armour of a Land Raider. Equipped in her right hand is the Harlequin's Caress, which enables her to phase-shift her hand, reach into the chest of her hapless victim, and pluck out his heart (or both, as is the case for Space Marines).

PoE2 is a great. I had alot fun playing it. I don't think the pirate theme is bad at all, but it is just a little too stereotypical imo: everywhere are pirates, everyone is drunk and also talking like that and OFC there is somewhere a kraken hiding and a Davy Jones ship that is not being owned by Davy Jones, he got replaced by a female skeleton thingy called Lucia Rivan. I really felt SOMETIMES like playing a Pirates of the Carribbean game. It's just a little too much. On the contrast however, PoE2 offers great combat, multiclassing, alot of really unique items, turn-based mode, cool and challenging bosses and alot alot to explore. Unfortunatelly the main path literally consists of only 4 quests, which is just too little imo (Crypt -> Hassongo -> Ashen Maw -> Ukaizo -> Done). Furthermore PoE1 had a really dark story, from my perspective, which I liked alot. I really liked Thaos! He was mysterious and I was actually looking forward to get somehow more involved in the Leaden Key in PoE2. As I said the pirate theme is not bad at all, but the transition from PoE1 to PoE2 was so weird for me. From a dark story into an overall alot happier atmosphere (besides what Eothas is doing ofc). Summarized I would still say PoE2 totally deserves a 90/100 aswell as PoE1 because it does alot things better than PoE1, especially gameplay/combat/quests, but I was just hoping personally for a much darker and longer main story for the sequel. If they would have continued the dark theme and introduced more mysterious characters, like Thaos, PoE2 would have been 95+/100 easily.

last two for a bit am able to overlook the "fusion" label and enjoy good blues guitar. and something a little different kinda feel bad for brittany howard's bandmates. those guys, a bunch o' high school friends, had made it to the Big Time seeming yesterday, and then the band's headliner announces she is going solo... and the rest o' the band was never heard from again. anyways, am not certain how we feel 'bout the new stuff, but getting terry crews to lip sync the video were fun. HA! Good Fun!

OK first of all I have never cuckolded a chair, you take that back right away. 😠 Second of all, it's due out on 25 Oct 19, but not on Steam. 25 Oct 20 on Steam. Some people are upset about this.