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"Trump is not a moron. He is however *an enumeration of moronic qualities and/or actions*"

I sing happy birthday to my dog. I don't know when her birthday is or how old she is. But I found her on 7/12/2014 so on that day she gets a special meal and a treat from Woofgang Puck

Revenge of the Meth

I am tempted to get back to waddling (some call it running ), but I will begin the day with my morning cardio on my mountain bike riding through the city. I hope the ankle sprain - after five weeks non-waddling - will allow me to return to the discipline next week ...

https://imgur.com/jGPhhHp Why I love Toronto.

I just finished the game after about 250 Hours in Pillars 1 and 140 hours in Pillars 2. TLDR; That ending was absolute garbage. So I pick up the two base games at discount on steam. I lose it over how much fun I have with the first one. I can't stop theory crafting over what I'll do in the second one as bits of info trickle in about it while I'm playing the first. I finish it, with a few sore notes, but am completely satisfied with how it ends and my ability to choose how it ends with my characters' actions. I strap in and start Pillars 2. I'm immediately floored by the plot. It's a freaking amazing and significant tie-in. As with the first, I love the gameplay, but there's a few more sore notes there. Nothing that's gonna stop me from enjoying it, and that's not what this post is about. (I am, however, disappointed with the impact of my choice in the first game, but w/e) I systematically clear all the content, reach the point of no return, and pick up the DLC's with the season pass. I thoroughly enjoy them all and save my decision at the end of the Forgotten Sanctum so I can at least see the alternate endings it creates. Now up to this point, I'm a little confused about what Eothas wants to happen. As far as I can tell, he's smashing The Wheel and after a couple generations we're all done. Stuck in the in between forever according to Berath. Woedeca, in our fireside chats, told me that reincarnation existed before the wheel, but was crappy on it's own (makes zero sense but I'll buy it). All the gods, Eothas included, don't really talk about rebuilding the wheel at all before you reach Ukaizo. They just yammer on about "what will kith do with or without us". As if it matters since we're all doomed to being trapped for all eternity after one or two generations for all I know. I can barely weigh in because the very concept of Kith overcoming this if Eothas succeeds seems absolutely foreign to me. So I go into Ukaizo. Up to now, I sided with the pirates long enough to get the Floating Hangman, then side with Rautai to keep Maia. I sale into the storm, have a few ship battles to support my comrades and then some sea monster pops up only to be brushed aside because of what I did back at the watershapers guild: Free the dragon, but keep a power source for water shaping. Then the game hijacks my ride and forces me into the sub...why? I'm on the Floating Hangman, I don't need the sub. I shrug and carry on. I'm met in Ukaizo by a couple statues. Neat. I head deeper into Ukaizo...which consists of 4 short locations...? I get one more pirate fight and then it's off to Eothas after another pointless conversation with the gods because they don't seem to phased by anything I have to say, and they still haven't presented even the CONCEPT of reinventing the wheel as a possibility for the kith. All I can think at this point is "well I can't really weigh in till I figure out why on eora Eothas thinks this is a good idea." (I could be remembering incorrectly here, and maybe they mentioned it, but I have more on the wheel issue later anyways) So I go to Eothas having seen no boss battle yet. Kindof wonderin' when the guardian is gonna show up. On my way up to him I'm just stewing over how unclear his intentions seem to be, and hoping I get a chance to understand it before weighing in. At Eothas I manage to have ONE response that makes sense from my point of view: What about all those souls stuck in purgatory forever big guy? He says that's only temporary and he'll make a safe haven for em. Ok? Still don't know what makes that temporary there, dude. At the end of all the small talk I finally get to ask him a question. WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN IN YOUR GRAND PLAN!? He says we gotta re-invent the wheel in two generations. EXCUSE ME?! So you're telling me that because you wanted Kith to grow right now instead of waiting out this little project you and your god buddies originally planned, you want us to just do what you all did AGAIN!? In less than two generations!? The dude's absolutely off his nut. There's no good reason for this at all. Why can't reincarnation go back to the way it was? What's that? You BROKE reincarnation to make the wheel? That's awfully convenient. I was hoping I could just let you break the wheel and we'd find a way to live on with crappy reincarnation. Nope, we're just doomed if we don't solve this problem you heaped onto us in two generations or less. Good luck! I understand his intentions: Free the Kith from any kindof influence of the gods by giving them a choice in the matter of living an existence with gods. Make the choice of working with the gods to remake the wheel or don't, and live with the gods or live without em (kindof how you were ALREADY LIVING before you made the wheel in the first place). At the beginning of all this, he also implied revealing to kith the truth about the gods, which gets lost somewhere along the way because nobody's being told squat about the gods in this ending. So I want to stop Eothas now: 1. Where is all his benevolence about giving us a choice regarding him busting the wheel at all. We've been living with the gods for centuries, and aside from HIS OWN MEDDLING, it's been a pretty chill run. 2. If knowledge of the gods existence as mortals and their involvement in the wheels creation was common knowledge, WHO CARES? We've only ever known THESE GODS, they're the very definition of what a god is, so I see no problem there at all. They're sustained by memories scooped up during the cycle of wheel, they don't need one lick of faith to function. 3. So lets say Kith reforge the wheel. There's no reason to believe we'll do any better than the previous gods, we're every bit as fallible as they were when they made the wheel, and what's this? WE'RE on a time crunch! There's no way kith won't bum rush to the first friggin solution they come across. 4. This is an absolutely ridiculous gamble in the first place. While it's true Kith have the wreckage of the technology, who knows how many centuries behind the engwithians the kith are in figuring out a solution to this ridiculous problem. Again, they're VERY likely to completely rush into a very poor solution. 5. On top of all that, how many lives did it take to jump start the wheel the first time? You're ok with a huge chunk of the now limited population being sacrificed just to get back to not being trapped in your little "heaven" for all eternity? So all together. Eothas claims to want to give Kith a choice but didn't ask a single Kith if they thought this was a good idea. He claims to want to reveal the truth of the gods to Kith but this never really happens. The best you can do is ask him to house the souls stuck forever in a happy place and give Kith a head start on the technology needed to keep existence as we know it from ending in a couple generations. Yeah I'd really like to stop this madness and hoped I could talk him out of it. Well tough. I can't. What a sham. This childish god is gonna get what he wants and there's NOTHING I can do about it. To top it all off. I made what I considered to be the best choice back at the watershapers guild and apparently, that relegated the freaking BOSS OF THE GAME to a single footnote before Ukaizo. Ugh. So now, I'm thinking "Well thank goodness for the Wael DLC." I had previously destroyed the Wael Titan body because I assumed I could either talk Eothas out of his ludicrous plan or at the very least we'd go back to the primeval reincarnation method. Well, that's all off the table, time to sick a Wael Titan on Eothas to put an end to his misguided example of hubris and carelessness. NOPE! Eothas, who had a lot of trouble bustin' the wheel to begin with, has no trouble just pulling it down as he's dragged under by Titan Wael. Absolute Garbage. Never have I felt so powerless as the main character of an epic fantasy. Most unsatisfying, infuriating ending of any game I've ever played. I loved this game, and was planning to play it all over again. I hope I can get over this and do it, too.

hillary clinton were a historic unpopular Presidential candidate, and she nevertheless managed to win the popular vote? so we end up with a "populist" such as trump? wait, that sounds wrong, no? trump is aberrational, or at least he was. no reputable composite popularity poll for trump has ever had him reach even 50% approval. the notion o' an unpopular populist successfully gaining and keeping power is kinda a political oxymoron possible only 'cause o' a strange confluence o' events and the uniqueness o' the US republic. control of senate may be achieved, theoretical, by ~20% o' the US population. the President may be elected w/o win o' popular vote. the 2020 Presidency itself is not at all what the framers envisioned, so we cannot even blame them for oversights. regardless, the Presidency were never meant to be voted in by popular consent o' the great unwashed masses. the Court is most decided not appointed democratic. is possible for a small percentage o' the US population to functional control the federal government. ... the dirty non secret o' american democracy is that a benevolent tyranny of the minority, sadly, is exact what the framers were building in 1787. white and propertied males were never the majority in the US. that said, the framers were wise to fear the tyranny o' the majority, which is why American democracy is largely a repudiation o' the athenian model. the Bill of Rights, which Gromnir champions frequent, were designed as limit on the predictable excesses and tyranny o' the majority. nevertheless, the educated and landed gentleman whom we are preparing to celebrate loudly this coming 4th o' july were a bunch o' bigots who were afraid o' the poor and immigrants... and don't let the upcoming hamilton release on disney fool you 'bout how enlightened and magnanimous were those folks. what the framers could not imagine, 'cause it weren't actual possible at the time, were that a largely uneducated and relative poor minority would be able to decide the fate o' the nation. a "populist" President able to appeal to an angry and fearful minority, even if possible, were not to be greatly feared. in spite o' fact the President is commander in chief, the US had no standing armies in 1787. also, the President had extreme limited powers mostly limited to foreign affairs. course things change a bit in a couple centuries and the executive branch is not at all what it were in 1787. the US improbable blundered its way into an unpopular populist such as trump in 2016. nevertheless, once an improbable mistake occurs, it becomes increasing easy to replicate the mistake by design. given the nature o' this board, am gonna observe how crpg fans is no doubt aware o' how wacky and bizarre is a few o' those xp and/or gold exploits which haunt many/most game releases. with just the right party composition, completing a quest and choosing specific dialogue options, will lead to an infinite replication exploit. call it a bug or a design flaw not make a difference. reality is that until game developers fix, many players will take advantage o' the exploit. the US Constitution don't have game developers-- we got the amendment process. imagine if removal o' every busted arse crpg exploit required 2/3 of game purchasers to agree to a change o' the exploit? we broke it, and now we are stuck with it. may god have mercy on our souls. HA! Good Fun!

Thank you for voicing your criticism in such a reasonable way even though you are disappointed. Too often it's all ranting, hyperbole and profanity - your post is not. Yeah quite unusual storyline. I think they planned Deadfire as a cliffhanger and would have resolved this in PoE3 (which might never happen). Which might have worked out then. The decision to omit the Guardian when helping the Water Dragon was wrong in my opinion. There have been so many bug reports from confused players who expected a guardian fight because they didn't read the sheets on the way to Ukaizo properly or simply didn't expect such a "cheap" solution to that encounter. About the costs of building the wheel: I don't think that many sacrifices were needed to build the wheel itself. The main part of the mass scarification of Engwithans (and Huana) seems to have been used to create the soul constructs we call "gods".

A's are +2000 to win the WS. I'll take 20 to 1 In a heartbeat. Now...if only I can socially distance my way to a Vegas sportsbook...

Some CP77 goodies up for grabs on GOG, including big discounts on CDPR games... https://www.gog.com/news/grab_your_free_digital_goodies_from_cyberpunk_2077

Indeed, you must have been very confused. There are no orcs in Majesty. The tutorial mission is the Bell, the Book, and the Candle.

At $2,49 the only reason not to buy it now is because it is too cheap and you are waiting for the sale to be over so you can buy it for more!

Buy Majesty Gold HD, people!

I have neither sung Happy Birthday not had it sung to me in at least 20 years, probably closer to 30. The Polish birthday song "Sto Lat" (100 years) is just as corny as the English one, btw.

to be fair, very few things work on bosses like Dorudugan, I'm not sure that should be the filtering criterion. also, morning stars are your friend. all the -25 defense debuffs are great, but for some reason the effects i really want to land seem to be fortitude...

Thankfully we've not done that for 30 years or so.

In our family, we go uptempo with it. It's not a funeral dirge, it should be a quick ditty.

I think they could do both: not delving in superepic godslayer powerfantasy AND come up with a story where the protagonist feels more in control of what happens with the main plotline. I personally don't have problems with the storyline of Deadfire, but I'm old(er) and have had my fair share of "peasant boy becomes uberman" stories - don't need anymore of those. But I remember I liked those when I was younger, too. Some sort of (substantial) influence would still be nice though.

Teams with good rosters and short depth have a chance to excel in a 60 Game season. I like the Rays chances.

I disagree obviously. Obama was far from a moron. I would not use that word to describe Trump either actually. He is reckless, heedless, and acts without understanding. Worse he is disdainful of advice from people who actually DO know. It is common to hear him say things in speeches that are untrue. The "media" delights in calling him a liar but even that is a misnomer. He is telling the truth he believes. There was a great line form the TV sit-com Seinfeld, "Remember, it's not a lie if YOU believe it". Of course, that does not make it factually correct either. Men like him live in a world where money and force of personality actually can make things so by buying or forcing people, governments, companies into acquiescence. But now, he's out of his element. Obama was neither reckless nor heedless. He knew right from wrong, legal from illegal, and acted consciously to achieve whatever goals he had in mind. That is a different kind of dangerous. People who truly believe the ends justify the means are a different (but certainly not lesser) kind of danger.

Gromnir is absolutely right about one thing, if the Executive Branch actually conformed to the rules and exercised only those powers enumerated in Article II the outcome of the Presidential election would be interesting but not altogether earth shattering. Of course if Congress only exercised those powers in Article I and didn't hand them over to Presidents, or sit meekly by as Presidents just took them, AND they didn't abuse the hell out of the "necessary and proper" clause, we'd all be better off. Congress was supposed to be the real power. As it is they are an effective foil when they find the spine to be. It's an ugly body full of ugly people, some of the nastiest you'll ever meet when a press microphone is nearby. And people decry the "partisan bickering" and "gridlock". Not me. It's a beautiful thing. Congress is ever better than when it is accomplishing nothing. Except when it stops the President from accomplishing anything. Under divided government we are somewhat safe from bad laws, bad taxes, stupid policy (as if there were any other kind) and foreign interventions. When the rats are trying to screw each other they are not screwing us. No matter who wins this November as long as Congress is divided I'll sleep soundly. Even if Congress is united and the President is the opposite party we'll be good. When one party has all three... be afraid.

Your first two Obsidian games, I take? Otherwise you'd know they don't exactly do epic fantasies with the "Mary Sue McWishfulfillment the Spawn of Bhaal, the Fusrodah of Big Huge Lizards, the NPC of the GM etc etc yadda yadda" type of protagonist. Even their most bog-standard fantasy game's, "Neverwinter Nights 2", protag isn't that much of a power fantasy vessel (unless you go full hog on being Eeeeevil in MOTB, but even then it's arguable if there's any "you" left in that thing). So, no, you cannot fight a god in such a setting, let alone crush him with all the might of your Twenty Levels of Experience, because he's ancient construct of ineffable power and you're a temporary iteration of substance those constructs have been manipulating since their creation -- and were created with precise purpose to manipulate it. Your opinion having a sway on him is big enough. I do trust Obsidian won't start making power trip fantasies just because Deadire did not sell well, but still...fingers crossed.

I know generalizing is lazy, but he fits the mold from which populists are spewed forth. Mussolini, Bolsonaro, Trump, Kim, Modi, Erdogan, Netanyahu etc... cut from the same fabric. Thriving on division, conflict and aggression. A fearful population looks for aggressive leaders, so they do what they can to stir up unrest and if no flames are to be fanned, start a few little convenient wars (or trade conflicts).

Something's gotta be said about a gender-bended Salvor Hardin packing a long gun. Kinda hot. Last refuge of the incompetent, indeed.

two words which shoulda made a 2016 trump win impossible: muslim ban p#$$y grab john mccain etc. still saddens us beyond any capacity to communicate that we, as a people, elected a man advocating a f#$%ing muslim ban. wtf. the grab comments came later and likewise failed to dissuade. polarization. trump in wh is the result o' polarization, and it's polarization which is the big problem. won't be fixed even if trump is not winning a second term. exit polls in 2016 made clear most voters, even most voters who voted for trump, didn't like trump or believe he were competent, but they liked clinton even less. four years pass and polarization is so much worse. is now impossible for many trump voters to consider the possibility o' voting for one o' those filthy democrats who is responsible for hoaxes such as russian election interference and the failed trump response to covid-19 in early 2020. in spite o' concerns o' 'bout trump competence and character, it were a matter o' trump or _________. so many important issues and the typical trump voter were only casting their ballot for trump 'cause the threat o' President clinton were too much to bear. fast forward to 2020 and an extraordinary number o' 2016 trump voters has convinced selves trump is a savior o' sorts. in spite o' near four years o' historic incompetence and impotence, trump is their guy, no matter what. each new self-created wh crisis is only further proof that the only reason democrats hate trump so much is 'cause the chief executive threatens the scheme o' deep state power, or so the conspiracy goes. is not rational. is not reasonable. is polarization. now admitted, some folks were ahead o' the curve. had boardies hereabouts who raged 'gainst democrats back in 2026, or 'gainst democrats AND republicans. capacity to be reasonable had already disappeared for many previous to trump presidency, but am thinking most observers not need to be convinced overmuch to agree with general observation regarding the increased polarization o' the US electorate during the past few years. "ever seen a car accident just before it happens? as often as not, the first indication you got that a car accident happened is the sound o' car horns immediate followed by the loud crash as two or more cars slam into each other with bone shattering force. but sometimes you actual see the accident unfold. you see the guy pull his el camino into the bike lane and accelerate into an intersection in spite o' the fact that he gots a red light. is literal nothing you can do to stop the guy, but you know what is gonna happen. you cringe. your whole body tenses. you await the crash. trump is the guy in the el camino, but the accident is happening in slow motion and can easily be stopped. inexplicably, more than 1/3 o' the americans watching the developing accident is cheering trump forward." -- Gromnir, 8/16 in spite o' our being conservative, 'least from traditional national voting pov, the impending trump accident were obvious in 2016. the thing is, in spite o' us all standing 'mongst the wreckage o' the current administration, +/-40% o' Americans is now cheering trump forward. polarization. two-words which shoulda made a 2016 trump win impossible: p#$$y grab muslim ban john mccain etc. polarization. HA! Good Fun! ps "muslim ban" shoulda' been more than enough to get a few more people in battleground states to vote, but... is possible we are paying for our sins.

Okay, this one amused me:

See ‘The Last Supper’ in a New High-Resolution Scan Online.

After the terrible terrible terrible Shrine of Amana experience (i've died there almost 40 times...) and a day of break, I've decided to give DS2 one more chance. The rest of Shrine of Amana is much less stupid, so I was able to traverse through the area with much less issues than in previous section... I've started to use Lightning Shortbow with Hawk Ring, which helped me to get to the boss without eating dirt. I also met one NPC invader, which made me a bit nervous, because he was not willing to get out of water, so I had to "kite" him around some pillars in there, which kind of made him less dangerous (he was a caster, and I was not able to run around in water, I am missing Rusty Ring from DS1 ) Anyway, when I visited the boss, as Hawke said, he was extremely easy, I have just sometimes jumped to late after his divebomb, and he obliterated me with it. Thankfully for my lack of reflexes was enough Ring of Steel Protection, which raised my physical defense enough to survive this attack. It took me 5 attempts to defeat him. The final try can be found below

Narrator: And blow to smithereens the bridge they did. This level presented an extra challenge for my pacifist run; I had to make sure I got everybody off the bridge before I destroyed it. There was one particularly tricky thug I had to save. Knocking him out wasn't the issue. The problem was that where he was, on some scaffolding, I wouldn't be able to carry his body to terra firma, since none of the characters I had available in that part of the mission could carry a body up a ladder (Hector possibly can, but I didn't get to use him until after that part of the mission). To make matters worse, he was a poncho, so I couldn't lure him away from his post... at least not through conventional means. This ends chapter 1.

Guessing you support the slavers? The players already agreed to take way less than they were originally entitled to. I find it funny people are willing to support billionaires over millionaires especially when it is clear the billionaires are the ones being evil. LMAO

Voted in my State's delayed Congressional primaries.

Working from home and making vegetable stew in the crockpot. Making cornbread later.

Eye of the Beholder II was the first AD&D game I ever played. Loved every second. If you're interested in playing the EOB games these days I'd recommend using The All-Seeing Eye. While drawing my own maps was a fun thing to do while I still had oodles of free time it just isn't something I want to have to do today. ASE really helps. And before anyone wants go to KKKodex on my ass here, keep in mind that Grimoire, Herald of Incline also has an automap feature (sort of).

Most games end up with a couple bugs and design flaws, including the old legendary BG2. I can't speak about console port but the PC version is pretty OK for me. There's a couple of buggy abilities (respec help, you might even consider using my mod : shameless adverstising : https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/114861-balance-polishing-mod-release-10/) and a couple of bugged quests (a total of 1 in my last playthrough), but nothing gamebreaking in my own experience.

I thought it was a test to see if we actually read your posts.

HAIL PSIONS!

Just to give newer players some context - there were numerous complaints on this forum that PotD was too easy during the last two years. Therefore Obsidian tried to silence the complainers by making PotD much harder. And SSS PotD is meant to be even harder, I guess (and it is still not hard enough for some people, so they find it necessary to torture themselves with the Ultimate challenge ). So, yeah. I'm not surprised that the difficulty of PotD may look a bit exaggerated to some people. I learned not to touch PotD since POE 1.

I checked my library and what do you know, I actually own it! Even moar, I vaguely remember trying to play it too, but I had no idea what was happening and why and then I think some orcs came and bashed my tower in and I quit.

We sing it in funny voices to try and crack each other up.

No it’s 15% of dam per 3 sec. It’s true if you keep attacking one enemy because it doesn’t stack with itself, but like Boeroer said if u attack between enemies or do aoe attacks it’s very nice. Also for bosses that has high resolve, usually your DoT last within 3 sec, then it doesn’t matter if stack or not, still better than voidwheel because if it lasts 3 sec than it’s 15+15=30% dot in total.

Maiming does 15% total damage, not 15% more dmg every 3s... In fact it does 5% raw dmg every 3s (3 times with 10INT) and it doesn't stack, which means adding more INT won't increase the total bleed damage (if you hit always the same target). If you attack every 3s it's like having a sword with 5% lash, if you attack faster it's even less - not even close to the dps Voidwheel can produce (20% lash and 25% chance to proc Necrotic Lance)...

Did things as ordered after saying they wouldn't work, then when they don't work am being told I should not have done those things. Life sure is strange.