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U.S. town prints own currency to boost coronavirus relief All I'm sayin' is if I was running that town the new currency would look like this:

Do we have proof Australian horses aren't venomous...?

Other reasons why Garak was one of the best Star Trek characters...

had a friend call us up 'bout a year ago, chuckling as she told us she heard us doing vo for her kid's cartoon show. had no idea what she were talking 'bout... claimed we sound just like tarrlok. sent us a couple youtube clips. didn't believe her... didn't sound at all like Gromnir. so she had us read a bunch o' tarrlok lines doing our best to sound like tarrlok, which she recorded and played back to us. ... ok. so we sound like tarrlok... or the pasty-faced vo actor who did tarrlok. whatever. HA! Good Fun!

assuming nice horse-friendly dirt roads, which is impassable when is heavy rains, +3 days. assume ~20 miles per day. unlike gd, we has less romanticized notions o' equines. spent a large part o' our youth shoveling horsesh!te. grandfather wanted us to understand horses and guns ain't toys, so he had us spend hundreds o' hours doing care and maintenance o' both to teach us respect... or something. horses is useful tools, but they require a great deal o' care and they is not like big dogs. is there exceptions? sure, but if you want an animal friend, go to the local pound. "if you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. this is the principal difference between a dog and a man."-- mark twain. quote works just as well if you replace "man" with "horse." HA! Good Fun!

Just got off our Friday call. It is official, our offices in Ft. Pillow are being closed. All West Tennessee offices are being consolidated to the big building in Memphis. But we are also officially going to be a virtual office. Meaning that while my office might be in Memphis I will not need to go there regularly. Right now they are saying once or twice a week but maybe I can shave that down a bit. The upshot is this saves the tax payers quite a bit of money. Being a taxpayer, I like that! So as terrible as COVID is maybe some good will come of it and more and more people learn to function remotely. Edit: Memphis would be a long trek by horse. How long would it take a horse to go 65 miles? Don't know but it's enough to make me drop the idea of giving up cars.

there is good reason we moved from horses to cars... https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Great-Horse-Manure-Crisis-of-1894/

I was suggesting something slightly more subtle than this -- and I'll be happy to admit that I didn't make my point clearly enough. PoE did not disappoint as such, in this you are probably quite correct. But it did not charm, either. An awful lot of players came to the game through the power of nostalgia, and while it fed that old flame for a while, it didn't make it burn brightly enough. Or, conversely, it fulfilled the nostalgia need so thoroughly that no more was needed. When I look back on my experience of PoE, it's actually a little bit strange. It goes like this: 1) The beginning is absolutely superb (actually, I still hold that the beginning of PoE is the best thing that exists in PoE or Deadfire, hands down). 2) By the time I get to the battle with Raedric, I'm already wondering about certain things. Like, he's got an archmage protecting him, among others. An archmage? I'm on level 4 or 5. And I can beat that archmage easily enough. So what does "archmage" mean in this game? Apparently nothing. There's a strange diluting of terminology going on, and I don't like it. 3) The story progresses nicely enough, but once I get to Twin Elms, I almost don't care anymore. I've reached level cap (always very bad, that), the "gods aren't real" discussion is very muddy indeed and I don't have the energy to explore another city in this game (to this day, I know almost nothing about what goes on in Twin Elms -- I just can't care). 4) The end is not exactly an anticlimax, but it's not great, either. Also, the ending slides are very dark indeed. Like, it seems that very little good went on in the game world after my adventures. So, I might have well been one of those customers who didn't come back for Deadfire, because PoE just didn't caputre my imagination strongly enough. But I did, because this is almost the only genre of games that I play these days.

the good old days when having fun was allowed

And end up in a cast like @Hurlshot? No sir! A horse would not have done that to him!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcJjMnHoIBI

Some time within the first year of Deadfire's release investors filed a complaint to the SEC about payouts. Nothing came of it.

had a slight brain hiccup. with exception o' anchovies, you pretty much listed ingredients o' typical tapenade. am admitting we kinda like sardines, and am knowing they is good for us and all, but am certain we would eat far less if our dogs did not get so much enjoyment licking clean our sardine tins. first couple times we worried they might cut their tongue on the cans, but would appear they have a preternatural tongue deftness which makes 'em immune to such dangers. we like sardines ok. the dogs love sardine tins. we have sardines frequent. HA! Good Fun!

Sardines with capers, a local olive tapenade, and lemon

Yes I worry about this too. I can see many gamers having bought and played P:Km, had their frustrations with it, and as a result won't give P:WotR a chance. The Owlcat devs have gone to great lengths to listen to feedback and change their approach to many aspects of the game going into the second game, and so I hope people will keep an open mind. Well, the way I look at this is through a person's ego. Most people will consider it perfectly appropriate to write reviews complaining about bugs or other game-breaking systemic issues. But to put in writing a complaint that a game's mechanics and rules were too complicated and unintuitive for you to be able to understand and figure out what's going on? I feel most people will not say that out loud. Absolutely. I never buy the notion that a single variable can explain everything with respect to an issue involving human behavior. Models of human behavior are automatically multivariate for me. My theory is just meant to pull out one aspect that I personally feel was significant ... but by no means the ONLY thing. ^This. There are shades of grey in how people react to things. A person doesn't have to passionately hate something to feel a need to walk away from it. It can be a more subdued reaction along the lines of: 'Hey, it's not a terrible game. But it's not an awesome game either. It's just so-so. And given that in today's gaming world I have a TON of games available to play, I don't want to waste my time on a so-so game.'

"Scotty doesn't know."

And here I thought Gromnir sounded like Jim Cummings...

a lot open world or online game have this quality it was certainly intentional since this game was originally planed to be mmorpg

I don't live there anymore, so I only have Discord and Whatsapp chats with friends down there to go by, but it looks grim. Despite military deployment (to enforce quarantines) and reintroduction of the most severe lockdown measures, it's exploding in numbers. The other states have now completely closed their borders to Victoria. As for numbers, comparing my own home state (Queensland) with Victoria:: QLD https://www.covid19.qld.gov.au/ VIC https://www.dhhs.vic.gov.au/coronavirus The reasons or of course never simple, but it looks like the flare ups began in social housing areas where people flaunted the social distancing rules and a college named Al-Taqwa College (I know little to nothing about the latter other than the numbers) Edit: A bit of info about the Al-Taqwa outbreak: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-09/al-taqwa-college-coronavirus-covid19-cluster-melbourne-truganina/12437584

If your theory is correct, and it could well be, then the successor of P:K may turn out to be a failure in terms of sales, because some of P:K was designed in an incredibly mean way. I mean, the encounters were just cruel, the game cheated against the player and so on. I suppose there must be people who were very disappointed with that. I was disappointed, too, but not enough to quit. Just speculating here. And yes, I agree with you in the sense that whatever caused the failure of Deadfire had a lot to do with PoE, not Deadfire itself.

I don't know about horses mate.... they are more deadly than all the spiders and snakes combined! https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-38592390 Edit: "Horses killed more people in Australia in recent years than all venomous animals combined, research has shown."

Yep, I hate hearing my own voice. Still it's not too far from the constantly apathetic monotone I am trying for Have a day off, so may read up on investing.

Yes, Completely unnecessary. The game has aged remarkably well because of stylized art direction. This is probably the State of New Jersey trying to make a buck.

I say we get rid of cars and go back to horses. Your car will never be your friend.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. There was a rise in drug use, breaking and entering, public disturbance, violence, etc, from homeless that were either looking for a score or were mentally ill. Even if a cop was present they couldn't act.

I agree. Glad you raised that. And for the record, there was similarly (though in the opposite direction) a difference in the sales of D:OS1 and D:OS2. This point is important. So, here's what my theory would say. Both PoE1 and D:OS1 had new, unfamiliar rules/mechanics. Neither one of them was D&D/D20, the most widely familiar old-school RPG ruleset out there. As such, people cautiously tested the waters with both games: 'Hey, these games don't have mechanics I'm familiar with, but they both say they are of the same family as the old IE games, which I liked, so let me give them a try,' Note that both PoE1 and D:OS1 had roughly similar, good sales numbers - about 1 million give or take. Then, once they experienced both those games, people reacted rather differently to them. With D:OS1 the reaction was: 'This is different from what is familiar to me, but I can easily and intuitively understand how everything works.' So most people who bought and played the first game happily embraced the second game, and in the process also encouraged newcomers to pick up the game. By contrast, the reaction for PoE1 was: 'This is different from what is familiar to me, and I cannot easily and intuitively understand how everything works, and as a result the game mechanics are extremely frustrating to me.' So many people who bought and played the first game found it not to their liking and opted not to embrace the second game. It was not that they were angry with the first game or hated it or anything like that, and therefore did not have any particular motivation to dump on the game in a review of it. But they just shrugged and said 'no thanks' to a second helping of the game. And the irony of it all is at least some of those people who played the first game but not the second game would probably have liked the second one given, as you correctly note, the many improvements made to the second game. More's the pity. So anyway, this then is the totality of my theory. It is a theory. I don't have any data to back it up. But I feel confident it is solid.

yes! for chissakes, we drive knowing we is in a vehicle with enormous mass and we drive appropriate. all too many cyclists take hurl's view and obtuse presume they need not be careful 'cause it is Gromnir in the big and dangerous vehicle who should be more aware and cautious. what? is as if putting on a bike helmet squeezes your brains outta your skull. and again, we were hit multiple times when our vehicle were stationary. what 'bout F=ma is so hard to understand? wanna tell us many drivers o' cars and trucks is careless? fine. no argument. is many careless drivers o' cars, but you know that. would think more cyclists would act accordingly. cyclists should be more careful knowing there is careless auto drivers and recognizing they always lose in a auto v. bike confrontation. geez. assume as fact there is many auto drivers who is careless (there is) don't mean cyclists is precluded from being similar or even more careless. is not freaking binary. HA! Good Fun!

[the world has ended. Keith Richards walks the barren wasteland, surveying all that is left. In the distance he notices a lone figure carrying what can only be described as Excalibur] Keith: "Oi! Who goes there??" Betty White: "You knew it would come to this, Keith. Now, draw..."

The last good console was SNES. From there it was only worse.

I think the location would be something least relevant to Pillars of Eternity 2 factions, in order to mitigate the effect of ending choice as much as possible. Otherwise, it would require immense effort to set up the environment based on PoE2 endings. The location should be Ixamitl, Living Lands where the story can be created anew.

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.

Greetings employees of Halcyon, We want to take this opportunity to thank the incredible team behind The Outer Worlds. It is because of their hard work and dedication to this project that we received the Best Narrative, Best Performance - Ashly Burch, Best RPG, and Game of the Year nominations at The Game Awards. To all of those who voted for us in The Game Awards, you are all fantastic and we are so grateful for your support. The reception to The Outer Worlds has been unbelievable to see, and even just being nominated means a lot. However, the journey isn't over yet as we are excited to announce that we will be expanding the story through DLC next year! Details will be made available at a later date. Now we would like to allow our game directors, Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, to share a message with you all: We just wanted to personally thank our team for doing a wonderful job and our fans for their tremendous support. And Tim would like to say what an honor it was to work with me. – Leonard Whatever, Leonard. Now that we’ve finished, I expect that certain photographs will be destroyed, as per our agreement. – Tim

Outer Worlds DLC?! Christmas just came early. And so did I.

No, it was just spaced to emphasize the text message below, but I can see how it looked like a video might be missing. I removed the space to help, thanks!

Can't wait to see what happens next!

Currently reading: Hey... I made a pun! CURRENTly reading!