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I like you. You are clearly a gentleman and a scholar. EDIT: Probably handsome, too.

Just beat the first seven maps on a little game called Majesty Gold, anyone heard of it? Addictive as Hell. All I really have to say. No major criticisms.

I'm thinking I might like Trump a little better with a muzzle, I mean, mask.

We were talking about border towns with paramilitary assailants, that is something that is absolutely under the military purview. Police is not trained, or responsible enough to handle military grade weapons. An argument could be made to give them access to military grade body west, but not for weapons. That such a scenario is common enough, where civilians are committing crimes with heavy weaponry, is something that should be handled at the root of the issue. Not fighting fire with fire.

Also in my old files: Cultists in loincloths Charming the lasses Adepts holding contests To see who is fastest Berserking monks with their Feet spurred by wings These are a few of my favorite things. Gnomes hi-de-ho-ing And warm melting mages Rogues in the library Who think they are sages Warriors who run From a ratman who stings These are a few of my favorite things. A group of young Healers armed only with daggers Discarding peace to see what's the matter Barbarians meting out Krolms mighty sting These are a few of my favorite things. When the goblins come When the vampires sing When Yetis smash my town I simply remember my favorite things And then I don't feel so down! ...yeah I really liked this game back then.

My heart is with all of you stray moms out there.

Oh, oh, oh! My old saves work with Steam's Majesty Gold HD version! But sadly none of them has more than 1 protection ring, game must update the saves. I think they could still pick up 1 of each after patches without the Expansion added, but not repeatedly. Not sure what the Steam w/Expansion built in does. Also: I like how "4k" resolution shows up in the menu but isn't select-able. Booo. Although probably best, sprites would be so small/almost invisible anyway, lol.

william barr has chosen to not quarantine in spite of having been in close contact with numerous other folks who has tested positive for covid-19. this choice by the ag is curious 'cause while baatezu is immune to fire and poison, as well as having cold and acid resistance o' 10, they is not having a noteworthy defense to disease. HA! Good Fun!

A lot of the time when I attack a creature, any kind, it will turn and run away... they just run off in the distance and stand there a few minutes then come running back at me just to run away again when I hit it... Also TONS of mites, stink bugs, beetles, spiders, ladybugs, stuck in place of stuck in a place they should not be in like a cave or such. Also Lots of creatures stuck IN the ground and not able to move , just like they have a pin in their backs holding them down . Also I am pretty sure the Wolf spiders that live in the Oak tree are LITERALLY living IN the oak tree now. Odd behavior all around for the creatures since the update, very odd behavior.

It'd be great to see a canoe! Weed Stems, Sap, Clover leaves/Acorn Shells... i guess that would be up to you guys..

I had no idea Ryan Reynolds was the new comedic advertising/YouTube account king, or something. Bookmarked.

Yeah, I knew about this one Changing it was too tiring for its level of annoyance so I wisely skipped fixing it

I think the word you're looking for is 'gag'

I would consider this for a version 1.4 (which I'm not planning for the moment, sorry). Ruby and Sapphires are less needd, but it's true that it is annoying for crafting. Not sure I would lower the prices that much.

Bruce linked to a sites.forbes.com article which is, basically, a blog. There's even less editorial control and oversight there than with an opinion piece in a newspaper/ website. If something from a reputable- and much of the time even semi reputable- source contradicts a sites.forbes article on a matter of fact it's almost certain it's the forbes blog which is wrong. (There are some pretty good opinion pieces from forbes- eg Erik Kain on entertainment- but it's almost entirely useful just for opinion)

My Moon Godlike Beserker/Shifter is going to like 1.3 a lot.

They should then call for military help, just like civilians call for police help. There should be a hierarchy.

It is ticking whatever you do (except if you pause the game obviously). But of course crawling a dungeon in 2 hours (real time) takes less time than let's say resting for 8 hours or sailing from A to B. The Eothas Challenge is pretty tight afaik. So you not only have to try to rest as little as possible, you also have to plan your sailing routes beforehand to a certain extend because travelling around pointlessly will most likely lead to a lost game.

Disarmament would seem to be a part of any defunding policies that are seriously being bandied about:

I have to rebuild them each time I do some changes near them >_<.

I have my beverages all set for today's Boys/Browns game:

I wouldn't pay too much attention to that number. It can't incorporate conditional accuracy bonuses and Marked Prey is one. If you want to check what really happens with your accuracy you should execute an attack and then check the combat log. If you hover over an entry like "<char> hit <enemy>..." and hold shift you will see a detailed list of the accuracy bonuses that lead to that attack resolution. Marked Prey is a rather complex ACC bonus because it only works for you and you animal companion although it's a hostile effect on the enemy. Seems to have been too complicated to show this in that basic accuracy "tooltip" - so I wouldn't even consider it a visual bug but an intentional omission. Afaik it works for every attack roll you make (on that enemy), no matter if AoE or direct attack.

And some companion tools: Nukemap and Missilemap by Alex Wellerstein.

Mount & Blade 2 is great. Single player wise, it has improved on a ton of stuff from Warband. It looks great, controls well. I kmow it is kind of early access, but it is on sale right now and it was well worth the $30.

There were events of sponsored violence, where agitators would rally people to publicly shame undesirable elements (dissidents, gays, people that listened to the Beatles and had long hair) The cops were also free to detain any person they considered part of these groups and that continued during my lifetime there. It was thankfully a regulated affair, the purpose was intimidate without putting enough pressure that would cause revolts. Part of the reason as to why the Cuban regime has lasted for so long is the fact that they know how much to pressure without causing the population to crack. I think we don't like talking about it because its a depressing topic, also the stories are varied. Some might have just left because of economic reasons and not be privy to any of the other events.

Please find below the description Version 1.3 that I'm going to upload on Nexus : https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/438 Changes on the Nerf (and complete rework) Package are in red. Passive damage ability scaling : There is a couple of passive abilities that deal damages, but contrary to Active ones, they don't scale which make them supbar on endgame. I added standard scaling to these abilities (+1 Acc, +0.25PEN and +5% multiplicative damages per PL) Rooting Pain : Added scaling (+0.25 PEN per PL was already implemented in version 1.2 of the mod) Wildstrikes Frenzy : Added scaling Brutal Backlash : Added scaling Base damages : 20 raw -> 40 raw (conditional 20 raw damages once per encounter wasn't worth an ability point) Racial Tweaks : Beware that the racial tweak might only apply to newly created characters. Island Aumaua : Added +10 vs Ground Based attack (small buff to a race with a very situationnal passive, suggested by @SArgentus ) Godlikes : The general idea is to give all Godlikes something worth of losing the helmet slot. I gave all of them 2 abilities, at least one being not (too) conditional, and one of them shall also scale (to match the progression of headgear). Moon Godlike : Silver Tide : set to 10 + 1/level (to avoid weirdness of non class PL scaling à la monastic unarmed training from version 1.2 of the mod) Added passive Crescent Purity : 25% resistance to raw damages +4 Corrode AR The general idea is to give Moon Godlike good interaction with self-damaging abilities. Even without using such abilities, Corrode AR is there to give a critical edge against a certain Megaboss. Death Godlike : Death Usher : set to 20% + 2% level. +60% in late game feels nice enough to consider the rae oustide of Barring Death Door combo, but considering that there are insta Death effects when a foe is near Death, I don't think it would be too strong. It would have good synergy with On Kill effects though. Nature Godlike : Added passive Evergreen Vigor : 10% + 0,5% per level healing received while ABOVE 50% health. This will mostly help regeneration abilities, not critical healing. Their +1PL is very strong but felt a bit dry compared to what a helmet can provide. Fire Godlike : (I kept the +4 fire AR and +2 AR under 50% health from version 1.2) Their Fire shield is now unconditional and has 2-4 damages, +20% damages per PL, 7 PEN + 0,5 per PL and +2 Acc per PL. Fire Godlike getting all their bonus under 50% health felt too narrow. With this new tweak, their fire shield damages is comparable to Darcozzi fire shield at high level (but with more reliable PEN). Miscellanous Change : Their Companion Braved the Horde Alone : Cast time/Recovery : 4,5s/3s -> 0,5s/3s Far from Defeated, His Heart Filled with Joy : Cast time/Recovery : 3s/4s -> 0,5s/3s This invocation has a huge cost for a single self-target Inspiration. It has its niches but I think reduced cast time would make it more competitive compared to other high Tier Invocation. Corrected a mod display bug that caused Their Companion Braved the Horde Alone to be displayed with the upgrade description. Unbending (and upgrades) : PL Scaling as a Tier IV ability -> PL Scaling as a Tier V ability This is a small bug that caused it to get +1 PL. Nature's Terror : Set to foe only. Boeroer suggested to buff this spell. Previously, I only decreased its casting time because I was unaware it wasn't foe-only. I think it will be more balanced (compared to relentless storm) without friendly fire. Dragon Trashed : 7 PEN -> 9 PEN Cancelled part of Community Patch buff to 5+5 damages per tick (set back to 4+4 damages per tick) Due to weird scaling mechanics for chants, Dragon Trashed doesn't get the +2 PEN it should get as a Tier V spells. That's why I buffed its PEN but tuned done CP bonus to its damages. I think it's fine now (it also gets +0.25 PEN per PL as if it was a PL 1 ability). Soft Winds of Death : 2 damages and healing per tick -> 3 Buffed to be more in line with CP buff to Dragon Trashed. It deals 3 damages instead of 8, but this damage is raw and comes with self regen. Constant Recovery (And Rapid Recovery) : 45s Duration -> Infinite 3s ticks -> 6s I found annoying that this ability auto-trigger at the beginning of a battle, and not when one needs it. It is also annoying that Fighters defenses are so sensitive to dispell. 45s limitation comes from a PoE1 nerf when infinite healing was far more rare than in PoE2. I think this limitation is obsolete when one sees all that infinite healing that Paladins and Chanters get. The healing rate is halved to compensate. Dorudugan : 35 RES -> 30 RES -15 Base Deflection -1000 Base HP Base AR -> 14 Slash AR -> 16 Due to the nerf of most cheese of the game, Dorudugan has become harder to beat with my mod. It was anyway to tedious to beat based on most people feedback. It still hits as hard as before, but should be a bit quicker to deal with. See discussion thread : https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/115388-should-megabosses-be-tweaked-if-yes-how/ (This change is include in the nerf package because it is meant to compensate for the removal of most cheesy combos from this package) Shadowed Hunters : Corrected a bug that caused the pet raw damages to be applied on each attacks until end of battle.

Everyone's reaction to the expansion is "But I thought I knew how to play this game..."

Slowly getting through my backlog, marathon sessions completely Dishonored, Dishonored 2, and Black Mesa. The Dishonored games are some of the best games I've played, in terms of gameplay and story, both have strengths and weaknesses, I actually went through 2 twice, it's a short game but has lots of replayability. I waited for patches to Black Mesa because I didn't trust it to not be a mess, it's surprisingly solid now, although 3 areas tank my fps for no reason. It's a better experience than the original game while being very familiar, it's surprising how a game from 1998 just works in terms of gameplay, concepts, puzzles, and story. I thought Xen looked awesome, it was a little long and repeating, the bosses were a little modern, too much scripted set piece which is not what HL games are about. Better than most of the original Xen though.

Ladders, way to craft a bigger inventory/backpack, bigger canteen, shields for combat.

Quick update. With version 0.3.0.2426, we can successfully join the other's save without crashing. We do still need to perform the work around noted above in order to see the game listed though. Glad we can play together again. Thanks for the daily fixes!

So predating the Engwithans we have Eora, adra (right?) and a natural soul cycle. Souls are energy that when embodied can have thoughts/experiences/personalities etc and these can either strengthen the soul or degrade it. In this sense it's a nice, healthy self-contained system into recycling. An implication here is that it really is self-contained, the energy/souls on Eora is what it's got, there isn't someone or something frequently creating it out of nothing and injecting it into the system. The Engwithans got a solid handle on how stuff works and got really bummed about there not being a great architect or engineer or own personal god to supply them a raison d'etre, finding a natural cycle to be too impersonal, too incidental of an explanation they decided that the best way to fix this existential angst is "Us! But MOAR!" And so the gods. Natural, working system vs ravenous overexploitation and the dangers thereof in the name of some abstract human need recurs elsewhere and invites some obvious parallels. SSS show what the Wheel is to the gods now, I think. Galawain is your crazy survivalist uncle living in a shack in the woods but beneath the rickety shack he has a blast proof bunker with a generator. Kazuwari is the whole reincarnation cycle writ small, you can even call him out on this that he cycles the souls in Kazuwari and the struggles strengthen them meaning they get to be better snacks for him. You can eat more from a fat soul than a weak one and still have it be functional for recycling. And he'll even mention the Watcher would make a good snack based off what their soul has been through. It's easy to upscale this to the whole system, right? He called my Watcher a parasite for eating the souls when the opportunity arose and that's particularly funny since the gods so eloquently display that the only difference between a parasite and the gods is scale. We already know the gods have redundancies in the form of "In case of emergency break Godlike" but Galawain was being extra prepped which explains why he gets so very pissy despite being all about that seeking slaying and surviving supposedly. One interesting thing to consider is whether the natural cycle would have resulted in the continuity/cohesiveness of a soul through time as the current system has or whether that's a byproduct of the gods prepping the dinner table. All of the gods are implicated passively in this out of necessity and most are active in this system which's only goal now is self-perpetuation. Berath's insistence on everything having an end is necessary because otherwise the gods can't eat, when Magran or Galawain throw down a challenge it's because either you die and they get an early lunch or you become more tasty later, when Wael obscures he ensures the venality of the system isn't common knowledge, when Hylea is all "OOOoooohhh humans cute!" she helps them thrive and by thriving they make for a better crop. Since they really do seem to just be upscaled humans I have zero doubt that they're not this honest with themselves, possibly they can't be this honest with themselves, and they've constructed a bunch of narratives about how they're actually helping, why what they're doing is necessary and actually good and the system they benefit from is what's best for everyone and not just fundamentally and inescapably self-serving. This may or may not also double for social commentary wrt certain systems.

The only “hint” I see is that the Engwithan device cut off Ukaizo and Yezuha. Maybe there is another Engwithan device out near Yezuha that serves as the “retaining wall” for the dammed soul energy, where the machine at Ukaizo only regulated the flow of souls. A ton of soul energy held in one place might also explain why there seem to be mutants from Yezuha. Bonus points if the god of Yezuha is the third missing god body with another godseed gone awry.

As I understood: Before Engwithans have altered THE WHEEL: - none from the living really knows how it worked exactly. Be it because noone ever knew, or because all information about this was destroyed. - but we know that people were born and that people died. - most likely it was an unmanaged process of BORN->LIVED->DIED->traveled to IN BETWEEN->got moved by WHEEL to THE BEYOND->was born again. - iirc Thaos also made a remark how you could be knowledgeable and have a strong soul in this life, but get randomly reborn as a hare. After Engwithans have altered THE WHEEL: - the cycle was generally the same: BORN->LIVED->DIED->traveled to IN BETWEEN->got moved by WHEEL to THE BEYOND->was born again - but gods now are feeding (by chipping little bits) on souls that pass through IN BETWEEN. Although it doesn't look to be because of alterations made to THE WHEEL, rather because they are gods and if they want - they can. - additionally gods can now deny a person it's reincarnation, for example by sending it to soul prison (Breith Eaman). - additionally gods can control (if they wish so) in what body will a soul get reborn (e.g. Berath reborns you as an animal, if you deny her request). Josh also mentioned a thing known as Lottery of Souls. - also gods can awaken a soul or keep it from splitting (e.g. Woedica awakening Thaos on each reincarnation). - and ofc, gods can bring a soul back to an unhoused body (e.g. Berath sending you back) - edit: and they can also create godlikes as noted by OEI_Alex below. According to Eothas - it looks so, IF gods feed too much. According to Rymrgand - yes, even if they don't. As he considers that entropy is inevitable in either case. But my current understanding is that Rymrgand lies. Because it looks that there are 3 sources of degradation: - Gods chipping on some souls passing through the IN BETWEEN. - Ondrites. According to definition "A soul is the essence of an individual's consciousness, memory, and personality.". Ondrites destroy all three of these during their ebb and flow rites. - Shadows. According to Shadows bestiary entry, when a creature with heavily fractured soul dies, it's soul might not be able to enter the cycle of rebirth. "Because these souls are damaged, they drain essence from other creatures in a futile attempt to repair themselves. The more essence they steal, the more powerful and dangerous shadows become.". So what do we have here?: they try to absorb spiritual energy, but can't repair themselves. Hence: either the energy is lost completely, or is used for their corporeal form and is released only once they are killed/dispersed. Btw, this looks partially the reason why Galawain likes to strengthen souls so much - it could be as a counter-measure to fracturing. And now there is also a source of soul consolidation: - The more a soul has to endure, the more memories and experiences it has, the stronger it becomes. That's per soul definition itself. And this plays nicely with monks' view in general and Zahua's in particular. Galawain again... Even the character levels-up when he gets more experience ^^ Edit: just noticed OEI_Alex's post about soul growth above)) Shoulda read the whole thread first, to avoid redundancy) Eothas believed so, and wanted to break the current state of things, where gods chip on the souls that pass through IN BETWEEN. As I understood his idea was: that passing mortal would decide himself - to give a part of his essence to a god or not. This would force gods to be more... willing and helpful towards mortals in general, and not just lose time in endless quarrels. Edit2: On the other hand... gods would rather be in position where they can take what they want and when they want, without being dependent. So they are likely trying to figure out how to guide mortals to the outcome they want. With machine being broken, souls currently are not passing from IN BETWEEN to THE BEYOND right? If so, THE BEYOND will get empty after awhile and hollowborn get born. And it looks that, in a short-term perspective, this will pressure mortals more than the gods (who have the souls of mortals in IN BETWEEN to feed on). So perhaps they aren't telling everything they know about THE WHEEL to the animancer builders, because they wait to strike a deal on more favorable terms? Or perhaps infiltrate their own agents into machine-rebuilding team and keep all shady?

My take on reincarnation goes like this: imagine the reservoir of souls as a large "lake" of souls, with souls being able to flow to Eora from the lake (rebirth) and from Eora to the lake (death). The lake is perfectly natural as are the connections to Eora, but it can take a while for said souls to flow through either way or even find said connections. Reincarnation is messy and unorganized, but it works. In comes the wheel: I imagine it as a series of sluces/dams controlling the flow to and from the lake, with the "in-between" in particular being an area artifically separated "between Eora and lake", so the gods have some time to deal with souls coming through. Reïncarnation is streamlined and under strict divine control. In comes Eothas, smashing the sluces, dams and everything that streamlined the flow. Sure, the machinery's broken, but it's still connected to the system, and it's usually not exactly helpful when there's a smashed-up, utterly wrecked ruin of a sluce somewhere along your canal. In other words: the flow's still there, but the system that used to "help" it has now become a burden, clogging up the flow of souls. Eothas causes a "Rebirth" of the rebirth system this way, which must be like Nirvana for a god of Rebirth. One thing I also noticed is that, in the Rymrgand ending, things don't go apocalyptic until "Eothas' doubt spreads to the Luminous Adra", whatever that may mean. In other words, Eothas destroys the world by infecting something that wasn't part of the machinery, meaning it was probably there before it was built. It's all damn unclear though, and i hope they won't end up actually retconning anything, since that usually ends badly and makes a mess out of continuity. Though it may be too late for that. Complaining about the re-use of known concepts in games is ridiculous, though i do agree it could be fleshed out a bit more. And while "the wheel of reïncarnation" is somewhat overused, the idea of people building said wheel is quite an original concept in my experience. Also, the sheer irony in using the metaphor "inventing the wheel" is beautiful Some ideas are used and re-used a lot because, unsurprisingly, they're good, useful and easily understood ideas to build a story/philosophy/nation around. And as they say: one source is plagiarism, a hundred's research. There's hundreds of cultures throughout history who use(d) the symbolism of a wheel/snake eating it's tail/other circular things for reïncarnation, because it's the easiest way to symbolize it. And it's quite believable that the Engwithans, being scientists and engineers, would use one of the earliest achievements of science/engineering as a symbol for their masterpiece.

They were created because thaos was an irrational f-wit, but somehow charismatic. Fearing a mechanical universe, he drove his people to suicide to make gods, and maintained the system with even more atrocities after that first one. All out of fear that godless people would commit atrocities. :/

Woedica is a backdoor app that lost admin access before the system started meant to keep everything in order. Skaen is an honeypot trap. Berath is the process that keep the system running. Ondra is the process that periodically empty the trash and defrag the hard drive. Abydon, Magran, Galawain and Hylea are apps in charge of upgrading the system. Wael is an obfuscating app. Eothas is the start up application. Rymrgand is "rm -r /."

Skaen's purpose in the pantheon is to be a bad outlet for anyone who's fighting the system. Remember, these gods were designed to reinforce Engwithan colonialism. Skaen's job is to make sure any rebels or anyone who disputes their place in society 1) engages in strategically useless random violence instead of collective action, and 2) is universally scorned and hated. If Eora were a high school, Skaen would be the god of nerds, except his job is to tell everyone else that it's ok to beat up the nerds.

No, that wasn't exactly what they've said. They've said that, for whatever reason, they decided to stop manifesting in physical bodies after Ondra killed Abydon. Too much collateral damage maybe? But they've discussed possessing godlike as a possible ditch plan if what Eothas was planning on doing would turn really bad for them. They discussed EATING the godlike for power if things went really bad. I suspect the major problem with embodying is that the urge to murder each other becomes overwhelming, after all, Ondra blew up Abydon back when the gods were embodied, the other gods blew up Woedica, and Magran blew up Eothas TWICE. Apparently, when they don't have bodies, they can't kill each other, so they just bicker.