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Sunny is feeling a lot better I'm happy to say! She is almost back to her old energetic self. That new drug might be a little pricey but it was worth every penny. I wish they had suggested it right from the stat.

I went to my sisters new house for an absolutely delicious Moroccan lamb barbeque and some of us went for a walk in a nature reserve about 5 minutes drive from her place. Really great weather and a great day to be outside...the lockdown has reminded me how much I miss these types of events

@majestic MMOs: That explanation I can at least understand. Though an MMO would probably be my absolute last choice of genre for it being the place to socialize with others, but that's just me. I guess the one positive about MMOs in that regard is there's a lot of downtime so you have *time* and focus to talk to others, which isn't often true of a lot of other games. Voyager: Chakotay and that one brain lady from the first few seasons (...Nes...sa?) are the worst on that show. Janeway is insane, but at least she's not a complete drag. Matoki: No, no he wasn't...didn't he once say that he considered all of the girls to be more like little sisters? I'm pretty sure he said that at some point in the anime. Naoko Takeuchi seems to have some unresolved problems with boys. Was Umino a huge creep in the manga too? He was of course, a weirdo with some bad ideas on manliness in the anime, but besides those couple of times he was possessed by The Dark Kingdom, he wasn't a creep. Episode 8, fantastic episode, sorry for the wall of text, I even cut out some stuff because it was getting too long:

I recently passed the 5th anniversary of moving down to North Carolina. Can I consider myself a southerner now?

I did before I gave up sugar. I'll make up for it by getting a still and making moonshine once I buy a house in the mountains (hopefully this fall). Granted, I'll need to use sugar to make moonshine, but I'm willing to bend rules for alcohol. I'm sure you understand.

Extra credit question is about Mim and the treasure of Norgothrand to find that 1 in 1000 kids dedicated crazy enough to also read The Silmarillion.

We needed to do laundry today, so we ended up watching the whole thing. To avoid spoiling Barti and IC, it's very good and is a nice break from Sailor Moon but is extremely dark.

Not gonna go into early access titles anymore that won't feature all the content. My experience with this stuff is that I will play the existing content a lot and once the full game is released, I'm already burned out from it and will likely not touch it again for a long time.

Seaspiracy: Netflix documentary accused of misrepresentation by participants. NGOs and experts quoted in film say it contains ‘misleading’ claims, erroneous statistics and out-of-context interviews Obviously there are problems with fishing and how we treat the ocean in general but be warned before you watch this type of thing.

I think what we will disagree on, is whenever stuff that Kingmaker added brought game to live or made it feel more artificial. To me it was the second one. It constantly took me out of the game and made me think "what the devs were thinking?!". I never felt that "immersion" was a point. In fact, most of my complaints came from an artificial design. My gold example of why I dislike Kingmaker so much and it's various silly systems is as follows: I am killing time between story missions and am cleaning a map that I just finished doing main mission in. Suddenly I get a message popup that I have a kingdom event. I trek couple hours into my territory so I can see what it is: and behold, Amiri wants to talk to me! Amiri who is in my party.... ok, let's trek back all the way to the capital. I have no teleport in nearby town yet, so have to spent 24 plus going back. Plus camping that takes a bit too long forcing me to show results of character actions every time, and encounters that I will farm, because, hey, I really need more XP. I get back to town and do my chores, go to my throneroom, and Amiri comes and says "Yo, talk to me in the tavern". First I have to load back in into kingdom management map to dismiss the stupid notification "you have talked to Amiri! Good job!", then load back to throneroom, go to tavern and Amiri says" "Hey, can we go to a place, pretty much around where we were when you first got notification, that there is a new event in capital?". So we trek back to where I was to start with, to exerience 5 minuts of actual content... What pops up to me is not how immersive the game feels, but how poorly implimented missions are. And that's how I feel about other stuff - if as a adventurer I had to make a decisions about how much supplies to take, I would probably sent scouts ahead first, you know just so I don't starve to death accidentally. I would probably hire a servant to stand in my hall, and take stuff I want to sell and sell it for me. I would order wounded companions to heal themselves if they happen to stay for weeks in town. If I want to take a companion to do a quest, but that I would exchange him for someone else, I would just tell the other guy to meet me in a day's time at a meeting point - not wait two days, for companons to exchange themselves. If I am leaving town I would appoint someone to deal with troubles, rather then have everyone sit on their asses waiting for me to come home. I would appoint someone to focus exclusively to research curses, and let someone else act as my advisor. I will say, that resting in general is a tricky subject in those games. While I personally feel, PoE1 implimented it best, I haven't seen a really good implimentation. IMO structure created by Bioware in Baldur's Gates doesn't really gel with per-rest casting and resting system. In BG1&2&3 resting is just too easy to do, PoE2 has resting almost as an obligation , Kingmaker has rather punishing resting system but fails to provide information and choice to make it fun. PoE1 managed to limit resting through a semi-logical limitation, while at the same time giving devs a set amount of player available rests to pace it properly - in my opition it achieves all Kingmaker tries to, just better.

I got my first dose yesterday (Moderna) and my wife gets her first dose today. It was a total nothingburger. Theyre giving out doses around here like unregistered handguns and it was ridiculously easy to get an appointment. I was in and out in 20 minutes, and thats with them asking me to hang around for 10 minutes afterwards to make sure I didnt get dizzy.

Well, unless you immediately start playing with your friends from school/college/university most of the time the social interaction is incidental, something that arises from doing content with others. The most fun I had playing WoW was when I was playing it with a colleague from work and a couple of regulars we found while looking for groups to do content. That was before Blizzard introduced a one click way of finding other players to play with. It made doing the content much easier, but it killed having to interact with other people to do it. It ruined the server communities and allowed people to behave like complete arses, because while you could easily get yourself on a server-wide (or faction-wide, at least) blacklist, when you have the entire population of your WoW region at your fingertips, you can play all day long and never meet the same player twice. That limited the community feelings to raids, and even these you can find groups for these days. Well, not entirely certain about the current state of the game. I quit hard after Cataclysm and only dabbled a bit in Legion. It might seem strange coming from me, because initiating any form of social interaction is hard for me, but it's much easier online. People might be jerks, but usually they just say no, I don't want to, have no time, instead of worse things. A better example might be my time in Everquest 2, because that game, while still a theme park, focused much more on social interaction (back then it was impossible to do even the easiest of content without a group), exploration and questing than WoW ever did. It's a nice bonding experience to find some people and make your way through a long, drawn out dungeon, then it gets late, you put the people on the friend list and agree to continue next time. After a while the game just becomes a platform for interactions. Unless you're like me and you at some point have to decide between playing with peeps from your friendlist or playing with people who know what they're doing but are complete asshats otherwise. And yes, I almost immediately ditched playing with my friends in favor of actually getting somewhere. So it was part community simulator and part actual, fun gameplay (and heroic raiding in Cataclysm was... hard). There's Seska and Kes, both are only there for the first two and three seasons, respectively, but I'm guessing you mean Seska, the Cardassian spy on the ship. She was "fun", yep. Like everything about the first two season, especially the Kazon. Sigh. No, don't do that, this is the thread for walls of text. So what you're saying is that Highway to the Dangerzone has no relation to aerospace engineering? Maverick would disagree. Heh. Regarding Rei, she always went to a private school (hence the different uniform). This will become a funny running gag of a sort in the season when Rei shows up out of nowhere at the damndest of times. The anime never gives a reason why she goes to a private Catholic school when she arguably has the financially poorest looking upbringing of all the girls. In the manga her father is a wealthy carreer politician who has no time for her daughter, so she's foisted upon her grandfather. It's reasonable to assume he pays for her tuition fees, if nothing else. Not entirely convinced that is what Ms. Takeuchi had in mind from the start when she made Rei go to a different school than Ami and Usagi, but it is what it is. Oh, and also, one thing to keep in mind and comment on later, but I sometimes got the feeling that some of the fun of this season was about the writers realizing why people were watching the anime, and there's some meta-style humor later. That might just have been me, so when you start seeing it, leave a like, subscribe to my posts and hit that... wait, no. Erm. Leave a comment. And yes, now imagine if SuperS would have been more like this. An entire season lost. Well, almost, there are two or three good episodes in SuperS. Out of 39. So sad. So far Umino was barely in the manga. I guess that stays that way if Crystal is any indication. Once the team is complete Naru and Umino will be ditched in favor of making everything about Mamoru and Usagi. But I'll certainly complain about it when the time comes. And yeah, Motoki says that in the anime. Not sure if that is to take out the creepiness of the source material or just so that Makoto can't catch a break. I mean manga Motoki becomes possessed and tries to seduce her, anime Motoki just thinks of her as little sister. Poor Makoto even cleans his appartment once only to find a picture of Reika.

Episode 9 (much shorter, thankfully): Episode 10:

Our best and brightest do not go into politics. Not to say that we don't have idiots, but China has plenty of knuckleheads as well.

TNG "I, Borg". Good episode overall, I remember liking it when it originally aired, and I think it mostly holds up. Seems weird to me the Enterprise would have the latitude to make and act on their original plan without Starfleet approval.

Played the early levels of Dungeon Keeper 1, goofing off. Still runs ok but does seem a bit "laggy" at times like something's off. Decided to try DK2 (gog version again) - also the first time I tried on Win10. Loaded up fine. Started blowing through the Pet Dungeons to unlock them all. Got to the 4th one, finished, pressed space to exit map/start the next one - game CTD'd. Fine. Loaded up the game again. Didn't save progress, nor did it save my graphic/resolution setting (went back to defaults). Could do it again but now I'm wondering if it'll reset progress every time you relaunch. Pffft. Guess I'll test it by only doing first Pet D, exiting, seeing if it saves it. I may just stick to playing DK's on my old Win7 rig. Double pffft.

Has anyone noticed the lack of ladybugs latley ive been all over the yard and havnt found one

It's really good and makes an interesting comparison to magical girls played straight like Sailor Moon.

Well, she is a mouse. I don't remember if this was evident in the beginning, but her workplace is a mess, just like you would expect.

Politics and greed (one might say they're one and the same) manufacturing unnecessary obstacles to containing a worldwide pandemic just makes a guy feel all warm and fuzzy inside (unless that's just a lingering side effect from the Janssen vaccine) *snicker*

Those last five episodes of Sailor Moon before the final one really bothered you, huh?

Completed Haven. It is an action-adventure game, yet it is tagged as an RPG*. The main characters are predetermined, from the build (all stats, abilities and equipment are the same for both characters; progression is tied to the main story) to appearance to names. Dialogue options are similar and lead to the same outcomes, though some of them increase a hidden parameter called "Confidence". Exploration is bound to the main story. In other words, it is not an RPG in any shape or form. The story follows two people who fled from an oppressive regime to be together as they explore their new home and repair their ship. The combat is partially real-time and partially turn-based. It is impossible to choose targets or formation in combat or to flee after initiating an encounter. If one character is knocked out, the other can revive them. If both characters are KO'ed, the party returns to the base to heal (except for 1 instance where the last save is reloaded). There are 2 types of attacks (+block and finisher) and 4 types of consumables. The NPC opponents are reasonably diverse and require specific approaches. There are several optional mini-bosses. 2D animated art looks good and detailed. 3D models are adequate, but either increasing the number of polygons per model or cell-shading would make it a lot better. All lines are voiced and the OST fits the game. The controls are only partially rebindable at the time of writing - most actions (from combat to cooking) require to hold 2 keys at the same time and the ones on the right are impossible to change. 5-button mice are not supported. Difficulty options are listed under the "Accessibility" tab in the menu, with separate sliders for enemy speed and damage and attacks of the main characters. The game uses auto-saves upon changing location. There are no sex scenes, no swearing and no corpses of humans or animals and the game is very vegan-friendly. *Incorrect advertisement bothers me. The devs could claim Haven to be a third-person shooter, because there is 1 (auto-targeting) ranged attack. So, I am puzzled why they did it? Action-adventures are popular enough.

No, I'm being realistic. A political career requires that you have enough intelligence to do the job, but not enough that you are bored by it. Believe me, I've met plenty of people who are a lot brighter than our typical political hack.

It was never directed at you (or even anyone personal) I straight up just wrote "beware there might be negative comments about this" (or something along those lines :P) Personally If I play a class that is a wizard/or multiclassed with another "caster" whoeveer doesn't have access to monastic unarmed I will always use that draining touch cheese (and yes I learned it from you ;)). I also sometimes use the charged items trick but it isn't super useful for most scenarios and I will always use it very specifically. I don't export items cuz it requires you to recruit a party member.

Iron Tower Studio's Colony Ship is now in Early Access.

Stay strong GrammyBarty.

If you read my post again until the end you will see that I said basically the same: that it's good to share such info - even if oneself doesn't use it. Again: my point was about how you seem to perceive it as a personal attack when people say they don't like to use exploits. Which it is not. I just want you to understand that there's zero criticism towards you or whether you use exploits or not. It's just players' preferences and neither criticism about the info you shared nor your way of playing the game. I wouldn't have said anything if you wouldn't have included that the Strand of Favor trick was "frowned upon" by some players. I mean even if that was the case: who cares what other players frown upon? It's your game and it's nice to share any info about it, even if some players won't use it. But if you are actually not feeling attacked and all is fine: even better. It sounded differently but I might have misinterpreted that. There will be debate lots of times I guess. Just because so few people know what it actually is - and therefore there will have to be further explanation. And then again some people will say "no thanks that is too cheesy for my taste" and so on and so forth. But why bother? I keep telling people how you can cheese charged items or how to export unique items to a new game or how Concelhaut's Draining Touch can be kept for the whole encounter - and nobody so far said "wow cool, I will use that". But I'll share it nevertheless. Maybe some day one player has fun with it - and it will be all worth it.

Maybe the idea was to have all the Sailors (except Rei) get bfs but Motoki was the only guy around and it didn't go anywhere because of Usako+Mamo-chan took all the attention. EDIT Puella Magi Madoka Magica episode 1. The setting seems futuristic, it threw me off for a minute. Kyubey seems up to something, I don't know what but I think it will be bad. The two girls will absolutely go for the contract. The witches, man what the ****. I dig it.

The Padres joined the NL in 1969. They finally got their first no hitter on Friday. About time!

Motoki is really weird in the manga. Was he this weird in the anime? He thinks all of Usagi's friends are sexy, even though they, at this point, consist of social pariah Makoto who is too tall and has weird hair and quiet, demure Ami who is good for nothing but studying. Well, and Rei, who really is said to be pretty in about every other panel, but that's neither here nor there. Motokoi is posessed by the Dark Kingdom and starts seducing her. Did I complain about this while watching Crystal? Poor girl can't catch a break, can she? Oh, and Tuxedo Creep jumps into Usagi's room without knocking. Yeah. Pretty sure I complained about that. Hello Juban disctrict police, there's a stalker creep following a 14 year old girl. Hello?

@majestic Yeah, compared to DS9 Voyager doesn't look good at all. Chakotay is a bad caricature of tropes about indigenous people and pretty racist when you really look at it, and it's very awkward watching his episodes now. And you're posting on a videogame forum so there's bound to be something wrong with you.

It would be a Lifetaker then

The world according to Westerners especially Europeans.

I saw my mom tonight, and her response to the Gaetz scandal was "Look at his face, of course he pays for sex".

Got invited into a DnD campaign thats running via a mix of discord and roll20. It's been running for about a year, and one of the players had to leave for various reasons so my friends invited me into the space created. Had the first session where the rest of the players just assumed they hadn't made it to a point where the DM could bring in my character. They didn't know I was a Ranger/Druid and because of timing, I had been wild-shaped into a big eagle that some key NPCs believed was their spirit guide. The Players all assumed I was the NPCs familiar and overlooked any non-Eagle behaviour. So I sat around, making a few comments, and passing secret messages to the DM. It's all key to making a grand entrance... On other slightly amusing matters, I decided to pick up the Horizon Zero Dawn soundtrack. But weird things afoot. The digital MP3 album is on Amazon for £25, but you can pick up the CD physical album for £12 and that comes with a free autorip of the MP3 album. Tres Bizarre whoever made that decision, but oh well, I'll take it.

I somewhat agree. I was constantly switching between the two. I thought BG1&2 worked well in RTwP, but systems there were much simpler. There is so much happening at all times in Pathfinder, that I found RTwP just didn't cut it - not for a party of 6, at least. That said, padding and repetitive encounters hurt far more, if one doesn't breeze through encounters. Pacing of PoE2 in turn based was off, and playing Pathfinder is more like playing PoE1 in turn based... probably even worse. So, I actually think Kingmaker did a horrible job with those. 1) encumbrance - Combined carry limit nicely mixes and "stash" idea but still limits it somewhat. So it's good? nah. I think if you create carry limit you can do it for: immersion - see BG1&2. It's mostly hassle free, and I don't remember ever needing to leave something importnat behind. BG1 has few unique items, so if you can't carry something its not a biggie, and BG2 provides bag of carrying around the time, you might start running out of space gameplay - what you take with you is of importance and you have to make choices. Kingmakers leans into the 2nd one, yet fails to make gameplay out of it. You don't have information necessary to make decisions, so you kinda need to carry as much as you can, or know what you need thanks thanks to walkthrough/previous playthrough experience. And considering how ruthless the game is, you might find yourself without items you need requiring a tedious treckback or reload. I also hated having to fiddle with inventory everytime the game required me to descreese the number of NPCs in my party. Not to mention having to guess how much your party can carry when at your base, as the UI won't tell you as you don't technically have a party. A system without a meaning nor purpose. 2) camping - I liked it first time it appeared. No depth, no choice to make. Bonuses might as well be automatically added to remove tedium. Once the shine of (oh! I can assign NPCs to do things) wares off, it simply wastes your time. 3) food requirement - I do like the system itself - more NPCs, more food required. Again, game fails to designed around it. It is player's decision to decide how much food they will carry, and yet they don't have information on which to make this decision. For the most part of the game food is useless. Except couple dungeons where a certain amount of rests is strongly encouraged. Not a problem with metaknowledge, but it's a horrible first time experience. 4) stat debuffs - I don't know. I found them to be a pain in the arse and nothing more. I disliked those in BG2, but they were far and few inbetween, and at least they were set up properly (like the game didn't sent you to vamprie den, without teaching for first what you can expect). Maybe in a better designed campaign I would have more appreciation for them.

That's pretty genius, I never thought to move holders like that. It would be a lot faster than what I'm doing now LOL. But I totally agree with you. I hate how slow I am forced to walk when moving stuff around my base. It's a big base and I got places to be! If I had to guess, I'd assume they did it on purpose because they knew players could move the plank holders while full, and that's their way of balancing it, because it makes all the stuff like HumAnt armor bonus and the Worker's Comp smoothie less useful. I think a good compromise would be to allow us to walk normally and/or run when moving furniture, but if the grass plank has X number of planks stored in it (one? half?), then you get the speed deduction. Could also be added to empty/full chests for a similar effect. That way, there's still a reason to use HumAnt and Worker's Comp.

Just a note about Frostseeker. Late-game rangers can do really amazing amounts of damage with it. Frostseeker gives a cold damage AOE on crit and shoots three projectiles per shot. With the Driving Flight passive and two enemies and decent player targeting, you're getting six projectiles per autoattack, with six chances to crit. The more your accuracy goes up, the more crits you're doing. My late game Frostseeker ranger was routinely getting six crits per autoattack, which meant six cold AoEs on top of the (small) damage from the six projectiles. Once you get Twinned Shot, it's 12 projectiles per attack. When firing into tightly-packed groups of enemies with high accuracy, the damage is breathtaking. It's not as powerful out of the box as hand mortars can be, but it's very strong.