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Russian troops in Chernobyl. This is one hell of a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. larp.

Polish forces have entered Ukraine from the West and retaken Lwów.

Some people just have a talent....

Well this was a ****ty thing to wake up to and it gets worse by the hour. I hope some sense hits everyone and this ends without thousands of bodies, but being hopeful seems too optimistic. On the brightside, if the invasion of Ukraine really is the Star Citizen of geopolitics, then that means someday Star Citizen will be released.

The Brain Waves of a Dying Person Have Been Recorded in Detail For The First Time (sciencealert.com)

Not a lot of good news in the baseball world these days. But we can always remember better days.

We need some more harsh words from the UN.

Posting in the marginally less depressing thread. For some content, here's the latest on man who sued a bunch of newpapers for suggesting he was a war criminal and unleashed an unending torrent of witnesses testifying he was a war criminal, Ben Roberts-Smith. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/24/ben-roberts-smith-told-another-soldier-in-afghanistan-i-just-want-to-kill-court-hears The part of this that interests me the most, oddly, is the claim he didn't even own an iPod, because if that wasn't true, it would be a weird lie to tell.

I suspect China's "game" in this, is to see how much force the west is willing to commit. I.e. boots on the ground and airplanes involved fighting over Ukraine. If none, they might conclude Taiwan is ripe for the taking now while everybody else is busy looking at Ukraine and the response wasn't scary (by Chinese standards)

nvm, obvious troll post

In the Gamedata, it is taged as melee, like Minor Blight and Rot Skull. The differents Walls, Sunlance, Avenging Storm, Touch of Death, Pollen Patch, Concelhault crushing Doom, the frightened attack from Venombloom, and some others are also Melee. I tried these spells with the Shea's War Staff, they proc Combat Casting (concentration for 8s on critical hit in melee). Probably they interrupt on hit with Babyboar, I dont know.

The point of the sanctions here is not how much they will affect the Russian economy at large (breaking news: poor people will bear the brunt of the damage), but how much they will affect Russian oligarchs and the corrupt money flows that Putin is dependent on. It appears like this quite the gamble Putin is taking here, and I have no idea how long Putin can just ride it out. Also, given that Putin is waving around the nuclear cudgel while his rationality is reasonably being put into question, I can see why the US and Europe are taking the meek approach, as much as it annoys me that the Ukrainians are getting screwed over while the world stands and watches.

Lets start calling things by their real names perhaps? It's not a conflict. It's a f†cking war.

Precisely why this is happening. If Ukraine folds within a week not even serious sanctions might happen. The gamble is that the west will accept a quick win as a fait accompli. I thought a 'madman' act was put on display for better negotiation leverage. Instead he must have twisted many arms to get Russian army to go forward with it.

Wow, Russia invades the Ukraine, and the west is like; "Thoughts and prayers you guys! 🙏🙏🙏" ****

Of course Russia didn't want to invade the Ukraine, the West forced them into it. That's obvious, right?

Who did that sh†tstain of a degenerate fuhrer with botox for brains addressed his rant at? Nobody sane in the world would buy it. There shouldn't be that many subjects of Mordor with brain completely consumed by propaganda, right? But then, what do I know, because here we are - Europe, quite ahead into twenty-first century, with a rabid animal at a helm of a nuclear state.

Hmmm, guess I should've expected to see invasion apologists. Still disappointing.

Support options for the Ukraine include logistics, weaponry (physical and cyber), intelligence, communications, training, and private contractors. The West can choose to make this an unending and painful occupation for Putin, possibly leading to a change in government.

It all depends on what type of challenge you want from the game. If you want challenging combat, unsolved mysteries, in-depth character building, strategic planning and expansive exploration in immersive beautiful environments - then you might sit in front of your computer everyday wondering why you are still playing this game after Act 1 because it doesn't get very deep in terms of the above. I haven't explored much character building and synergy with units and equipment, but it seems not to matter much unless you want to take on enemies 10 levels higher than you, which in each map there seems to be 1 or 2 of these harder encounters (I am playing the game on Brutal now so I avoid these for the most part) but playing on hard I did them constantly with very little challenge. Combat is limited by the map and environments mostly as you can only do so much within a fixed area they create, but also from the limited abilities available per turn. The other issue combat is super repetitive. I feel its strongest point is the number of choices you make as the story progresses, I can't speak how much they effect the world around you but as far as I can tell there is definitely consequences, for instance I think I killed of a whole map by turning them into zombies, though I doubt I will play through again to figure out if I can save them. Also I like that I made some bad choices early on in terms of building alliances and hamstrung myself a little, I feel like any good game doesn't pull punches in terms of this so while it is frustrating I appreciate them not hand holding. There is also the ability to go evil in the game, but again I am only on one playthrough so not sure it is a very rewarding evil (also I don't often take the evil path and didn't in this game, but the world is full of demons and undead and you can join them, plus some of the NPCs are clearly evil). The story itself is Good vs Evil stuff and what happens to everyone caught in between, but there is some good twists, and I do find myself wanting to finish the tale. Writing is passable, kind of tongue in cheek and pithy, and I don't feel necessarily attached to any of the characters, but there is some fun in the writing, some drama and sadness etc, etc it covers all the bases though if you like reading (btw I recently read Patrick Ruthfus' The Name Of The Wind and then Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora I highly recommend them) you will definitely be able to point out where it is lacking. Honest I am on the fence for recommending the game, I keep playing it, but if you want a simple game to waste some time its not bad ... I read it described as a mobile game and I think it would play very good on an tablet while on the plane or in the car, or if you are at work and it is slow I don't know ... hope this helps!! If you have any specifics you are curious about let me know!!!

So much for nothing will happen, it's all a bluff. Right. My sympathies for the people of the Ukraine.

That's a good question, and one I would like a clear answer as well, though my worry is from the oposite. From what I gathered the gist seems to be that dungeons can be just as intricate and challenging as they always have been, while open world offers a more forgiving experience with variety of approaches and opportunities to gain an upper hand - SkillUp in his review mentioned being at a point when he one shots bosses - though as he never mentioned it as a problem, which confuses me. DS games (outside Sekiro) always had easy modes - stuff like summoning other players could and would make your playthrough a cakewalk. ER has couple aditional mechanics that should make things easier for those who want it - like summons and expanded magic. General consensus seems that it is by far the most inclusive game FromSoftware made, but how inclusive it is I have no clue. I recommend checking review and seeing if it is something that would interest you. After watching a SkillUp review I had an impression that ER might get dangerously easy once we start raking XP, but two other reviews stongly suggested that the game still is hard. We will see starting Friday.

I completed NWN EE and all the expansions last night and HotU was the most entertaining and fun My wizard got to level 25 and I got access to Epic spells which made a huge difference in battles where I could summon the Dragon Knight and Mummy Dust, it was very rewarding seeing my dragon destroy monsters. Exploring the Underdark and Undermountain was great and I enjoyed my sojourn in the Nine Hells and Carnia I defeated Mephistopheles by learning his true name so I avoided that epic battle and I banished him back to Carnia Oh and I Romanced and forgave the beautiful Aribeth....sure she betrayed Neverwinter and contributed towards the death of thousands but we all make mistakes. And I made sure she didnt align with Mephistopheles at the end This game and its expansions gets a 70/100 on the " BruceVC game rating system " so its globally recommended

Started this as a new thread to relieve pressure on ye olde general politics thread. Please stick all things Ukraine in here for the time being. Like the US election thread, a temporary measure until things gets less heated... Now watching this space for the news of the upcoming death of legendary Russian war hero Navalny who did a combat drop over the western Russian city of Kiev, unfortunate that his parachute came undone on the way down.

A few of us are guilty of that. It always appeared that Putin is an intelligent, if not always very amicable fellow. Ruthless, yes, but not crazy. Apparently though, that's at least partially not correct. Worse though, he made a couple of funny posts not age very well, and that's pretty unforgivable. Meh. @BruceVC for a more serious reply now that I have some time for it, yes, apparently the intelligence wasn't a fabrication, or exaggerated for effect. You know the story about the boy who cries wolf, he gets eaten by the wolf eventually, but indeed, it was correct this time, the posts didn't age very well, and I was wrong in expecting that this crisis would be solved without shots being fired - kind of like every other crisis every year ever since 2014. To be honest, I still don't see what Putin expects to get out of this that benefits Russia, or his position, in the long term. You'd think France and Germany would put their own interests above others and strong-arm the Ukraine into backing down, but hey, here I was... apparently overestimating Putin, Macron and Scholz. Putin always did a good job in keeping the EU divided and navel-gazing by supporting the fringe elements of many EU states that wanted the EU to go back to being a trade union (Front Nationale, The Freedom Party, fellow dictator wannabe Orban, recently supporting the anti-vaxxer movements) in order to prevent a more tightly knit European Union and common defense policy, but now he's running dangerously close to undoing a lot of that work*. I also really don't want to be in Zelensky's shoes right now. Like @Guard Dog said it is really unlikely that anyone is going to war over the Ukraine. Going to be a lot of hindsight is 20/20 for the Ukranian government. A government I have a hard time expressing any sympathy for, to be honest. It's just really bad for the Ukranian people. They certainly donn't derserve any of this. Two weeks ago, I'd have agreed to your assessment, and made it myself. Now, I'm not so sure. Apparently this is a hill worth dying on for Putin, for some reason. *Admittedly though, probably not, because the US also has no interest in allowing any of that, and if this invasion proves one thing then it's that if push comes to shove, any emancipation of European interests flies out of the window in an instant.

Not until I see Kiev burning, tha hat is too preciuos!

They've tried every other way to resolve them for, uh, 8 years now and to no avail. Neither Russia nor NATO was willing to budge on the issue of Russia's security interests. While China is officially shocked at this it is highly unlikely that China will stab Russia in the back considering the Beijing Olympics speech they gave. China is playing good cop here. Yes though, U.S. had a chance to work with Russia to deter China but they blew it utterly with their Russiagate crap. LOL

Gunshots are reported around Kiev airport and Putin just said he has no plans to occupy the country. This makes some crazy sense now, he is thinking regime change Kabul '79 style. Also explains the names lists, troop dispositions and intelligence on the invasion dates. Little wonder some in armed forces leaked that to the US, too bad it wasn't enough to dissuade him. That would mean his expectation is easy collapse of resistance if not outright surrender after first clashes.

Seems i might need to be going to find my monopoly guy top hat... DANGEROUSLY close to that. Russians entered southern Ukriane... I still think this is aimed to carve out a land bridge, but in the current scenario, all bets are off. Things can escalate super fast... Edit: an effin a-hole. I'd not think he had the actual lack of reason to do it in the current situation. He gave US what they wanted and became a person, who lost ALL credibility on the int. stage. And might cause a 3rd WW in the process....

-Based V.Put Blow those Nazi ****s to the almighty

Putin orders military operations in Ukraine Explosions are already reported in Kiev, might mean a full scale invasion instead of just grabbing Donetsk.

No, I'm old and wise... 😂 I recognize the subtle signals my nose sends me when my phone keeps falling back down and boinking my nose when I drift off while typing 😛

This Raw Pen Fix.zipshould cover all Attacks and StatusEffects that deal Raw damage and has 0 Pen. These are the Attacks with PenetrationRating = 0 and DamageData.DamageType=Raw, now PenetrationRating are set to 7: For the StatusEffects, these are the ones with StatusEffectType = Damage, OverridePenetration = 0, DamageTypeValue = Raw. I set OverridePenetration of these to 7, but idk if this property affects lashes or if damage through StatusEffects would even trigger lashes to begin with, so I think these would require testing. 7 Pen according to the game files so this should be fine as it is

"Oh and I Romanced and forgave the beautiful Aribeth....sure she betrayed Neverwinter and contributed towards the death of thousands but we all make mistakes. And I made sure she didnt align with Mephistopheles at the end"

Henlooo it is I, the Forbidden Fist! +10 ACC with Helm of the White Void and the Forbidden-Fist attack, Torment's Reach, Stunning Surge or Force of Anguish. Large Shield stacks well with the maxed RES a FF wants to have and counters the Frenzy malus. Less accuracy but a lot higher survivability. Enfeebled from the FF attack prolongs hostile effects on enemies by 50%. Turning Wheel adds even more duration. Dispersed Sufferning from Frostfall stacks with all that nicely. Combine with Berserker and Footsteps of the Beast: get hobbled by your own drop traps for very short amount of times, get bonuses from being hobbled, get wounds and healing from the many, many short hobbles when they end, get bonuses from being confused, get wounds and healing from ending confusion. Do NOT use Rooting Pain because a confused Berserker/Monk will root-pain themselves (I know from experience 😄). Use Parting Sorrow and Barbaric Shout for the added engagement (and +10 ACC for the shaken effect) right before you are about to kill some enemies: more wounds because a dead enemy apparently breaks engagement (we just spre them the disengagment attacks out of respect for the dead I guess ).

A proposal: give raw damage abilities and weapons a penetration value of not 0. Since lashes inherit the penetration of the base attack, they are very bad with raw damage abilities and weapons. e.g. Flames of Devotion with Reaping Knives is very bad due to the burn lash having 0 base penetration.

am personal gonna be unavailable from noonish our time 'til march 4, so is unlikely either of us revisits soon. no sweat. will no doubt come up organic again at some point in the future. always does. HA! Good Fun!

I started with this combination but it has too many seeds: So I switched to this combination which is awesome: Then I add in some mango: Then put in one peeled banana and top it off with milk!

LOL I can imagine her reply: "Dear Brother, ever heard of CTRL + F? Found it in two seconds. Here's your $20, use it to buy a book about Windows."