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Two days ago, This Russian Soldier (Vitaliy Valerievich Aroshanov) has released a video, how he tortured, castrated and then killed a Ukrainina POW. Yesterday, Russia attacked a public bus stop in Mykolaiv with a rocket. Not linking here, due to clearly violating the board rules, but if someone would really like to see the proof, you can find in somewhere in the thread about that **** above. Yesterday also Russia put all imprisoned Ukrainian POWs from Maripoľ in a single building in occupied Olenivka, and launched MLRS Grad into it. Resulting in 50 dead POW and 130 wounded. And you are wondering, why some people might think, that it is acceptable to celebrate every Russian and collaborator demise in this war

"Christianity didn't become a world religion because of the quality of its teachings, but by the quantity of its violence." What a gorgeous line - mind you, it's applicable to other religions besides just Christianity, but it's especially relevant today given today's ever-growing Christofascist movement.

Propaganda piece from Yale university? @Mamoulian War Here is a video that summarizes the same study, its only 14 minutes long and the economic analysis starts on minute 4 or so And its definitely not all propaganda because they mention how 50% the Russian $650 billion foreign reserve has been frozen and we know its true because of the $ sanctions on the Ruskie central bank But the Yale report talks about the real damage to the Russian economy taking 2 years or so which makes sense if you consider how sanctions and disinvestment works

Jaheira's viability in BG1 is hampered by the available items, but she's a powerhouse in BG2. Well, any Fighter/Druid is, but she's the only NPC one. That said, there's no real decent early alternative for her, and she's good enough as a healer and can pack a punch. Everything else is kind of secondary. Viconia, meanwhile, is as useless as any other single class cleric (well, any single class divine caster, including the stupid EE shaman). The only thing she has going for her is that she's not a single class thief, but that's a bit of a stretch, particularily in the EE where thieves can set traps even early on in BG1 and actually make a bunch of otherwise difficult encounters easier and multiclasses might not have enough points yet.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!! Jaheira is the BEST! She's the only BG1 companion (besides lil' sis) who I have always had in my party every time I've ever played either game (which is quite a few times).

Obsidian is definitely doing a lot of things at the same time. They have already worked on PoE2 and OW1 at the same time, so it’s more or less the same as before acquisition albeit with potentially bigger projects + two very small passion projects and some stuff that’s unannounced. Personally, I wouldn’t read too much into the trailers - they both have been vague CGI, meaning: we are not ready to show anything. Microsoft did a lot of purchasing and until this year had little to show for - so they filled their shows with announcements of projects their studios are working on for future release. I believe they showed Avowed and OW2 to bolster Microsoft brand (look at the cool titles you can expect from us on gamepass!) not because those titles were ready for official announcement (though for PoE fans it’s nice to know that Eora isn’t abandoned). I was greatly disappointed to not see Avowed on this years E3 like, but then again with focus on upcoming year we really haven’t seen any of Microsoft heavy hitters (well there was Starfield, but it’s pre-acquisition project). That said, by now I would like to know more - not release date but just what Avowed is supposed to be. I do think some worry is warranted at this point.

University of Yale has published a study about how Russia is obfuscating their economy performance under sanctions, and gives an insight about the real impact. 118 pages long. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4167193 very short summary can be found here: This content cannot be displayed until agreeing to our use of Social Media cookies. Learn more. Manage cookies

IWD is brutal. It's like someone saw the horrific grind of Nashkel Mines and decided to make an entire game like that. What a psychopath! Edit: This one goes out to the fellow Sierra On-Line fans we have here: IWD is the Codename: Iceman of Infinity Engine games.

PS:T > BG2 > IWD2 > BG > a rock > rusty nails in your scrotum > slow, agonizing death by necrotizing fasciitis > IWD. Willing to die on that hill. Come at me.

What did the EEs do? The only thing I can think of is restricting level 1 proficencies (i.e. so you can't put all 4 of a fighter's level 1 proficencies into one weapon type, which is a BG2 bug and wasn't allowed in BG1 in the first place AFAIK). Generally, I think 7 makes the most sense, since it's when you get the +1/2 APR from being a fighter. It's also not too high level and so it doesn't take too long to reactivate your class (which gets exponentially more annoying and burdensome the farther you go past level 7), you still get most of your fighter 1D10 HP dice and enough THAC0 progression, you can have two weapon types with 3 stars (or dual wielding with 3 stars + one weapon type with 3 stars). Going up to level 9 for grand mastery with one weapon type doesn't even give you anything but +2 damage in BG2, since grand mastery was completely broken in that game. EEs fixed it so you get the other 1/2 APR and extra THAC0 that you're supposed to get, but it means you're going to be gimped for almost all of BG2... Icewind Dale 1 is literally the only Infinity Engine game I haven't beat, . Haven't ever been able to suffer through it...would rather play PST probably ten more times rather than IWD once, I think.

Damn right. Yeah that's true. Tbh I'm hesitant to recommend things to you without caveats because I know how your tastes can be very specific. To use an example I expected the scene you disliked in EEAAO to turn you off from the film at large. Though in this specific case I agree with you for the same reasons. Alien is a very good horror film that feels personally terrifying. In terms of sci-fi horror, I think only Event Horizon or Magnetic Rose capture the same feelings for me.

Slightly related to the one above

I think of The Gods Must Be Crazy.

Right, sanitation. Which is the point of the mask wearing. Just because we could let the virus run rampant through the population doesn't mean we should. There's a net negative impact on the economy from too many people being out sick.

To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to appreciate Icewind Dale. The game is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical combat mechanics most of the gameplay will go over a typical player's head. There's also David Ogden Stiers' nihilistic narration, which is deftly woven into the plot progression - his character's philosophy draws heavily from literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of the gameplay, to realize that it's not just combat- it says something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Icewind Dale truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, having giant skeletons that explode into snowballs which is itself a cryptic reference to the snowball fight in Witcher 3 The Wild Hunt I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Black Isle's genius unfolds itself on their monitors. What fools... how I pity them. And yes by the way, I DO have a Yxunomei tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It's for the ladies' eyes only- And even they have to demonstrate that they're within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand. (Funnily enough on pure gameplay I 100% agree with HoonDing on order, though I'd probably put the self mutilation before BG1 and have an entire lower category for SCS)

The article was light on details, but odds are he was protected by a Union and so they did have to give a reason, and the reason was he didn't show up for work for a year. He says he felt threatened but there is no detail about that. But the idea that you aren't going to come to work until your managers apologize sounds pretty silly. I'm guessing he can go fill a teaching job in Florida though. edit: It's actually pretty hard to lose a job as a teacher after you get tenure. As long as you take attendance and show up most days, the school district is going to struggle to document a real case for removing a teacher. This guy went under review for some pretty serious stuff and he still wasn't fired for it.

You should wishlist it on Steam, for sure. I backed it on kickstarter, so that got me a key to the alpha. The early access should be coming soon, although soon might mean 6-12 months. The game is very playable at this point and the last update seems to make it feature complete and playable form start to finish. The development of this game requires patience, but given how stable and deep the original Xenonauts was, I think they deserve it. As I said, I've already played the alpha enough to say they've got the tactical combat aspect and maps down pat.

Same, though I never tried to force myself to finish it. Have no clue why people like it, but then again I rate IWD2 as the second best IE game (after BG2).

Which is what makes him an ok tank, but not so much a damage dealer. And that's why I cut him whenever I play a tank myself. But my typical PC is a fighter/rogue or a fighter/wizard. I've played BG1 in particular sooooo many times but have yet to play it even once with the canonical party. Now you've got me hankering to give it another go with the canonical party.

In Everything Everywhere All at Once's case, the justification is really twofold: I will forgive a lot of ridiculous silliness that might really bother me elsewhere if I love the character stuff...in fact, there's even a chance that my tastes might literally change as I watch it so that I am more accepting of whatever precise type of silliness it's engaging with. Characters trump everything else - they are the foundational backbone of almost all types of fiction/entertainment for me. I will also forgive what should be unforgivable if the film manages to resonate with me on a personal level, and Everything Everywhere All at Once very strongly resonated with me on a personal level from multiple angles, which is very rare indeed. I've always said that I don't really care for themes and other kinds of big ideas in entertainment, but that's because they generally stand extremely little chance of affecting me on a personal level: without characters that I like, it's virtually impossible for me to pay enough attention to even fully understand the plot of something, and never mind looking deeper for the themes. So when you have characters that I like while being able to interweave ideas and themes that I like, you've really got potential for something special. And then I watch Aliens where the characters are completely one-note meme-worthy non-characters that can't even deliver their lines properly, and people wonder why I'm not impressed with it. I'd like to turn to my friend George Lucas here... ...who, although he would completely and utterly forget what he said fifteen years or so later while making the prequel trilogy, pretty much hits a home run on my feelings here with regards to not spending your time on the proper elements. Haven't seen Event Horizon, but obviously I love Satoshi Kon's Magnetic Rose as previously discussed. Slow, personal, atmospheric horror that builds itself through what our characters are experiencing...what they see, or what they don't see, their personal weaknesses and fears, and the terror they experience. At the most base level, I want to feel something for my characters as a result of what they're going through, and you have to make it personal to them to accomplish that. I want to become afraid and get hurt just as they do.

Generally I am in favour of letting go suboptimal employees rather then killing them. Eh, everytime I play BG1 I end up running the cannonical party, so Khalid was always in my party. I stick tower shield on him, as he is as good at getting swing at, as any other. I just suspect he isn't an optimal choice, though I never personally cared for such thing, with BGs being mostly forgiving.

Says the most important thing is combat effectiveness. Adds an 8 CON single class cleric to the party, drops the fighter/druid for it. To be fair to Khalid, all of the companions have sub-par stats, some are just less bad than others. One can easily made do with Khalid as tank, but there are better options. Still, I think the game (series) plays best if you play a tank main character. So, basically, something like a fighter/mage dual class. With the EE nedlessly mucking about with the original BG2's nerfed Grand Mastery, it does pay off more than before to not simply use a multi-class. Lord knows what Beamdog thought there, but hey, it wouldn't be Beamdog otherwise. It does give your character a broader range of off-hands to use, which is nice, but it basically kills the multi classes in terms of effectiveness.

I said everything, not everybody. I am anti-nationalist, generally accepting of ideas and identities wherein they do not infringe upon others (wherever their basis may lie, whether it's ethnic, religion, personal, ideological...), and am only just somewhat misanthropic, so I certainly don't qualify for that, . My intolerance for certain types of people is, I believe, much more reasoned and limited than my intolerance for most other things. I don't have a good enough memory of Prometheus to talk about its plot, especially given that I obviously lacked the context of the rest of the Alien films when I saw it. Perhaps that's a reason to re-visit it after all...

I also dont like the idea of killing NPC but I didnt think I had a choice, I only found out afterwards that if you separate them on the map then you can add someone new

I prefer to lock up Khalid in one of those houses in Nashkel while keeping Jaheira in my party. I do the same thing to split up Minsc and his witch. Never liked the idea of killing off any of the BG1/2 companions even when I disliked them.

If your concern about these games is coming from a money/budget standpoint, I wouldn't worry too much about it. If there's anything clear about how MS is managing their game studios it is that they are giving them whatever resources they need to make their games. Not one of MS's studios has complained, or even had rumors coming out, that they are being shortchanged on resources.

Yes, the worst movie ever made (that I have watched, particularly that I have ever watched the entirety of) is still Star Wars: The Holiday Special. I think I'd put it right around on Aliens' level (i.e. significantly below Alien 3, unfathomably below Alien), but how it got there is different. Where Aliens is just generally bad and dumb throughout the entire thing pretty consistently due to deliberately stupid writing and direction courtesy of one Mr. James Cameron, there were some moments and ideas in Resurrection that I thought were pretty decent...but it was pretty much always quickly followed up with stuff even worse than what I saw in Aliens. A steady flat-line (Aliens) vs. peaks and valleys (Resurrection), I guess. Well, I'm officially done with the Alien property. Yeah, I'll get right on that, Fox.

https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/pa-teacher-suspended-after-jan-6-fired-for-not-working/ I have just watched this development on CNN and I really think this teacher has been badly treated He attended some of the 6 January rallies but he was not involved in violence at all and was 1 mile away from the Capital. He was fired for not coming back to work because he wanted a public apology from the school board, to quote "Speaking to the board Thursday, Moorehead said the board fed the community lies. He said he was never a part of the violence on Jan. 6, but that the school board painted him as an "active participant in the riots." "When the district finally admitted to me privately that I had done nothing wrong and that I could return, they refused to let the community know that I am safe, to alleviate both their fears and my fears about returning," he said. "I'm being fired for refusing to come to a place that is unsafe, a situation you guys created." This is a good example of unfair targeting of Conservatives in the US. A person should be able to attend a rally without being vilified and slandered by the radical left @Hurlshot Im sure you going to be equally upset by this, imagine how you would feel if someone started a rumor at your school, that was believed, that when you go to Vegas you indulge in drug and hooker parties? The school board should have publicly clarified that he was not involved in any criminality on 6 January Culture Wars strikes again

Actually we just don't have any infos on both Avowed and TOW2, and while Grounded and Pentiment are interesting (curious about the reactivity of Pentiment) I think it is strange that we don't know anything about the works of the majority of the studio. But if they need time they take it, I think this is a much healthier situation than crunch or anything else.

Just so you know OW1 (80 staff?) was a bigger project then PoE2 (40 staff?), and both Avowed and OuterWorlds2 are bigger then OW1 (Avowed cenrtainly, not sure about OW2). 3D RPG will always be far more ambitious then retro isometric one. Obsidian has gained a lot of new staff after the acquisition, and have Microsoft backing to afford contractors if they need to. This of course might be a challenge in itself, but it is anyones guess how Obsidian is handling things. What makes you feel they give more priority to OW2? All we got for either of the project is a CGI trailer screaming "we have nothing to show", quite literally in case of OW2. Granted, being a sequel OW2 should have an easier start as it has a baseline to build upon. All until recently rumours about Avowed progress have been positive. Of course, that changed recently with no announcement being made, and Schreier's worrying tweet. Even so, it is not uncommon - unlike PoE1&2 Obsidian probably doesn't know exactly what they are making with Avowed so exploration, reboots etc. are to be expected. Some of the better game released had birthing pains, reboots and changes in direction. Change of directors is more worrying to me, as it means that something wasn't quite working out. Let's be honest, after PoE2 underselling this is Obsidian's chance to continue the IP they have created - they better get it right, even if it takes time to do it.

Probably more of interest for those of us who grew up during the cold war...

That is truly grim economic news for Russia. Some of it we know is true, like there financial markets performance, and some its hard to say if it is true But considering the economic consequence of Putins War its not a surprise to hear that things like GDP has collapsed by 40 %

Would just go for a single class Chanter, probably Bellower. Dump dexterity, with high might, perception and intellect you should more or less blow up most fights with a single spell. Not a lot of micromanagement, just get into position and press button to win.

Volume 11 of GLEPNIR I figured we were setting up for a transition, and that proves to be true. I don't know if it'll turn out to be a three act story, but it feels like we just finished the first act.

My issue with the pets is they don't actually have commands to them, nor do they stay in or even near their houses when assigned. Occasionally you can call a pet, but you can't tell it to follow, or stay, or even dismiss it properly. And when you have it in a house, it still wanders wherever it wants and sometimes still randomly appears in a far off location in an attempt to follow you. You have to build an enclosure that it can't jump over, ( so at least a half wall with fence on it) but even that doesn't work sometimes. Would be great if there were more commands as noted above, and even being able to set roam distancing.

https://www.gog.com/game/cdpr_goodies_collection Try clicking this?

They've had a CDPR goodies give away before, maybe it doesn't show up for those who already have it? Or they released it early.. They obviously have something planned as it's their 20th anniversary.

Hi, Below is the link for the internship page but as far as any more details I don't really know. (Didn't get in sadly). Usually, they open up spots during February-ish. https://www.obsidian.net/careers/internships Best of luck! Ethan Ho

Dragonball. Z.

No, we haven’t killed 90% of all plankton.

Haha. I remember Diablo 3 would tell you this, complete with a picture of a sad lonely looking old man (maybe Cain?) ... *google* ... this thing. ...probably became a meme or something.

Yeah, I'm slowly getting through it in co-op, indeed very slowly because one or two sessions a week of 2-3 hours each doesn't get you far. But the design of the campaign feels very perfunctory, I daresay similar to how NWN1's was. And I can't help but feel it's getting worse as the game goes on, my last main story quest feeling like I'm just being guided from room to room and being told to fight whoever is in it. Even any notion of setup has been discarded, the last two questlines I remember simply teleported the party into a small room, the inevitable fight against the villain of the week plus a few random mooks starts after a couple throwaway lines of dialogue, quest ends, onto the next quest. In that context even the dungeon crawling part no longer holds, it's feeling closer to a few amateurishly cobbled together set pieces now. All sense of place has been lost. This may be because I'm fairly close to the end, probably. I think we've got maybe 5 of the 7 gems?

And your steward is now just a nose and part of one cheek; how the hell did she even negotiate that deal?