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Lovecraft's Untold Stories on give away: GOG.com

That's true, but in this role it directly competes with Driving Echoes, which boosts all forms of pen, not only melee attacks.

Toxic Strike's description is obscure : The rogue aims for a vital area, Weakening the target. (Toxic Strike) - Also causes a Corrode damage over time effect that builds in potency the longer it remains active. That mean the DoT cause another Tick that is builded in fonction to the previous Tick (caused by the DoT), more clearly : There was 8 Ticks before I took the screenshot, after the initial hit: Toxic Strike hit > 4/9 > 4/13 >4/17 > 4/21 > 4/25 > 4/29 > 4/33 > 4/37 (screen, after 24s). I never realized that before, it is really strong. When the effect is going to fade, another Toxic Strike refresh the duration, but not the Tick-account. So after 1 min ingame, the second Tick should be ,in this situatiion, 85! and the total damage done by the DoT is 1020! After 2min, the total amount from DoT damages is 3640. Because the DoT is corrode, PEN bonus or AR malus can help a lot. I think most of players know already that, but for others they think Toxic Strike cause a simple DoT (like me before now) that can be an useful topic.

I named Seelah's horse Iomeneigh.

So far I have found this news: Ukrainian General Valerii Zaluzhnyi has confirmend one liberated village near the Inhulets river bridgehead. CNN, at the end of the "full conversation, you can find link to their article: Russian RIA Novosti has informed, that people are evacuating from workplaces into shelters in Nova Kakhovka. And the spokeperson of Ukrainian army has confirmed, that UA has launched offnesive on several directions in Southern Ukraine. https://t.me/hromadske_ua/24348 And here is the article in Ukrainskaya Pravda about the breakhtrough mentioned in my previous post, but their sources confirmed it only at some places: https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/08/29/7365196/ EDIT: And personal opinion of one of the war correspondents from Kyiv Independent:

Got myself a new bicycle. Now I just need a pump to inflate the tires! I haven't had a car since I lived in Denmark and no plans to get one. I will get a motorcycle again at some point. For now I need something to help me get around locally. When I moved in late March, I lost access to a nearby gym when moving and the closest 24/7 gyms here are a 30 minute walk away. Just too much time spending a full hour in the evenings getting there and back again. And I do miss visiting a gym a few times week. Not because I like gyms, but I like the results of visiting them. I need to beat some shape into this frail old body, as I can already feel it deteriorating, getting soft and flabby (it's 6 months since I stopped in the old gym now).

Polish double smoked kielbasa: So delicious. I love heavily smoked meats and this is most certainly heavily smoked.

I just tested an SC Cipher who casts Reaping Knives on an Assassin/Paladin after that guy started a fight with a Gouging Strike from stealth using Lover's Embrace and followed up with Brand Enemy. If you deliver those 3 endless DoTs with that combo to a boss at the start of a fight the Cipher will get ~4.2 focus per sec (on top of his normal focus generation and on top of the additional hits the Assassin/Paladin will do) - for the rest of the fight against that boss - as long as the Assassin/Paladin has Reaping Knives (doesn't matter if they disappear and you recast - the focus gain from DoTs will simply resume then). That is pretty cool in those very long fights in which the usual "Soul-Whip Cipher" sometimes struggles. I guess it pays off to invest the 80 focus then. With 40 secs of Reaping knives you should roughly gain 160 focus that way for a cost of 80. This even partially works against superdefensive enemies like Belranga. Should you miss the Dagger attack - Brand Enemy is an auto-hit. It's then only 5 focus/ 3 secs for the rest of the fight - but better than nothing for a focus-starved cipher. But then one has to ask if the 80 focus for Reaping Knives is worth it and not better spend on something else.

Two Wednesdays ago, while driving back from a delivery in Union, SC, I got stopped for an inspection at the weigh station near King's Mountain, NC. No problem, the level 2 inspection was clean and that means money in my pocket as my company pays me $25 for a clean level 2 inspection and $50 for a clean level 3 inspection. It's not cash, it's a gift card to Walmart, but that's just as good as cash in my case, as I have a Walmart 5 minutes from where I live that I frequent. Today I was driving back from a trailer move to Spartanburg, SC and I got stopped for an inspection at the same weigh station. In fact, it was the same officer that inspected me last time. I told him "you inspected me less than 2 weeks ago, but I'm happy as a clam to get inspected again." His reply was "your face does look familiar." Anyway, he inspected me again and it was another clean level 2. When I got back to the terminal I collected another gift card from my terminal manager. We were shooting the $#!+ and as I was getting ready to leave I told him that with any luck I'd be back for a 3rd gift card on Thursday. He though for a second then said "that's right, you're going to Union and right past that same weigh station on the way back." Fingers crossed.

i think this theory keeps getting support every time Josh Sawyer has to tell someone that Deadfire is not a "pirate game."

Big news from Kherson Oblast. So far only mention by a Czech journalist on his Facebook, but I will post any credible link as soon as I find it: "Ukrainians broke through the Russian first line of defense near Kherson a few minutes ago. From the pieces of messages you can guess that it is definitely not a small thing. - Ukrainians have hit several Russian bases, rallies and supply routes since morning (N. Kakhovka, kherson, Beryslav... ). - They also hit several bridges at the same time and destroyed one, including a Russian column. - The Kherson Occupation Administration called on the city residents this morning to build supplies and prepare shelters. - For the first time ever, Ukrainians used HIMARS at night to hit the front line, instead of firing at the tile. - Now the Ukrainians made a large combined strike (airforce, artillery, tanks and infantry) on the front line of defense on the Kherson front. - As a result of the strike, part of the Russian defense line collapsed, 109. a regiment of Donetsk separatists, which defended the section, left their positions and the Russian VDV, who were supposed to support the defense allegedly fled the battlefield. - on Kherson and N. More and more explosions continue in Kakhovke."

A Horse on a Hot Tin Roof... no, I don't really know how Seelah got her horse up on the roof top

And this is a point that I can get behind - because you don't need to buy or even experience the game first (--> sale) in order to see something that repels you. Seeing a setting, genre or art style that you don't like will most likely prevent you from buying (--> no sale) and would also prevent you from writing any review about it (--> no bad influence on reviews). Same goes for lack of marketing/flying under the radar bc. of different reasons (unknown IP, too little budget, bad marketing decisions, smaller crowdfunding platform etc.). In order to be able to logically explain the drop of sales one must focus on arguments that take into account that PoE sold well, reviews were good and that similar games with even worse reviews did well, too. Most other reasons brought forth (too much text, graphics, story, bugs, game mechanics whatever) need you to buy or at least play the game and that would not only NOT mean that sales would drop but also that reviews or both PoE and Deadfire would be worse (they are good and ratings by users and critics almost similar). Then several of those reasons would also lead to similar games having bad sales - which did not happen. Also, if those latter points (wall of text, graphics, story, bugs etc.) were the reason for dropping sales then how would one explain that Deadfire did break even and then even made a good profit in the long run? It has a very long tail for a video game these days - but those points above didn't change a bit. So did the potential players all change their mind about those issues at some point? Unlikely... More likely imo that potential players only slowly discovered that game they previously didn't know about. Or potential buyers thought they wouldn't like that game bc. of superfical reasons (such as apparent setting, style etc.) but bought it way later after seeing and hearing more about it and it turned out to be cool. So those are my argumets (again, written down like for the fifth time or so) and I think in terms of logic, probability and simplicity (also see Occam's Razor) they make pretty good sense on their own - while some other arguments need several secodary conditions (e.g. "they didn't buy the game but saw it in streams") to explain why they would lead to a massive sales drop while reviews stay good and sales are slow but didn't stop until the intitially bombed game turned into a profitable one.

You do that. Beasties are no nonsense useful and powerful in this game.

This is anecdotal, but the setting of Deadfire did not appeal to my group of friends. Magic on the high seas is a cool concept, but to base an entire game around the setting might have been a bit much. Maybe people need to feel grounded to something more traditional if the IP is unfamiliar? It's a shame because it's a beautiful game.

I kind of took a break from life and spent the weekend playing the new Saints Row game. Once you got past the initial glitches and the day one patch and hotfix, it's not a bad game. It's tone runs somewhere just a little past Saints Row 2 rather than closer to Saints Row 3. The trouble being that when it's running as it's meant to it's a competent game, rather than anything fresh or new. It's got a decent open world design, some lush visuals and ambience. The empire building is an interesting idea, but fails to take off or rather be used in any meaningful way - it's like they've partially used it as an excuse to shove in a batch of mini-game / repeatable shallow side-quests rather than really make it interesting. Some of which are interesting, others not so much. And some you really have to question why they had you do it 14 times in a row. Perks linked to challenges is nice enough, but the skills are fairly terrible to use and pretty forgettable. The melee is like all Saints Row, fairly atrocious, and the shooting is that standard run and gun and have fun. The writing lays some good foundations, but they don't manage to develop a lot of it with what they've done. The principle companion figures are interesting and have some minor development, provide a couple of good emotional beats, but again fail to really be developed beyond the basics or one note points. Some slightly silly missions that then turn around and have some impactful emotional connections related to their backstory once you know it. And then it moves on with nary a mention or anything built on that. The main sequence of storyline is fairly short and again, in part it feels like the framework is being developed for something later. Whether that's future DLC or the next game in the franchise. So in principle, if you don't have to deal with too many of the tech glitches, it's a decent game without too many memorable points, that you should be able to enjoy if you like that sort of stuff. There's nothing that fresh about the gameplay or structure to make it stand out. But there is entertainment to be found.

Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022) Somehow, George Miller has followed up the excellent Mad Max: Fury Road with a romance film that feels....reserved for a spexial effects heavy film about a Genie Djinn. It's very good, Tilda Swinton is great in almost anything she does and Idris Elba nails the djinn. The special effects are have a surreal effect to them that really makes the fairy tale aspect of the film work beautifully. I'm not sure how to say more without spoilers, but I highly recommend it.

Huh, I just had a Reuben last night for the first time in YEARS. It was delicious.

They were going to make sequels but their faces got tired... *crickets* I'll show myself out.

well, that would be new. admitted we haven't played wotr for a couple months, but we often have sosiel with one level o' crossblood sorc and the water + dragon bloodlines to convert elemental spells to ice and then benefit from increased ice damage. there is armour in the game which boosts elemental damage and a shield which boosts cold damage, so while it sounds odd, having sosiel casting cold-based stormbolts is kinda a thing. we took ascendent element: cold and it always worked. scrolls shouldn't prevent ascendent element from working. a witch learning from scrolls sounds like a bug. HA! Good Fun!

I checked the requirements for Azata and Gold Dragon. And I learned how to recruit earlier a certain female companion on the way. I think I'll be all right. In fact, I'm already "drawing my power from freedom" or something like that.

I'm not a fan of Aliens but Top Gun: Maverick was worse.

Psychic/Brutal Backlash. It messes up trying to take on Sigilmaster Auranic. The infinite range effects of the sigils will cause you to ineffectively retaliate against the terror one iirc, which will defeat any attempt at staying stealthed or de-aggroed while you try to take a breather. I had a cipher that had the backlash and had to end up rotating them out for a level 19 merc for auranic.

fyi, is perhaps not important, but you mentioned lost chapel and share an image with foot-o-the-cliff at lost chapel, but we didn't see mention o' a noteworthy denizen o' lost chapel. is not as if you need mention all aspects o' lost chapel, but absence were noteworthy. spoiler: HA! Good Fun!

My wife makes sausage gravy too; ground sausage, flour and milk, iirc. Salt and pepper to taste.

I make my own sausage gravy, it's quick and easy. I've never cared much for rye.

Can't see them taking liberties with things like who ends up on the throne. Not after all the distancing they've done from the B&W approach of the last few seasons of GoT and how GRRM is intimately involved in this one etc. Some of that is definitely marketing for the people who hated GoT's later seasons, but end of the day they've gone out of their way to say it's in 'book continuity', and book continuity can't really have a... Blackadder season 1* type scenario of inserting a Richard IV between Richard III and Henry VII and be book continuity. Far more likely to be an 'I, Claudius' or 'White Queen' type scenario where the 'historical' facts are used as a backdrop for fleshing out the drama, but the end results are 'historical'. *not that Blackadder is a serious historical drama, but Richard IV is the most obvious inspiration for Robert Baratheon there is, far more so than historical Edward IV. Despite the great job Mark Addy did it will always be a shame the world was deprived of Brian Blessed enthusiastically shouting 'Rumpy Pumpy' or similar at Ned Stark

The Targaryens - and any family in old Valyria, if I recall correctly - had equal primogeniture, the Seven Kingdoms did not. When the Old King's (i.e. Jaehaerys I) firstborn died, he, for whatever reason, picked his fourth child (Prince Baelon) as successor, passing over Prince Aemon's daughter Rhaenys (who is now married to token black guy) who would logically be the next in line as direct offspring of the deceased heir apparent. The other male child of Jaehaerys (Vaegon) was a maester, and had forsaken any claims to land and titles. When Baelon unexpectedly died, the Seven Kingdoms were gearing up for a war of succession, hence Jaehaerys calling in the Great Council of 101 AC to pick a successor in some form that will prevent a civil war. With the Lords of the Seven Kingdoms, the Maesters and the Faith deciding, Rhaenys was ruled out, as was her daughter and her son, who at the time was only seven years old, while Viserys was of age and had already fathered a child. The rules were clearly in place before that. The problem here is - and the problem that will still exist in the future - is that Westeros isn't much into letting women rule because by tradition only male heirs are considered for succession. If you put one and one together now, you'll arrive at the plot of the show. Plot twist: edit: All spoilers holding true only if the showrunners don't take liberties with the source material, obviously.

Weigh stations are there to make sure that commercial vehicles are obeying the states' weight restrictions, namely bridge laws. Commercial vehicle inspections, often referred to as "roadside inspections" can occur anywhere (hence "roadside"), but are often conducted at weigh stations where everyone involved is safely away from highway traffic. A level 2 inspection is a simple walkaround where the officer quickly inspects your tires, brakes, lights, and keeps an eye out for obvious issues. Also your paperwork is checked. A level 3 inspection is much more thorough. It involves everything in a level 2 plus opening the engine compartment, going under the truck and trailer, and is much more time consuming.

Yes, Current's Rush in offhand is insane if you use Whirling Strikes. Brought it to SSS and instantly wiped many encounters even on upscaled PotD; the more enemies there are the more likely you wipe them out instantly.

You need really high intellect and/or PL for Reaping Knives to actually break even. Base duration is 30 seconds and you need 16 hits to break even. Depending on armor/dexterity you can really only reasonably expect one attack per 3 seconds, and I don't believe you get focus if you swing and miss. So, if you have a 90% chance to land your attack, you'd need ~50 second duration on Reaping Knives for it to break even. IMO actually using it to generate focus is only viable on a Psion who can just stack PL at the expense of having decent auto-attack that other ciphers require. Namely a Nature Godlike Psion holding Lance of the Midwood Stag affected by Woodskin and Acute and/or food that gives +1 PL can reliably reach PL 14 not counting resting bonus stacking bugs. Even then with ~20 intellect you can just barely reach a 60 second duration on your Reaping Knives, i.e. a net profit of maybe 20ish focus depending on attack speed and hit chance. Or, you can be an Ascendant and not care about the focus cost. It's rather fun to build an entire party around Reaping Knives spam. On the other hand if the ability worked as it stated it would potentially be very powerful, perhaps too powerful. A rogue multiclass can easily hit for upwards of 50 per swing while spamming Crippling Strike (30 focus per use). It would quickly lead to a positive feedback loop where you can spam Brilliant and Reaping Knives on Swashbuckler Eder and he would just alternately spam Crippling Strike and Mule Kick (i.e. with one attack per 3 seconds, no net resource usage if Brilliant is active).

true Whirling Strikes is pretty good, especially with AoE weapons. Iirc you can even trick a mortar into the full attack (use one melee weapon like Keeper of the Flame and Fire in the Hole+Chain Shot in the offhand) which then also works with Driving Flight, doing a ton of attack rolls on everybody around. Twinned Shot (+Driving Flight) is nice if you really want to proc something that has a rel. low chance - like the AoE of Current's Rush or Ondra's Wrath from Watershaper's Focus. Those are fun but expensive - and imo not enough to pick an SC Ranger. Only exception for me is SC Arcane Archer (with Cmmunity Patch that fixes the PEN issues of the imbue shots): up to three Death Rings per shot (initial hit, 1st bounce from Watershaper's Focus or Fire in the Hole, 2nd bounce from Driving Flight) is fun and pretty dang good. It is friendly fire and destroys enemies who are near death. SInce you are triggering up to three instances that destruction happens pretty often because 2 instaces already bring a lot of enemies near death while the third one then destroys them. Too bad SC Ragers can't pick Spirit of Decay...

25 years ago, a stellar sci-fi show saved a broken franchise — and changed TV history (inverse.com) A nice little wander back on SG-1...

In the resp. year of release PoE sold +500K copies while Deadfire only sold +100K. I don't know the long term sales numbers though. I only read (mostly Twitter-) messages of Josh and some other devs who reported the break-even point of Deadfire and then somewhat later said that it made a profit in the long run. But one can imagine that it's a big disappointment if a sequel (initially) sells a fifth of the copies of the original game.

At least for me, the current version of the game gave endless free respecs for my companions, although it's only supposed to give a few free ones.

DeepWounds only take into the account the Pierce or Slash or Crush damages done, but the poor damage that provoc (20% of 5% of total damage calculated without lash) is arroundish so the wounds have not decimale. Because of that, a simple attack from Kitchen Stove (everything and nothing) give 12 Depwounds : When the Deepwounds's duration is over, that proc all DW in the same time (instead of 1 tick>1 damage), in this case 10 +2 (from previous tick). Without Everything and Nothing, at maximum 4+2. Rapported to the initial damage of the attack, it is not 20% damage over time but more like 50% (I attacked for 24 initial damages). It is not really relevant with Drake's Legacy DW but this weapon give more damages, so and the 5% and the 20% of 5% can increase the DPS. And yes, it is cool when paired with Reaping Knives, but the topic is more about Rogue DPS !

@Gromnir: There's a hilarious video of Billy Joel losing his rag in Moscow. I wonder if you've seen it. Good songwriter, no question.

More users are still on Windows 7 than are using Windows 11. I'd like to think they will get this fixed, and I would have hoped it would have been fixed by now.

Corned beef with cabbage and mashed potatoes.

'Star Trek' Icon Nichelle Nichols' Ashes Going to Deep Space on Vulcan Rocket (tmz.com)

Newly Discovered Molecule Fights Off Over 300 Kinds of Drug-Resistant Bacteria : ScienceAlert