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This one is pretty hillarious though

We have a saying here in Brazil: "I'll laugh so that I don't cry." Perfect for this. I almost choked drinking coffee with the "democracy" at 0:07. The only thing missing in the video is the Bolsonaro clan's language in social media (the worst in swearing and vulgarity, definitely not what you would expect from a president and congressmen - his sons and nephew) and the fact that the alternative is Lula, who seems to be trying really hard to sabotage himself in this election. He already confessed his corruption, robbing public money and even said that it is ok to beat women, so long as you don't do it at home... This is incredibly accurate and up to date and the data about the Amazon is really sad. Wait a few weeks and you'll hear about the "Brazilian Capitol". I would comment on all the irregularities in the "Car Wash Operation", but you can simply scroll down that page and see the "related" news. It is all there.

I'll see your Rakia and raise you Śliwowica. On second though, maybe not. We don't need the devs passed out next to their desks.

@InsaneCommander this one's for you (fresh off the press a few hours ago)

Went to Tehran. It's war over here, folks! In every major city people are fighting security forces with bare hands. If you guys don't see me here again it probably means I died on the streets fighting some religious nut jobs. The government is on the verge of collapse though. Wish us victory! ✌

literal outside our office window at this moment no respect. HA! Good Fun!

Hahaha, you call it the same way. Plum Rakia is called Šljivovica/Шљивовица, which I imagine is very similar pronunciation to Śliwowica. In Serbian plum is Šljiva, pronounced the same way as in Polish minus the k.

Of course you mean rakia.

is probable a good idea but am avoiding mods. can't give meaningful feedback on bugs if am using mods. for a typical game there would come a time approximate six-months post release when most major bugs had been addressed and at some indefinite point thereafter we would indulge mod use. wotr is a bit different. am assuming is gonna be at least a few months post enhanced edition before am viewing the game is being complete. completeish? complete enough? am gonna repeat once more how given the issues with kingmaker, and in spite o' ongoing bug issues with wotr, am pleasant surprised (relative speaking) by the stability o' wotr. yeah, the game current has numerous frustrating bugs, some o' which has persisted since the beta. however, most o' the major and common game killing bugs were addressed quick enough and while there continues to be a laundry list o' mechanics issues, particular with mounted combat, is nowhere close to the instability we were experiencing with kingmaker. is another reason am moderate disappointed with owlcat at least temp abandoning pathfinder, 'cause while am recognizing their inclusion o' epic for wotr made a follow-up first edition 1e adventure path problematic, owlcat had made great improvements 'tween kingmaker and wotr and if similar improvements were made 'tween wotr and the next pathfinder game, we would no doubt be genuine impressed and satisfied. haven't played the new dlc btw, but the through the ashes release, while highly linear and buggy, implemented numerous alternative quest/obstacle resolution options we saw as an impressive step forward in owlcat's approach to pathfinder gameplay. was looking forward to the next full game to see what owlcat had genuine learned from wotr. too bad. @Gorthread the item descriptions o' your spell caster's belt slot. HA! Good Fun! ps could be wrong, but it appears as if the most recent minor patch changed elemental barrage so it is no longer proc'd by weapon effects. am suspecting for most causal players this would go unnoticed, but for those o' us who were looking for hard and unfair difficulty exploits, this is a major nerf. can't complain too much seeing as how from the power description we never woulda' guessed weapon elemental damage would result in an elemental barrage trigger.

Finished Gears Tactics campaign. According to achievements I have been playing it for almost a year (for total of 32 hours). I really liked the core mechanics - it's a nice spin on XCOM with it's own identity and neat little quirks. What drags it down is lack of variety and development - and I played "Jacked up" version with new enemy variants and extra party member, the original must have been very dull indeed. To explain my issues with the title I need to describe it in a bit. Structure wise it's essencially an XCOM without strategic layer. The main campaign consists of three acts with boss encounter at each one of them, with 6-8 story missions in each chapter and side missions between those. You have pre-made main characters (5 of them, including jack from DLC) and generated soldier. If story character dies it's game over, but random cogs can die like in XCOM. Most main missions require some or all of the story companions - side missions on the other hand force using more of your roster. WIth each act you need to do more sidemissions before proceeding (1 for main chapters, 2 for 2nd chapter 3 for 3rd chapter) and they are not skippable. You also can't use same unit twice - so starting with chapter 2 when side missions come up you can't progress by using your A lister only. My issue is as follows: With main missions requiring specific characters, there is no point of spreading the experience and items around - as such extra side missions become a waste of time. You train extra soldiers not to fill ranks if something goes wrong like in XCOM - you train them so you can send them on more "side missions" which won't contribute much to the power of you key squad. As such extra side missions feel like a complete filler padding space between main missions. Later on those side missions get modifiers and optional objectives, but I found those range from irrelevant to annoying. It doesn't help that missions variety is low. Honestly, the only difference between most of side and main missions is that main mission have some narrative justification and squad requirements - a lot of the time it is very much the same type of mission and map that you would be playing in side mission. I started to get bored in chapter 2 and once I got to chapter 3 wth 3 side missions to do per "story break" the game really started to drag. This repetiteveness could also be leveled at XCOM, especially Vanilla2. But I think GT showed me the value of XCOMs strategic layer - with ability to research and buy stuff between missions even doing a boring missions yelds a reward in XCOM. GT quickly started to feel like final hours of an XCOM campaign - where you have all that you need, and just wait for the game to end. You get experience and gain accessories for you Cogs, and some of the skills items you get can be very fun, but it is a very passive experience - items are randomised so you don't actively pursue anything. You just get stuff after missions. I also felt that classes and enemies had little personal identity - they all were based on the same foundation with a minor variation - I didin't feel like running with different squads or builds, or against different enemies really changed the gameplay. Still, a good solid foundation. Want to see GearsTactics2 in the future. Not a bad game to boot up every few days or weeks and do a mission or two.

They have easier time to get anything but German tanks. Germany's current political atmosphere is such that they don't make any fast arms deliveries, as they go back and forth of arms they already have decided to deliver. Although most EU countries don't tell what aid they give Ukraine and how much and when. I saw in Ukrainians tweeting pictures of hundreds of Finnish made armored personnel carries (XA-180 and XA-185) that I used to drive in Finnish Defense forces and they were equipped with all sort equipment that revealed that they could not have come from anywhere than Finland's arms storages, but officially Finland has not given them to Ukraine.

I think it has something to do with the forum. I didn't put that many hours into any game before as I did with PoE and Deadfire - and I played more when I was young, you know, Pools of Radiance, Eye of the Beholder, Baldurs Gate, Icewind Dale and also Monkey Island, Indiana Jones, Day of the Tentacle, Roger Wilco and all that stuff. Many, many hours, too - just not that focused on one or two games alone. And always together with at least one friend, sitting on front of one computer. Almost never alone. Then I had a sick Diablo II phase during my time at the university (again with friends and cousins and stuff, doing LAN parties and whatnot) and years after that I (this time alone) played the heck out of FTL while I enjoyed parental leave and the child turned out to be some hibernating species (at least during the first months) - but the hours I put into those and the timespan over which I would return to the games over and over again weren't even close to the Pillars games. I think if you're a bit more involved in this forum and users constentinely (höhö) come up with new tricks and cool findings - or even cool themes and character concepts - or if you just get inspired by some stories or brainstorms - that brings you back to the game all the time - I mean if you like it in general. Without talking about the two game so much (here) I seriously doubt that I would have put so many hours in. A bit like what's going on with multiplayer games I suppose, just more decoupled. Since I don't like multiplayer games much (or better: the interaction between players in multiplayer games) this seems to be the best (or worst?) amalgamation of playing and interacting with other players for my dinosaur brain.

am knowing this is getting repetitive, but... Dearie asks Trump lawyers whether they believe FBI lied about seized documents title o' linked article is misleading 'cause what judge asks for is proof from trump that the fbi did shiesty & shady when conducting their warrant search o' mar-a-lago. ... am admitted moderate annoyed with the vast majority o' tv lawyers regarding this special master nonsense and their observations o' the ruling by judge cannon. we spent a couple weeks listening to responsible attorneys explain the issues related to the trump search and the subsequent request for a special master as part o' team trump's 41(g) motion. how many times did we hear that while they disagreed with her, perhaps judge cannon was being cautious and affording the ex-President the benefit of the doubt given the unique and highly publicized circumstances. pundits focused on irrelevancies and embraced the nonsense. made us moderate annoyed. #$%@ this current exercise in stoopid with regard to a special master all stems from a 41(g) motion by trump, a motion which we has repeated observed is a CIVIL action with trump as plaintiff. there is no f'ing benefit o' the doubt in favour o' a plaintiff in civil 41(g) motion. judge cannon making arguments for trump which team trump did not make as well as assuming some kinda possibility o' nefarious activity by the fbi is so freaking opposite o' the manner in which every other 41(g) motion ever has been adjudicated that we were having a difficult time believing any district judge woulda' served up such a steaming plate o' _________ with the expectation the doj would swallow. judge dearie, the special master, isn't doing anything particular surprising by demanding trump to prove documents is classified and demanding evidence o' fbi malfeasance not to mention requesting answers to obvious threshold questions such as why has a special need for items seized. it may appear as if judge dearie is being uncompromising but truth is he is doing exact as one woulda expected o' judge cannon if she had been doing her job. the obvious flaws with judge cannon's special master ruling were jaw drop levels beyond the realm o' plausible, relying on no relevant precedent, reversing burden o' proof and ignoring fact that trump had never offered any explanation as to why documents classified were in fact his property or presenting a reason why he had a special need for their expedited return. but again, we need remind persons how we are in fact opining 'bout a civil conflict 'tween trump and the doj. not criminal. if the doj decides to indict, then they need prove guilt o' the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt, and they is quite possible gonna be attempting to prove trump were guilty o' crimes under the espionage act, one o' the more maligned bits o' law existing on the fed books... although admitted the law is criticized for reasons not related to trump's willful withholding o' documents. is quite possible many on this board already see trump as an obvious wrongdoer and there is no way any honest court in the land would find trump anything but guilty. is a bad starting point. likely setting self up for disappointment. reality is the doj faces a difficult task particularly as you are gonna be hard-pressed to find an american jury w/o at least one or two persons as certain o' trump's innocence as many here are o' his guilt. temper expectations and remind self the most important part o' the mar-a-lago warrant search were separating confidential, secret and top secret documents from an ex-President with questionable security motivations. as 'posed to the doj successful prosecuting trump, am personal more concerned with the possibility trump has similar stashes o' documents elsewhere or that he has already shared state secrets with country club guests either ignorant o' the possible damage or even knowing full well what wrongs he is causing. oh, and put trump in prison does not end the damage he might do, not by a long shot. if jan 6 didn't prove to you that trump will watch everything burn as some calculated effort to save his own copious arse or just outta spite, then am not certain anything will. HA! Good Fun! ps alan dershowitz tried similar special master 41(g) nonsense on behalf o' mike lindell to say the judge, a trump appointee, were less than gentle with the plaintiffs is describing in mild terms. took less than 5 whole pages to utter emasculate team lindell. a few favorite passages with our emphasis added to direct attention: Though Plaintiffs cite Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(g) as the basis for their motion, Plaintiffs do not discuss the Rule or cite any authority that might explain why the cellphone’s return is appropriate under the Rule. To be clear, Plaintiffs cite Rule 41(g) in their Motion and in the caption and introductory paragraph of their Memorandum. But that’s it. ... Absent an obvious answer that Rule 41(g) requires the cellphone’s return, it would be a stretch to grant relief on the basis of this rule when the moving parties nowhere explain how the Rule’s procedural framework and substantive standards support the request. ... (3) Whether Rule 41(g) requires the cellphone’s return is not obvious, and that’s understating things. ... Far wiser to hear from Defendants (and Plaintiffs) regarding these and other potentially relevant factual and legal questions before deciding any aspect of Plaintiffs’ motion. ... Plaintiffs’ Motion [ECF No. 9] is DENIED ... *chuckle* might not be obvious, but the "and Plaintiffs," comment is the equivalent o' a backhand slap. now keep in mind, the phone seized by law enforcement in question is in fact mike lindell's, so is a smidge different than the classified docs from mar-a-lago, but more significant, dershowitz and his clown car team were requesting relief ex parte, meaning they were trying to pull off this sleight o' hand w/o any input from the doj and what would appear an intentional effort to avoid doj participation. at least with mar-a-lago the doj were present to explain why what were being demanded were... stoopid. took cojones the size o' church bells for alan to request 41(g) relief ex parte, and am s'posing if the 11th circuit had ruled different then maybe dershowitz would look like a genius today 'stead o' nevertheless, am recognizing how if the 11th circuit did the improbable (but no more unlikely than cannon's silliness) and effective rewrote 41(g), then alan maybe gets his special master, so perhaps were worth the effort. regardless, is a good day for those who like to watch maga lawyers being ridiculed by judges. HA! Good Fun!

Yeah, I can totally see @Zoraptor trying JoJo's or being assaulted with Sailor Moon gifs. That'll be very, ah, convincing. Or like watching an ecchi parody without any frame of reference!

@Zoraptor Wrong thread. Join us, join us, join us.

What a interesting coincidence. As soon, as I have read the Darkpriest post, the YT noticed me, that the Austrian Army just made a video whcih speaks also about articles like the ones, he mentions in his posts

With any luck, vodka.

You can do both of course. But as I said : when I build around Driving Roar the Barb becomes a ranged character mostly and then Retaliation doesn't add a lot of value.

Double down and post it in another thread.

the pariah by anthony ryan.another fantasy book with extremely pointless revenge plot bland medieval setting and useless character.skillfully put together but still boring and forgettable.all attempt for reader to care fail when writer make the same mistake so many mordern fantasy novel make when main character are forced to join the evil army and doesn't focus the story on escape

@Chilloutman Imoen gets access to 9th level arcane spells and HLAs at 3,000,000 XP plus the 40,000 XP that went into her 7 levels of Thief; Aerie will instead take double that at 6,000,000 due to her XP being split between mage and cleric. That's a pretty significant issue if you need the arcane firepower; cleric spells can be nice and all, but being able to get Improved Alacrity and Time Stop at the end of SoA (and certainly for much of ToB) is probably nicer. Though mage-cleric is probably the best multi-class available, dual classes tend to...er, outclass multi-classes pretty heavily simply due to the economy of XP and the fact that a mere 40,000 spent on Imoen's thief levels ultimately amounts to practically nothing. Edwin, on the other hand...yeah, okay. Single-class Conjurer (by far the best kit for the additional spell slot per spellcasting level) combined with his absurd necklace (which gives him an additional two more spell slots per spellcasting level!) makes that a bit of a no contest. @majestic There are some other edge cases for different kits - for example, Invokers pair great with a sorcerer that takes the best and oft-repeated AoE enchantment spells (i.e. Sleep, Confusion, Chaos, Greater Malison, Emotion: Hopelessness). But yes, Conjurers are definitely the "power gamer" pick due to Detect Invisibility/True Seeing really being the only halfway important Divination spells.

Not taking Imoen with you and using Viconia over Anomen (instead of taking neither, thank you very much) is all fine, but it is a bit strange coming from someone who claims he values combat effectiveness over everything else. That's clearly not the case. Hexxat and Edwin, Jan and Edwin, or the silly combination of Hexxat and Jan, neither of those are as good as picking Edwin and Imoen, Jan or Imoen or, eh, Imoen and Neera. Edwin has the advantage of having more spells than any other mage and being the only specialist mage kit worth a damn* because divination is, outside of True Sight, a right worthless spell category (also solved by having Imoen around), but he also comes with a slight disadvantage - he can't equip the Amulet of Power. Edwin's advantage in spell slots per day becomes less and less impactful the longer the game goes on. It is arguably at its greatest in BG1. With the Robe of Vecna and the Amulet of Power you can get many worthwhile spells to a 0 cast time. With auto-pause on spell cast and Improved Alacrity, that allows for some rather cataclystic spellcasting action. *Esoteric special cases like doing a low level Enchanter/Cleric dual class for the bonus to enchantment spells nonwithstanding. That's... hardly worth it, though, but it is possible. Stupid discussion roped me back in. Sigh.

Oscar nominated short film now free on youtube.

Ahahhh! A recent acquisition indeed (it was driving me crazy). Thank you

My first Impulse would also be Stalker. But on the other hand I would build a pretty offensive character and might not need the AR and deflection bonus a lot. And Stalker somewhat does hinder mobility: using Evasive Roll will most likely give you Grief bc. >4m away from your animal companion - unless you are willing to pay for Master's Call (both at level up and in Bond). But mobility is important if you are often one-shooting weaker enemies who might be scattered across the battlefield. If you want to shock the enemies' backline with such a Monk/Ranger it's difficult to bring your AC to the backline as well, especially if it's a big one like the Bear (unless you use Master's/Furious Call at some point where it might be a cool combo to evade behind enemy lines and then play homing bowling ball with the AC). So this makes me reconsider Ghost Heart again. You can summon the ac right behind the enemies you want to attack and losing the ac is no big deal. But I really, really don't like that you can't combine summons + AC. I guess Sharpshooter's passive doesn't work with the important weapon enchantments. If not then vanilla Ranger seems like a reasonable option this time?

Ukraine is focusing on getting western tanks. Strange priority given the circumstances. They must be desperate to break that political limitation on armaments. If Russian mobilization can't get them at least Leopard 1s they are in serious trouble.

He can beat me fair and square if he can manage to. I suck at the game, it's just hat he sucks more right now. I don't practice without him, that's about as much of a handicap as I am willing to give myself right now. As for the ongoing BG2 discussion:

I rolled a High Elf Brawler, but couldn't get over the punching people for 90,000 damage in the intro. I might go with a hobbit brawler instead. I already have a level 50 Stout Axe Dwarf, so I don't really feel like leveling another dwarf. Also the new Legendary Items system took me awhile to figure out. I was struggling with some fights and someone had to explain the whole process for upgrading my gear to me. But I spent an evening working on it and now I'm a lot more successful.

I have 10 days until my Tour de Cure 100-mile ride. Training has gone very well, so I'm hoping to have a solid ride and keep it under 6 hours. I'm a bit short of my fundraising goal, so if anyone wants to support me, you can help out here: http://main.diabetes.org/goto/patrickwalters Thanks!

Ha! i know how you feel. It is my common dilemma - going all the way to rescue poor Imoen only to say: “Sorry, my party is full”. I am sure Copper Inn must be at least somewhat more comfortable than Spellhold.

With the new patch that opens up more class/race combos I just rolled a High Elf Burglar and am going to slowly take him through the game. I'll see how far I get before WOTR EE drops

https://asiatimes.com/2022/09/ukraine-the-situation-september-22/ 300,000 reserves coming up just as I predicted and nukes on the table. I'd say 300,000 stated publicly could translate to 600,000 in actuality. My advice to NATO: Let Russia and Ukraine deal with the war alone, strengthen NATO borders and keep it contained. I do not want a nuke dropping on my head because the West has some weird 1000 year old civilizational hatred towards Russia. This is getting dumber and dumber and crazier and crazier real quickly.

Since you cannot stack conversion to 100% but can stack accuracy so that 100% of rolls become crits I think bonus ACC is preferrable to bonus conversion. Mob cleaning is easy if you only need one strike to kill each mob member... Also: Raised Torment?

Kinda gave up halfway through. I tried stitching something better together from the extra images. I added a little orange fire glow to the left ship's mast (only non-AI thing) and moved a couple things around, and besides that this is 100% AI images Full Resolution

Lord of the Rings Online - My Captain of Men is level 102 and hanging out in Central Gondor. I am a bit lost about my equipment, traits, etc., but I can still hold my own in a regular fight. I'm hoping to work my way towards Mordor this go around.

Hubby: I have to go to LA with (name) Thurs/weekend (work) Me: Send me a text when you land/get to the hotel. Hubby: Not from the air? Me: Landing is what matters. Hubby: So if we're going down, I shouldn't send one? Me: *punches*

I haven't played a ton of Civilization, but I didn't like them they become too important to accelerating early game progression. Getting additional units or random free techs/resources are so important to making sure that you start faster than you otherwise would, that if you fail to get a good amount and of the optimal types, it kind of feels like you've failed the early game. Just turning them off means you don't have to worry about it at all and that it's a bit more fair: the peace of mind in not having to obsess over too much random stuff mostly out of your control is worth it. I realized how extreme it was when I got a number of particularly good ones and accelerated progression so much that the game was effectively decided in the first era due to an overwhelming advantage that the AI wouldn't have ever been able to make up. I don't think Civilization does great at giving a sense of verisimilitude in the first place (which is why I've never been able to play it too much - playing a simulation game where it feels like everything about it is randomly generated makes everything I do feel meaningless), but it's that much worse when it feels like I've already won (or lost!) because of silly RNG stuff like that right at the start. Unsurprisingly, I'm much more of an Europa Universalis 4 kind of guy than Civilization...but Paradox pretty much ruined that game for me by making a million expansions that added so many unnecessary mechanics that don't really fit or feel good together that I can't really play it anymore. It's probably just as well anyways.

They're probably just a bit too swingy and therefore have a bit of an undue balance on how a particular game plays out. Particularly true when trying to learn good, reliable early game strategies.

There was some other Haer'Dalis content that was also cut. There is a mod called Unfinished Business that restores some of this; one notable incident is the murder of Acton Balthis that Haer'Dalis becomes accused of. The romance, however, is not restored in this mod -- perhaps the material has not been made available and cannot be restored from the game files themselves. (At least some of the Suna Seni material can also be restored, but not the romance itself, btw.) Also, I find it really interesting that of all the NPCs you can recruit, Haer'Dalis is the one that gives you the most direct hints about Yoshimo. Being an actor and all, he's pretty perceptive. As for the Anomen thing, I think it's quite nice how Anomen and Mazzy approach their ideals of chivalry and greatness from the opposite directions: Mazzy from a position of sincere goodness, Anomen from a position of insufficiency, as a compensatory measure / reaction. The results are precisely what you would expect: Mazzy is dependable and forthright, Anomen is an utter príck. (It's been a long time since I've played the game, so I may have misremembered parts of their backstories, but this was the sense I got when playing. I wonder if this juxtaposition was deliberate.)

Seelah's single (and not interested), orc paladin's married to a NPC spymaster lady. And to answer your question, why yes, they all do. BG2's crew of misfits sometimes feel like a department of accounting next to these guys, and speaking of that, I don't buy for a minute Annoymen was a success within its target audience unless target audience does not mean women, because mother****er is the proto nice guy. I used him in my last playthrough since he is good at what he does, my female Charname was dismissive with him all the time, and I still got roped into romance. Also, hands of xenophobe Ashley. She's like Wrex, but human female. She's great and I love her.