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Finished Solasta's Lost Valley DLC. What the base game did well (5e combat) the DLC does better - more variety, more fun encounter a bit more challenge and ability to run into high level enemies. I thought original's campaign decision to be fairly linear was a good direction to take considering the scope of the game. More open nature of the DLC was a bit of the mess. Narrative side of the title is still rather weak, so I can't say I had any particular feelings about the factions and without linearity I struggled to remember what am I doing and why. Completing quest became more of a checking of boxes exercised. I made lady with a pettable wolf happy, so that's all I cared about in the end. It also became abundabtly clear that even limited non-linearity of the DLC was beyond the capabilities of the studio. By the end of the game the campaign barely held together. Turns out I did final mission without realising, and was stuck babysitting a critical NPC for a solid couple hours of gametime as I was tying up loose ends. On top of that after completing their chain quests two other factions sent me to the same final dungeon, which made things a bit awkward. The ending was rather anti-climactic, but maybe it was my fault for choosing a fairly pacifit route. Convincing baddy to not fight us was even more lame than in ME1. Especially disappointed as I did a bit of grinding to get to max level, and was finally able to craft some nice weapons - that I never got a chance to try out outside couple random encounters. To top it off, ending slides didn't get my choices right, though it is hardly surprised considering how much the game struggled to keep up with what is happening by the end of it. I do hope the final story DLC will be a bit more coherent.

Gorth, are there any animes that you've tried which you just didn't much care for? I know that the chances of me liking something you're enjoying are not particularly high, but I figure that we might be able to find some common ground if I try something you didn't like and would actively recommend against. If we can't enjoy something together, I think we should at least hate something together.

Yes, this. In Bakhmut it is inevitable that eventually the Russians will capture what is effectively a big pile of rubble with no population, for no other reason than because they have commited such a huge percentage of their available forces to this one battle and have overwhelming numerical superiority over the defenders. The real, meaningful battle is yet to come, when the Ukrainians launch their offensive in the south, and we will get to see if the Russians have enough capable forces left to hold their frontlines.

Also, if you don't pre-order, Putin wins.

Yes! Then I'll finally be able to post this meme: @Gorth Ok, you convinced me to give Tomo-Chan is Girl a try. As soon as I have some time, which will probably be on the weekend.

Speaking of Vuhledar, few notes about russian february offensive And apparently, UA had apparently some partial success at counteroffensive near Khromove near Bakhmut.

So I just recorded a video with Nvidia Shadowplay of me blind soloing the trial of the naga in turn based mode with tactician/blood mage. It was 51 minutes long because I'm bad at turn based, and when I go to upload the video, it is black. The sound is there but no video. Which is rather irritating. You're just going to have to trust me that invisibility procs brilliant tactician. But Berath's Challenge has to be on, and even then in turn-based it doesn't proc immediately. I was going to review the video to get an exact delay but can't do that now. I'm pretty sure it is 4 rounds though. So your potion of invisibility likely doesn't proc it because your alchemy isn't high enough for the effect to last that long. Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure lasts long enough, though you get way more mileage if you throw down a wall of draining the round before you use ABD. Then you skip 4 rounds, and you get 2 resources back on the first round and 1 every round after. It's less tedious in RTWP because you don't have to sit there and wait for the enemy to do nothing, you just run away and a little while later you get brilliant. Actually I'm not even sure there's a wait in RTWP.... There are some additional caveats, like you can't be damaging the enemy or have enacted abilities that CAN damage the enemy. This includes things as innocuous as a flame shield even if it isn't hurting the enemy at the moment. My experience with flame shield is you still proc one round of brilliant to restore 2 resources but then you lose the invisibility. Same is true if there's a DOT or a pulse spell like chill fog going off while you're invisible. What I think's going on, and this makes sense why this only works with Berath, is the game gives you 4 rounds of invisibility before assuming you've "fled" and normally the battle ends. With Berath on, after those 4 rounds the battle doesn't end, and for some weird esoteric reason all enemies are considered flanked at that point as long as you're invisible. You don't need to spam ABD like with an assassin though. I only used it twice in the trial of the naga fight, and didn't really need to use it the second, was just restoring my resources because I had Woedica on. It's good to use after the first time your resources are depleted, but by that point you should have a LOT of buffs and passive healing from Unbending. I was getting a couple hundred in healing per round by the first use of ABD, and 3/4 through the fight was healing more every round than I had in health. I could have used a potion of final stand and made it super easy mode, but reptilian blood is sort of limited, can probably make like 30 I'd guess? Maybe more, not sure, never really used them. You definitely want them for megabosses. Some people consider the trial of the naga fight very difficult but I think you have enough other tools you don't need it. Also in turn based pay attention to when enemies are about to cast spells or use abilities because that's an easy free mule kick. You don't seem to get the discipline back when you just interrupt a melee attack, even if it says "interrupt" in the log. Seems like it has to be an active ability or spell. Charge is also useful as a movement ability and interrupts on hit, though is kind of expensive at 2 discipline and you just get back 1 on successful interrupt I think. But it hard stuns, so still a good ability. Chill Fog is of course a great way to proc brilliant on smaller groups of enemies but sometimes you run into big groups where you'll need to stack several of them or they might be resistant to perception afflictions (one of the more rare resistances but it's out there). Also enemies weak to perception afflictions like one of the naga types in SSS get blinded by mule kicks which is pretty awesome. I mass blinded several of them since I was using citzal's spirit lance. And carry around squid's grasp or kapana taga so you don't get flanked in the beginning of fights, then summon citzal's spirit lance when you have enough buffs up and resources restores that you don't really care if you get shaken/confused. Confused is easy to get rid of with Infuse Vital Essence. Shaken is a little harder but you can wear the cap of the laughingstock which is really good for a blood mage anyway (helps with wall of draining, it's counted towards something to drain on enemies because it's part buff part debuff), and/or upgrade to unbending shield instead of unbending trunk. Unbending shield gives resolute which is nice. And you get so many stacks of unbending I don't think the extra 8% in unbending trunk is worth losing resolute. ----- And to answer your earlier post, wall of draining is probably better than salvation of time as a spell when you have only 1 or 2 of them to cast, but wall of draining is not better than FREE salvation of time. When you permanently steal a spell it is free to cast, forever. Definitely an abusive mechanic but fun. The way to steal a spell is kind of complicated. You need a grimoire with minor or major grimoire imprint (don't memorize it). Aloths' grimoire has minor imprint, easiest one to get. Arkemyr's Illuminating Discoveries and Jernaugh's Careful Calamities are two of the unique spellbooks that have Major Imprint. Anway you cast minor/major imprint from the grimoire against an enemy spellcaster. It rolls vs fortitude so it can be hard to hit, but a graze counts. The best way to do it is kite individual spellcasters and then you go imprint imprint / blood sacrifice to get them back, heal as necessary, repeat. When you get a spell you want just switch grimoires and it's now permanently in your grimoire if you didn't already have it memorized. So if you steal arcane veil for instance it just shows up in your level 2 casts and costs nothing to cast it. If you steal priest or druid spells they show up on the quick item bar and you do eventually run out of space, so you can steal as many wizard spells as you want but only like 12ish druid and priest spells before the bar goes off the end of the screen. Taking minor grimoire imprints is fun IMO, Escape (priests of skaen have it) lets you zip around the battlefield. Major imprints are pretty gamebreaking when you have endless casts of salvation of time, barring death's door, and various damaging wizard spells. Although, because in turn based blood sacrifice is a free action, and most of the wizard spells you want to imprint are "free" casts, there isn't nearly as much of a difference as in RTWP. In turn based you effectively have infinite wizard spells as long as the blood sacrifice doesn't kill you, which it can't if you've used and extended a potion of final stand. I minor imprint a bunch of spells in the biakara and beina encounters but it is pretty tedious getting them sometimes because the spell you get is chosen randomly from their spell list, so you could have to cast 50 times to get a spell you're looking for. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jyHx0W3zSM&list=PLkOCqAbkQHxwTJyCKvA_31wYyPWK_87VY&index=13 Oh and Disciplined Strikes >> Tactical Barrage in like 90% of cases IMO, mostly because 25% hit to crit is really strong on top of aware, and intelligence buffs aren't hard to find even if acute is. The wizard has Infuse with vital essence which has crazy long duration fit + smart, so in this case you definitely want strikes. --------- One more thing, with practice I'm finding you don't even really need ABD in many fights. Nearly every enemy can be interrupted (one major exception, Dorudugan...) and with tactician interrupt restores discipline. You have to interrupt an ability or spell, standard weapon attacks don't count. So obviously there's mule kick which returns 1 making it free, but many wizard spells proc interrupts reliably. AOEs like Slicken are especially good. Chill Fog interrupts on crits, not as reliable, but has the benefit of sometimes proccing Brilliant Tactician as well. And Concelhaut's Crushing Doom is almost guaranteed to proc multiple interrupts. So you can blood sacrifice on the wizard side, using your insane healing from unbending (or potions of final stand) to restore tons of spells, and as long as you're casting spells like slicken, chill fog, CCD, and throwing an occasional wall of draining you're nearly invulnerable and renewing fighter resources pretty fast. Mule Kick and Charge are the only ones you'd really need to use anyway, and they cost 1 and 2 so it is pretty easy to use mule kick for most of your attacks once you figure out how to keep the interrupts up on the wizard side. The more I practice with tactician/blood mage the less I use ABD. It's good to use near the beginning of a fight when you've put up all your buffs and missing a lot of resources and don't have ton of unbending yet, but after that you'd rarely need it. I see it more as a panic button, for those times when you do manage to get near death without a potion of final stand, can ABD to escape and not only restore resources but fully heal you from unbending. And you might want to chew svef. Gives resistance to intellect, perception, and resolve afflictions as well as a perception boost, which makes you immune to the worst aspects of tactical dilemma when you get flanked (when not immune to flanking from weapon) since confuse and shaken are tier 1 afflictions they get bumped down to nothing. To avoid the drug crash just use it in a fight with tons of enemies, and once you're basically unkillable just keep laying down walls of draining to extend the effect. It is pretty easy to get it to practically permanent duration. You can stack other drugs too but you have to be careful to watch for arcane dampeners, since there is a bug where arcane dampener correctly removes the drug bonus and correctly causes a drug crash, but incorrectly leaves the drug crash once arcane dampener ends and the drug effect resumes. You should be watching for arcane dampener anyway since it removes all your buffs. But it is easy to spot in turn based if someone is casting it, and in that case just go mule kick them. Alternatively, wild orlan gives resistance to resolve afflictions (good race choice for stats also), and devil of caroc breastplate with mechanical mind gives resistance to intellect (also really good armor regardless). Take devil's due on DOCBP.

our post 2008 solution to avoiding another banking crisis is we keep all our money with tony. downside is he is always asking us to do one more job, for old time's sake. HA! Good Fun!

My mom and stepdad are on a bush holiday in an ancient forest in SA, this is baobab tree that is anything from 2500-3000 years old!!! Imagine living that long and everything you would have seen

I'm expecting an announcement of a Micro-Obsidi-soft Star Trek RPG any day now... based on nothing at all except hopes and dreams. Yes, I'm still trying to will this into reality.

@majestic and @ShadySands thanks for the heads up. Looking into this

I didn't even have that far back in mind when I made that concept, because those times are never coming back unless someone comes up with an anime design AI tool that manages to somewhat successfully make modern animation look like hand drawn and hand colored, i.e. something you put in enough parameters and your hand drawn outlines and it puts out 80ies/90ies style anime that looks the part. I thought about something like handing this to the team that made K-On! and Tamako Market, just with a little note that it should not contain any over the top fanservice moments or sexual assault. That would at least instill a level of artistry, even without proper aesthetics. Tamako Market's concept, outside of the silliness with the talking bird, revolves around a boy and a girl being best friends, feeldings that grow into more on one side (although in Tamako Market, it is the boy, not the girl) at first. It is pretty similar, and while it wasn't as good as I hoped it would be, it was still good enough to like it. Hell, I'd have loved the movie, if not for the ass-grabbing (that apparently is also part of Tomo-chan is a girl, because we're back in the 60ies and Charlie on the Enterprise does not understand why he cannot touch Yeoman Rand's butt while every male on the crew keep slapping their asses). That aside, you're right. There sure would be sillier concepts. I mean we all watched a show about girls putting on make-up to achieve super powers and loved it, even if the concept is... ridiculous.

The answer is in the thread title, JOOOOOOOOOOOOJOOOOOOOO! You will either love it or hate it, and if you love it we can execute the JoJo Instrumentality Project in this thread and communicate solely through "ora", "muda", and the occasional "wrrryyyyyyyyy".

The style is pretty faithful to the twitter manga, so not much there they could have done.

Yeah when our inner most personalities crept forth, lol!

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/14/opinions/saddam-hussein-iraq-war-interrogations-george-piro-bergen/index.html Interview with Hussein's interrogator, should be an interesting book he's writing

Its just not the same when its not chatting at th local inn, right?

I started on a number of animes, but realised already 15 minutes in of the first episode it wasn't "my kind" of stuff. Saving myself a lot of pain (I think), I only pursue those that really catch my interest at first sight so to speak. Life's too short (especially when you're old) to force yourself to watch something that doesn't immediately interest you. That usually only happen if something comes recommended with the disclaimer that it starts slow/boring/uninteresting whatever. I do watch a lot of youtube trailers before deciding on giving something a chance. Doesn't mean I hit the best animes around, just a good chance of watching something I would enjoy for several episodes. Edit: It's not I've watched a lot of anime the last 12 months... Tensura Nikki and Dropkick my Devil iirc. both of which I enjoyed tremendously. There was a third one, whose name completely escapes my brain at the moment, but it may or may not have been withing the last 12 months (one where a bartender is a judge in the afterlife, forcing deceased souls to play games to decide whether they get reincarnation or oblivion) Edit2: I remember watching Blood-C which started as a very interesting mystery and completely let me down towards the end. Elfen Lied and Ergo Proxy, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed

An interview with two UA volunteers fighting in Bakhmut, comparing Wagnerites with regular RU army. Even if they are not professional Wagnerites, they are much harder to fight against than the regular RU soldiers.

Finished episode 10 of Tomo-chan is a girl. Waiting for more episodes to get released It's been a blast so far. Really enjoyed the humour From episode 5:

I finished the Hogwarts Legacy main story, I am level 38. I thought about trying to hit the level 40 cap, but you level so ridiculously slowly after level 35. I'll play through the game again and on hard difficulty in the future, perhaps I'll try to hit lev 40 before the final main story mission then. My current play time, according to Steam, is 69.8 hours. Anyway, great game, I had a blast playing it. This game was wildly successful, both critically and especially financially, despite some (rather unsuccessful) calls to boycott. Apparently JK Rowling is cancelled or something? I don't know, I don't pay attention to these things, nor do I care. I assume she had an opinion that people didn't like, or maybe she clubbed a seal to death? Perhaps she's bankrolling the war in Ukraine? Whatever. Clearly there's going to be a sequel after the billion dollars, and counting, that this game made. I think the way to go is to set it in one of the other magic schools. The obvious choice would be Ilvermorny in Murica, but I hope they go with Castelobruxo in Brazil. I could go for some rainforest wizarding, plus the name is way better.

He is talking about winning in Bakhmut, not the whole war. Kanie doesnt think the Russians will win the overall war but they could achieve victory in Bakhmut

I would not give much attention to it. This is just a message to domestic audience to spark at least some patriotic feeling in a the few Russians which are still not mutilated or have not fled the country, to get more volunteers into the meat grinder. A futile effort with the population, which has been conditioned for the last 20 years to maximum apathy, if you ask me...

Not gonna go into the argument over numbers, which is everyones wild guess, but I have to correct you about the topography. Bakhmut in itself has around itself bigger elevation only toward NW, in between Khromove, and Yahidne. There is not much of elevation to the south (elevation between Ivanivske and Opytne is pretty much on par with the elevation of the city center west of Bakhmutivka river) nor east. Although, if Khromove will fall, then you will be pretty much correct, and I think that can be the final nail in the Bakhmut coffin. Edit: Oh and Vuhledar has been quiet up until yesterday, when Russia started another attack towards it, through eastern dachas, so far with the same effort as last time

SEE! Fatcats are going to run us into the ground again! Thats why I started buying 1g gold bars. Theyre silly small, and you have to watch the price fluctuations for the best deals, but they stack up over time. I was going to put them in a treasure chest (Amazon.com: Wood and Leather Treasure Chest Box Decorative Storage Chest Box with Lock | Handcrafted Decorative Boxes with Lids for Home Decor | Wood Box with Lid | Small Chest | Wooden Stash Box : Home & Kitchen) but common sense won out and into a fireproof safe they go.

How I imagine an Australian submarine fleet...

aside, am recognizing is unfair and imprecise to say bank deregulation caused 2008. greater oversight and bank regulation woulda' lessened the impact o' 2008 and coulda even prevented it, but is inaccurate to say bank dereg caused the housing bubble burst. were a whole lotta causes and a mess o' willful stoopid necessary to make 2008 happen the way it did. what is mind blowing to us is the collective amnesia regarding 2008 mongst banks and legislators. maybe people at the top need to go to prison for them to stop playing lethal games with the economy? dunno, but greater regulation o' banks should prevent this kinda "thievery." edit: mark grace, a player for the chicago cubs baseball team, once said, "if you're not cheating, you're not trying. and it's only cheating if you get caught." is a funny bit o' pith when is 'bout baseball, but am thinking at some point it should be beyond question that a large enough percentage o' america's ceo types is disciples o' mark grace. metaphorical locks on footlockers won't prevent all thievery by your ordinary bank ceo, but business is an extreme competitive sport and the ceo will do whatever they can get away with to "win." many is gonna push limits o' legal... and then go a bit beyond. yeah, too much regulation strangles business, but how many catastrophes do you need suffer before you realize railroads, banks and oil companies is gonna be reckless with the health, safety and welfare o' employees and customers if doing so means a positive quarterly report? we need safeguards and punishments to deter. we don't have safeguards or punishments? gosh, what could possible go wrong? HA! Good Fun!

Yeah, a long part about the inherent discrimination in the financial policies, but she summed up my own thoughts pretty well in the first couple of minutes. "Nobody went to jail", which is where they all went wrong. All those bank CEO's, executives and members of Board of Directors that just got their sorry asses bailed out (at tax payers expense, and it's mostly the poor who pay tax in this world) and a handsome bonus for a job well done instead of 10 years behind bars. Edit: Never mind the complete unwillingness to learn any lessons from an even very recent past. Makes you wonder what kind of lobbying it takes to make those who otherwise had the power to stop them, just ignore the issues and sometimes even help facilitate them. A college spot for your third kid?

is worse than the video makes seem 'cause while is not same bailouts as 2008, the bank deregulation which arguable caused the US version o' the 2008 crisis were all so quick forgotten and repeated. is more than likely bank deregulation is a root cause o' the current problem. dodd-frank were only passed in 2010 for chrissakes and yet in recent years we saw a return to clinton era bank deregulation? were hamstringing dodd-frank a mass hysteria event? perhaps legislators all suffer from momento kinda brain damage? is not as if we are talking 'bout a hundred years elapsing and all those who suffered the previous stoopid is dead and buried. again, dodd-frank became law in july o' 2010. unless everybody in washington and the banking industry ages via dog years, am not seeing the excuse for the kinda stoopid we saw and called out in 2018 when Congress knee-capped dodd-frank. Gromnir is a fiscal conservative and even we saw how brobdingnagian myopic were the bank dereg efforts. btw, in spite o' the hyper partisan nature o' US politics at the moment, more than a few democrats in the house and senate voted in favor o' the 2018 amendment. thanks to manchin and more than a dozen other democrats, the amendment to dodd-frank were safely filibuster proof. aside, is a whole lotta reasons to justifiable dislike elizabeth warren, but she called this. listen up to 1:30... after which she talks 'bout mortgage issues which is all too likely an inevitable future problem related to banks. https://www.c-span.org/video/?442521-7/senator-warren-banking-bill HA! Good Fun!

Not politics per se, yet... the results of the inflation fueled interest rate raises. An interesting take on why major banks have started failing (again) for lay people like me

There. I still have a few missing (non-revello) pages and conjurations, but not many. After 8 tries finally got that last broom side quest, and you know what that means - I finally have this complete outfit!

Holy crap, I get to ride a graphorn? This game just keeps getting better!

Diablo Swing Orchestra sure knows how to make beautiful videos

Unlimited potential almost. Imagine selling TOS era Klingons, TNG era Klingons, the Blingons from Kelvin and the Klingorks from Discovery as seperate cosmetic DLCs. Of course you'd need to buy the Klingon DLC first. Or... seperate Vulcan and Romulan cosmetic DLCs. They even look the same, so you'd just need to design different clothes.

Can Paradox make every single Star Trek species into a separate DLC and charge for it?

True. I forgot JoJo (and Dio).... as well as Gleipnir and Fire Force. I even watched a second season of the latter. But I think these were more than a year ago (if not, then close to a year).

Dallas cut Zeke.

She has an illness now which has made her effectively mute. Cruel hand to be dealt.