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Finished the game. The battles in the Threshold were considerably more difficult, with the exception of the last one, which was ridiculously easy. They should have made act 5 closer to that. The last boss basically died with a non-metamagic Hellfire Ray, since I tried to use Evil Eye first. Oh, and the achievements are still totally bugged. I had already gotten some for defeating bosses on Core, even though I played on normal, and now I got the Aroden one, for beating the game on Core + Last Azlanti.

Yeah I forgot to mention the ending slides in the summary of my game. I loved the ending slides I got. Only Camellia and Wenduag didn't end up in particularly good places, as was to be expected, but everyone and everything else worked out really well.

Just in case, it is possible to reset the camera to face north, Home by default (rebindable and might be more comfortable if closer to WASD). Sort of a spoiler: ---- Still in Act 2. Got the first and probably the only non-Origin companion. Visited an optional area called the House of Healing. Would like to know the opinions if anyone has seen it. Regarding the guardian (spoilers for D:OS2):

yes, though depending on your path and choices there are some variations

I feel uncomfortable being part of an away team as the only person with red in their uniform This looks like a Doctor Who crossover I try to be as spoiler free as possible, but for the hardcore trekies, be spoilered with this screenshot:

Managed to complete the character creator, picking out genitalia for your character is indeed strange and off-putting. Made all the worse in that all of the options are just the state of the carpet, so to speak, and the blank stare that occurs. But I'm happy enough with my murdertwink melee bard (dex build) and the Guardian. Anyways I played just a little bit and got to mutilate an intellect devourer, so far I'm very satisfied. @Hawke64 When I watched the character intro I noticed

Livewire has a lot of attitude, but it is pretty justified. I mean, yeah, it's not fair that you have to watch over everyone, but you are damn good at it.

Better not be the case, I didn't give them my prettiest high class goth girl design just for that crap. Yeah, and I fixed the mini-map to always be statically oriented while I was at it. Still, I hated fussing around with the camera in the NWN games, it was somehow even more intolerable in the half or so that I played of Dragon Age: Origins before I quit, and I'm certain that I will be annoyed with it here as well.

Here is take on why it takes so long compared to his predictions, by Lt. Gen. Hodges in an interview with Times Radio. He speaks about what mistakes he’s done when predicting the Crimea situation improving for Ukraine in Summer, about peace talks in Jeddah and relations between Russia and China. Aboit Wagner Mutiny, situation in Niger and Belarus, how Russia is weaponizing hunger and plans to weaponize refugees by destabilizing Western Africa again. And that the West still does not have a clear goal in Ukraine, and does not provide everything, that UA needs to achieve victory by liberation of Crimea, which is the main reason behing slow offensive. He also compares what is going on with Operation Overlord, and mentions, that the Allies units were trained for two years for this specific operation, and there was still a two months long stalemate, before the Allies made a decisive breakthrough after they achieved air superiority.

For my new game I wanted to see what would happen if I was already at LOCATION when EVENT pops off. Plays the same, not that I'm surprised that you can't prevent it with foreknowledge or luck. Livewire with a few supporting rockets, grenades, and mortars is stupid broken. Automatically (providing you have intel, which you should if you have Livewire) knowing where every enemy is and then pink misting them from beyond their visual range. After my custom merc she's been my VIP on this new playthrough.

https://greyhawkonline.com/greyhawkwiki/Spelljammer https://spelljammer.fandom.com/wiki/Spelljammer_Helms#Series_helm spelljammer, which has been around a long time, took starships label literal. think treasure planet "ships." edit: nautiloid info https://spelljammer.fandom.com/wiki/Nautiloid https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Nautiloid HA! Good Fun!

Dmitri Glukhovsky, the author behind Metro 2033 and 2034 novels, has been sentenced in absence to 8 years prison time for "Discrediting of Russian Army" by court in Moscow. Thankfully he has fled Russia more than a year ago, so for now he is safe. Also, his novels are not allowed to sell in Russia, due to his criticism of "SMO".

Yes. The secret ending: Btw

Well, yes. That would be entirely different system. Apparently those changable faces are pretty hard to pull off. Personally, I am happy with what Larian did. There is enough variation there for me to find something I like.

Personally I'd be fine without that but I wish there was more options for face customization, body weight, height, and body hair stuff. It's kind of weird to me what's lacking and what has a ton of options.

In my efforts to datamine skill checks, I've reached the point where I'm associating each skill check with a conversational string. In nearly all cases, this recipe has worked for finding the required data: Take name of .conversationbundle file Replace ending with .stringtable Find matching file in localized/en/... Perform eyewateringly ugly XML parsing But, for five files it does not work. The files I expect to find, but cannot, are: exported\localized\en\text\conversations\si_test.stringtable lax2_exported\localized\en\text\conversations\lax02_01_iceberg_dungeon\lax02_01_cv_envoy_guard.stringtable lax2_exported\localized\en\text\conversations\lax02_01_iceberg_dungeon\lax02_01_si_iceberg_03_narrowledge.stringtable lax3_exported\localized\en\text\conversations\lax\lax_re_city_ambush_wed.stringtable lax3_exported\localized\en\text\conversations\lax\lax_re_city_ambush_mag.stringtable In fact, searching only for the filename (without the extension) in all my exported folders is still fruitless. It has some success for the last two, but those stringtables (for example lax2_exported\localized\en\text\conversations\lax\lax_re_city_ambush_wed.stringtable) have their own .conversationbundle files. Searing for si_test finds only si_test.conversationbundle. And of course, amusingly enough, figuring out if a .conversationbundle file is actually in use is a lot harder than a .stringtable file where I might say oh, I have/haven't seen these lines in-game. Anyway, any ideas?

Tested the "You Must Gather Your Party Before Venturing Forth." line with a restored back up. I'm willing to cautiously say that file only playing once per scene seems to be a feature of the "vo_narr_gather_party" event and not the audio file. So might not be an issue with RingingBloom's method of audio replacement. That said I have run into a new issue. It seems some audio files that are mentioned in "Soundbank.xml" and "Global.txt" are not showing up when opening the "Global.bnk" in RingingBloom. "imp_glb_pen_gun" (1160047966) for example. Might be these files are contrainers for a collection of other files. Which will mean a lot more extra digging to replace them. Assuming it is possible at all.

I'd recommend giving the Apotheosis modtool by noqn a look. It unifies all the game data into a easily navigable interface so it is easier to look through. And UI displays conversations and scripts in manner close to the tool that was used by Obsidian. So you can see the scripts, conditionals expressions, and strings for each node in a conversation very quickly. https://gitlab.com/noqn/apotheosis These conversations don't have any .stringtable files that I can find, and if you trigger them with the StartConversation console command they are full of "Missing String" and "[Temp] Missing String" errors. So aren't likely to be used in the game. lax*exported folders work similar to a mod folder in that their contents override each other (in release order... I think...). If you compare the .conversationbundle files across the 3 DLCs you'll see that they the contents of the files doesn't change; except the "UObjectName" line. Interestingly the only difference is in the .stringtable entries where where Beast of Winter (lax2) is missing some .stringtable entires that are added by Seeker Slayer Survivor (lax1). The conversations themselves relate to 2* scripted interaction that precede combat encounters* in Neketaka ("LAXALL_RE_Woedica" and "LAXALL_RE_Magran"). These occur when travelling towards Periki's Overlook and with a certain number of pieces of the Crown of the Exiled Queen. The conditional's for these encounters make it seems that they are meant to trigger in a specific order First: "LAXALL_RE_Woedica": IsGlobalValue(LAX_n_CrownOfWoedicaPiecesCollected, GreaterThanOrEqualTo, 1) and not HasConversationNodeBeenPlayed(LAX_RE_city_ambush_wed, 7) The Player has at least one of the Crown Pieces, and has not fought the Woedica acolyte ambush yet. Then: "LAXALL_RE_Magran": IsGlobalValue(LAX_n_CrownOfWoedicaPiecesCollected, GreaterThanOrEqualTo, 3) and not HasConversationNodeBeenPlayed(LAX_RE_city_ambush_mag, 17) and HasConversationNodeBeenPlayed(LAX_RE_city_ambush_wed, 7) The Player has all three Crown Pieces, has been ambushed by the Woedica acolytes, but has not fought the Magran acolyte ambush yet. *From a few quick tests I couldn't get the Magran ambush to trigger for whatever reason. So it's possible that the second encounter is not enabled in the final release.

Mine clearing charges,but that isn't going to be easy with gunships and ATGMs everywhere. Well or maybe a lot of artillery.

A barrage of thermobaric rockets would probably do the trick by setting the mines off. Otherwise, some poor bastard poking at the ground with a fiberglass stick.

I got to fight Caydan Cailean... and won.

He toned it way down since Tenant, that one I had to plug my ears watching because it physically hurt me in some scenes. The bigger issue with Oppenheimer is that the soundtrack tries to highlight every scene as if it's equally important to every other scene and after 3 hours of that you end up mentally exhausted. I would say give it a watch at home, where you can take a break, because the movie is worth the watch and there is nothing in it that benefits from seeing it on the big screen.

One of the big problems is they don't actually need months to prepare mines. The Russians are using MLRS to mine areas on the fly. That was something the Ukrainians did extensively around Vugledar too. Don't think they can double stack the mines that way (that takes out mine clearance vehicles) but they will handily take out standard armour which is driving in areas they think has been swept. Which is the reason you get a lot of combat footage of Ukrainian vehicles seemingly just sitting around in columns waiting to be destroyed- lead vehicle has hit a mine and the rest can't drive around it without hitting others.

I'll be joining really soon. I'm inside the Threshold fortress in PF:WotR.

20 more years or 20 more videos?

Maybe 3-4 hours of actually playing in a single playthrough. I played EA a bit. so my time played is more than that. I'll probably come back to it at some point. I find myself uninterested in the dialog/story, I really enjoy the combat though. I might just not be in the mood for it, but I tried DOS2 many times and I never found it engaging. And it feels a lot like DOS2. Even starting on a ship, that ship crashing and waking up on a beach feels way too much like dos2. Speaking of that ship, how does it fly? is it a psychic sort of thing? Its weird... kinda like bird people that live underwater

The pre-release numbers for the console release additonally hint at something a bit more going on. The 800+K peak numbers on Steam are concurrent players, not total. That's a number only ever reached by PC gaming's biggest hits. Larian's management told their staff to expect ~100K concurrent players. And they knew their EA sales numbers. Larian's boss worried Baldur's Gate 3 had peaked in early access, so its massive 800K concurrent player launch was 'way, way beyond' expectations | PC Gamer Personally, I'm just glad an (AAA) RPG "proper" is rocking things out fairly decently anyway. It may of course never even hint at Skyrim-ish numbers or anything (neither did the original Dragon Age, arguably one of the last AAA RPGs harkening back to 1990s design ethos some). But in an (AAA) RPG world dominated by action-adventure-ish gameplay and shallow (character) systems, BG3's not the worst of things to ever happen. I don't think it will influence much though. No less as the entire AAA industry has moved into a different direction -- and this includes the staff that have been built (and/or left studios) throughout the years. Additionally, BG3 may have shipped at the perfect time. With D&D being at another peak (even though the fun movie flopped), too. Personally, without the digital distribution / indie / crowdfuding revolution of the early 2010s (of which Larian have been a part of, even if I didn't like DOS overly much), I may have stopped playing one of my fav genres altogether... it's just changed that much ever since the demise of Interplay, Origin, Looking Glass, Black Isle, Troika, Sir-Tech, New World Computing et all.. Immersive Sims meanwhile at least had Arkane Studios going strong (with both classic CRPGs and IMmersive Sims being influenced by the very same thing.... TT RPGS). Arkane even pulled off Prey, a game that in many ways is even MORE complex than the 1990s/early 2000s games it took inspiration from. Whereas Dragon Age:Origins is a simplified BG in almost every way. That said, BG3 also badly needs more UI/font size scaling options. Even indies are doing it as a standard feature these days...

God, yes. This, along with a party switching UI, would go a long way towards me actually using companions other than the first three I met. I know, I know. I just wish it were "Forgotten Realms: Revenge of the Tadpoles" or something. Sticking a number after a title feels like a big deal!

I had a lot of doubts about the camp system, but I think I ended up liking it. In the EA it felt like mandatory evil to facilitate companion story cutscenes, but so far it works so much better in 1.0. First of all, I like how companion’s story progress now both in and outside of the camp (the wasn’t the case in EA). It makes the companions feel more alive - less like you get story story bits gated behind rests. I also can’t stress, how big of an impact made the daylight camp - especially after you rested. It reinforces the idea of going to sleep in waking up before adventuring further, rather that a weird pocket dimension, where all your companions are stored. I am afraid there is no party management UI. Feels like there simply should be one when leaving the camp, and all inventories of all companions should be available while you are in camp. I think it is just something one needs to accept. Not a terrible thing, in my opinion, with original games being nicely wrapped up, but I would prefer if it was Baldur’s Gate: xxxxxxx, rather than a titled entry.

Of course they said it. As it is true. They had to accommodate to the situation with minefields guarded by artillery, which they probably underestimated. Most likely culprit was probably overconfidence in Western gear and training. But reading all the stuff thrown around lately in some newspaper was pretty derogatory and looked a lot like Russian propaganda and not like describing the real issues on the front

I broke down and bought the game, downloading it now. Uhh I went to Nexus to check out the mods and was greeted with images of a dwarf phallus, a nude fairy, and a half-orc with a beeg hog. Beautiful.

From the interview: You know, this almost total disregard for Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 still doesn't sit great with me. BG3 is a fine game, but comments like these drive home the idea that this is fundamentally "Larian D&D Game" not "sequel to Baldur's Gate." Which is a fine thing to make! (I like the game!) But it makes the title feel all the more like a cynical marketing ploy to piggyback off of the popularity of some beloved CRPG classics. And frankly, playing the game, it does really show that this is not much of a sequel at all. (Maybe I'll change my tune once a certain someone shows up...) EDIT: Maybe now I finally understand how Dungeon Siege fans felt about Dungeon Siege 3...

After playing a bit more, I will add that I think they did a great job with the implementation of the camp. The way characters can show up there, even non-party characters, and everyone reacts to what has happened in the story so far -- this is A+. I just passed the part where and I have to say the use of the camp for this kind of "big story moment" while allowing for the player to pace themselves through conversations -- rather than having some big cutscene -- was excellent. It took more than a few notes from the best bits of the Dragon Age: Origins camp as well as the Citadel DLC from ME3 and incorporated them well, without feeling like shallow fan service. Also just the way the camp clearly moves with you and reflects the environment you're in -- the "dungeon camp" vs the "wilderness camp" and all the others -- adds a nice touch and makes the rest anywhere mechanic feel less silly. One nitpick about the companion conversations -- I've noticed that when the companions have a "I have something to tell you" conversation (which seems like every 5 goddamn minutes?) they immediately take you into some conversation tree about their own issues (fine) and then finally dump you out of the conversation entirely (not fine.) This means if I just want to say "Hey Gale, leave my party for a bit" -- I have to first listen to all of Gale's issues, then leave the conversation, then re-enter the conversation, and then finally ask him to leave. This is tedious and pretty much breaks the flow narratively. My character wanted to make a quick tactical party change and got caught up talking about somebody's past? Does anyone know if there's a UI somewhere for just making party changes? It really feels like this does not need to be a dialogue tree.

Oh. Huh, well, that ended up being a lot more accurate than I thought it would be, even if it's not quite right. But...I'm just playing as Shadowheart, so I have no bloody idea what she would find trustworthy. I guess Shadowheart must like sickly goth girls? I ended up deciding that them big ol' half-elf ears needed to be just a little less...uh, prominent, so I went away from the ballerina buns. If it's supposed to be someone your PC trusts, I guess it ended up probably being for the best, since...well, I rather envisioned this original version as being some kind of crazy axe murderer, vaguely in the vein of that one psychotic android lady from Blade Runner, which doesn't really seem like the best fit now knowing that it's not exactly the worm itself. But really, I feel like if you select to play one of the NPCs, you should at least have the option of a pre-generated guardian, because there's absolutely no way I could figure out what Shadowheart's "guardian" should look like without at least having played the game a little first. They could've given you the option of picking someone that looks like whatever Shar is supposed to look like, for example. Oh well, whatever. Hey, pimples and freckles and other skin defects/textures, even if they're small/minor, are much better than unnaturally flawless skin that just makes your character look like they got completely airbrushed over! ...That's not really what you were talking about, though.

it is a bit weird, isn't it. I had my first encounter with it, and it more or less it is that. Overall, a massive improvement over EA aparition.

I finished JA3. It's a dang good game and a fitting sequel to JA2. I'll play again on a month or two on commando difficulty.

It's them who are dying out there. Ghouls from safe, rich, fat places who complain that counteroffensive isn't ~showy~ enough for their tastes can go f*ck themselves.

Just finished a full ck3 play... 867-1455(or whatever it is) last 150 years I did barely anything, just wanted that achievement. I'm actually looking forward to starfield now. I've never loved Bethesda games, but I've been playing all strategy and turn based stuff recently. Will be nice to casually explore and shoot without having to use too much of my limited brain power.

Hitman called me ace one last time when I finished the game and it felt like I finally earned my dad's approval.

Yeah, I noticed when I was watching the documentary again after posting that comment. But I was too lazy to edit my post afterwards. "Project" doesn't sound very fantasy-like imo, so I prefer Pillars of Eternity.

Well, I happen to like reading/learning about things in the world around me. So I would advocate for some form of happy medium, and would point out that for those who don't want to read/learn about stuff, they have the freedom in the game to simply avoid it all. So what the game should do is be very clear in separating things that are necessary (for quests, story, etc.) from things that are there for flavor.

From what I gather he actively does PnP sessions, I would think he plays the games too, but who knows... These games, at least for me, were always more about the gameplay. The story/roleplaying aspect was never particularly great in any of them. I think it's hard to tell a good story when you want to have multiple paths/choices and when you want the game to be that long and as you said, when you want the game to conform the genre/ruleset. On the topic of balance. I agree that ideally it's great to only have good choices that are all interesting to play, or to at least have one good choice that is interesting to the person playing, but realistically can you think of a game like that? Lets say that is the goal you want to strive for when making a game, how big of a priority should it be? Should it trump everything? Should you tone down interesting skills, to bring them in line with other skills at the cost of making them less interesting. Making a good build is a part of the difficulty of the game, if you don't want that then drop it to story difficulty and pick whatever skill you want. I think that chasing balance in a single player game is a waste of resources, you are never going to achieve it, people are too good at finding exploits or just things you never thought about. But let's say you do, are you aware that even games that revolve around being balanced, aren't really. From my personal experience of having played League of Legends, that game for all its balance patches was constantly shifting metas and for a couple of reasons. Most people would probably say it's because the devs are incompetent, but that is BS, it's unbalanced because that is what keeps the game interesting and fun. Besides even if they made it balanced, a one trick pony (a person playing only one character all the time) would probably stomp the ladder. Also who do you balance around? A bad player, a good player, or a no lifer? But back to the topic of a single player game, between a choice of a balanced gameplay and an interesting gameplay I would always chose the latter. I'm saying this because I cannot think of a single player game (of this genre(IE style games)) that was both.

I went down the rabbit hole of his interviews/posts/presentations of what went wrong with Deadfire (PoE). In general he doesn't seem to know what the core issue was. I'm trying to find if he has some impressions about the Owlcat games, but apart from mentioning them he doesn't go in depth. He does touch on Divinity Original sin, but says that it's not a direct competitor/comparison, which I agree with, but I would think that the Pathfinder games are so I was expecting to see more. I mean that is what those games are trying to do and the audience they are trying to cater to. There are other games that do what you want to. Sims being the easiest example.

One could say that his views in balance have been.....balanced.

I'm so confused.

So, uh, Might and Magic 6/7/8 support multiplayer now. I see it, but I don't believe it.