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I thought this was generated by an AI, but apparently it's real.

It's about time someone made a Wing Commander game from the point of view of the Kilrathi.

Trip is the reason the canine animal companions are rated so highly.....aside from the fact that dogs are the best pets to have irl. Too bad WotR doesn't have an option to pet the dogs.

This is why I don't tell anyone that I'm playing video games.

Thank you Yahztee edit. Very interesting point about choices we get as a player being already an expression of our character. Perhaps that a reason why I don't get along with class specific lines that don't align with my character - I made a decision regarding my player's profession, dont make a decision for me regarding his personality. It also might be why I love PoE1&2 disposition system so much. We get to make smaller choices, therefore expressing out willingless to roleplay the character a certain why, so when we get those more extreme benevolent/cruel options, they feel rewarding and appropriate - like the game noticing what I am trying to do and supporting it. I feel quite often at odds with BG3, however.

I think one of the better ways to implement CRPG romance would be via the origins we see in this game, as it creates a degree of separation between the player and the character that isn't there with a custom character. That could provide the room to shift it more character oriented story arc the player is in the driver's seat for as opposed to providing a waifu for the player's avatar. Like I think I can more easily appreciate Karlach developing a toxic sexual relationship with Lae'zel than making them the player's potential hot githyanki girlfriend or devilish muscle girl waifu regardless of what kind of character the player is. This probably wouldn't please some of the romance fans, both in terms of access and by the possibility of getting rejected in favor of a npc, but I think it'd make it better for my tastes.

you can have mine mugshot

a fan of mad max preparing to do something monumental stoopid? HA! Good Fun!

That's a pretty good mugshot, I wouldn't put it past Trump to have done it as a troll. I give it a 6.5/10 on the mugshot scale. For reference here are some 10/10 mugshots:

Seriously, Putin has killed and assassinated political dissenters and Oligarchs for years. There is a long list. If Putin didnt authorize it then he isnt in control of the military or the FSB and I find that hard to believe. The sustainability of any autocracy requires control of the military and particularly around extra-judiciary killings if they practised by the state. If you look at NK or China nothing happens in those countries if the state isnt aware of it I am not saying its a missile or a bomb, Im saying Putin is behind it. Who else would have the ability or resources to do that within Russia?

Im about 30 hours into KA2 and its fun. They changed several of the mechanics from KA1 and I dont necessarily think they all create a better overall gaming experience but they not terrible changes The economic system is dumbed down and simpler and there is now a magic shield that you need to consider in every battle but I am now comfortable with that. And I am enjoying the lore and overall changes to the RPG elements around how your knights go on quests Also they added artifact crafting which is a good idea But its a good sequel, I will comment further once I have completed it

Hey, did you know Inmate No. P01135809 selected 1/3 of the current Supreme Court? Wild.

none o' this should be funny, but with trump, the ludicrous is normal. is not difficult imagining trump standing in front o' a bathroom mirror, practicing his mugshot. ... if in 2015 you had told us we would still be wasting oxygen on this buffoon in 2023, we woulda' dismissed the notion w/o a second thought, and that mistake is on us. is not shocking to us that disaffected working class whites glomped onto a political snake oil salesman's platform o' outrage and grievance, but am still baffled an incompetent b00b managed the trick particular w/o the presage o' a war or crisis (economic or otherwise) which ordinary accompanies the rise o' a demagogue. whatever. HA! Good Fun!

I think it holds true for both expansions to both NWN games? No personal experience though as the only campaign I played across all six base games and expansions anywhere near to completion was SoZ. For the apostrophe stripping, I see GOG has also stripped it from "Sid Meiers Covert Action" so that's consistent I guess. Steam has the apostrophe for every Sid game intact, I don't see any non-Sid games to see how they handled those however.

I remember watching some long-form essay video on someone playing Shadows of Amn for the first time and them marvelling at how dark, dirty, and chaotic Athkatla is, and how it made it really feel like this wonderfully lived-in and organically constructed city, especially relative to most other games' cities - even much more modern games. Environmental audio and visuals alike definitely play into that, and I sometimes think about that video when I consider how attentive and perfectly at home I feel with certain games' environments while feeling completely out of sorts and not thinking anything of or even really paying attention to those of other games. Some games just do a much better job of creating a believable illusion, and it can be difficult to quantify. From what I've played of BG3, I can't say that the game really quite gets me in this way even to the standard of BG1, and note that I love and obviously think a lot more of Shadows of Amn.

So the ending is definitely the weakest part of the game, kind of went out with a whimper. People are saying it's due to the cut content, but even quality wise it's very weak. As far as the story goes Bg2 main story is miles better in my opinion, but that could very well be the nostalgia talking (probably is). The music is really good. It has a more modern flavor and I liked that if for nothing else than it being different that everything else in the crpg genre, which is not to say that others games have bad music, this was just a breath of fresh air. Environmental sound is still non existent or at least very subdued. Idk why it's hard to do some background noise like in BG2 and IWD2, it makes such a big difference in making the world feel alive. Tbh I would have traded a large part of the voice acting for that. Gamplay is not as good as the rtwp game, simple as that, especially in big and drawn out fights. I'll definitely play this game when the definitive edition comes out.

That should be game design 101 since the mid 90ies, but it keeps creeping back into games: if any given game system is just there to gobble up inventory space and removing the player hassle results in it no longer being considered worthwhile, it is probably not worthwhile to begin with and should be removed. That includes needing food or drink outside of survival games where it is a core mechanic (this one in particular was replaced by a much better well rested or food bonus mechanic a long, long time ago), vendors having limited gold and currency having weight, all of which this game does for no reason. Quoted for truth. That is just one giant wall of text, only in spoken form. It is somewhat impressive how much he can talk without pausing, but it is just one stream of words with such a lack of inflection and (stress) pitch that it might well be read by some text-to-speech engine. Yikes.

Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak free on Epic: Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak | Download and Buy Today - Epic Games Store

Looks like Russia has started to completely remove all traces of Wagner

No, he was huffing paint to get high.

Yeah, going through the patch notes I see plenty of fixes addressing continuity issues like that.

According to many accounts on the Larian forum this is quite common throughout the game, where the game assumes you said/did things a certain way, and responds based on that assumption, regardless of what you *actually* said/did in the game.

@melkathiReview bombing has been happening for at least a decade for all manner of ill conceived reasons. This is not a new phenomenon. There's even reverse review bombing where people will give ludicrously glowing 10/10 reviews to games, movies, whatever that might be okay or pretty good but certainly not deserving of 10/10 scores to "balance" the negative review scores they feel are unfair. This practice is just as stupid as review bombing. Just give your honest opinion and move on. Anyway, Please don't suck. Please don't suck. Please don't suck.

I wonder if review bombing games that did a year long epic exclusive might be counter productive. So let's say I am a money person at a publisher and I see the game made X on epic and then I try sell it on Steam and get a lot less than X. Will I look at the negative reviews and say "ah, a crowd of people didn't like me selling on Epic, so I'll now only sell on Steam to make them happy and get more than the X I made on Epic from Steam" or will I say "Steam sales were disappointing. The platform is not performing anymore. Let's sell more on Epic" or will I say "Oi, Steam, get the reviews in check... Please"

Agreed. The two things in the context of Larian's game specifically are the immersive sim elements (you can build a little tower out of the random items you find and it will mechanically affect the environment and progression) and the lack of options to disable it (or any other optional systems, unlike Solasta). And it was rather uncomfortable that some important interactive objects were not highlighted. The puzzle leading to the Underdark and the illithid regenerative things, in particular. I guess, if the ending at least told the outcomes for the major NPCs and areas (1 2D picture with 1 sentence of text per NPC/area), it would have been more acceptable. I am unsure why the connection with the original series was pursued in the manner Larian used. Granted, some of it I've read about on the forums (and not experienced myself), but even the parts unavoidably encountered on the critical path were odd. The player usually cares about their NPC companions to some extent, while humans in general are less likely to purposefully seek conflict in a limited social circle due to the social contract. So, unless there is a critical plot point where someone's values actively oppose each other, the companions not fighting seems realistic enough. And there is companions' personal emotional connection to the player's character, which supports not stabbing other companions in the face (unless asked to). Also, I prefer when games consider friendships to be as valuable as romances.

I don't see that over here; the experts are simply debating whether it was a bomb or a missile. There was the same discrepancy with the Kerch bridge bombing: the possibility of a suicide / homicide mission was taken into account quite early on in our media. Experts can be quite terrible, though, no question, and we've had plenty of instances of all kinds of silliness since Peace In Our Time or whatever. In fact, there's a quote somewhere to the effect of "My son, you would be surprised to learn how little sense and understanding the world is ruled with", though I can't remember where. (And yes, I know political rulers and technical experts are not the same thing.)

The examples that immediately come to mind are Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark as both are generally considered better than the original Neverwinter Nights campaign and, likewise, Mask of the Betrayer and Storm of Zehir are generally considered better than base Neverwinter Nights II. And, shifting genera, both War of the Chosen and Enemy Within were generally considered better than XCOM II and XCOM respectively. The Witcher III: Blood and Wine could also be claimed to be better than the base game, as could The Shivering Isles for Oblivion and both Tribunal and Bloodmoon for Morrowind. I'm sure there are probably more, but it certainly seems within the realm of possibility that an expansion could meet or exceed the original game (particularly in the CRPG market).

CRPG romance has been off-putting and kind of downright pathetic since basically forever. Seeing friendships and even romances develop between characters that are not your own would be waaay better IMO, and it'd more similar to watching characters develop like you would with a movie or TV show. I think player-to-character friendships can feel more organic, because it's usually less characters being boiled down to "you click da right buttons in order to unzip their pants" vs. "you did not click da right buttons to unzip their pants" and more "hey, the player is actually taking the time to talk to and seemingly care about the characters around them". Maybe I'm wrong and it's just rose-tinted glasses to think that, e.g., the PST party characters feel way more cohesive/grounded and less artificial in how they're presented and developed over the course of the game, I don't know. But I do know that seeing characters rubberband up and down with their "I LOVE/HATE YOU" meters as a result of usually minute decisions about (what are supposed to feel like) spontaneous situations and conversations seems farcical. That sort of thing should really be reserved for decisions with major value implications (...maybe like, um, violently stomping squirrels to death or tossing bards off cliffs for no reason, both of which everyone in your group just gives a thumbs up to and blissfully ignores), as I just don't think that's how these things usually work out in reality. Though actually unresolvable incompatibilities between characters should probably lead to conflict, and yet they inexplicably hardly ever do in these types of games as well! It's a "you can have your cake and eat it too" situation, except the cake tastes kind of bad. Never mind that only characters mirroring one another liking and/or falling in love with each other is super boring. Most works of fiction with an ensemble team of characters are about people with all sorts of different backgrounds, beliefs, ambitions, values et al. growing to respect and like each other as they learn to appreciate those different qualities, particularly as those qualities come to use in a variety of ways in different kinds of situations. Imagine if Star Trek was just 10 of the same characters running around agreeing with each other: it'd be absolutely terrible. If Lae'zel and Shadowheart magically grow to respect and/or outright fall in love (uh...well, maybe not) with one another by the end of Baldur's Gate 3 instead of keeping on with same old same old, I will happily eat at least some of my words here.

The Conquerors for Age of Empires II...Artorias of the Abyss for Dark Souls 1 (though it may be the single worst example of an expansion that is technically integrated into the base game but due to hilariously terrible design is easily missable)...Mask of the Betrayer for NWN2...Lord of Destruction for Diablo II... Well, that'd be my list anyways. There are probably others I'm not thinking of. Completely unrelated: I've been meaning to mention this: with the original BG2 CD installer, the installer was not able to parse apostrophes, meaning that if the game was installed to e.g. "Games\Baldur's Gate II", it would silently strip the apostrophe and it would become "Baldurs Gates II" instead. I don't know what it looks like for Steam, but the official GOG installer installed my copy of Baldur's Gate 3 to..."Games\Baldurs Gate III". Default install location doesn't have an apostrophe. Nobody will probably find this as funny as I do: I used to have a discrete registry key I kept on hand that would fix where Windows thought BG2 was installed to, so to see history repeat itself 20+ years later is just too much for me.

If this war has done anything it's finished off any vestigial respect I had for 'experts'. Which to be fair, wasn't much at all, but still. Bodies of people who die in bomb incidents on planes are very seldom either burnt or exposed to high temperatures as a result of a bomb*; they almost always have just blunt force/ impact trauma. This is a common mistake people make when they've seen a lot of LE/ propellant explosions which are, basically, a big fire created from something that is designed not to explode violently. Same for fuel: there's a reason your cabin is pressurised at 8500m and engines require a compressor- lack of oxygen- which is exactly what fuel needs to ignite. Despite the reputation of jet fuel it's generally about as ignitable as diesel (indeed the main jet fuel, kerosene, was used as fuel for tractors just like diesel is now and some diesel engines and jet turbines will run on the other fuel fine), not worse than petrol. HE otoh does not create much 'fire'** as that would be counterproductive to its main task. Fire involves a lot of relatively slow and incomplete/ inefficient combustion (hence smoke--> unoxidised carbon) while you want very rapid and complete 'combustion' for a HE; and all it has to do in 99% of cases to bring down a plane is punch a hole in it. If you really want to do that and you're a state security service there are a plethora of ways to do it that will leave no traces on any bodies and no obvious traces on the aircraft anyway, not just bombs. Still could be a missile of course, and I'd agree if it were there's no chance of it being a case of mistaken identity. If it had been a random plane then with what we've seen the suggestion would be either bomb or far more likely a mechanical issue but it wasn't a random plane. *on the ground is more likely. Think of it this way, while our experience of flying is in a high oxygen low (apparent) velocity environment in which a fire would flourish as soon as a hole is made in the plane by a bomb all the air gets sucked out and at very high speed--> fire in low oxygen environment and with very high velocity winds --> fire goes out. **hence HiMARS having aluminium powder added to their explosive warheads to enhance heat/ incendiary effects. Which, of course, was forgotten completely when it came to the Olenivka Prison explosion. Especially when the target was Prigo. One suspects all the hand wringing over the poor flight attendant and pilots would stop pretty damn quick if Ukraine claimed responsibility. Though one doesn't really need to suspect given the completely different attitude towards the truck driver Ukraine atomised in the Kerch Bridge attack. At least the FA and pilots were Wagner employees...

It's really too bad Ylvis will be forever known as the guys with that silly fox song (to the broader public, that is - their elevator pranks are pretty funny). Ah, well.

Probably for the same reason they can't do decent camera angles or make exploration be anything but a pain in the ass, or have a loot highlight key that only highlights half the loot. The first one is pretyt subjective, the other really is an issue, and yes, run down clothes in a freaking wardrobe is loot.

I have no idea why they didn't just make it so food automatically goes to camp, though.

Diversity is Strength

The new Guild Wars 2 expansion (Secrets of The Obscure) launched yesterday. I guess that is going to put it's teeth (and tentacles judging by the spoilers and previews) into my flesh the next week or two. Sucks to be you JA3...

Those rotten eggs are part of a quest that gives you the vorpal sword.

The old mmo thing has gone into single player. Honestly don't know how or even if I feel about it. On the one hand, not a fan of companies selling nothing. On the other, if my game purchase does not increase in price because someone else is willing to shoulder that cost so they can play a few days before me - I have other ways to pass the time those days.

Puttering away at work, going to have to wrap up shortly to head into the hospital to find out the latest on my father's scans and what the potential palliative chemo options are now. Might take a full flex afternoon off. Also, just had a post delivery. Got sent the anniversary tee by Obsidian because they picked my question. Nice.

It was free, and I can like hidden-object challenges, so I tried it. It was cute, but it took me like six minutes, no hints used. Not even remotely a challenge, and only one picture/level. Once completed you can try to "speed run" it, but not much point to that imo. It looks like it wants to be a series, with others being a dollar. But seemingly same format, with each being one image. Maybe if it was 15-20 images and difficulty upped a bit, such might be worth a dollar. >.> Just my view, ofc. The art and meows when you find/click on a cat was cute tho. Edit: actually, I'd probably like the series more as a pencil coloring book.

@Keyrock you should see boardgame geek. There are basically roaming boardgames hunting for games to downvote or upvote. "Rating this 10 to balance out the inevitable 1 review with intent to balance out 10s" Ran across an account who had rated 6000 games 1 out of 10

After not playing for the last week for various reasons, I booted BG3 up... and found that apparently due to the hotfix rollback and all, all my saves for the last (roughly) 9 hours of gameplay are "incompatible version". Now I'm going to have to psych myself up to try to remember where I was in the game at the saves it does allow me to load and redo all the things I'd done...