Leaderboard

Another GOG giveaway 😛 https://www.gog.com/en/game/hero_of_the_kingdom_ii

Having finished my P:WotR run I went back to Solasta. And I finally, after all these years, broke down and registered for a Nexus Mods account so that I could apply the Community Unfinished Business mod to Solasta. I mainly activated three things in the mod, exactly the three biggest gripes I've had with the game: a party of six, multiclassing, and removing attunement. Then I started playing the official user module, Caer Falcarn, that comes with the modding tools DLC. Now Solasta is sooooooo incredibly awesome! I'm so loving the game, and looking forward to playing Palace of Ice and also some of the more popular user modules out there.

I saw it in the newsletter, but I said "If Mamoulian War doesn't inform us, I don't click the Claim Button."

Hello all, Managed to get to finish the game on RELAX mode, because i wanted to learn the game mechanics. Absolutely one of the greatest rpg game, i ever played, because of the replayability. Never, ever understimate power of Team Boars! 😄

Yeah, same. I didn't read that Bioware statement as saying a lot of veterans were among those laid off. It's only around 50 people, all of whom have been offered jobs in others parts of EA. And furthermore, just because someone is a "veteran" doesn't automatically mean they're good at what they do. I remain confident in DA:D and continue to be very excited about this game.

Both of the DOS games got a large content drop with their enhanced editions a year or so after release, it would not be a surprise if the same thing happenens here. Would be kind of funny if Larian ends up rewriting the final act for two games in a row.

My initial bard, on the left, and my current 'Durge' on the right... Having spent entirety too many hours in Early Access and even more with the final game... I like it. Is it a perfect game? No, but it's also much better than I was expecting and a fun D&D romp.

flip side o' kp hand-wringing over possible fifth columnist legislators Wisconsin Supreme Court flips liberal, creating a ‘seismic shift’ americans is so polarized that there is a few issues which result in disproportionate voter participation. crime fears benefits conservatives even in democrat strongholds. converse, abortion and trump is losing propositions for republicans even in otherwise red states. for the vast majority o' elected officials, their primary job is to seek reelection. overt betrayal by an elected legislator, judge, school board member or even dog catcher is gonna decrease the odds o' reelection for the individual who overt lied to voters. even with targeted gerrymandering which may fundamental alter the demographics o' a legislator's voters, nobody wants to be associated with fredo corleone. so unless the aspiring sith lord legislator is planning on a fox news gig, the kinda thing indulged by cotham in north carolina will be exceptional 'cause is ordinarily self defeating for anybody with future political ambitions. however, am thinking republicans and democrats need to wise up a bit and actual pay attention to their voters as posed to reading tweets from their most vocal supporters. in state after state, republicans is getting hammered on abortion and their unsubstantiated claims o' voter fraud. yeah, as improbable as it sounds, most republicans believe the 2020 election were stolen, but most independents do not share such beliefs and a significant % o' republicans are tired o' the voter fraud silliness. "most republicans" ain't anywhere near enough to carry tight races. same goes for progressives who is dismissive o' complaints about rampant crime or fears o' raising taxes. in the history o' forever, raising taxes and being soft on crime has been overwhelming loser positions. tell us 2023 fears about crime is largely manufactured hokum is so preaching to the choir. the reality is it doesn't matter if the fear is unjustified if voters remain afraid. for the past couple decades, republicans have been extreme successful at developing a unifying narrative for their base. is doubtful most boardies listen to conservative radio or watch fox news, but if you fix cars, repair roofs or drive trucks for a living, chances are you are the target audience o' the no-longer-so-alt right messaging which has become increasingly extreme in a relative short span o' time. to most educated liberals, rush's feminazi schtick seemed gross but silly in 2000. not funny anymore. not even fringe. republican messaging has been extreme effective such that we no longer have a shared reality about many basic facts in this country. covid? democrats has been far more splintered in their messaging. however, thanks to dobbs and trump, democrats got issues which unify them, bolster their resolve and even peel off a few conservative voters. is doubtful democrats are able to genuine unify to the degree you see with working class whites and republicans, and the last thing we wanna see is both parties going all in on campaigns o' fear and grievance, but am thinking democrats have a real opportunity to have a shared vision which they is able to communicate to voters. wisconsin's supreme court flip should be textbook. the change weren't managed with a fifth columnist or some other sleight o' hand. wisconsin republicans, like republicans in indiana, texas and elsewhere, went all-in on making access to abortion and voting more difficult. in response, democrats made republicans pay for their overt stoopid. HA! Good Fun!

As gameplay goes, Neocore did something unheard of for many early access Devs: listen to feedback. I strongly disliked early builds, but the release version I had more fun with than I expected. Played the game through once. I don't know if I'll return for a second play through, but I am not much interested in a Christian run and not at all interested in a tyrant run. My main problem is that the game has the biggest disconnect between writing and gameplay you ever encountered in gaming. The premise is that Mordred and King Arthur kill eachother, and when Arthur's body is sent to Avalon, something goes wrong and the dead can't rest. Nobody dies. The game has permadeath of your characters. Also, people get killed the all the time. For me this takes away some enjoyment. Other people won't care. I'd rate it somewhere between KA1 and 2. So with the BruceVC game scoring system that should work out at 65, with possibly higher for anyone who isn't bothered by that story problem. One of the good things is the many characters who can join you in Camelot.

I think that its always been that an alternative to WWE has to exist when looking at national wrestling promotions. WWE / Vince by itself will just get lazy and regurgitative. Just being able to have an alternative to move to / from rejuvenates storylines and matches. I'm not convinced today is better than when we were in classic eras with the territories (although some things are better now than the territory days and to be fair, the territories are never coming back), but I think its clear AEW has helped the sport(s entertainment) get out of the funk it had been in.

I watched AEW All In 2023 from Wembley Stadium in London, England. The term "historic" gets used far too often, but in this case it fits. At 81,035 this was the largest paid attendance in rasslin' history, topping the previous record of 80,706 set by WWE's Wrestlemania 32 in Arlington, Texas in 2016. It's not the largest attendance ever, that honor belongs to NJPW & WCW Collision in Korea night 2 in 1995 in Pyongyang, North Korea at 165,000, but attendance was government mandated for that show. Anyway, it was a fantastic show with a MASSIVE and very loud crowd. If one of the goals of the show was to make AEW look major league, and I'm sure it was, then mission successful. The $10 million+ gate doesn't hurt either. 4 years ago, before AEW was formed, anyone other than Vince McMahon putting 80K butts in seats for a rasslin' event was INCONCEIVABLE. NJPW's annual Wrestle Kingdom event once hit a high of 43K, which is nothing to sneeze at, but a far cry from 80K. Nobody else has been able to do even 10K since WCW folded over 20 years ago. I firmly believe we are currently in a Rasslin' Golden Age. WWE is the hottest it's been in AT LEAST a decade, with the best angle (Bloodline) and the best heel (Dirty Dom) going. NJPW, while not at the peak form they were in in 2018 has bounced back from the pandemic which hurt them a lot and is coming off a terrific G1 Climax tournament, and AEW just set a new standard for a giant event. This harkens back to 1998 when WWF, WCW, and ECW were all hot simultaneous, even if ECW wasn't ever profitable.

Besides the appropriateness of "Y" existentially questioning the renaming of itself with its name, it'd have the benefit that instead of re-branding tweets as xeets, they could just call them yeets which also seems appropriate give what gets thrown up there anymore. Good luck with the jobs DN!

@Deadly_Nightshade Good luck with the job hunting.

There has been lots of updates around Dreadwolf which is the next game they will release

Retrenchments are never nice to see but sometimes they are absolutely necessary to ensure a company can survive and be profitable I just hope Bioware can create new games, thats the most important thing for me

Wisconsin is widely considered to be the most gerrymandered state in the country, and the state could feasibly (though nowhere near certainly) switch from Republican super-majorities* in the state assembly and senate to a Democrat trifecta if the maps are fairly remade by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. A lot of positive change could happen in a very short amount of time a la Minnesota if that comes to past - but the very least, the maps being remade and a Democrat staying in the governorship should make certain Republicans never even sniff super-majorities in Wisconsin ever again. It is what I am most excited for (as opposed to anxious or dreading) with regards to the 2024 election season, assuming it happens by then, and I pray that it does. *Actual overriding super-majority in the state senate at 22/33 seats, almost overriding super-majority in the state assembly at 64/99.

My position at work might be being eliminated due to the department shifting around but I have an interview for a replacement in the same organization on Thursday and another at an external one in the works (the latter would actually be several steps higher and a decent pay raise so I'm honestly more interested in that, although it also depends on who gives me what offer when). So, while the prospect of possibly being temporarily jobless isn't ideal, things could be worse given the situation and I'm also in a field that is growing rather than shrinking despite the questionable economy and job market.

Not surprised. BG3 has the sort of snarky smartass dialogue he likes.

Welcome to Act2. Fun starts once you leave well tested EA area. By know I just accepted that characters will be acting weird. During my last game session, Baldur’s Gate Laez expressed her relieve that we are finally nearing Moonrise Tower… Honey, I know you haven’t been in the party much, but I think you missed out on some major events.

I was thinking of something else with the extra attack stacking (watched way too many videos recently, I guess), but that doesn't change the idea that Astarion is better off as an Assassin/Gloomstalker. 8/17/14/10/16/8, Ranger(6), Rogue(4), Fighter(2) or 5/5/2 for an extra sneak die, doesn't really matter. You can start with Ranger or Rogue depending on your preferences, going Ranger(5) first gets you the extra attack, then add Rogue until Assassin. Dual wield hand crossbows. Get Hunter's Mark and Sharpshooter (+10 damage on attacks). Gloomstalkers get the WIS bonus to initiative on attacks from stealth and can hide as a bonus action (well, like Rogues) and deal bonus damage too. Assassin makes sure all surprise round attacks are critical hits, and you reset your actions once the first actual round of combat begins. You basically end encounters on your opening burst. Sprinkle with extra Fighter levels for action surge. Gameplay is pretty much about picking a nice vantage point and shift+del enemies. Takes level 8 to really take off. Note that you can technically use any ranged or melee weapon, hand-crossbows are just a nice way to get another attack to use with Sharpshooter. You can also make that work with less critting but more consistent regular damage by going Thief. Thief's, uhm, extra bonus action extends to shooting an off-hand hand-crossbow a second time. Stats aren't set in stone either if you don't like the 8s, but we're talking about respeccing Astarion in the face of a Bard party leader, so who needs CHA on Astarion.

two wolf and snow movie recommendations: and completely different fantastic cinematography from hiro narita. HA! Good Fun!

It's romance time: Nice try, Shadowheart, but Karlach moved faster:

I'm still having continuity errors. Several. Or I could just pretend the game lets me lie to Shadowheart about stealing the artifact. I also talked with people about the Absolute and saw a cutscene, so things are finally starting to make sense. Goblin camp: Nice how each npc has a unique and funny line. Let's see how tough they are when I start the massacre. They are all aracnophobes and can't handle Gale's familiar, imagine when I turn into a giant one. I also met a BDSM guy, a pity Lae'zel wasn’t there. She might have accepted his offer, unlike my character. This makes me regret every screenshot during cutscenes. It's almost as if the pc is a self aware AI and is reacting to the expressions she makes in disgust and shame.

Edit: Never mind, resting didn't help but reloading did. Leaving it as a riddle for anyone who might enjoy it. My Watcher is permanently slowed, but there's no debuff to indicate it. Resting doesn't fix it. I am guessing I have some invisible debuff that I could remove with the console, but I need help figuring out what it could be. I probably got it from one of the first three bounties (not the ogre) or that jerk chanter in the middle of Magran's Fork. Either way, I'm in chapter the-city-hasn't-burned-yet. I also have 6 too little constitution, and at least 6 too little might. Probably related. Attribute tooltips do not explain the deficit. Any guesses?

Little bit of insight, why “it takes so long” in the South. The Bradley’s are invaluable at saving UA lives.

Here are my ideas to add to the game. Make me head ideas man for the grounded team Ideas for grounded.docx

I found a solution to my own problem. Changing Windows (OS) display scaling to 100% (in the Windows Settings app) fixes it. Scaling is also referred to as DPI in some places.

https://blog.bioware.com/2023/08/23/an-update-on-the-state-of-bioware/ EDIT: This seems to include a lot of veterans. So I guess we can say RIP.

Patch 1.1.0 released today. What makes this patch notable is that it includes the first batch of modding tools.

I think that was supposed to go in the unpopular opinion thread.

Problem with that spreadsheet is that it doesn't appear to really highlight when the breakpoints are important. (Reminding me of the joke about the statistician who drowned while trying to cross a river that was on average only 3 feet/1 meter deep.) I only have an intuitive sense based on experience: Intimidate is extremely important for one armor (extra deflection) and you need like 20+ for a non-violent resolution to pre-porokoa SSS. You also need high metaphysics (and possibly arcana?) to solve the three beings the most "correctly." Metaphysics is also useful for several items. Religion is somewhat important depending on items (off the top of my head, a great sword, a bow, xoti's sickle, the fire flail) but is otherwise mostly flavor. History is very important if you want to maximize the cloak that gives you +all non-deflection defenses, but is very weak flavor everywhere else Survival is important for many world map encounters, but I don't think you need more than 10 or so. IIRC Survival/Alchemy on the scale of 10-15 is needed to have a peaceful resolution with the fungi in FS. Athletics is notably useful for that island with the bridge crossing, though honestly sometimes I create a sacrifical character. Diplomacy is useful, but if you have ~10 that solves most of the places where you can use it help with quest resolution. (I don't know what the 17 check is in that spreadsheet, sorry.) I'm not sure the high Bluff checks actually help with quest resolution. This is sort of the problem - sometimes there's no alternate outcomes or a redundant alternative outcome so you just get some extremely difficult-to-hit fluff. At least in Fallout: New Vegas you'd get experience for succeeding at difficult but irrelevant checks. Insight, Streetwise have little to no value to me. edit: i did some research for SSS and FS breakpoints as part of my ultimate run planning but I honestly can't find them anywhere. If I was more motivated I'd dig through the ultimate thread or go through my videos, but eh...

RIP Minthara. You looked like a very interesting npc. For the few minutes you were in the game. Moonbeam did wonders as usual. I’m cleaning the goblin camp and had some funny interactions with the BDSM guy. Since Karlach had expressed some interested in his “penance”, I let her have it. There was some exclusive dialogue for Barbarians. The battles were some of the best so far. Plenty of exploding barrels, enemies moving into a combination of grease/web/cloak of daggers/moonbeam (or Call Lightning) and my first fireball killed five guys (who were enwebbed) at the same time. That is how it should be.🙂

Caused a production issue due to ****ing newline characters of all things Damn text operations

5th ed items and infinite respeccing.

Im leaving for a work trip on Wednesday for a week so I wont start Fallout 1 until I get back but I decided to kickoff the KA1 Druids DLC and its really good Its the same mechanics as KA1 but with additional features, I set my victory goals as conquering all provinces and having to include 10 knights Im still getting use to no Magic Shield from KA2 and I keep waiting for my initial spells to get blocked But I definitely prefer KA1 design and mechanics, its harder but more rewarding

lukas kristjanson was just laid off by bioware. the perversity of the universe tends towards the maximum

'We owe them a huge debt': Baldur's Gate 3 lead writer hopes they did '90s BioWare proud