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Showing content with the highest reputation on 10/23/23 in all areas

  1. The books also had a cliffhanger ending that lasted 3+ (real life) years when a building fell on Mat and he then wasn't in the next book at all... It isn't really the cliffhangers that are the problem, it's that such events too often don't spring organically from the plot. I've had this problem with a bunch of TV shows recently where they just want maximum drama and think it doesn't matter how little sense the set up makes to get it.
    3 points
  2. WoT S2Ep6&7 TLDR: they're just about OK, in isolation. I have seen Ep8, and it as with S1's it makes the season retroactively worse though to nowhere near as great an extent. Indeed while I couldn't in good heart recommend the first 7 episodes I don't feel either affronted by them or that I wasted my time watching them. By this point there's no getting around the plotting again being distinctly and obviously wobbly in places though. The plot weaves as the plot wills, I guess, but it would be nice if the plot weaved because the characters and events were consistent instead. General observation: there's an infamous clip of a late Dr Who (original) episode where Sylvester McCoy as The Doctor decides to climb out a window and stand on a ledge for no discernible reason except to create a 'cliffhanger' ending. The equivalent happens all the time on this show.
    3 points
  3. It's clearly an upper case K rather than a lower case k though. Upper case K --> Kelvin, or absolute temperature so it's Good Guy Intel accurately representing that their chips run at 2+ times the surface temperature of the sun. (Some might say it's that way because they just use all caps because they want to shout about how good their chips are and it actually is the abbreviation for kilo. To short circuit any such discussion may I point out first that the chips are lower case i5/7? Checkmate, Inteltheists)
    3 points
  4. I found this tiny creature pet. It was so cute/hilarious, not so much in looks but in the miniature keystone-cop running to keep up with me. I loved it. Then I forgot about it for a little while. Finally summoned/pulled it out again and...apparently it grew up. Which is cool, but it's not cute/funny anymore. The game itself tells you straight up. Still, hey, don't tell me what I can/can't do. Only about 18,446,744,073,709,551,423 to go! I got this! Bubble planets are cool to wander around in. It's such a "zen" game, if you want it to be.
    2 points
  5. Like democracy and capitalism, turn based is supposed to be the least worst system.
    2 points
  6. Solasta Inkeeper: What's your poison? Fighter: We need a room for the night. Thief: Separate beds. Inkeeper: Eh, as long as you pay, you do you. Enjoy your four beds.
    1 point
  7. It's genius really. Get rid of the people you don't want, get them and another bunch of people you don't like to kill each other, and all after those two groups got on relatively well for 1500 years. Then 80 years later you can pat yourself on the back and proclaim how tolerant and progressive you were and how you can't understand why people don't like you, must be hatred of your freedoms not that you gave land where people were already living to another bunch of people. You can also say how Jews and Muslims have always hated each other, so it was all inevitable and Jews needed a homeland to escape Muslim persecution.
    1 point
  8. And tolerance of Jews is not only fuzzy thing in western history textbooks. They forgot to tell that many people that were liberated from Nazi concentration camps, like for example gays were just moved to german prisons to serve their sentences that they received during Nazi regime and they were not acknowledge or compensated as victims of mass murder until 1985 when they got mentioned in speech by German president. Romani people didn't get much better treatment by their 'liberators'. And quite rarely you hear mentioned things like that State of Croatia annihilated about 25000 romani people which were virtually every romani that lived in Croatia. And after the war The courts in the Federal Republic of Germany determined that romani weren't persecuted because of their race but because their crimes, even though it is estimated Nazis killed 250k-500k romani (although no one knows for sure because no one was interested to know how many romani there were Europe before the war and how many were left after the war). Also romani who were forcibly sterilized or illegally deported from the Germany were left without compensation. West Germany acknowledge that Romani were racially persecuted in 1965. And in 1982 Helmut Schmidt acknowledged that romani were also victims of genocide. I have still not seen history textbook that directly tells that Europeans, even allied countries continued to persecute victims of Nazis long after the liberated them from the Nazis.
    1 point
  9. I tried, when I would find a good strategy in combinason with Arterial Strike, a monk with Instrument of Pain using Efficient Anguish (IoP for the +500% melee range). The red hand (Twin Slugs, 4m push on hit) is really an equivalent but with auto-attack. In other hand, Efficient Anguish can be used with AoE weapon to push many targets. Also, Clean attacks from fighter, with in main hand Xefa's Empirical Explications (Matter Repulsion) or Eccea's Arcane Blaster (Force). Paired with Ranger (for Driving Flight) that was a pushing wave. Matter Repulsion bounce, on top of the Xefa's attack itself. (with Avenging Storm, it is easy to see the incredible area of the Xefa's clear out wave) It is great but expensive however. SC ranger with Whirling Strikes (with the same weapons) have the same problem, but also give some DoT. Driving Roar + Blood Storm is a really strong and cheap equivalent! It is like an Hard CC killing stuff, since enemies are constantly pushed and cant play with us.
    1 point
  10. I always preferred Privateer to the mainline games so perhaps not so much for me, but it does look very nice if you ignore the framerate on what I imagine is a system around twice as powerful as mine. In all seriousness though, there are a lot more gameplay elements than I could have imagined, and the atmosphere seems right such that slow-walking through a capital ship seems pretty immersive.
    1 point
  11. Funny, we learned about the whole WW2 thing a lot in school, but I never really grasped the background of it all until I've read Umberto Eco's Prague Cemetery. At first the book highly confused me, so I started reading up on it more until it finally really clicked for me, that jews weren't just hated by Germany back then. It goes so damn far back in time. In hindsight it is obvious, but it really wasn't in my mind like that. Literally everyone hated jews and they were commonly used as scapegoats. Chances are high that if germany wouldn't have started with the death camps, someone else for sure would have.
    1 point
  12. we frequent use fried capers as a garnish. our linked microwave video from atk includes a quick, easy and usually mess-minimal approach to frying capers. ff to 6:24 if interested. however, we do recommend one o' these: https://www.tovolo.com/product/tovolo-large-collapsible-microwave-cover-food-and-meal-prep-kitchen-gadget/ at $12 on sale it is one o' our better cooking gadget investments. nowadays we typical poach eggs in the microwave, and maybe one-in-twenty attempts (am ordinary poaching two eggs at a time, so one outta forty eggs) am getting an explody fail, which is not fun. is much easier to clean the cover than the entire microwave. am mentioning 'cause a catastrophic caper disincorporation has happened to us more than once, although the result is a bit less dramatic than the egg. HA! Good Fun!
    1 point
  13. He just didn't realize that the "K" is a multiplicator too. Just times 1000. Intel won that a long time ago.
    1 point
  14. Go to grocery A, buy 12 of an item. Go to grocery B and see item on sale for $1.50 less each. Unable to properly articulate the rage I experienced
    1 point
  15. Had a craving for kiwifruit. Ate a kilogram of kiwi. Still have a craving for kiwi. ._.
    1 point
  16. I like them alot, but I read them first time when I was a teen so I'm very biased towards them. The Deverry series especially.
    1 point
  17. Things I do in NMS: (not all in one day...) ----spend a couple hours mining out all the stalagmites in dark caves for a few stacks of copper because I find it peaceful. There are automated base-ways to get resources dribbled to you to reduce such "grind," but to me, that's no fun. ---spend a few hours cleaning up/deleting etc. all my small planet bases, descriptive naming ones I want to keep, etc. With bajillions of planets/systems, gotta be mindful of the base and object limitations. ---spend two hours standing in/reloading a space station hoping that cute Shuttle ship it spawned, would finally fly in, as an S class version. It didn't. I finally had to upgrade an A to S manually. ---spend an hour agonizing over what ships to keep/delete in collection. Chicken Nugget is still my #1/main ship tho. Only one I've maxed out. ---spend three hours wandering planet surfaces farming base deco-glitch formations and just admiring views ---spend a few hours max warp-distance jumping from solar system to solar system trying to get closer to the center of the Galaxy. Only 610k light years to go. It would go faster if I wasn't so easily distracted by exploring a planet now and then.
    1 point
  18. Forget Justin Timberlake, my V is bringing sexy back. Timely reference, I know.
    1 point
  19. I went to the ren fair today: I'm not presumptuous enough to dress up as a noble so there I am in my gambeson and cloth coif. A good time was had. The Carolina Renaissance Festival always puts on a great show.
    1 point
  20. You need Energized from Their Companion... which should be used either for interrupting with chants (as Boeroer explained) or for added penetration for melee/Her Revenge... The Instruments of Death don't need many buffs because they tank very well already and the healing from your chants/auras is more than enough to keep them alive for their entire duration. As a herald you should focus on your versatility and pick the best option for each situation. Having summons at your disposal doesn't mean you have to use them every fight - but if you encounter hard hitting enemies it's better to have more meat shields or distractions. Against many weak enemies you don't need summons - you will want to spam Her Revenge... Other enemies can be vulnerable to interrupts and then you can use Their Companion + Thick Grew... and so on... Herald is not boring if you make use of all the tools at your disposal, but can be played also in a "lazy" way, piloted by the AI, because he's almost unkillable and can carry the entire party by himself. Another "must have" combo is Many Lives... + Bardatto's Luxury (enchanted with Death and Taxes) for the Hardy inspiration which stacks with everything.
    1 point
  21. It seems to be he wants to design dual system, like what Deadfire ended up trying to be. I think he is right on the money - RTwP adds additional challenges on top of number crunching tactical game. Some players handle it very well, quite a few don't. And when doing turn-based playthrough I did thing that the game made a lot of enemy designs more understandable, and there was a more noticable distinction between quality and filler encounters. Way back I did suggest that PoE3 could really dial in difficulty and design for Turn-based combat - and those who need it (like myself) could use the clarity of turn-based combat, while players capable of analyzing combat as it happens in real time could go RTwP. You could dial in tactical difficulty of the game without making it inaccesable. And if one wants to make encounters quck and unchallenging RTwP + low difficulty setting should do a trick. But let's not get our hopes up. I am happy to see that when asked "what would you do with unlimited budget" JS answer is "PoE3". At the same time, he might not be willing to do it with anything less, so I will still treat PoE as an abandoned IP unless proven otherwise.
    1 point
  22. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/meet-the-men-hiding-their-fifa-ultimate-team-addiction-from-their-families
    1 point
  23. Pillars of Eternity does not need to compete with whatever Larian is making - despite the cursory similarities, they are fundamentally different. Larian cannot write or design UI or combat encounters, while constantly disregarding the lore for no reason (from the Divinity 1 MC in D:OS2 to the Emperor in their latest title, and that lore was not even theirs to take a dump on). Obsidian, on the other hand, has excellent writing, relatable characters, meaningful and impactful choices, amazing graphics and UI, and engaging combat and stealth. Also, the pause function and system requirements. VA and mo-cap are a waste of resources for CRPGs, while the only paise-worthy aspect of Larian's games is the ability to skip all those mo-capped voice-acted scenes with a well-launched fireball (i.e. immersive sim elements). Which occasionally breaks the narrative (e.g. the boss thrown into the chasm teleports onto the platform to die in a cut-scene), because even this was poorly-implemented. While it is unlikely with Microsoft, I would definitely back another PoE game. --- Length-wise, I think, Deadfire was shorter, which was most welcome.
    1 point
  24. Question is, why did Deadfire (apparently) fail so hard? Was it the pirate setting, or was it that PoE1 got overhyped hard and the majority of players actually didn't really like it? Personally I never finished PoE1. Game felt too long, middle was a slog, and I'm really not a fan of rtwp combat blobs. On the other hand, I played through Deadfire 2 times (new playthrough right after the first one!), despite the rtwp blob combat. Guess I managed better, because I think pirates are cool. Also the game is quite a bit shorter. My only issue with it is that the side-content islands felt like nothing but simple fillers, and that many of the quests felt very formulaic. Like, by now I can 100% predict which choices will show up for me, what exactly I can do, and how it very likely will turn out.
    1 point
  25. I think if BG3 does very well, and everything I've seen points toward it having doing very well, then there's going to be at least some interest in trying to recreate that. PoE 3 seems like an obvious contender for Microsoft to try that and I'd think Sawyer would be a natural choice to helm it. So maybe a bit more optimistic than no hope.
    1 point
  26. Josh Sawyer would be up for making Pillars of Eternity3 if he got a lot of budget fot it. So... still no hope for PoE3? https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/obsidians-josh-sawyer-wants-to-do-pillars-of-eternity-3-with-baldurs-gate-3s-budget
    1 point
  27. Only the true Messiah denies his divinity, and I delivered my denial in the strongest possible terms.
    1 point
  28. I tried my first non-tutorial brawl ever after 2.0 at level 30-35ish, and got absolutely destroyed. Granted I suck at it mechanically, but even when I got the counter timing right and landed a few punches, I would say they did about 0.25% of the opponent's HP bar per hit. I looked it up just now and welp, looks like I just happened to choose the hardest fighter of the bunch, what with my 4 body and zero relevant skills/cyberware/gear.
    1 point
  29. Spy x Family 28 A Yuri episode. The other characters barely appear, unless you count the short scenes in the end. We learn why telepaths don't go to public swimming pools.
    0 points
  30. I ended up in final dungeon of Chapter 12 in Star Ocean 5. I have almost finished the storyline, and I need to get down three more bosses including final one. But this walkthrough is my trophy hunting one, so I am slowly getting more and more of materials for various crafts and getting some Battle Trophies as well. These trophies are much easier to stomach than the trophies in SO4, and there are much less of them, but there is on ridiculous one... 1 million hits on enemies... And I have after 100 hours or so, around 180k we'll see how this one will fare...
    0 points
  31. VIA C7 CPUs are seven times the speed of light.
    0 points
  32. After letting BG3 digest for a while I think it managed to hit a lot of the same notes of BG1+2 by having absolute maniacs being incredibly silly. Things like the talking chicken or strange oxes are memorable and add texture to a game. I don't think PoE did that as well and really could have benefitted from some dumb bull****.
    0 points
  33. I actually fired up PoE last week. On loading, I saw that four of my six party members (who I'd completely forgotten their names) had a level-up pending. I went through the level-up process for one of them after reading a bunch of spell and ability names, after which I couldn't be bothered doing the other three and quit. BG3 and Solasta co-op controlling two characters each feels right to me. I have a parallel BG3 single-player run which feels right at the edge of what my brain can track, which is helped by pre-existing knowledge of the D&D rules. Micro-managing six characters with completely alien classes and abilities to me is just overwhelming and I can't handle it.
    0 points
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