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Edit: No longer relevant. I've made a mod to display all of this info directly in-game.

The MSony consoles are effectively x86 PCs. I feel like any remaining wall is artificial.

There is a general lack of historical knowledge, and positive things also don't tend to be news as such. Both of these factors contribute a lot. 9/11 is big news, long-term incremental improvement of essentially everything is not: there is never any Eureka moment. But let's just consider things like infant surgery done without anaesthesia well into the 1980s. The past is a terrible, terrible place.

It doesn't seem to me that he's being cynical; those examples he gave truly are very bad. What's interesting is that things used to be a lot worse. For example, for a few months now, I have been involved in a work project concerning the history of the Mafia, going back to the feodal times. Essentially everything is a lot better now than it used to be; even the early 20th century was quite awful compared to what we have now (except for environmental problems).

Just 50 from the world of domestic politics... https://www.crikey.com.au/dossier-of-lies-and-falsehoods/ Then there are of course international politics... similar lists from Trump, The Bushes, Boris Johnson, Vladimir Putin, Modi, Bolsano etc... Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq? Brexit will be a net positive for the UK!, We will not invade Ukraine... etc. etc. All in all, whenever a new state leader swears to serve his people (when he really means serving the interest groups that got him/her in power) Then there are all the corporate ones... Former and current CEO's of Boeing, most bank CEO's and the majority of their executives, local telco CEO's lying about data leaks, outages and impacts on emergency calls etc. The church lying to the public for half a century and denying that the worlds largest pedophile ring is not doing anything wrong and diligently investigating claims to the opposite... All of which only gets exposed because luckily some journalists still dig into these things. Feel free to add to the list, but those were just what sprang to mind within the first 15 seconds. Could probably write a thesis if I felt like putting the effort into it.

If it interests you, I do consider myself one of the masses. Hence why it p.....s me off no end when I feel constantly lied to and spend a lot of time and effort fending off attempts to deceive me

*No romances (win for the good guys)

I started Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, the game is awesome so far. Anyway, typically in a story you'd have the main protagonist hit their lowest point much later than this, in a standard 3 act movie it would be at the end of act 2, but I'm at the beginning of the game and my dude That's a fate worse than death. I'm pretty sure I know where this is going, not the details, I mean, but the main overarching plot that's going to get mostly lost in the shuffle while other stuff, probably murders, betrayals, revenge, that sort of thing, happens, and then comes back at the very end. I guess I'll find out in roughly 100 hours.

Hi About to hop into Deadfire for the first time after having played Pillars 1 several times over the years. I'd like to keep some continuity with my current Watcher, but I know there are some gameplay and mechanics changes in Deadfire, so I wanted to see if my build would still work or how to best re-work it or add a multiclass. For PoE 1 I played as a low-int rogue with greatsword (Tidefall) and plate armor ignoring stealth and just building up status effects to smash with sneak attack damage. Don't necessarily care about pure optimization but does this type of thing still work in Deadfire? Everywhere I see rogue builds, I just see dual wield sabres and stealth which I'm not opposed to stealth but I'd like to keep using 2H weapons and maybe add on something like Paladin or Barb or even Cipher to add some more utility/variance options. I know this probably sounds scatterbrained so TL;DR - is there a good 2H heavy armor Rogue multiclass build for Deadfire?

I was just talking from a business/cost cutting measures/potential continued sales perspective, keep in mind I think the estimated final budget re: Starfield was 300-400million. In terms of Steam, don't they take a large cut? Anyway I think they were wanting a billion in revenue. Which is likely to be reached, if gamepass and the negative ratings/customer support publicity don't affect long-term sales overmuch. Point being tho, that it takes a ton to just break even these days, by their reckoning. Games and marketing budgets for such games are huge now and what owners want in return....it's like blockbuster movie math. In terms of anything to turn around - well, public faith/mockery would be the main thing. It's still Negative/Mixed rated on Steam and that dev comment response to user reviews was a big lol. Although as per usual with these kinds of hoopla's, many "hating" on SF right now, are still likely to turn around and buy the next Elder Scrolls no questions asked. I still think Blizzard has not really recovered from that whole "YOU HAVE PHONES DON'T YOU" thing, public image wise.

Walls between PC and console continue to crumble as Horizon Forbidden West announces March release date | PC Gamer Wootage.

you could even do a rogue/druid multiclass. most of the druid kit won't be terribly useful (maybe you could make it a lifegiver to give you some backup heals when you're in trouble), but firebrand at tier 2 will be up your alley. you can also get a ring very early on (either pay a lot or steal it) from the dark cupboard which gives you +10 acc to fire attacks, which applies to firebrand. so do talents that improve penetration. firebrand's 25% multiplicative fire lash on top of all the sneak attack (and eventually deathblows) damage bonuses plus hugely boosted accuracy, and you'll hit like an absolute monster. (especially if that rogue is a streetfighter)

Sure, a human Streetfighter at low health will hit like a truck. Perhaps consider multiclassing with Devoted Fighter for more penetration and accuracy if you want to use only greatswords, or Soul Blade for Soul Annihilation attacks that can deal ridiculous damage.

I just completed PoE White March 2 and like WM1 it was very entertaining, I prefered 2 to 1 overall. It also only took me 20 hours or so That means I have completed PoE1 in its entirety and I can share my views on the game. Some of this I have already mentioned in a previous post. The most significant positive about this game is Obsidian has been able to create a new fantasy RPG world and different mechanics around ruleset than most of us are use to compared to traditional D&D, I appreciated it but it took some getting use to. So for example any class can basically use any armour or weapon. The combat is a massive and main part of the game and I enjoyed it once you understand how abilities work, I didnt really like how you limited around healing in the normal sense and the whole health vs endurance mechanic was not preferable for me compared to normal D&D similar mechanics. But its not a big deal My favorite battles were with the Eyeless, I liked paralyzing them or using my Cipher and Stasis Shell to isolate them in combat and I really had fun with the strategic nature of hard battles Crafting was rewarding and made sense, there was nothing better than finding a high level ingredient like a Dragons Eye and knowing you can gain a major combat upgrade.I also liked how you can find important items to help in combat and increase stats and they not common so you really appreciate finding them The main narrative was one of the best parts of the game and I found it very thought provoking. I enjoyed most of the lore but I also found myself forgetting things like who a specific deity was, thank goodness for the encyclopedia ...it became my friend on a regular basis I can understand this game is an acquired taste, its not for all fans of fantasy RPG and the combat can sometimes feel draining, I dont like enemies appearing out of nowhere but its not all the time. I used pause and slowed the speed which allowed me to micromanage my party which I enjoyed. My main character was a priest and the game offered some interesting classes like Cipher which is lots of fun So in closing, great game and its gets a 75/100 on the globally endorsed "BruceVC game rating system " Now I plan to play PoE2 after a short break from this type of genre, how is PoE2? What is the consensus, better than PoE1?

Same, but it feels better when you make the conscious choice to recruit the companions, instead of them being mandatory. I understand that making the story work with more variables is more complicated and costly, but it was possible in PoE and TOW, so why not now? On the other hand, if, say, Spiders (Greedfall, The Technomancer) told that the companions are mandatory in their new project, I would have shrugged - they do ACTION-RPGs, so less is expected from them. All companions in Larian's D&D game were optional. Some needed more encouragement to be on their way, but none of them was required in the party in order to finish the game. Even the areas where their side quests would take place were available without them. (If you mean the Sharran priestess with a McGuffin, the priestess was optional, the McGuffin would teleport to the PC on its own).

Yes. The narrative since the first gameplay trailer has been "the combat has turned out rather fun, so we decided to focus on that". I am still not seeing what Obsidian is seeing. Maybe hands-on previews at some point in the future will turn things around. It seems that most still expect Avowed to be an RPG first and foremost.

Yes, it's been said in the early reveal that companions this time around will be mandatory. What they said than, is that by making them unavoidable, they can be better integrated with the main story - which makes a lot of sense. Personally, as I always gather all companions that I can, I don't mind it. It is logical, if that the game has to work without certain elements, those elements will have to be made more seperate. Whenever it is a worthy tradeoff, will depend on the quality of Avowed companions. At the same time, I doubt I will personally care, as I tend to collect Obsidian companions as if they were Pokemon. Frankly, I would rather have Obsidian decide from the get go that companions are mandatory, than do what Larian did - give players freedom to ignore companions, and than create "reactivity" to retcon those choice, because they made some companions necessary for the main plot.

Yes and I agree, things are generally much better now in the world if you look at numerous metrics like people living in absolute poverty, life expectancy or education levels So even though that's irrefutably true the positive side of that story tends to get lost because people tend to say things like "why do I care about life 100 years ago, I care about my salary now or the fact I cant own a house " or other similar things But I agree, the worlds a much better place than its ever been

The Blue Sky Maiden (1957). I waited just a little under three years to watch this. Japanese cinema continues to be an impenetrable enigma to me, but I guess it was okay - a kind of coming of age story about a young woman from a small town trying to find her lost birth mother while being looked down upon by her relatives in Tokyo. Tetsuo the Iron Man (1989). This is the type of film where you watch the whole thing, you go to read the plot summary on Wikipedia to try to figure out what happened, but then Wikipedia says all they've got is some notes from the director because only he would ever be able to really know what it's about. So I didn't understand it one bit, but it was probably one of the funniest films I've ever seen while also having a great industrial soundtrack and incredibly unique visuals...and if I had exactly one film to recommend to @PK htiw klaw eriF for the rest of my life, it'd have to be this one. No way you're ever getting more Kaine Parker than Tetsuo the Iron Man. Plus, it's only an hour long.

Gorthfuscious if you ever worried about people deceiving you then ask me, you know you can trust me

Ceasefire or no ceasefire should not any way impact on ICJ's verdict is or isn't Israel committing genocide in Gaza.

ICJ judgements are binding (unless specified otherwise) but they're not enforceable. ie they don't have any way- short of the UNSC or similar- to enforce their decisions via a 'police force' equivalent. Non binding is similar practically, especially in these circumstances, but would not be enforced except voluntarily even if they had that 'police force' to do so. Plenty of other institutions rule on international crimes too, like the UNSC. They didn't need the ICJ to rule that Iraq invading Kuwait was illegal, for instance.

Neither Netanhyahu or Hamas want full ceasefire. Offers of ceasefire is just to show for world and looking time for resupply. In political sense Netanhyahu has little to gain from the ceasefire, he has failed in what has been his driving promise, to keep Israel safe. The war in Gaza will prevent his ousting at least for the time and gives him opportunity to ensure that he will not lose his political power. Also it seem that big sunk of people of Israel aren't keen to see war ending before Hamas is destroyed which probably will not happen anytime soon. Hamas has hostages because of act of terrorism, it has no legimate reason to keep hostages and it does not seem to have any clear goal what they want to achieve with the hostages. And Hamas does not promise to stop their attacks to Israel even in case Israel promises full ceasefire and because of Hamas' structure they probably don't even have ability to make such promise even if their leadership wanted to do so.

For obvious reasons, this giveaway has to be announced by me: www.gog.com/?smclient=25625981-e635-4c7c-a1a8-d4da17bcf892#giveaway It is Mordheim.

@xzar_monty circling back to fires in Russia, about which we talk some moths ago. I have seen week or two ago article, which said, that in 2023 the fires quadrupled compared to 2022, which had already much more fires than during the pre-war era. Unfortunately, I can’t find the article anymore IIRĆ the statistics were based on officialy published Russian data.

Thank you for the information. I somehow doubt that Obsidian can do action combat better than, for example, Dragon's Dogma 2, which should be released this year, while first-person rarely works well with open melee combat. Still going to get the game, but the description is disappointing.

Just the general hypocrisy, after all the US wouldn't approve of other nations killing people they don't like on their soil, or assassinating their scientists, for example. Zizek made a funny statement, about how when you make the rules, you never break them

They have had ceasefires with no cross border incidents before, Hamas is able to enforce them if it wants to (and with acceptance that they don't have absolute control over, say, Islamic Jihad). Israel also has a... rather large number of Palestinians in administrative detention. Much like 'collateral damage' being a euphemism for killing civilians that is a euphemism for kidnapping people off the streets to be held indefinitely without charge or access to lawyers, and often subjected to torture as well. It's one of the reasons I dislike 'terrorism' as a term; a country can't commit it for the sole reason that countries have defined it as something only non state actors do. DGSE agents don't get to not be terrorists for blowing up boats here just because they work for France, Shin Bet don't get not be either just because they work for Israel. Seems a bit harsh that. Not sure even dementors deserve to be shut in with Bibi. ICJ, sure. ICC, lol. The ICC is a 30s Sicilian Court and the west is the Cosa Nostra. You might get some legitimate ruling when the Dons aren't involved, but never when they are.

Back into a little winter blues, I've loaded up Tetsuo: The Iron Man again (No, not THAT Tetsuo, and no, not THAT Iron Man). That movie will never cease to be amazing: It's kooky, it's aggressive, it's challenging to watch, let alone understand. Just what I needed to boot this dogged rut. Spoilers, and *maybe* semi-NSFW.