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Sven explains his reasoning in the video I posted earlier. Chasing trends was never Larian’s MO. It seems Sven has a vision that he wants to reach one day and BG3 was just a stepping stone toward it. They took BG3 IP as they needed money and profile to evolve beyond D:OS2. Now they have both and they can do the next thing. it seems BG success did give them pause and they started thinking about continuing with BG. But they decided against it. That’s good. Milking same IP until it runs dry has been business staple for a long time. But it wasn’t always so, and I don’t think it is a good way to do things. Sure BG3 sold well, BG4 would sell well as well - but is there more for Larian to do there? Gaming (and not only gaming) is stagnating due to risk averse strategies. They did BG3 and seems they achieved what they wanted with it. Cool, let’s move to something new.

Our new stuff released: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/107410/view/4133814330212415053 So far so good. The negative reviews are as expected. Just a bit weird that the majority is in cyrillic. But oh well, so far so good.

Possibly, or something Divinity (there is more to the IP than Original Sin games) related. When asked about it (according to IGN):

They should jump on the Dragon's Dogma 2 bandwagon and make sequel to Ego Draconis.

No. There's a difference between being enforceable and binding. The wording and it coming from the UNSC makes it 100% binding, that's intrinsic, what it requires is a subsequent resolution for enforcement if (when) ignored. John Kirby is being dishonest when he says it isn't binding, because what he means is that the US will not support enforcement- which, of course, as a paid up member of the Rules Based Order he cannot actually say, lest people wonder why the US only wants enforcement of international law against its enemies, not its friends. Same situation with the ICJ. Its decisions are 100% binding, but it has no enforcement mechanism. That is meant to come from the UNSC.

I have to say, book 4 was a much more engaging read this time around. On to book 5, this is where I stopped the before.

Florida braces for lawsuits over law banning kids from social media | Ars Technica Part of me is aghast because I consider FL to be populated with a bunch of rednecks that are regressing our society, another part of me thinks they got this one right. Social media is a cancer, especially to young children.

Shepherd's pie.

It was a surprise for me because BG3 was an overwhelming sales success, over 15 million copies sold and still on the top 10 for ongoing Steam sales https://dotesports.com/baldurs-gate/news/baldurs-gate-3-reportedly-passes-15-million-copies-sold-as-larian-prepares-to-move-on To quote " Vincke revealed BG3 sales were “almost double” that of Divinity: Original Sin 2 in an interview with GameSpot on March 21. Vincke also remarked that BG3 was more successful than the studio anticipated it to be, which tracks given both the speed of the sales figures and the game’s reception. Seeing as Divinity: Original Sin 2 shipped approximately 7.5 million copies according to Vincke’s interview with Eurogamer in 2023, that would put BG3‘s sales at over the 15 million mark and make it one of the best-selling modern RPGs of all time" So this one of those unusual outcomes where its not just the sales success that is the reason for a studio to make another game and I assume as you mentioned that working with WotC is arduous

Well they are still holding/fighting in Kozinka, Glotovo and Gorkovskyi villages. And Russian army destroyed almost every house in the Kozinka. And tens of thousands people had to be evacuated from Grayvoron and even Belgorod. So yes for some it might be considered as not much, but it has still shown a weakness at russian borders. If they cannot guard even borders with a state with which they are at war, how good do you think, will their other borders will be guarded? And as you have seen ISIS did not needed any artillery to get to Moscow, unlike Prigozhin

I'm using keyboard and mouse. Honestly, it's like they collected data on my hotkeys for DD:DA 'cause the weapon skill hold button is the thumb buttons on the mouse.

Patron, city builder - Don't take the following wrong, I still find it some fun, but there are gripes, because I'm a cranky old woman. ----Started a new Sandbox-play map (not interested in having questie objectives added to sandbox). Remembered what I liked about it. Then about 12-15 game-years in, I remember the thing that actually annoyed me the most. The never ending population increase forcing you to build ever more houses, quite rapidly. eg, you have zero ability to control the pace of *when* you want to expand a lot. Not even a little. I suppose one could build just six-eight houses and nothing else but Shelters after (they don't procreate if living in Shelters), hm, maybe that'd work. ----I saw a "Map Editor, On/Off" setting, but there is no map editor, at least not in-game? ----the available maps are still not extensive, but at least there's a few more ----The tech tree wasn't too bad at release, now it's become kind of a nightmare regarding being forced to research/take tons of stuff I don't care about just to reach certain housing upgrades. And not being able to click on more than one at a time, argh. ----The main difficulty of Patron is the very start of a map. The first winter or couple of yeras could be a struggle depending on map and choices. but...even after all the patches... ----apparently, in general, the "make 5-10 tobacco farms (plus some food farms ofc) and a few Docks as early as you can" still works. You can just sell tobacco in huge lots for 100k+ before too long, and buy almost everything vs. create it yourself. ----Also, outside of city-scaping and personal goals, there's no real reason to build/use 80% of the stuff in the tech tree. You could make a thriving giant townscape with 98-100 in all scores, with nothing but peasants and wheat/fish, forever.

My CPU is a Ryzen 7 5800X3D, for what it's worth. I've seen FPS dip into the 30s, though rarely, in cities, mostly I'm at 40-50 in cities, which is not ideal, but at least there's no combat in cities, or there hasn't been so far. I get 70 - 90 FPS in the outdoors.

I don't think anyone expects Israel to do anything different, nor for the US to do anything beyond theatrics if they don't. Their relations would have to get catastrophically worse- almost certainly unrealistically so- for them to allow a Chapter VII invoking resolution. It's still a binding resolution though, and under the, heh, Rules Based Order there is no higher authority. The incidences of resolutions being ignored- or interpreted creatively- doesn't actually change that, it just makes the system look farcical. Which is at least in theory something the west ought to be stridently against. In any case, pretty difficult to see how the wording is 'non-binding': 'Demands' doesn't leave much room for a non binding interpretation. You can still have John Kirby and press report it as being non binding, and have the US/ Israel ignore it as if it were, of course, but it very obviously is.

The ISIS "officials" has already responded to the Russian videos of torture. They have announced they will avenge their "warriors" and will be going after Russian officials, as they view them as "anti-muslim nationalists". From the historic point of view, it will interesting to see how the Russia will fight against enemy, which has as much disregard for human life, as they do. Especially, when 80+% of their forces are currently in Ukraine and their borders have more holes than a collection of Swiss cheese.

We really should check with Ja Rule.

I wanted to do a red cabbage stew with red wine but the store I passed by didn't have any cheap sh†t and in the end I decided against using that kinda decent looking Primitivo on cabbages. Turns out balsamic vinegar does just fine alone if with enough seasonings.