Leaderboard

Unless it does not affect the game itself completely (e.g. artbooks, soundtracks, clearly labelled donations), it should not be included - any in-game benefits screw if not the balance, then the immersion. --- https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/new-arc-line-is-a-party-based-steampunk-rpg-with-notes-of-bioshock-and-dishonored Added the link to the article in case the video does not work. I would prefer RTwP, but the game looks interesting and somehow reminds of Arcanum (which I have not finished). The PC seems to be customisable.

I would suggest to avoid the game - the IP owner is a piece of ****. If you haven't played them, the Fable games are quite decent - might be a bit too light on dialogues, but they are immersive and the last one has a dog companion. --- Thought of starting another playthrough in Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen as Frodo and Sam (someone already had the same idea). My old saves from the Steam version are compatible with the GOG one, so while I could just start a new NG+ cycle, I went with a completely new character, because the challenge does not scale with levels. @WormerineThe thing with pawns is that their AI should handle encounters on their own (I could not find the video, but the pawns absolutely can solo drakes) or assist you (e.g. a Fighter can launch you to reach hydra's heads). The intended way is for your pawn to learn from your application of the available commands (e.g. "Attack", "To me", etc.) and witnessing monsters' weaknesses. Though, the former goes better when the pawn's AI is occasionally reset with the Inclination elixirs. --- There is no Light. The game looks quite good visually and the controls are rebindable. The story is a bit weird - the MC's wife gets kidnapped by 2 soldiers while he's just standing and watching, then he picks up a sword and kills a few squads of them. Crystal Tales Tactics demo. Looks very similar to Fire Emblem but with much lower production costs. The controls are rebindable, I could not get the combat yet (2 battles in) - there is some synergy, but I am unsure how to apply it. Stray Blade. I had thought it to be an RPG, but it feels like an action-adventure. I like the design decision to have full armour, so the MC's face is never shown (so no facial animations; the armour is customisable). The controls are rebindable, though the combat is not exactly comfortable - there is no attack cancellation and it seems like the system is build around parries, but the enemy attacks are delayed, thus, it is hard to time the parries correctly. The exploration feels good enough - there are some paths that I should be able to take after unlocking the required abilities, the environment is readable, the loot is fine. The system requirements and the visuals do not align - 4GB VRAM and 30GB storage should not look like TESIV.

Frieren, episode 2. This show is so glacially slow, I have way too much time to ponder how dense Frieren is. Admittedly, 3 and half minutes of the 26 minutes runtime is used up by music that I immediately skip, but that just takes it down to 22 minutes, which is probably 11 minutes too many. ...You know, that gives me an idea. Frieren, episode 3, double speed. That's sort of better - closer to but still not quite a normal pace, anyways. Fern called Frieren "helplessly dense", which seems appropriate. Eh, this still isn't really working for me, though. Frieren, episode 4, triple speed. You know, these first four episodes have basically felt like the second coming of...uh, what was it called? Girls' Last Tour, I had to go look it up. There are things that I like about it, but it feels more like an "in theory" rather than an "in practice" kind of thing. Too slow of a pace combined with too much artificial writing/characters, I suppose. All the moments that are clearly supposed to be cute just seem...annoyingly manipulative in that very nu-anime fashion to me, so I'm just getting kind of grumpy instead. Frieren, episode 5, light speed. Yeah, okay, I think we're done here, this isn't working. It's not awful, it's not offensive, but I am just not getting anything out of this. But just in case... Frieren, episode 25, LUDICROUS SPEED Wait, who the hell are all these people? Oh, forget about it, the show still feels exactly the same anyways. I'm the type of person that vastly prefers the short and sweet fight of Obi-Wan Kenobi vs. Darth Vader in A New Hope, no matter how simple and goofy it may be, over what feels like the hour long and much more technically impressive fight of Anakin vs. Obi-Wan in Revenge of the Sith, so that wasn't necessarily the best way to try to appeal to me. Though it didn't really end up having anything to do with my issues with this show, so...

Imagine you bought a piano for full price and when it arrived at your home parts were missing. About 40 of the keys are missing, the door on top that covers all the machinery is missing, one of the pedals is missing, the little stand for your sheet music is missing, and so on. The piano is technically functional, you can play music on it, but you are severely limited in what songs you can play on account of all the missing parts. But don't worry, those missing parts will get added later in piano expansion packs that will cost you more money and eventually, after a couple of years and spending an additional double what you paid for the piano in the first place, you might have a complete piano, assuming the piano company doesn't abandon the piano before all the planned piano expansions are actually made and shipped. Who would buy a piano like that? I sure wouldn't. I don't buy video games like that either.

sorry Hulrun, I'm chaotic now xD

That's exactly how I also feel about DD2 and, to a lesser degree, DD. DD2 is the party-based adventure/RPG I have been waiting for my entire life, I dreamed of stuff like this when I was younger. Climbing onto a dragon and hanging on for dear life as it takes off into the air is thrilling as ****. Having my warrior pawn hurl me high into the air above a cyclops and then I hit my downward thrust skill, come down with great force stabbing into the cyclops' neck/upper back, and then, hitting the grab button at just the right time to grab a hold of the cyclops' hide to stay on top of them and then continue to stab the cyclops with my spear is so awesome, especially since none of that was a setpiece or a scripted event, I did that dynamically. Or tackling a smaller (man-sized) enemy and pinning them to the ground and watching my thief pawn come over and stab the enemy in the face while I hold them down, that's ****ing teamwork right there. And then, as icing on the cake, after the battle we high five or fist bump. It's the greatest feeling. DD is a more janky version of that; the fantastic ideas are all there but the implementation is rough. Still, if you can get past the rough edges, DD is a good game.

Tried my hand at making some variants of vanilla portraits. Edited the watercolors to match the unused "female_godlike_earth_c" variants by Polina Hristova 1. I bumped up the colors a bit and changed the background to be more like the purple seen in his Deadfire portrait. Very subtle changes but brings it closer to how Deadfire portraits looks imo. 2. Think I have hit my limit as far working around this portrait.

Ah! If I knew at some point that you can give orders to your pawns at some point, than I completely forgot about it after the tutorial. Might give it a go, next time. I must admit, I am liking DD more and more. Started encountering more large monsters, and while rather gimmicky they are fun. The game has issues, but it sells the idea of party adventuring like few other games. In a way it feels like playing classic RPG, and I like it. I even grew to like UI. It was a nightmare to start with, but once I got used to it, it became fairly efficient to use. Unlike, let’s say Baldur’s Gate3, in which the more time I spent the more issues an inefficiencies I found in the UI. speaking of BG3, I wonder if Dragon’s Dogma was one of Larian’s inspiration. Grabbing&throwing enemies, exploding barrels, mayhem and fire everywhere, pawns hurting themselves while autofollwing you, gimmicky boss fights. It seems curiously similar.

These AC spin-offs look great. I played AC Chronicles: India, but didn't finish.

You gave it a try

My local sushi joint makes dragon rolls with unagi, which is perfectly fine with me since I love eel. Unagi temaki (big cone-shaped rolls) are my absolute favorite sushi. Back in the day when I lived in Connecticut we used to make the roughly 40 minute drive to New Britain and get smoked eel (among other things) from the Polish butcher. That eel would be half gone by the time we got home because I'd be devouring it on the way. Couldn't even wait to get home, not enough willpower.

Got to over 1000 total population in Patron. including all the farms and such, that might be about 1/6 of the map. Although one could do much better space management if not trying to cater to citizen needs with churches and multiple schools and universities everywhere as I was attempting. >.> But I'm reaching the point where game performance is dropping (at 4k, from 60+ fps to 40-50ish). Which is better than at release, where I think I noticed performance drop at only 400-ish population. Guessing my CPU would start to uber tank at maybe 2000 population. Typical cpu-bound performance limits aside, the way the game works isn't really conducive to playing the same map "forever" re: any challenges or designs etc. I don't get the same sensation of wanting to continue ala Caesar/Impressions series. You reach the may as well start a new city/map much more quickly. That said, it's still a pretty fun/decent city builder, fairly typical of the current genre workings. I mostly don't like the nonsensical/time sink research tree workings.

Ok, so in simple terms there is a 50% chance that a spell cast can be interrupted during the effect duration, if I understand right. I had some immunities (captain's banquet) and i've been under blade cascade effect and only making melee attacks thus this is the case I noticed no particular effect I've a save game before this encounter, so I can retry and test it Thank you for the explanation!

Our equivalent of the BBC is decent enough most of the time, and our biggest newspaper isn't too bad. I have worked in the printed press, starting from the 1980s, and have, in my view, a decent combination of trust in and scepticism of it.

Treated myself to a Dragon Roll at our local Asian place. As far as I know, Dragon Rolls are usually made with either ebi tempura or grilled unagi. They just went ahead and used both, and added a little Terriyaki sauce on top, which makes their dragon roll an exposion of taste that goes from perfectly soft and sweet to crunchy fried shrimp when chewing.

Ah, yes. That... Sorry, could not resist.

In a slightly similar boat... waiting for the GotY version before buying it

Just a suggestion, the first 4 episodes were released together as a "prologue" to kick the season off, introduce characters and the basics of the world. The story doesn't really start until episode 5 with a declared goal... Edit: Just some amusing trivia, it took Madhouse 3 years to make the anime and in some instances elaborated considerably on the Manga, like the "eat your heart out Disney" dance sequence, which was a 1 minute long scene with custom written score and real dancers doing motion capture to be hand animated, was a single panel in the manga. A fight towards the end was two panels in the manga and Madhouse made it a 3 episode fight, seriously flexing in the animation and choreography department while doing so. Edit2: I'm obviously biased as I liked the show very much, even if it took me a few episodes to get into it.

Maybe you answer a different question for me? We have had over 2 years of the war in Ukraine and there is view from some, like @Zoraptor and even commentary from people in South Africa, that we cant trust what the Western media reports on and we must question Russian atrocities and killing of civilians. And this is despite the fact there are many different media houses and embedded journalists in Ukraine reporting live on many things and often the same things like the massacre in Bucha which is still denied by Russia But there is limited media access in Gaza for reasons you mentioned and reported deaths of Palestinians that even the UN uses come from the Gaza Health Ministry which is controlled by Hamas I accept that the media can get things wrong both intentionally and unintentionally but my question is why do you think most people will believe what comes from Hamas but question what we hear from Ukraine? I realize you cant comment on why others have this stance but I want to know why you think this occurs. In South Africa there is a constant view from some that " you cant trust the Western media " but those same people will believe and repeat everything that Hamas or Palestinian spokespeople say And Im not denying that Palestinian civilians havent been killed or the IDF has been heavy handed, they have Im interested in why people will spend years questioning global media on one war and yet immediately believe everything about another war with limited and often unverified reporting? Is it as simple as confirmation bias in your opinion?

Corned beef and cabbage with mashed potatoes and gravy.

You're not wrong as such, but I would qualify that last sentence by adding "English-speaking" right before the word "media". Or, possibly, "international" -- although the word international is somewhat nebulous in this context. But anyway, not all media, not in all countries. Israel's atrocities do get plenty of coverage around here, for instance.

What possessed you to read YouTube comments? That's a descent into madness.

Ukraine's Devastating Thermobaric Drone Wipes Out Russian Target (newsweek.com)

Well, no. Live-service doesn't equal post launch content/support. Live-service model sees games and platform, rather than a title. It's a game meant to be played endlessly and continuasly with a regular trickle of limited time content. There are of course games that blur the lines. Are new Hitman's live services? I would say they definitely try, but there is a great, selfcontained game there with live-service stink all over it. For a while now even non-live service games implement live-service like monatizations (Street Fighter6 battlepass for example). I can't speak of Conan Exiles, but I am pretty sure MMO was were a lot of live-service concepts were first born - than publishers became interesting in having same long term "engagement" through habit and ongoing revenue through microtransactions in other titles. I think that if a game releases post release content, and you are not pressure to log in play it/buy it right now, it is not following live-service design. It has less to do with how much post launch content it gets (god knows, a lot of services tend to die rather quickly) and more with how it tries to "engage" its players.

Oh no... I already did a few hours and now by chance I see on page 2 that the build is updated T_T Regardless, thanks so much for your builds Boerer. They're the most fun for me and the only ones I play when I come back to the game every now and then. Appreciate for all the work you did. I thought about going Hunter background giving (+1 Survival / +1 Stealth) So I will end up with 10 Survival and 10 Stealth on the dot. You reckon that's a good choice? Thanks again.

Funny you should write that because some live service games can be accused of exactly that. I mean, they have an ending; every game technically has an ending, there is a point at which you can't keep playing further or a conclusion to the main story if it's a game that you can keep playing after finishing to do side content or grind for gear or whatever. Whether that ending is satisfying is a different matter entirely and live service games can, and have been accused of having weak "endings", and this is by design, because it's not really an ending but but an end to a chapter of a story that, in theory, will keep going for many years to come. Granted, unsatisfying endings are hardly exclusive to live service games. The lie that we are fed is that we get a full-featured, complete game and then in addition we will get more game periodically. The reality is that we get a stripped down, bare minimum shell of a game and maybe that shell will be filled out over time. Obviously I'm generalizing. The Division 2 was relatively well received so it is possible to have a good live service game. I played The Crew many years ago, I didn't buy it, it was part of PS Plus or something, but I quite liked that game and it had TONS of content. Of course, I played it some 3 years after release so it had 3 years of content added to it, I can't speak to how the game was at launch. I think that's the move with live service. Wait like 2 years after launch and, assuming the game is still alive at that point, buy it then and you'll get it cheaper as a bonus.

So far my fondest encounter in DD1 was a free roaming cyclops. Hired pawn mounted the monster and rode him off the cliff. Too bad I couldn’t sent the pawn back with a generous gift for his service.

I fought my first drake the other day. I Brined it. 'cause the drake has fire breath and a lunge attack, it likes to back off if the person who's pulled it's agro is melee. I'm a fighter and I have a core skill that pulls agro so despite being up against a river, it takes flight and backs off. I stood on the bank for a few minutes while the drake's AI tried to puzzle out this situation, and it ultimately decided to land in the river. I've killed a surprising number of enemies by getting them to back off into the Brine.

I had an interesting quest in Wartales. I was chasing after a tracker who in turn was chasing after a grave robbing scholar. I found them in an undead village. The mechanic with undead villages is you need to minimize your noise rating and maximize your willpower. So typically I'd take a team of lightly armored but decently willfull warriors with me into the town, plus a locksmith (who unfortunately is a lumbering oaf with a big sword. We find the two arguing in the ruins, and sure enough, they trigger an undead attack. Undead attacks put you in a large room with a bunch of potential doors and windows. Your goal is to block them with your people but also look for an exit. You can't kill all the undead, they will keep coming. My first attempt was tough. My lightly armored folks were bitten and clawed at, and when I finally escaped, both of the NPC's were dead. But I survived and I was like, 'that was a cool fight.' Then I thought about it a bit more, and realized that noise doesn't really matter if they NPC's trigger the undead attack no matter what. I went back in with a full noisy team and got them out safely. But it was still more rewarding to do it the other way.

Patron was never a graphic showcase, especially if you do the photomode zoom in close up views/textures, ew. But it has improved visually a bit, I think animations and some added details. Although, straight-down to try and show a whole huge area just looks like every other grid-based Banished clone. Tons of houses. >.> Apparently it takes a lot to "feed, clothe, and luxuriate" ... 300 adults/youth/children - with some excess to sell. There's more farms not in pic. When I zoomed into a town one winter, I noticed someone built a snowman. Some Xmas trees around here and there too, heh.

suzarain dlc are mostly enjoyable sadly dev team are tiny and patch come slowly

Ok I haven't made my gaming updater in a while, and I am sure you are all dying to know of my gaming habits. Dragon's Dogma I am commiting to finishing this one as my highest priority. I pushed beyond opening and the game became quite playable. There is originality to it, I appreciate, but so far I am still not convinced it is a "good game". I think it was a cult classic for a reason. But perhaps, it will get better as it goes on. I find quest design frustratingly uneven. So far they seem like excuses to get you our into the wild more than anything else, but them seem to range from handholdy to frustratingly obtuse. So far it more seems like uneven standard an inconsistant design, rather than intentional creative choice. More importantly, I am not sold on combat, and overal systems. UI is horrendous, that the first thing. But to me the game seems to land in the awkard spot for action-RPG where it is neither decent action game nor an RPG. I am not seeing much possible variation in builds so far, and gameplay seems to revolve around spamming attack and abilities with final result mostly coming down to stats (do I do enough damage and stagger, and can enemy kill me in a single chain of attacks). Of course, the most novel and interesting bit so far are enemy weaknesses - but while capturing imagination, I wasn't particularly blown away gameplay wise. So far it seems simply that certain enemies need to be attacked certain way to made the encounter more managable, but that's about all the depth it has. You either know or you don't. Climbing enemies is cool, though, at least from visual perspective. Still, games like Dark Souls also had optional limb removal/weak spots mechanics, and overall I think their system is far more competent and intricate in both halfs of action-RPG genre. I like thought, that it is an action-RPG focused on a party - but again, without controlling the party members it's not particularly deep experience. Edit. Oh, unprofeshional, out of tune singing in the main menu really, really irritates me /edit Prince of Persia: Lost Crown It's good, but I wasn't blown away by it. Being done by same devs as excellent latest Rayman games platforming is great. Combat is also more complex than your usual metroidvania experience (a bit of side scrolling DMC there), but I also wasn't particularly impressed by it. Yes, there are more attacks, and you can create basic combos, but I just didn't think the combat was deliberate enough to be rewarding. Yes, Hollownight had very basic attacks, but all upgrades, modifiers and player in combat decisions felt very impactful. Not so much in Prince of Persia, and in spite of fairly decent enemy variety, I didn't find enemies particularly memorable. Bosses were fairly challenging, but in what I found to be rather annoying way. In a dark souls fashion, you kinda need to memorise their moves and timing. At least on highest difficulty parrying and dodging isn't very forgiving, so reacting on what you see isn't really possible in my opinion. It's all about dying few times, learning of proper timings and responses to each attack sequence. As for the motroidvania bit - it felt quite handholdy. It took the game a long time before it actually allowed you to explore a bit, but every area felt to be designed more like a Dark Souls level - a maze that you explore in linear fashion and unlock shortcut, rather than genuine exploration. I was surprised, as with game giving you new ways of marking the map (with in game screenshots) and option at the start between guided and non-guided experience, I expected something a bit more freeform. Most things you need to get back to, are collectibles that you can see but can't get to due to power X, Y and Z being missing (think Arkham series) but personally I find this design more frustrating that rewarding. Still, overall a good game, though it feels a bit derivativede. It mostly just seems to adapt well tested designsed (a lot of Hollow Knight in there), which I think is a bit of a shame - I would prefer if there was more Prince of Persia in there. Diablo 4 Not much to say. With it coming to GamePass I gave it ago, played for two evenings and got bored. It's not really a criticism of the title, that's how my adventure ends with all hack'n slashes so far. Numbers going up just doesn't excite me much, which is good considering the state of my bank account. Street Fighter 6 150h in and still going. I exhausted single player content, and am deep in online play and getting my butt kicked, and occasionally kicking butt of even bigger noob. I am getting better, but the progress is gradually slowing. Looking at skill ranking I am still a below average player (and by a fair margin). I am still enjoying myself, though, and that's what's important. So yeah, after years of dipping into fighting games I can recommend SF6 for its onboarding experience. Lengthy singleplayer campaign is a good way of familiarising one self with controls, roster and various mechanics. There is also a fairly gentle transition into online play, where game keeps you in the noob section for a while, before allowing you to get pummeled. I double down on my commitment by buying an arcade stick in an impulse purchase: For one, I am a bit angry at myself that I bought it instead of a Flight Stick, as it would be a more versatile purchase. I am also not sure of how good of a purchase it was, but I am getting around to it. I am still getting proficient with it, and I had to dose my playtime as between it and violin playing I started to strain my wrist. By either my hand got stronger, or spring weaker, and I didn't encounter any issues lately. I am also getting more and more competent with using it, with less wrong imputs and quicker response time. It's this funny thing, where a stick definitely didn't make me a better player, but the game makes more intuitive sense. Chaining command inputs is far easier for me to wrap my head around, than with buttons. It being a Capcom game, one also needs to mention monatization. Game has been very stingy with cosmetics costing extra and new character not being earnable in game - now, the game isn't designed as annoyingly as other titles. Shop button is decreet enough, and the game doesn't bombard you with microtransactions like other games do. But the truth is, everything extra will cost you. Unfortuantely, that means that game will be pricey to continue playing as further character passes are released. It's definitely a financial commitment.

Trying to wait for the first expansion or whatever they're calling it to start a new game. Maybe I'll go finish one of my abandoned runs... or boot up Wrath.

What post? I don't see no post?

I have an anecdote to share here, although it is, of course, only directly applicable to the media in Austria, and it was over a decade ago. Back then, the company I worked at, was robbed. Goods worth five million Euro were stolen in a matter of hours. The robbers brutalized the workers of the night shift, bound them with gaffer tape and threatened to shoot them if they made any sudden moves. They grabbed their access badges to unlock the fenced off section of the warehouse where the exact goods they were looking for were stored, loaded the pallets they wanted onto their truck, and left. Perfectly orchestrated, it was fairly evident that it was an inside job, particularily since they took nothing else. The media reporting was fraught with errors. All of it. Not a single one that I read, and I checked a lot, seem to have put in the effort to do some fact checking. The most egregiously wrong accounts came, as expected, from the yellow press, but our public broadcasting company (ORF) made massive mistake in their reporting: they filmed a camera overlooking the entrance of the warehouse and wondered why nobody checked who rang at the door late at night. The cameras at the warehouse were part of the CCTV surveillance system in place, and labour law clearly states that the captured footage is only to be accessed by specially designated people and only in case of initial suspicion. It would be downright illegal to check the CCTV surveillance footage with no good reason, and they should really know that. One yellow press article wondered how the truck managed to move past the security checkpoint at the entrance to the warehouse. Why and how was the gate opened for the truck? Indeed, how? Oh, right, that was because that particular warehouse had no security checkpoint and they simply looked at a different branch of the company. How utterly detestable can you be to not even go to the right address for your footage to generate more buzz/clicks? It is really hard to believe that this was a simple mistake, the two locations are not even in the same vicinity (entirely different cities, even). Articles from outlets with better reputation got most of it right, but still openly wondered how and why the night shift workers could be overwhelmed and how nobody noticed it for hours, and why they even opened the door when someone rang at 02:00. Yes, why indeed. They could have just asked, you know. The entire night shift consisted of only two workers, both of which were beaten up and bound. They opened the door because of regular nighttime deliveries for a special project of one of our largest customers, who, at the time, due to irregular shipping schedules, could not properly advise of inbound shipments ahead of their arrival. It was the perfect moment for the robbery, and the robbers, who were later actually caught, turned out to actually be the very same people who made the deliveries. Conlcusion: for at least this one instance, it was shown that our public broadcaster does not know or does not care to check labor laws, the yellow press outright lies for effect and even quality media outlets rush to get their headlines out without due diligence. Ah, sign of the times, I suppose.

Frieren, episode 1: This episode did not make me want to claw out my eyes, chew off my tongue, cut off my ears, burn my nose hairs, tear out my spinal cord, or excavate my brain from my skull. So, that's an improvement over the last one...that gosh-awful food one. Though it also didn't do that much for me either...interesting concept, but I'm kind of lukewarm on it so far. Both Frieren and Fern have annoying voices/mannerisms, so that's not helping. If I hadn't noticed this was made by my guys Madhouse, I don't think I would have checked this out at all.

Feel like that's not really going to be a thing, since the audience that fell in love with a show like K-On is obviously not going to want the animation that they already like to suddenly look look ye olde cels. So it's not something companies would be interested in trying to make/sell, and it's not something even fans would probably be very interested in making themselves. Though I'd be very curious to see what that would actually look like, especially given that there are obviously so many other art style differences as well - I'd imagine it'd be a rather bewildering hybrid. It's possible that the tools and training data could be made available for most anyone to use on anything someday, though... In fact, I have already seen one fan-made AI upscale doing a similar thing as the above Dragon Ball images. Mickey's Christmas Carol (1992), compare the images at full size: One of these is the official Disney blu-ray, one of these is a fan-made PAL DVD upscale. Unfortunately, the first column is the official Disney source. Yikes. I'd love to be able to apply this process to something like Steven Universe and see what results...

For the Dragonlance fans out there...