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I'm generally rarely playing RPGs for companions anymore. Some of them are fun, some are not, but: You can only re-dress the same old corpse so many times. It's still the same corpse. I've already burst into a kind of rant about that here, so.... I mean, even Jagged Alliance has more interesting stuff going on in some ways, like people bonding with others, whilst others would absolutely not be onboard if Y was involved.... then again, that's always been a cross-bred of strategy and RPG (God bless Sir-Tech!) Imagine if at all settling for a character would actually have drawbacks... like a super competent thief. But as soon as you meet him, it'd be clear that he can't keep his hands off shiny things on the possibly worst of occasions. And this not actually "scripted", but goverened by AI. That sort of stuff. BG3 slightly had something like that going on, in particular with Gale. Not gonna spoil that, but that dude has a PROBLEM intially. And that problem wants to be fed. But apparently, they made it very easy during EA to deal with that problem. So it's a minor nuisance at best. Rather than something to actually consider. It seems RPG companions throughout the years have become simply a feature and excuse for player wish fulfillment and entertainment rather than characters. Games making every single one of them bangable only highlight this "evolution". Then again, they ARE called companions, as in followers. You know, like Jesus had them. Or The Beatles. Or that Manson dude. Which seems all rather telling. Kinda like this: "Hey you! I like your pretty face. You come with me. You? You, too. Sorry about you with the hat though. I don't like your big nose, so no thanks. And for the record: I want to get real dirty with YOU over there before you're hitting level 7!" Snooze... Anyhow, it's Friday, 14th of June! I want to do some taffin' and blackjack some goon heads!   Where's my Fallen Ace release, New Blood Interactive?

It depends what you mean by online? I generally dont take anything seriously I read on SM around topics like economics or politics. And economic predictions are often notoriously proven to be untrue because of the different ways you can measure an economy But BBC is a good source of information and I consider them generally credible The article seems accurate but there are few considerations, most Russian economic data is classified and then growth is relative to GDP size The UK for example is the 6th strongest economy in the world with nominal GDP of $3.5 trillion and Russia is the 12th strongest with nominal GDP of $2.1 trillion. https://www.forbesindia.com/article/explainers/top-10-largest-economies-in-the-world/86159/1 So growth matters but other metrics are equally important to understand overall economic strength. The entire African economy is a $3 trillion economy, I find this type of data in the link below really interesting when you looking at economic strength and growth. For example if South Africa somehow gets a 20% growth thats $80 billion, which means our economy would become $480 billion. So its possible to think "South Africa is doing better than the UK because of its 20% growth "but the UK is a $3.5 trillion economy " https://www.visualcapitalist.com/breaking-down-african-economy-by-country/ So GDP growth matters but its relevant to the size of the economy

Even Exogate tracks relationships between randomly generated staff. Sometimes it feels that every genre does better generic npcs than rpg games do.

Nice. I found the rumour dudes annoying.

I might just reinstall FO3 again... if nothing else, to try out the "Fat Man" in that cave Thanks for the heads up

This is something I have been advocating for since the invasion in 2022 when the Russian assets were originally frozen, use the Russian sanctioned resources to fund Ukraine in its defence against the invasion Russia has nationalized Western investments so its not like there isnt precedent The legitimate concern was always " but this might create uncertainty in investing in the West " but thats going to happen or not happen irrespective of this decision and thats fine. Investors will always decide for themselves who offers the lowest risk and best return on investments And Im not concerned its going to have make a major difference if you think the Russian assets were frozen over 2 years ago and the US stock markets still see new records being broken for investment appetite https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/dow-jones-hits-record-high-40000-points

USD and EUR stopped trading at Moscow Exchange, after Russian Central Bank intervention, after newest sanctions, which led to spiraling out of control as panic buying started. Both currencies are currently sold for up to 200 rubles per 1 USD/EUR. https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240613-russian-stock-market-suspends-dollar-trades-after-us-sanctions

Wouldnt killable children mod give you similar satisfaction " This mod enables you to kill any or all of the children in Fallout 3. Along with adding consequences for such actions. Please see full description inside for full details " https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/376

I would argue the first one sort of skirted the line of dark fantasy. They dropped that like a hot potato in DA2 though. Together with most things that made the first game good. Varric and Isabela feels like they’re “wasted” on DA2

The day someone releases a mod, that allows you to nuke the brats at Little Lamplight (was that the name?) I might give Fo3 a second try

Creative Assembley have said that the next DLC is going to be Khorne, Ogre Kingdoms and Greenskins. So it looks like all of the rumours were false which is great news. There's more info coming on the 26th and possibly a new roadmap.

That's a crazy amount of time spent on a game you'll never play. I don't even spend that much time on things I like.

Someone put this in the chat during PoE1 stream today: "However, while Avowed will, apparently, take place shortly after the events of Deadfire, Patel says it won't narratively be connected to it. "The two storylines are very separate," she adds - as separate as the continents they take place on. "The process that Eothas sets in motion at the end of Deadfire is not an instantaneous state-change in the world," she explains. "It's something that is going to take place and slowly change the world over generations, not overnight"

Hmm. I Haven't played BG3 either, but on the evidence of OS/2 I'd have to hand the award for more memorable companions to Dragon Age as well. I played both Original Sin games more recently than any DA game, yet can remember nothing about the OS1 companions and very little about those in 2 (lizard man had a girlfriend, skellington was written by Chris Avellone, dark passenger in one of the girls?). There are also a lot less of them, so they ought to be easier to remember even if they were less the focus in Larian's games. I didn't like Inquisition much as a game- if it were a colour, it'd be beige- but I can remember more of its companions, and not only that Sara's (?) face was melted into an eldritch horror. I haven't played Origins for ages and can still remember almost all the companions there, if not all by name ('old lady mage'). Of course being Bioware there's a fair bit of cringe that the memories hang on like Leliana singing or Morrigan's granny undies or Sara's face, but then the worst sin in writing is not being bad per se, it's being boring/ forgettable.

With Carrie Patel now confirming that Avowed can be played switching between first and third person at will, and how the art-style and world look in the latest trailer, I am loving Avowed. And this extended gameplay trailer for Dragon Age 4 looks fantastic as well to me. It looks very much closer to Origin than Inquisition, and I like both the way the gameplay is working and the art-style. I'm so happy to have big, amazing RPGs back again without stupid turn-based combat. BG3 can kiss my brown ass. Avowed and DA4 both look awesome. And now with my new computer up and running, I can play them! Oh happy day!!

All (?) unique weapons and armor have a sort of upgrade tree available, but the game completely fails at making this clear by just listing the possible enchantments as bullet points. It's an upgrade tree because there are often mutually exclusive branches, so you choose one enchantment and lose the other one and unlock a new one, but without prior knowledge of this fact. Quality is always a branch of its own, so you can upgrade every unique item to legendary (if you have the resources) without losing any of the other enchantment slots.

Went on a second date. There won't be a third. Need to find a nice way of telling her

I know, BBC is BBC and not necessarily correct etc., but at least I thought it worth raising an eyebrow when they claim Russia's economy is doing better than Western economies atm... 3.2% annual growth as of June 2024 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4nn7pej9jyo I can remember Western officials and commentators describing the sanctions as “crippling”, “debilitating” and “unprecedented”. With adjectives like these filling the airwaves, the situation seemed clear. There was surely no way that Russia’s economy would withstand the pressures. Faced with the prospect of economic collapse, the Kremlin would be forced to back down and withdraw its troops. Wouldn’t it? Twenty-seven months on, the war rages on. Far from being crippled, Russia’s economy is growing. The International Monetary Fund predicts that Russia will record economic growth of 3.2% this year. Caveats aside, that’s still more than in any of the world’s advanced economies. It runs counter to most things I hear online

This crap again? It'll take a month and russians will be shooting at Ukraine once more. Waste of time.