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Enotria and Flintlock look good. I also cannot run them on my main PC and will not purchase for the full price to run on the spare one (which should be able to run them). https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/our-9-favourite-demos-from-the-summer-steam-next-fest

Finished Dread Delusion. Loved the game, though there are issues. Highlighting 2 of them, because they bothered me quite a lot. Also the saving system is critically unsuitable for the game and the bugs. Closer to the late-game, I noticed that a bug that had occurred several hours ago and wiped most of my in-progress quests also affected a completed main quest. So I tried to re-start it. The thing was that in order to progress it past a certain point, I needed to activate a McGuffin (a sci-fantasy seal on a door), which was a single-use interaction and I had already used it. I spent the next 2 days trying to troubleshoot and resolve it, but I have gained more experience with hex editors. The NPC you collect along the way, while great, do not feel like your companions. They are someone else's and just quest-givers for you. Also there was a thing - during the recruitment you had to say what you were going to do with the antagonist (join, kill, arrest, etc.) and at the beginning, it was hard to gauge what the antagonist was trying to do and what you wanted to do about it. The issue being is that these NPC remembered what I said 20+ hours ago. So, it was rather awkward when I told two of them that I was going to arrest the BBEG and two others that I was going to join the BBEG. I also resolved the quest of the additional someone else's companion in a rather unfavourable manner and there were no options to make it better for the said NPC at the end of the quest. My review:

The outcome of our national elections and the coalition parties that have now been created have worked out really well, its exceeded my expectations on numerous levels We have now a GNU (government of national unity ) which is technically different to a coalition government but it has some similarities But first important outcome was the ANC has been absolutely magnanimous and accepting of its loss from 57% to 40%. I am not anti-ANC, I am generally opposed to there foreign policy decisions and Im opposed to ANC dominance because it has created a culture of impunity around dealing with corruption and public sector inefficiencies But the ANC supports and respects the Constitution and legal outcomes and this election is another example of this. And the concern from some, which I didnt share, was that the ANC being a liberation party wouldnt accept its loss of majority like we have seen in other African countries And that didnt happen So the GNU that now exists is parties that I support and the so called socialist, anti-white, racist,pro-Russian EFF not only lost seats in Parliament but they have been shutout of the GNU and this was primarily because of there populist and unrealistic demands and thats the best news ever Going forward the GNU has lots of work to do around our numerous domestic problems but at least we now have a stable political foundation after the election and thats necessary before you see any real changes...the government has to be stable But in summary, great election results and more important a great outcome around the GNU and which parties are in it 🥂

Wot? Dang... when I was 11, my favourite books form the school library was by someone named Alistair Maclean. I especially remember Guns of Navarone and Ice Station Zebra. Good stuff 👍 (these were all Danish translations in case anyone wonders) I did struggle with The Silmarillion though. Took me quite a few more years to get through that one and appreciate it I have shared the story in the past, I think, how I got into reading Tolkien in English. Bought this adventure game "The Hobbit" from a publisher named Melbourne House. I was hopelessly stuck and the only help to find in the game box was a paperback edition of The Hobbit. I read it and worked out why I kept getting killed by the goblins in the caves (you have to fool the three trolls first, keeping them out in daylight, then raid their cave and get "Sting", which provides a light source 🙄

I read tonnes of fantasy books, Tolkien ofc, some weird post apocalyptic pocketbooks, a bunch of western books, Stephen King, Jules Verne and a book series called Deerfoot. I've been told that the only thing I read that was mildly appropriate was the Jules Verne and Tolkien books. My sister refused her kids access to my Tintin or Asterix collections 😭 And apparently, Stephen Kings Misery isn't appropriate for 11 year olds somehow.

I took a long break and will try to do an illustrated picture book once more. But I am looking more at pre-schoolers. Mostly because I want to draw unicorns. She might not get the message, but I am noting the idea down for consideration.

Oh ****, Fallen Aces is like real good. I think they're kinda "underselling" it with their "FPS Noir" tagline. Everybody thinks "Boomer Shooter", this being published by New Blood Interactive too (of DUSK fame). But in fact, it's oft kinda like Goodfellas Shock. Or Dishonored: The Knife Of Mob City. Sure, you can play it pretty straight forward and just beat the crap out of everyone. But man, these levels. Love them! There's a lot more going on than there ever was in Bioshock. But then, that game didn't even have the most basic of stealth... plus very linear corridor kind of levels... and AI that outside of scripted sequences went AGGRO the moment it sniffed you near. Fallen Aces has you even pickpocketing NPCs/goons. Doors can be locked. Alternatives routes taken. Fingers sticked in the wall socket for a little extra Bzzz (BECUZ WHY NOT). Rats picked up and thrown outta the window. This game is a bloody steal at that price point. Are these dudes communists or what?! I'm already in love with New Blood's latest, the pulp noir immersive sim Fallen Aces, and you can get it for just $10 | PC Gamer If this is the future for this type o' game, I wouldn't complain at all. Also, best voice-acting performance of all time.

Never said I'll never play it. BG3 is a very unique game for me in that it is a game I soooooooo very much *wanted* to love, because of how much I love the first two games. So that's why I spent so much time on the Larian forum talking about the game, and the things I was unhappy with, in a desperate hope someone at Larian would give my feedback some consideration and the final game at release would be at least okay. As such, launch day for BG3 was a bitterly disappointing day for me. But I feel that in time my strong negative feelings toward the game will soften and I'll be open to playing it. I also feel, very strongly, that given the many, many core elements of the game (TB combat, all the cinematics and voice acting, the whole tadpole system, origin companions, to name the main ones), that I detest, it is reasonable for me to not pay anywhere near full price for the game. So I'll wait and get the game when it is around 50% off, give or take.

18 hours into Skald. It's pretty good. The mechanics are clearly D&D inspired, but different enough to be interesting, and not complex enough to weigh down too much. The game has stuff like eating, resting and crafting, but does all these more fluidly than games like the new Pathfinder RPGs, so they don't feel tiring. There's some rough edges to the mechanics, but overall it's decent. Somehow, the creator also managed to mesh the writing really well with the retro look. The game has a clear atmosphere to it and doesn't feel too generic or too weird to comprehend. It won't be the best RPG I ever played, but I found it to be worth the price.

I am quite far along in Capes. Overall a very enjoyable turn based tactics game. It gets some flack for having specific characters, similar to Mutant Year Zero, Chimera Squad. There are no random missions. You can replay any mission at any time with a different configuration. The story is pretty dark. Years ago a group of villains killed the superheroes of the city and took over. Now the survivor sets op a team of young heroes to take revenge. It is interesting, because unlike many superhero games, there is no attempt to obfuscate the fact your team kills people. They pulled off the powers quite well. The team ups let characters enhance one of their powers with help of a nearby character. The speedster sets fire to where she runs with the help of the fire hero for example. The missions can be tough, but I enjoy figuring out how to best utilise every character to solve the problem at hand. There are people who complain the game is too puzzly. I feel there are a group of gamers strangely entitled. They believe that in a strategy game their strategy should win. In a tactics game their tactics should win. They don't want to work out a winning strategy, just to pretend they are good strategists. History is full of generals that lost battles. They had their strategies, just not winning ones. If they had access to steam forums, they'd have spammed that "Nerf the Roman legion. Slings are underpowered. These Devs know nothing of making a fun war. Why did my cavalry die charging fortified gun emplacements? This war sux"

Waiting until the finished product with that one. Fallen Aces Full Episode 1 is out on Friday already, though! This may be generally filed under "Boomer Shooter" some. But there was more going on in the fun demo already, and the dev has confirmed the influences anyway... - Fairly open level design, including optionally stealthily routes - Optional stealth that works fairly decent - Quite interactive environments and everything not bolted down being usable as a tool/weapon - In-universe maps, Thief-style, BABY! Whatever the price, this is an offer I'm not going to refuse. Indie gaming is where the new triple-A fun is to be had.

Unfortunately you're not wrong, The Boys very much stopped being satire and just being depiction (with superheroes) a while ago. Perhaps the most unrealistic thing is that the feds are trying to put a stop to supe nonsense...though that can largely be explained as business interests from the existing military industrial complex (as it was in the comics). But it is a good show and so far is holding up. I think it is how adaptations should be done, in the sense that the material is adapted both for the format and to update references, because hot damn does the Vought Cinematic Universe as the big superhero thing made by Vought hit closer to home than Vought comic books would.

It’s definitely an interesting time in tech. I’ve been studying JavaScript for the past couple of years in my free time hoping to switch into web or software development. The rise of AI tools have been both a blessing and a curse. I don’t have any friends or contacts who actually work as programmers but a lot of the YouTube channels have been buzzing for at least six months now about how programmers are coding themselves out of a job, it’s too late for new developers to get into the industry because they’re about to replaced with AI ect. I don’t know how true that is but right now certainly I and a lot of other people are finding it hard to get work coding. Hopefully a lot of that is just fearmongering and people trying to write catchy headline for views though. There are plenty of other YouTubers, articles, LinkedIn posts ect saying that the job market will recover and that AI is just a tool that will help and change the way developers work, but that developer roles will likely evolve in the coming years. Regardless I think a lot of the stuff we’re seeing is really cool and it’s getting quite impressive what even common AI tools like ChatGPT can do. Career prospects aside ChatGPT has been a huge help to me when coding for all kinds of things like help with designing how a website might look, image generation, copywriting, advice on libraries ect. It’s not at the point right now where you can just tell it to code an entire website and it’ll be able to do that but it can definitely assist with coding so long as you know your coding language well enough to be able to modify and fix any problems.

I think we already talked about it, but when I play the game for the first time, I always play vanilla - maybe outside unofficial patches if the game benefits of it. To me devs have same authorship over their work, as writers or film makers, so in general I am not interested in mods, and prefer to consume media “as it was intended”. Not that you are wrong. I do think Bethesda games are more of a platform than a game, and therefore I have no interest in what they sell.

Playing Stardew Valley for the first time in several years due to the massive 1.6 update. I know the last time I played, multiplayer was not even officially supported and required a user mod to play. Looking that up, it was mid-2018, so it's been at least six years. Funny thing is that the major content patch was probably mostly in the 1.5 update, which was effectively a free expansion with a brand new major zone, but that passed me by for whatever reason. Realistically the new zone only becomes accessible in the second in-game year, so there's a bit of an issue where by the time it was unlocked, I felt like I'd almost had enough of the game already. Regardless though, I pressed on so I could at least see some of it. I'd never really bought into the idea of the game as a whole being an exemplar of the "cozy game" genre. There's far too much pressure in terms of both time and inventory management for that. But I could see where the argument comes from, and for most of the game's existence the argument has been fairly reasonable. That ceases to be the case with each piece of new content that's added though, mainly in the sense that it rapidly becomes overwhelming if you're the type to stick with the game's central theme of being a farmer. Instead you're very much incentivised to completely abandon most of the base game mechanics in order to even have time to engage with the new content. An element of this was already hinted at in the base game with the somewhat-optional Skull Cavern, the endgame dungeon that required you to heavily optimise an entire day's play to it in a pretty literal sense. To give a bit of context, the intended approach for it pretty much involved kitting yourself out the night before, praying the game's RNG generated a good luck day in the morning, then using a teleport at 6am and start mining with explosives until 2am, when you passed out from fatigue (which is optimal play, the 1000g penalty for not going returning home manually is trivial). But to be fair, this is something you only had to pull off a couple of times in an average playthrough before being set for resources. The new zone takes this approach and dials it to eleven. Every single day your new goal becomes to get yourself to the new zone as soon as possible at the sacrifice of everything else, and engage in the new major grind there. I admit that after a few days of this, I gave up and installed a cheat mod that allowed me to freeze time, turning the game into a more traditional RPG in which I could explore the content at my leisure. I thus wave farewell and good riddance to the game's central time management conceit, but it nonetheless feels bizarre that the intended approach seems to be to stop farming altogether, sell all your animals, ignore all your friends and their quests, etc. Now in mitigation

No char siu? You don't want me as a fake customer at your fake restaurant

I suppose, bundles count as sales. https://itch.io/b/2506/queer-games-bundle-2024-with-10-option There are quite a few jam games (i.e. very short to play and fast to develop), but also some decent VNs, point&click adventures, and puzzles. I went for the pay-what-you-can option and ~£20. --- https://www.humblebundle.com/games/future-games-show-discovery The bundle has Gloomwood and and En Guade!. --- https://www.humblebundle.com/games/stories-pride

I made a website for a fake Chinese takeaway using React/TypeScript and a lot of input from ChatGPT 4o. It turned out pretty well, I think the new version of GPT has a much longer memory as I asked it to generate a bunch of images and it managed to keep the style consistent which it hasn't been able to do before on this scale. I also uploaded a photo of a menu from the local takeaway here and asked GPT to create arrays for all of the menu catagories including a name, price and description and it managed it. Such a time saver. https://golden-dragon-aberfeldy.netlify.app/

You are oh so correct and thank you. As a newcomer to the forum I didn't want to create a new thread before grasping the thread cycle it seemed to have. Which is fine.

Being that my school was out in the boonies we didn't really have a library but a "book bus" came every other week to take our orders and they also had some assortment of books that they brought with them. They were surprisingly nonplussed by me asking for three books about firearms and a couple of fantasy books. 😄 I've never read Silmarillion, I never could get into it, it wasn't really that interesting to me. But I have read both the black and white books from Robert Jordan though

I have been playing a singleplayer poker game called Balatro recently. This short trailer more or less gives you the idea: As you win rounds, you earn money which can be used at the shop which you visit in between each round to try to modify your build (modify, add, or remove cards from your deck, add jokers that give various kinds of bonuses or change how your build functions)...but the more you win, the more points you'll need to win the next round. Anyways, I only mention all of this because after having played the game for like 20-30 hours over the last month or so, I was finally able to construct more or less the exact deck and winning hand, a High Card build (i.e. a single card and normally the absolute worst hand type that you can play), that I've previously tried to create a few dozen times but failed to, which I took a video of here: I only needed about 86,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (i.e. 8.6*10^43) points to win the hand, but I scored 4,283,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (i.e. 4.283*10^90) points, so I guess I got a little carried away there. Anyways, don't play Balatro, it's a pretty good but pointless poker game and you'll start go crazy from the possibilities that you can see but can't quite ever put together. I was finally able to build the exact build I had thought of like 5 hours into the game but couldn't ever quite get all the parts lined up for, and now I finally have no reason to continue playing it: though the game officially has no end as the required winning amount of points just continue to scale up exponentially (a build "wins" the game after defeating Ante 8, for reference - as you can see in the bottom left, I am actually at Ante 20/8 instead, and Ante 8 usually only requires around a score of just 100,000 to win), I think I can consider it "beat".

Completely off topic, but when I see GNU, I usually associate it with one of two things... the GNU license or this animal https://www.britannica.com/animal/gnu 😁 Yes, I know they are most likely called Wildebeest in SA

I think that beckoner is overkill because too many Chillfogs make the game unplayable. Personally I would pick troubadour because he can summon more often (if needed) and later he can summon a skeleton every 3s and have 10+ chillfogs running all the time without doing anything.

Assuming Marlins is a baseball team, I remember we had a dedicated baseball thread a while ago As can be seen from the title, it's a bit outdated though. Didn't help GuardDog got a girlfriend, so not hanging around on the internet discussing baseball anymore You're more than welcome to create a new, updated 2024 baseball thread if feel like it (no obligation, it just feels like a sport that warrants its own thread)

Who knows? She may appreciate @melkathi doing the Haka..,

Through the medium of interpretive dance?

Finished Skald. Not sure I liked the ending, but, oh well, it wasn't bad enough to make me dislike the game.

FemHawke was awesome.

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

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 😖

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.

Downloading now, let's see how stable it is.

I can very easily say exactly this sort of thing about BG3 and its cast of characters. <shrug> For me, Varric is a character I absolutely love and consider one of the best-written characters in all of fantasy gaming. There are also several other characters from across the three DA games I love. But there are no characters, not a single one, from BG3 that I would consider well-written or worth remembering/caring about.

first time i notice this dialogue option

It was darker than what Bioware did up to this point. I suppose it depends what your context was when it was released. In Game of Thrones world, I suppose it is rather tame, but if ones reference was Lord of the Rings and previous Bioware game, than Origins was rather edgy (though, preceded by Witcher1).

I too am in the camp of very much liking that this game leaves out romances. They don't add anything useful or interesting to the roleplaying experience while sucking up a lot of valuable development resources. I also much prefer that the game gives us very strong roleplay options and paths for building non-sexual relationships with our companions. That's exactly the way to go.

Not playing Guild Wars 2 so much these days, but I think I might have taken some screenshots from when the previous expansion came out (the "Cantha" continent). Being no expert in Asian aesthetics, I suspect it's very much Korean inspired (the parent company of ArenaNet being South Korean)... it's not competing with state of the art FPS single player games, but I think for an MMO, the visuals are actually pretty decent

Just go play Baldur’s Gate3 or a BioWare game. so many RPG companions became just dating sims, I really, really welcome RPGs with different relationships. PoE1 has my favourite cast to date, and a lot of those characters should wouldn’t be made if they were all datable.

would never go back to fallout 3 fnv at least have good atmosphere and casino

Is it any good? I like the skull but skeptical because Dan Aykroyd.

I think its a new addition, but Alpha Protocol is available on Gog: https://www.gog.com/en/game/alpha_protocol

The problem is, she wants to skip the "get to know one another" and "see if we actually like one another part", because that is a waste of time. A commitment to having kids. Then the other stuff. Basically already planning us moving in together and our holidays and stuff.

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

But as I've said often, I was one of the first to join the Larian BG3 foum after the game was announced, and have been very diligent in readings posts there and very active in discussing the game. And I have also watched a lot of hours of BG3 streaming. But whatever.