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I believe, somewhere in our hearts, we are what we play. We don’t become angry half orcs slaughtering villagers or bold knights fighting for justice, but those ideas become part of our person. They swirl around in our heads like swarms of butterflies. I have been formed as much by games as I have by the events in my life. I played games as a child. Recess had tag, dodge ball, and kickball. At home, we would play the occasional board game. It wasn’t until my mom received the original grey Dungeons and Dragons boxed set as a gift in 1978 that games became a peculiar focus in my life. I was only nine years old at the time. I didn’t understand every word, but I understood enough to know I wanted to play. Wanting and doing are two different things and my nine-year-old self could not grasp every concept. That didn’t stop me from valiantly trying to construct modules. No one else had much interest and so I would fashion what, to my mind, were elaborate maps and imagined encounters for players who did not exist. Sometimes the idea of the game is as entertaining as the game itself. Sometimes, I think, the idea of the game *is* the game. In 1981, after I returned from Guam, my eldest brother brought over an Atari 800. Magic! Two-word text adventures were simply brilliant! Unlike my experiences living on a tropical island, there were plenty of kids in California who wanted to play games like Dungeons and Dragons and some of my friends would also come over to my house to play computer games. If solitary play fueled my imagination, including other players forced me to put that imagination to practical use in a game setting. Sharing a computer meant one person could be at the keyboard while the other one or two would be forced to stand in back yelling comments or barking orders. As I grew into my teens, Dungeons and Dragons became central to my life. I would hunt out modules to play with friends or, more often, simply read and imagine playing. There wasn’t enough time to play everything. One of my best friends liked to play, but his mother, a staunch evangelical Christian, was convinced that Dungeons and Dragons was Satanic, so we played Gamma World. However, soon after, her pastor proclaimed all RPGs were Satanic and it was difficult for him to play. I loved his mom, and she was very kind to me, but she gently explained that I should enjoy my life on earth because, as a Catholic, I was bound for hell. …And she was certain RPGs corrupted young minds! Lol Alas, I’d started drinking and smoking at 12 years old and much of my time was spent in callow and self-destructive behavior. If only the pull of games had been stronger, it may be that I would have been a much more useful member of society earlier in my life, but I was not. Turns out games hadn’t corrupted me, but I was still corrupted. The fault, as always, was my own. I was 17 when I graduated from high school and immediately joined the United States Navy. Far from being rare, it turned out a lot of my fellow sailors were gamers. I often wonder if I would have had even more chance to game if I’d been stationed on a ship. Not a lot of chance for other things shipboard. I was always land based, however, and mostly overseas. We did have some great computer games. One of my fellows overseas, an army grunt if I remember correctly, would use such creative names as Prelf for his elven priest and Dwight for his dwarven fighter. : Eldar’s shaking his head with a bemused smile icon : As it seems, some of us didn’t have our imaginations enriched by gaming, but what some lacked in imagination they returned back with practicality. Same manual, different lesson. When I returned home, basically bummed out and aimless, I wandered around a lot. I’ve had a variety of jobs ranging, in no particular order, from cashier to human resources for Longs Drugs, meter reader for the gas company, teacher at a parochial school, wedding photography salesman on the Las Vegas Strip, quality assurance for a video game, security guard, and registered nurse with a couple of others I’m probably forgetting. I’m currently a nurse practitioner. I’m done floating around in the ether, so this one is going to be my last. As you can tell, gaming has been more consistent than employment for me. Like a lot of gamers my age, there are particular computer games that were fundamental in my developing tastes. Zork would probably be the first and foremost. Fallout and Baldur’s Gate, of course. It’s now that I invoke Planescape Torment. What words exist that have not been said of PST, good, bad, or somewhere between? I won’t add to them here. It is for me what it is. I love the game. As an aside, my wife loved this T.V. show during the 1990s called The Pretender. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but just this year my wife found it again on some streaming service and we discovered the main character did the voice work for The Nameless One. During all this time, talking about games has been as important as playing them. I’ve spent considerably more time discussing PST than playing it. Same for all of my favorite games. I became part of the online community at Black Isle Studios and eventually, a bit before the place folded, I was a moderator. Sadly, I can’t remember the names of all the people there. One of the moderators at that time left a message on my answering machine, playing his guitar and singing a song. I don’t remember who it was, but I remember the song. That was some point after I’d dropped off the face of the earth for months. Being someone with a number of character flaws, I’m a bit of a wanderer by nature. As they say, I’m constantly pushing people away with one hand and pulling them closer with the other. Eventually, since everything was quickly going to a fire sale at Interplay, I signed up as a community member at Obsidian. I want to address particular Obsidian games since this is the Obsidian board and I’ve loved a number of Obsidian titles. I’m currently hundreds of hours into Grounded, for instance. I’ve spent thousands of hours enjoying Obsidian games, but I can’t go on without owning to a past of which I am ashamed. I don’t know who all is at Obsidian at this time. I sent word asking someone there to help me find work and he arranged to have me do quality assurance on Mask of the Betrayer. I tried my best to do a good job, but I was an utter failure. My personality defects were simply too great to put in quality work. I refuse to submit anything here without giving a nakedly truthful account. Ironically, Mask of the Betrayer was an excellent title. The story, the unfolding of every element, was so well done I always believed it should have been a stand-alone title outside of NWN2. After I worked on Mask of the Betrayer, I was bereft of hope. Not because of my work on MotB, but because it threw into stark relief how lacking in distinction I was as a human. I realized, with my degrees in history and classical studies, with my wife and varied job experiences, that I had done nothing to justify my existence, let alone distinguish it. I fell into abject despair and rarely left my house. I gained weight and eventually weighed over 400lbs. Even so, in all this, I gamed. Games were the last frayed strand of a rope to which I clung, and my grasp was starting to fail. The point of this isn’t my sad state. I have a private blog that serves perfectly well in order to flog myself. My point is that, in a pinch, I had games. Maybe you’ve all heard the story of the man who is falling from a cliff, clenching the roots of a tree. Looming on the cliff above, there is a ferocious tiger. Below him lie jagged rocks in the distance. The man, desperate and despairing, sees a berry on a bush growing from the side of the cliff. He takes the berry and eats it. Savoring the flavor, he thinks to himself, “I have tasted no berry sweeter than this.” Games. I’m clearly in a much better place now. I’m a professional and I help people in my practice. …But games. New Vegas. Pillars of Eternity 2. Mask of the Betrayer. Masterpieces. I have tasted no berries sweeter than these.

You are quite awesome ty!

Great story, nice one Dan I love how these blogs demonstrate the reality and humanity of peoples lives and how gaming became a positive influence I am glad you didnt end up corrupted and a Satanist because of RPG, I always suspected it wasn't likely And MoB, what a gem. An iconic game for sure and a " must play" for all fans of party based RPG

This is why I said you shouldn't believe when tooltip, and you clearly never actually used it, or bothered looking at the combat log. If this is "discussed pretty extensively", I simply have no idea how you guys managed it without actually using it at all, good job. Imbued Ammunition scales with PL/CL, then with might, weapon quality and such, like those tier 0/1 martial abilities like Force of Anguish. Just use it on a lv20 character, you'll see the base roll of IA is roughly between 12-18. (6+15)*1.25 = 26.25 average base damage. And it doesn't graze. As long as the raw hit isn't a miss, IA will proc a hit without checking accuracy vs defenses. Among pistols only Scordeo's Trophy with high stacks of Opening Barrage has a chance of beating it, if Scordeo's Trophy can actually penetrate anything in the late game.

I see your point. It's true most fights aren't that long, so burning zeal to cast it 3-4 times would single handedly win the fight.

Did the Fidelio quest in Rogue Trader. This time I chose not to pretend to be Fidelio, instead investigating who really is. Interesting how different the quest plays out. Got almost the same outcome though, with just a few more people alive, as some who tried to kill me last time were smarter this time.

umbrella academy manage to disappoint audience each season since season 2 pretty predictable now at least now it is over

Iirc that pause (or its length) is not influenced by anything. I'm not 100% confident though.

Stalker is actually a great class to make a multiclass (off)tank and very good for certain melee builds (especially if it's about high accuracy because no other class has that many stackable accuracy vs. single targets). I played a solo Geomancer (Stalker/Bloodmage) and it was excellent at tanking - even without a shield setup. Of course the Wizard's self buffs helped a lot here. But I think players often just forget about the Animal Companion which can def. help a lot with offtanking. I mean you get two bodies for the price of one. A SC Stalker is a bit more tricky because it lacks the nice synergies of some multiclass combos - but I think offtanking is no problem. Thick armor and decent RES and CON would be my preference. You cannot heal yourself until Power Level 9 with Shadowed Hunter - but what are those other party members for anyway? You can however heal the animal companion. If you pick the Bear and are a stalker the near has great armor rating which makes it a lot sturdier compared to a non-Stalker non-bear. Antelope also works because of the higher defenses - but overall I think the bear is better for offtanking. If you have a Chanter in the party then off-tanking with the animal companion is even better: you can revive it unlimited times per encounter - because animal companions don't get injuries. If you don't have a chanter the ranger can revive the animal companion, too - but the Bond resource is limited.

Because gamers are discerning and intelligent people.

I think your conclusions here are correct. The "ApplyStatusEffectToEnemyOnEvent" only ever applied to a single target with each AoE attack. Though from what I am seeing when does apply it, it's done after the attacks damage is done. ie. enemy is Grazed/Hit/Crit -> Damage -> Status Effect applied to enemy. I'd assume this works for Aegis of Loyalty since it is a Single-Target attack that's applying a brief Immunity to the Intellect Afflictions. Going back to your earlier posts, Aura Abilities seem to be a bit finicky when used as activated spells. On my end it only seemed to activate briefly and effect just the caster. Switching over to applying the Status Effect with an AoE ability had more reliable results. Maybe something like a self targeted AoE or Pulsing AoE could be used to mimic the behaviour of an aura instead? For the Status Effect itself, an "AttackResistance" (set to a Value of "1") or "Immunity" Status Effect with Attack Filters of "Class" = "Wizard" and "TargetType" = "AoE" seemed to work. Though the main caveat there was there is nothing in the AttackFilter that's filtering out only the attacks made by the specific Wizard. Something I was thinking, though couldn't really see anyway to do, was maybe it's possible to attach a temporary Keyword to the character's attacks somehow? If that's possible it at least gives the Resistance/Immunity an additional layer of specificity to apply to filtering out attacks.

Pumpkin Jack Quite a few of objectives were "Find N of X". The battle ended at the same time I died. The cut-scene still played. An easter egg, I assume. The most irritating mini-game. The final boss. The Outer Worlds Edgewater. The Roseway area has a few quests where the NPC tell the directions somewhat clearly. In this case, there were no road to the storage facility, but it technically was to the left from the old lab when heading out through the south gate.

Finished Pumpkin Jack. Not recommended. Review: --- Started Unsighted. It looks like a post-apocalyptic Souls-like in the pixel art style. Slightly reminds of Hyper Light Drifter. --- The Shrine was reasonably good with the unique longbow, which was somewhere in the castle (I think, shortly before Nashandra's portrait). Poison arrows helped against the sturdier foes.

Little bit more of DS2 again. First in line was Duke's Dear Freja. For some reason, despite Tseldora being pretty annoying place to run around, and you have to Homeward a lot if you want all the loot. Especially the easter egg Pickaxe , I had zero wipes while traversing to her. Summoned two summons and had a chill fight The next one was Lost Sinner. And again, despite not in love, with the exploding mobs, I have managed to survive the walk to her up including the fight with her with no wipes. Again, no wipes, but before the end of the game session, I have decided to fight with Vengarl at his new position. I have lacked Fragrant Branch of Yore up until now. Of course before landing at his place, I had two comedy wipes again, due to me missing the landing point on a bridge to him Both bosses on first try. With summons, but that's OK for now. Plan is to have a little bit more challenge at NG+ The third one was the Dragonrider duo. The fight was again pretty fine with the summon helping out, but the road through Drangleic Castle was pain in the ass I have been surprised few times, with few changes from vanilla. The mob placing is completely different, so I did not knew, what awaits me. That's why I ended up with 8 asskicks before finishing the session. I have also tried to get the complete Ruin armour set, before venturing forth, but after 5 or 6 rounds with Ruin Sentinels, I am still missing the chest piece. But this one actually helped me a little bit with leveling up. 101 wipes. Next in line, Looking Glass Knight and Shrine of Amana... And I have found myself to put the next session off few times, as I hate this area as much as a flatearther, hates a geography book.

Well "tanking" isn't the most exciting job in the party in the first place. I don't exactly know what you expected. Also if a Wizard's gameplay seems boring to you I don't know if there's any other class that would feel less boring. Wizards are all about micromanagement and squeezing the most out of their (mostly awesome) spells. Maybe you got that feeling at lower levels though where spell uses are quite scarce. If you have problems with a Stalker tank's Animal Companion dying too much you are most likely not using it effectively. Instead of sending it in first in order to take the heat from you you should go in first. Use fat armor and shield. If you take the Bear + Resilient Companion you will have a high AR, very sturdy flanker which can help you to deal good damage (combined with your own damage which wouldn't be too good because you are slow and have a shield). If you take the Boar the AR is a bit less but he'll have constant health regeneration - the Boar does rel. low dmg though. If you have a Wolf you get the most dmg per attack but he's less sturdy than Bear or Boar. My pick would the Bear if I fear knockouts of my animal companion but still want it to do some dmg. You need to keep your animal companions near as a Stalker. That way you both get +1 AR (which is a very important bonus for tanking) and +5 defense (which is also good). So always act as a tag team, don't separate. That shouldn't be too hard as a tank since you won't move a lot. I would try to get Stalker's Patience asap so I could unlock the AC's Predator's Sense later at all times. Spears also give you more engagement. The shield, too. Which is also good to have a a tank. With Stalker's Link your pet will also have more engagement, so together you can bind more enemies. Before getting Stalker's Patience you can use a battle axe + Blessing Cuts modal to unlock Predator's Sense. You will still need to have some healing in your party for the Ranger himself - or use some regeneration gear. The pet can be healed by the Ranger. The good thing about a Stalker tank is that his defensive bonuses can't get dispelled by Arcane Dampener etc. They are all passive. The disadvantage is that he cannot achieve very high defenses. But in combination with good AR and two bodies it still works. Generally speaking multiclasses can achieve better tanking than single classes because there will be more defensive synergies.

Omg. Did not make that parallel connection at all... But it do be like that, only much worse.

Did the dad try to do the Human Instrumentality Project?

Some synthetic benchmarking of the new micro-code that supposedly fixes the power degradation issues (scroll down): https://tweakers.net/reviews/12320/hoeveel-trager-worden-intel-processors-door-de-nieuwe-default-settings.html tl;dr: Typically a small performance dip (5-10%) versus prior benchmarks, occasionally more significant, occasionally less or even nothing at all...also, occasionally actually better! Mildly reduces clock speeds across the board, reduces power draw significantly in the 14th gen (but weirdly not the 13th). I hope chasing top performance no matter what was worth all this, Intel. (e): Actually, I misread: this doesn't seem to be the new micro-code that just came out (which Asus was the first to release as a beta version of earlier today, and these tests were done with a Gigabyte board anyways), but rather the cumulative micro-code changes that Intel has already made over the past year. Still useful information to know given initial benchmarks of these chips versus benchmarks you might see if they were tested today, but I guess hold onto your horses to see what the latest will actually do. Guess that's what I get for seeing "Asus releases new BIOS beta with Intel's micro-code changes" and then "these guys re-tested and compared 2023 to latest bios update" right after each other and making assumptions from that.

nope. (or depends on difficulty) POE2 changed how armor rating works, basically getting a certain number will hugely improve your survivability, and for rangers, only stalker has a situational +1AR buff. They also don't have self healing and any hp boost. They have access to some defensive buffs, but that's pretty much it. I'd say a stalker can survive at frontline with some help from the party, but not tanking. By endgame animal companion is also quite squishy and doesn't do any significant damage, unlike in POE. Ranger in POE2 is mainly one of the two things: a) ranged weapon user b) high accuracy provider for multiclassing

Booking dot com is pressuring hotels to raise commission to 25% In 2015 it was 10% with the option to do 15% for increased visibility. Then 15% became the standard and you had to give 20% to enter the genius program of select hotels pushed to good customers. Then they changed the genius program, while keeping the name, removing all benefits for the hotels, but hey, if you reduce the commission, we'll drop you to page 20. But customers are happy paying a quarter of their travel costs to parasitic sites. Why would gaming be different?