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Should have made it Epic exclusive just for the hell of it.

I think it's safe to say that doing anything special for your inlaws is dangerous and that you should keep as much distance, emotional and physical, as possible. Especially if they're in Florida.

yeah. the notion a person is getting away with something ignores what we said 'bout negligence being more appropriate to civil. we specific used examples o' doctor prescribing wrong medication or construction worker wrong building scaffolding when explaining texas cop case. make a mistake does not mean you ignore consequences. not go to prison is hardly the same as getting away with something. however, shoot somebody is fundamental different... but less so in USA as 'posed to almost anywhere else. sure, far more people die every year from prescription med mistakes than all firearm crimes and accidents combined. nevertheless, while meds may be as dangerous as firearms, the purpose o' the gun is to cause hurt or death. guns is different, or should be. if you use a firearm on a person, is expected somebody will be severe hurt or dead. prescription drug is not intended to harm. am getting the consternation and the dissatisfaction. we want to get justice for victims, and innocent people being shot and killed feels like a situation where justice is demanded. nevertheless, even when is an option for da to do so, we typical do not criminal prosecute mistake for intent crimes. is rare. is the exception. even the vehicular manslaughter stuff is rare unless is a repeat offender o' dui... or if the incident gets disproportionate publicity 'cause child dies or some other reason. HA! Good Fun!

People in Florida.

Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown.

Frankly, I'm not even sure what's going on with this discussion anymore. But on a positive note, we're only a few weeks away from the forums actually discussing The Outer Worlds. It will be a nice break from meta-gaming storefronts or taking sides in a proxy battle between billion-dollar corporations.

I can't believe it took me this long to recognize an obvious Easter egg. I've been walking past this trio several times over the last year (A meerkat, a warthog and a lion cub, cue Disney music)

Welcome to our new Social Media overlord! And may her reign be full of glorious memes.

... ... ... .... the free KFC dating simulator! It's pretty terrible (edit - make that very terrible) - but it made me laugh, so... https://store.steampowered.com/app/1121910/I_Love_You_Colonel_Sanders_A_Finger_Lickin_Good_Dating_Simulator/ Features: - 9 lovable characters - Multiple hours of play-through - Dateable Colonel Sanders - A secret ending! Shh! - Secret recipes! Double Shh! - Cooking battles - Battle battles - Earn a degree from a fictional culinary school - 11 Herbs and Spices - Cute miniature food - Officially created by KFC. No, really

So after finishing the DLC content I decided to start testing out all the new weapons as some of them looked pretty interesting. Below are my findings and thoughts, along with input others have shared. I will keep updating as/if more information is discovered and confirmed. Glacier Bane - Harder than Ice stacks last till end of combat and can be gained from friendly fire. Could use a fast ticking freeze dot such as Ninagauth's Bitter Mooring to gain an easy +3 pen. Problem is you can only select one enchant, and it's only other unique property is 10% raw lash. Frostfall - Chaos Strike doesn't have any correlation between types of affliction it applies - I stunned the enemy while distracting myself. Could synergize nicely with some of the new "gain x while afflicted" gear; make sure you have no inspiration before using (obviously). Corrode damage scales with level (+25% at lvl20 multiclass/PL7) along with all the usual weapon damage modifiers. Mutually exclusive with Dispersed Suffering. - Dispersed Suffering doesn't care how you get the kill; spells, offhand weapon, DoT chants, etc. Radius isn't stated, however appears to be somewhat bigger than carnage. It currently gives +50% duration as opposed to the +20% on the description - likely a bug. Will extend chants (tested with Dragon Thrashed) and also can proc off killing friendly targets. Targets the foes will defense, so triggers on attack effects (Stagger from Spirit Frenzy, Avenging Storm); next kill will extend durations and so on. I had one mob with ~550 second stagger duration. Obviously that's overkill but you can get creative with your afflictions/DoTs. - Encroaching Frost can proc from spells. I have confirmed this can proc from Dispersed Suffering, which will then be extended by it and so on. With enough crit chance you could (potentially) permanently paralyze an entire group using your own skelebros (resistance/immunity aside). Mutually exclusive with Shattering Head. - Shattering Head was underwhelming; damage is comparable to Frostseeker but proc is less reliable (30% vs guaranteed) and it doesn't damage the primary target, unlike Frosty. Crit has to be with the mace for it to proc. - Does not gain penetration from Secrets of Rime. This is a bug and a fix is being worked on. Current's Rush - Flow and its upgrade do quite high damage, however the low proc chance makes it fairly unreliable. Maybe on a ranger with driving flight and twinned shot? - Low Tide enchant crit damage also applies to spells. - Ebb stacking hit to crit chance is weapon only - would have been perfect caster weapon otherwise. Oathbreaker's End - Scales of Justice DoT damage appears to be base 3, scaled with standard damage modifiers (superb, might, threshing aura, etc.) but not from the skill that applied it or crit damage. This is in line with other non-percentage DoTs so makes sense. - Found Innocent heal amount looks to be the same as Abraham - that is both Abraham and this gave me 17 health on kill. Mutually exclusive with Found Guilty. - Found Guilty looks to be the best - raw damage AoE, uses full weapon base damage (18-24) plus passive and ability bonuses (with lashes on top), can crit and targets the will defense. Using the new Slippers of the Assassin you can get Assassinate and Backstab (depending on distance) to apply to the proc, but only once per fight. Swashbuckler using Clear Out from stealth with as much AoE as you can should apply the DoT to a large number of mobs, allowing a chain reaction of heavy raw damage as they start dying. Applies on attack effects such as Staggered from Spirit Frenzy/Tornado, Avenging Storm, etc. - Currently shares base penetration with one handed battle axes (7), this has been reported as a potential bug as version 1.2 increased two-handed penetration by +1 across the board. This is likely an oversight but hopefully we will know soon. The Twin Eels - Breath of Life heal amount is 10 + 1/religion point. This is also increased by the usual healing modifiers (might etc.) - Renewal was harder to test, as I got the gaping wound injury (-25% healing), however it would appear to be 10 + 10/religion + modifiers. - Death's Embrace is very hard to measure. I've done two tests so far which is by no means enough to come to conclusions on an RNG based effect, however in the first test I got 3 conversions due to the sword across 2 Hear of Fury's (~12 connections total per use) while the second test with exactly the same conditions saw 0 conversions. At a (very rough) guess I'd say it's something in the region of 2%-5% base + 0.25 per religion. - This matches what grasida said here. Essence Interrupter - Soul Diplomacy seems to be the obvious pick for the creature upgrades; why risk reinforcing your foes? So far in my very limited testing I've seen a range of monsters including but not limited to: Young Boar, Imps, Lesser Slime/Ooze, Gul/Dargul/Algul, Lagufaeth Mage, Ogre Pirate, Bird. The duration isn't fantastic but it's ok. Sometimes it didn't spawn anything even though the debuff was active and the visuals triggered. This is a bug so expect a fix soon. Another bug I've discovered is that Essential Phantom can apply the base debuff on top of the upgraded debuff. This is because EP will always only get the base version of your items. Expect a fix for this too, also as the base summon can be hostile, this isn't really that great. - Lashes are mutually exclusive (duh) and seem to scale at 0.25 or 0.5 per point of Metaphysics (I only tested one but they will be the same rate). Up to preference really which one to take, though shock obviously fits the theme better, aslo there are far more fire immune enemies than shock, including those that heal from it. - Gains penetration from Heart of the Storm passive, presumably also from other sources (if any exist?). After some further testing I believe the Oathbreaker's End has a lot of potential for AoE fights, however it is lacking when it comes to ST. Still had a lot of fun testing it and will probably build around it for my next run. What Twin Eels lacks in damage (outside of being a 2-hander) it makes up for in sustain - 40 health per kill is no joke, can't be bothered further testing the hit to crit though. Frostfall is probably my second favourite at this point, though I feel it will mainly be used as a stat stick due to it's two best enchants applying universally. The Essence Interrupter is interesting, but outside of the summons it's pretty ordinary. Having another elemental damage weapon is quite nice though. The lashes are nice but other weapons offer the same without hogging skill points.

*Sorry, mates this will be a long-winded rant* Deadfire is truly incredible. I can’t recommend it until I finish because… well on principle, I never recommend a game I haven’t finished. However, this is truly shaping up to be Obsidian’s chef d'oeuvre. At this point, having visited four areas of Neketaka, I’m convinced that this effort will be on par with Fallout: New Vegas, which makes two Obsidian games in my top five. That’s simple astounding. Moreover, I’ve had the game for over a year and a half but only recently started playing. I’d started a game on release but for some reason I wasn’t interested so I stopped playing after I ended up on the ship in the first five minutes or so. Now, I can’t let it go. Anyhow, that’s my testimonial. Here are specifics. The empire building in ship form is a nice break from kingdom building. I haven’t done much of it, but I’ve like it. I just hope it doesn’t become sheer tedium. I’m looking at you, Pathfinder: Kingmaker! So far so good and I have my fingers crossed. Edér is one of the best companions of any CRPG. His voice acting is spot on. The writing is clever, witty, and succeeds at making Edér a truly sympathetic and likeable character. So much better than the over the top and often grammatically incorrect Kreia from KotOR 2. Don’t get me wrong. I make grammatical errors all the time. That’s why I’d be an extremely poor NPC. Well, maybe as a pathetic comedy figure, but probably not even that. The NPCs overall are simply wonderful. I like the interparty banter. I like the fact that the dialogue isn’t mind-numbingly long and wandering. Hell, I have four NPCs and an… NPCesque kind of dwarf I sent back to the ship. The party is a gratifying combination of new and old faces. Arkemyr’s mansion is just brilliant! I had a few options for how to get into the place. I ended up finding a way in by accident, snuck around until I found a way to finish everything without fighting anyone, got what I wanted and left. These days, I don’t pilfer everything in sight, so I had to leave all that great loot behind, including at least one epic weapon, but it was fun times. I did pick all the locks and take a look to see what I was missing. All I took out of the place was a robe, for obvious reasons, and the tablet I needed for the greater good of the Huana. The Old City is very well done. I stayed down too long so the lift left. I found a way out, but it did entail having to engage in unwanted combat. There’s still a big bad beasty down there I’m going to come back to see when I’m a couple levels higher. Maybe nine or ten. I don’t know if I could have beat it, but it looked like too much work. I guess I’ll truncate this rambling rant about the game and just jot down a list. Pros: Playable NPCs are great A lot of info and lore packed into short and easy to read bites Interactable NPCs names’ show when I TAB Floating flavor text is fun, sometimes witty, and economically conveys information Island exploration (only a couple so far, but fun) Pacing is good Brought back good ol’ Eothas A bunch of other stuff, but I’m tired now Cons: In terms of things that irk me, probably only two I wish that dialogue scrolled so I could read it during the conversation. I need to keep experimenting and see if there’s some way to do that because, while it’s great to have it in the log, I often want to reference preceding lines of conversation while I’m in the middle of it. I was irked at having to fight my way out of the Old City because I’m afraid it impacted my rep with one of the factions significantly. On the other hand, Dudenheim up top warned me that lift wouldn’t be there for long. …And I could have loaded a save, but I firmly believe in living with the consequences of my actions. In that case, maybe this belongs in the pro section also.

Hi! Obsidian has a new Social Media Manager. I guess that's the same posting as the former Community Manager @Aarik D? https://twitter.com/MikeyDowling/status/1179131245239754753 I hope we see her often and that you guys behave. Couldn't find her member name here yet. Anyway that's it - have a nice German Unification Day!

Friend? Friend!

It's 2 months, okay? That's like, 1/6th of a year!

Might add a few more later, friends get first dibs.

biggest problem is vocabulary, which am suspecting is not actual accident. if law weren't arcane, then people wouldn't need lawyers... or at least not need as often. words like malice and intent don't actual mean same thing as they do in english. am suspecting lawyers as an industry has created impenetrable vocab just to make themselves indispensable. am thinking we mentioned at least once before how in spite o' fact most o' our acquaintances over recent years has been attorneys, and even 'mongst those we genuine respect, is few with whom we would wanna go to a ballgame. is not that we dislike fellow attorneys, but am finding we have little to talk 'bout with most attorneys save for law... and as am a Con Law guy, we get the kinda dismissive, "you poor soul" treatment from fellow folks in the profession. HA! Good Fun!

Hello new Social Media Manager.

Florida is a different place, man.

Haha, I don't think "Norway" is critizising the US, more like some Norwegian lawyers commented on it, and found it a bit strange that they did no investigation. Killing someone (whether an accident or not) is pretty serious stuff. And since it was a Norwegian citizen that died, it gets extra attention over here You get criticized for locking up a crazy amount of people for minor crimes, as far as I know. If you're found guilty of manslaughter, that's hardly comparable!

Sorry, I totally missed this. Not sure about the incident in the article but I looked it up because a friend who lives in Florida, because of course it's going to be Florida, had this happen to him. The spots were in the back of a parking lot and a couple of the trucks were "rolling coal" so it's likely just a reactionary thing.

Trump blathering on about how he cares about corruption and nepotism is pretty good comedy.

That "Breaking Bad" thing reminded me:

Pellegrino? The Paladin from the order of the Sparkling Waters? With the special ability "Faith and Carbonisation"?

in the event it's not clear the gravity of what the president did this morning agree FEC Chair deserves a spot on the wall of heroes ... next to Jacinda Ardern, here

I played the hell out of Crusader Kings, but I don't have much interest in CK2 or EU3 or beyond. Good games, but I'm played out on them. I recently started a game of Deadfire. Wow! It's a wonderful game! I plundered as much as I could for the moment in Neketaka and then made my way to Deadlight. I think I did most everything there and now I'm going to explore and collect bounties for just a bit. I'm ~10th level, so I don't know how much I have left to go, but it's simply brilliant!

I feel I'd be more interested in that film if I wasn't aware of Clint Eastwood's very vocal stance on "PC culture" and the likes in this more recent era ("we see people accusing people of being racist and all kinds of stuff. When I grew up, those things weren’t called racist", says someone whose formative years were the 30s and 40s). Already the trailer feels very patronising and I wouldn't be surprised for him to be establishing a direct link between this case and the people who are rather correctly outed for hate speech, sexual misconduct and so on. Which is not to say I'm against decrying social media's tendency to condemn people before they have a chance to defend themselves against allegations, or for misinterpreting one's words and so on (see Jon Ronson's excellent TED talk How One Tweet Can Ruin Your Life for example), but the way he's approached this subject in interviews, statements and so on is one that tells me his position on the matter is no more insightful, informed or empathetic than that of any regular Trump supporter crying oppression when criticized for the use of slurs and the likes. I'll check it out if I hear differently once reviews and early word is out, but right now I can't say I'm looking forward to it.

And antics like Russia invading Crimea had nothing to do with it? More like getting shocked out of complacency IMO, but could partially be an accelerationism effect too.

This guy has some seriously fast hands. The parts at 3:00 and 6:40 are just unreal.

Go for another Bethesda masterpiece

Yeah, but I'm fairly confident it won't have glistening sweaty Sting in winged briefs, so it'll be DOA.

Not sure if this has been shared yet, but here's a pretty thorough and well-curated test of longbow vs. armour.

https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-49933003

Moon's haunted...

My much anticipated Metallica concert at the end of this month got cancelled. James Hetfield sent to rehab. Now torn between getting a refund or hang on to the tickets and wait for a replacement date to be announced at some distant future time.

Heh, depending on how the house looked, chicken might be back on the menu.

my theory is, since 5pm Pacific is technically midnight zulu time ... Microsoft is secretly planning to rename Project Scarlett the Z-box ... think about it -- the next console release is holiday 2020 ... what colors are associated with the holidays: red and green ... Xbox official color is green, Scarlett Johansson, Black Widow, has red hair ... how else to explain a video game releasing seven hours early Playstation version of The Outer Worlds does not release until four hours after that, at 9pm Pacific ... 4hrs -- PS4 -- coincidence?!

Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights - Schafer Simplifies portraits The background of the photographer who gave the world "Thou shalt not"