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Participated in the Together Alliance (anti-far-right) march in London yesterday. The numbers were higher than the fash march last year (500K vs 100K). I did not stay for the speeches, as the bloc I was in (LGBTQ) was at the tail and moved slowly.

Started a fresh playthrough of Fallout: New Vegas on PC after years of playing it on PS3. Got the Ultimate Edition as well.

So, apparently DLSS 5 is the fusion of 3D graphics and Artificial intelligence (at molecular-genetic level). Artists at Obsidian: Be afraid. Be very afraid.

The person who made me watch the Chainsaw Man show and movie says they've been perfectly happy with part 2. I've now finished part 1, I guess I'll be seeing with whom I agree in the coming week or two.

Or worse, nudes of Kash Patel.

Im playing Assassins Creed Valhalla now, the last time I played an AC game was in 2021 and that was Odyssey which I thoroughly enjoyed Ubisoft games like Far Cry and AC are always the same for me, you have lots of fun initially and there always engaging side activities but then I start getting bored and I just focus on finishing the main narrative Valhalla is fun so far, I like Viking mythology and culture and Ubisoft always delivers on recreating a believable historical world @Gorth I am sure when you read this post you were immediately concerned. We have had numerous discussions through the years about the terrible historical injustice, slavery and Colonialism your Viking ancestors inflicted on my Anglo-Saxon ancestors What if playing Valhalla triggers me and creates RL trauma for me from what happened in the past? Do you think I will be okay I suppose I can just stop playing if it becomes too painful and emotional

Possibly. Just like the woke detector rubes that think they affect game sales, vocal minorities tend to inflate their impact. Hogwarts Legacy is a good example of this, since it got hit by both sides of the argument. The reality is it was a very good game, critically acclaimed, sold well, and still ended up in trouble because WB is bad at business. The controversy around it had little effect.

Archaeologists may have found the grave of the legendary "fourth musketeer" - Ars Technica

Yup. When CO:E33 becomes challenging it is becoming Sekiro. Once you get to the end game hard bosses you will probably appreciate being able to take an extra hit or two before seeing game over screen, but from what I remember you can respec pretty freely anyway.

Democrat wins Florida state seat containing Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate

Whatever cookie policy gg.deals uses is probably the same one used by the Obsidian forums. 🤐

Crimson Desert - they patched it again. there's now a personal stash function, although it seems mixed with the auto-collect wayward-loot function (it's the same chest), plus some control changes, plus some boss nerfs I guess (some will like that, some won't). A lot of other small things. Kliff now no longer feels like a 3-ton brick - maybe now he's a 1-ton brick. It's still an improvement. Anyway, I'm around 20-25 hours now, although much of that time initially was wandering starter castle region to amass lots of food (your heal potions) and revive orbs (ability to immediately continue boss fights, with a bit of health, if you die), and upgrading weapons/armor where possible. Because I'm a wuss and figure I'll need extra. :P So far I'd call this a 7.5/10 game. Higher if you like the mechanics/environment, lower if you dislike them etc. ---Main questline goes in chapters, with multi-parts to each Chapter. Doing these quests is pretty important for the first 4-5 chapters to unlock stuff, including some crafts, stores, npcs. Don't have to if you don't want, but you won't be able to access/do everything you may wander into, otherwise. ---definitely a sandbox-action game, with RPG elements. The story cutscenes are there, but yeah. ---exploration and mechanics (outside of the crazy control UI) are good and yes it's very desnse vs. empty. But they ARE a lot of MMO or fetch or "go kill the bandits for me" stuff. A few sidequests are more than that, and MQ stuff can be more involved. --- the main process of improving gear is upgrading with crafters and resources. So your sword gets +1 or 2 per upgrade - do that often enough you can way outlevel current mobs. But it does take some resource-gathering time. If you don't upgrade your gear periodically and try to rely on randomly finding something better, you're likely gonna rapidly die to mobs/mini-bosses the farther from the starter-castle you go. Diablo/PoE/or even some more focused story-rpg type loot progress this is absolutely not. I'm having fun. It's kind of obsessive, but for me, not the "sleep, what's sleep" type of obsessive. It's more the load-save, 3-6 hrs blink by, then I feel like a 12+hr break. EDIT: oh - I have the particles effect at around 30-40%, which so far hasn't felt too busy/ostentatious etc. I think if you have it at 0, it starts to affect things like visibility of rain. EDITEDIT: weather sometimes affects resources found. Rainstorm - toads/salamanders and other such appear to collect, sunny, it's butterflies and insects, which have different purposes. Small stuff like that.

Crimson Desert: Taming a pet requires "100 appreciation points" - you can only get 25pts per day (petting it). Dogs generally stay in place so you can return to a spot each day to pet it. The cats, so far, because you have to pick them up and pet while cradling them in arms, then put them down again, do not stay in place (they tend to run off) and if I return to an area I can't ever seem to find it again to pet it again. Hadn't seen a cat I liked much anyway so I was eh. Then I saw --- a sleek black cat! It reminds me of Mr. Black! I must have it! So I picked it up. But if I set it down again, how would I find it again? So ... I never set it down again. Made Kliff stand in place, doing nothing, for 3 "days" while I did other IRL things, petting kitty each day. Until finally: Forget anything else, this game is now a 10/10. Yes.

Not the example I used above, but it's mostly energy costs and loss of big c Confidence that are the approaching needle. Though really, AI is an absolutely awful idea economically on base principle (simplistically, replace jobs with AI and who is going to buy the stuff that makes the actual economy run? AI?).

It's a big question mark, Claude seems to be a big leap forward. I was very much an AI skeptic and still am to a large degree, but people have started churning out whole working apps with just prompts. Granted the code under the hood is not optimal, but the app does what you asked for. If the bubble doesn't burst, the cost of using AI will skyrocket, to a point where using human labor may turn out to be cheaper. The current cost for the end user for using that amount of resources is not realistic in the long term.

Scientists shocked to find lab gloves may be skewing microplastics data Face-palm emoji. 🤦‍♂️ This will not look good on your annual performance review...

This build was created for a collaboration with @Aestus who runs the Youtube channel Aestus_RPG. Here's the video where we talk about this and other builds. This is build 2 of 5 from that collaboration. ----------------------------------------- This build is mainly meant for inspiration. You don't need to follow it in detail to have fun. If you understand the key features - the basic idea what makes this build special - you can usually deviate from my non-core attribute-, skill-, gear- and ability selection and form the build to your own likings and ideas. I do not try to produce the most powerful uberbuilds (often those are the most boring to play in he long run) but to focus on having fun while playing. Usually that means the build is powerful - but it's not the main focus. If you like to read about my personal requirements for "fun to play" builds, you can jump to a list below this post ----------------------------------------- orn a slave, Miccaela Shorsh grew up in the shadowed quarters of Ancenze in the Vaillian Republics, where art, politics, and wealth flourish - at least for the free. Her mother Borschtscha was cleaning the dog kennels for one of the wealthy families, and Miccaela seemed destined for the same life of subjugation and shἱt shoveling. However, even as a child and despite her little frame, her voice was unlike any other, an voluminous sound that could either stir hearts and calm tempers or incide discord and altercations. Unbeknownst to her, her gift was more than mere sound: Miccaela possessed a rare psionic talent, woven into her voice. Her abilities first manifested during a punishment because she refused to wash the stinky fur of the owners' favorite hound Beangobbler the Volatile. Terrified and in pain, Miccaela sang a phrase so powerful that it brought the overseer to his knees, clutching his pearls. Word of this strange power spread quickly through the household, and Miccaela was soon seen as dangerous, but also a potential tool. Her owners realized her voice could be used for their advantage in politics and business, so they forced the little Wild Orlan to perform at grand galas, her melodies subtly manipulating the minds of listeners. But the Wild Orlan's rebellious nature kicked in: at a big dinner event she planted a simple longing into all of the female guests: to stab their partners or patrons with a greasy shashlik skewer as soon as they started to talk obnoxiuos stuff. As a tumult erupted and people who looked like shashlik porcupine fell over each other, Miccaela managed to flee the scene - and the Vaillian Republics althoghether on a trading vessel which was headed for the Deadfire Archipelago. As Miccaela grew older (which happens pretty quickly with Orlans, min you), she learned to conceal her abilities behind the guise of mere performance. Although cleaning the kennels, Beangobbler the Volatile and the whole slavery shebang was behind her, she longed to fight for freedom for all sentient beings: every note she sang became a coded message of rebellion, a call to anyone who would be susceptible to the power of her voice. Now, Miccaela is no longer just a performer, but a covert agent of resistance, using her voice to bend minds, influence rulers and subtly shift the balance of power. In secret and with a philosophy similar to that of a Bleak Walker, she will use all means to free the oppressed and gather those who would help her tear down the chains of slavery, always with a song on her lips and her psionic power in her little yellow furry head. "I won't let you down I will not give you up Gotta have some faith in the sound It's the one good thing that I've got I won't let you down So please don't give me up Because I really, really don't want to wash that hound..." - Miccaela while freezing some killers stiff - =================================== The Ceaseless Siren =================================== Difficulty: PotD -------------------------------------------------------------- Solo: untested -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Spiritualist - Psion/Troubadour -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Wild Orlan (or any) -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: Old Vaillia (or any) - Slave (or any) -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats (w/o Berath's Blessings, ★=recommmendation) MIG: 10 (11, -1 Orlan) CON: 10 (do not dump) DEX: 12 PER: 15 (13, +2 Orlan) ★ INT: 19 (18, +1 Old Vailia) ★★ RES: 12 (11, +1 Orlan, do not dump) ★ -------------------------------------------------------------- the unique icons for all passive abilities are part of the Community Patch mod Abilities | Skills | Proficiencies - (!=important, r=recommended, a=automatic) 00. Brisk Recitation (! a) + Telekinetic Burst (a) 01. Whisper of Treason + If Their Bones Still Slept + Blessed was Wengridh | Dagger + Large Shield 02. Lingering Echoes | +1 Stealth (->1), +1 Intimidate (->1) 03. Soul Shock | +1 Stealth (->2), +1 Intimidate (->2) 04. At the Soud of his Voice + Mental Binding | +1 Stealth (->3), +1 Insight (->2) | Small Shield 05. Weapon and Shield Style (r) | +1 Stealth (->4), +1 Intimidate (->3) 06. Phantom Foes | +1 Stealth (->5), +1 Insight (->3) 07. Ancient Brittle Bones + Puppet Master | +1 Stealth (->6), +1 Bluff (->3) 08. Secret Horrors | +1 Stealh (->7), +1 Intimidate (->4) | Sabre 09. And Hel-Hyraf Crashed | +1 Slight of Hand (->3 ), +1 Insight (->4) 10. The Shield Cracks + Pain Block | +1 Stealth (->8), +1 Bluff (->4) 11. Spell Shaping | +1 Sleight of Hand (->4), +1 Intimidate (->4) 12. Penetrating Visions | +1 Sleight of Hand (->5), +1 Insight (->5) | Club 13. Rapid Casting + Borrowed Instinct | +1 Mecanics (->2), +1 Bluff (->5) 14. Keen Mind | +1 Mechanics (->3), +1 Intimidate (->6) 15. Farcasting (r) | +1 Mechanics (->4), +1 Insight (->6) 16. Quick Summoning + The Empty Soul | +1 Mechanics (->5), +1 Bluff (->6) | Scepter 17. Disintegration | +1 Mechanics (->6), +1 Intimidate (->7) 18. Greater Focus | +1 Arcana (->2), +1 Insight (->7) 19. Many Lives Pass By (r) + Ancestor's Memory | +1 Arcana (->3), +1 Bluff (->7) 20. Called to His Bidding | +1 Arcana (->4), +1 Intimidate (->8) | Pistol --------------------------------------------------------------- Items (!=important, r=recommended) Weapon Set 1: Sasha's Singing Scimitar (r, +Refreshing Finale, +Shocking Prelude), Shimmer Scale (+Warped Scales, +Thermal Ablation, +Legendary) Weapon Set 2: Lover's Embrace (use modal at all times), Shining Bulwark (+Rear Guard, +Legendary, use modal when shot at) Head: Pearlescent Rhomboid Helstone (or any other) Back: Cloak of Greater Deflection (r - helps to demotivate enemies from attacking you) Neck: Charm of Bones (r - for the added INT -> bigger AoE and durations) Armor: Casita Samelia's Legacy (+Legendary, +Ardent) or Nomad's Brigandine (+Tail of the Column, +Tactical Withdraw, +Legendary) or Gipon Prudensco (+Legendary, +Fight Another Day, +No Fool I) Waist: Girdle of Eoten Constitution Hands: Bracers of Greater Deflection (r - helps to demotivate enemies from attacking you) Rings: Chamaeleon's Touch (+1 INT & +1 PER) or Ring of Protection or Deflection, Kuaru's Prize Boots: Boots of Stability or Boots of Speed Pet: Loki (+15% AoE size) or Animancy Cat (when using summons a lot) or whatever suits your spell selection --------------------------------------------------------------- What is this build about: endless generation of resouces: you gain focus and phrases for your spells without having to do anything. That also means your resources fill up while you cast, run around etc. Using the Psion (focus gain per second, scales with Power Level) and the Troubadour (phrases elapse twice a fast with Brisk Recitation -> double the phrase point generation) gives you a caster who never runs out of spell resources and has almost no downtime: excellent action economy no need to actively use your weapon (which you are not good with anyways) immense versatility with all sorts of great spells: healing, reviving, disables, damage, buffing, mind control, summons - you can do it all. Pick what your party needs and you’ll be good at it. You can then also alter the gear to your needs. For example: if you wanted to play a Ceaseless Siren as a damage dealer who is spamming shock spells (Her Revenge + Soul Shock) nonstop you could pick up Deltro's Cage instead of the armor I listed above. If you want to take a support role (casting Pain Block and singing Ancient Memory or Mercy and Kindness etc.) you could use the Physikers Belt and a pet that does +15% healing and so on. The most potent combination might be to focus on mind control on the Psion side (Whisper of Treason, Puppet Master, Ringleader) and on summons on the Troubadour side (Animated Weapon + Many Lives Pass By), but constant CC spells are also very impactful: spamming Killers Froze Stiff + Mental Binding lets you completely disable and control whole groups of enemies pretty early in the game. independent from special unique items, this build can free up gear for other party members who might need it more. Sasha's Singing Scimitar is great, but even without it this caster is very effective. So if you want to include another chanter in the party who might make even better use of the weapon (for example a Bellower) it's not a problem. attributes can be allocated freely fitting your role. For example a damage dealer wants more MIG, a summoner or supporter/healer wouldn't need a lot of PER. one of the very few class combinations that beat the Ultimate challenge without the "endless duration of buffs" exploit - which shows how powerful it can be. I chose a mix of CC, damage, healing and summons so that there's always an answer to most situations. While playing you will quickly find out which spells you like to use the most - just can alter your choices of abilities and gear accordingly. Issues: when you get damaged (or critically hit when using the Community Patch mod which I recommend) your focus generation will stop for a short time. Unconditional focus generation is the Psion’s forte. While phrase generation stops briefly after an invocation the Psion’s focus never stops growing until damaged (or critically hit with the CP mod). Without this costant focus generation the Psion is bad. So you want to avoid getting attacked! You automatic ability Telikinetic Burst can help of course. But there's other ways to reduce the risks: stay stealthed at the beginning of combat. You want to load up on focus anyway - and when enemies have settled on your party members (like your tank) you are lot less likely to get attacked. having good deflection and/or immunity against disengagment attacks lets you get away without damage. you shouldn't build a glasscannon but have to invest into defenses. You can also use summons and mind control/disables to avoid damage to great effect - but more importantly (because it works without much effort and micromanagement) raise your deflection and armor and don’t dump your CON (health). There are lots of enemies out there that specifically look for weak party members in terms of low deflection, low armor and low health (like rangers, rogues and barbs do). Using a shield and putting on decent armor deters most of those enemies from picking you as their favorite target in the first place, giving you an easier time. sacrifice some offensive prowess for defense. It will help to let this character play a lot more smoothly than maxing your offensive potential. Unusual for a caster but it works. The best offensive stats mean nothing if you cannot cast because you lack focus. Another great way to prevent getting attacked (without having to actively do anything) in the later game is to sing Many Lives Pass By at all times - a weak skeleton that pops up every 3 seconds and forms a group of skeletons with its buddies quickly draws attention away from you and shields you from almost all attackers. Why is it fun: because of the endless and fast resource generation there’s always something to do, very little downtime. Opposite of low level Wizards, Priests or Druids who have very few spells in he early game. the spell selection is great always good impact, powerful right away bc. of summons, great CC and so on extremely versatile. There are Very little situations where you cannot contribute. The swiss army knife of casters because of the rel. good sturdyness (to avoid focus stop) little frustration from getting knocked out etc. which is great for inexperienced players. does not depend on items - this can help to attain a special look or theme/background a lot more easily without the feeling you have to sacrifice performance. Hope you enjoy! Cheers!

I just finished a veteran run with this character and I loved it. This build is lots of fun all around and you can feel the power spikes through the entire game but especially when you start pooping skeletons automatically. I used most of the gear described here and it worked great, but I strongly recommend the Helm of the White Void for the headgear as soon as you can tackle the Beast of Winter because causing body and mind afflictions is what you will do most of the time. If I had to nitpick something is the chanter starter ability, I understand why it is there, but the skeletons fall off fast and I wish I could use those ability points somewhere else later in the game. And do we need Penetrating Visions since the only spell that makes use of it is Soul Shock? I also wished that I had an extra ability point just for the Eld Nary invocation, even with only 10 might that ability is 🍌🍌. May be on the next run I will try the Pindown Poet or something with a Monk, because rangers and monks are the classes I least use.

Ah, you started reading the manga. That's cool! As I said Fire Punch also had an atypical ending, but here it just felt like he wrote himself in to a corner and gave up. Then again maybe people just had expectations that he never promised in the story to meet. I'm genuinely curios to hear what you think. On a aside, I read the first five chapter of Koi to Yobu ni wa Sasayaka desuga (It's Not Quite Love Yet, but...) that are out (it's monthly :( ). This is an original story from the godhand of slice of life Hagiwara Daisuke. I'm now itching to reread Horimiya.

Based of all that very detailed information - thanks once again! ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡ - i think i may just stay clear of Debonair. I really, really thought that the Debonair gets the Tier 3 Body Inspiration, not the enemy x.x I think i might just go for Trickster then, as it seems the most unique of em all that doesnt buff the enemy haha. Or, well, maybe Psion. Vibe wise, just as special as Debonair seems to be. Likely with a Chanter Subclass stacked on top for maximum "i literally just stand 'round and ya'll vanish". Who needs knives and underhanded tactics if your mere presence is enough, right?... smth smth along those lines.

Single class Rogue is fine. Mostly because both Gambit and Vanishing Strike are good abilities and fun to use. By the time you get Gambit you will usually have over 10 Guile (+2 if you use the Devil of Caroc's Breastplate) which means the crit conversion when using Gambit is at 100% or only a bit below (Gambit's cost of 4 Guile gets substracted before the conversion check). That means unless you miss or graze you will critically hit all the time, giving you back the 4 Guile (if you are using a dual wielding setup, else only 2 Guile). This lets you spam Gambit endlessly which is very powerful, especially with weapons and other items that do something good on crit (see Ball and Chain, Rust's Poignard, Boltcatcher Gloves and so on). It also works well with ranged weapons such as hand mortars, blunderbusses and pistols so a Debonaire who doesn't want to go too near to enemies or doesn't want to leave allies can also make good use of it. If you have a party member who can charm all sorts of enemies for the Debonaire then the critical hits for Gambit are even more likely, at least for the first attack (which will flip the target back to hostile). Vanishing Strike gives you an invisibility that doesn't break until its duration is up. This means you stay invisible even if you are damaging enemies with attacks. Since the duration is rather short you want to: a) prolong it with high INT and items (Salvation of Time is not working because the spell will not hit you because you are invisible and not targetable) b) be very fast with your attacks while invisible to squeeze the most out of it. Both Assassin and Streetfighter are nice for this. The Assassin because of the Assassinate passive being at work while invisible and the Streetfighter because of the reduced recovery which allows more attacks while invisible. Debonaire can also use it of course. Obviously Backstab is a great ability to combine with Vanishing Strike. You can use both - like turning invisible and then slam Gambit - but imo it's better to concentrate on one of them to maximize the effect. Debonaire as a subclass is charming (pun intended) but its uses are fairly limited. Because charmed enemies immediately flip back to hostile if you hit them, the 100% crit conversion isn't a very exploitable feature. The added damage charmed kith do (if you charm them with the Debonaire's own Rogueish Charm) is okay but not really impactful. Imo something like a self-contained Skald/Debonaire (focus on the charm invocation + melee crits for phrases) or a Psion/Debonaire (charm and then use Disintegrate as an almost guaranteed crit, this doesn't flip back the enemy) is most fun, even if a combination of a dedicated Charmer + a Debonaire on the party is usually better in terms of action and resource economy. One charms and the other immediately profits (instead of having to wait for recovery to finish). Single class Debonaire works and can be used like any other Rogue with the known drawbacks of a Debonaire. I just find the other Rogue subclasses more suited for single class operation. Assassin in combination with Vanishing Strike, Streetfighter with Gambit and Trickster with stuff like Freezing Rake, Wall of Many Colors or even Gambit in combination with Wall of Flashing Steel. The Debonaire's special thing at level 18 is that the kith enemies they charm with Rogueish Charm get any tier 3 body inspiration. It's nice but very situational imo. Like... why would you want the charmed enemy to become Robust? So when looking at single class Rogues the Debonaire isn't more attractive than a vanilla Rogue to me. PS: iirc you can combine the Chanter's charm upgrade (charmed enemies deal more damage) with the Debonaire's body inspiration on the same (kith) target somehow (don't remember how I did it). Not really worth it though imo. The most annoying thing about a melee Debonaire is that Persistent Distraction doesn't work and is a trap choice because they cannot ever engage enemies in the first place.

https://miningzimbabwe.com/zimbabwe-lithium-ban-policy-enforcement-not-inconsistency/ Here is another example of Chinese neo-colonialism and looting of African minerals Zimbabwe has basically banned Lithium exports because of abuse of how Chinese companies have been operating You dont hear much outrage and drama about this from most Afrocentric activists because its not a Western country involved

Must be a scarce species these days. Yeaess... Based on a Sting song.

Do you really still expect redacted to apply reason or logic to problems at this point? He has an undisciplined mind and can't even properly communicate his reasons for going to war. We know he has immense difficulty accepting a loss, and nuclear weapons are the ultimate trump card for when events go badly wrong. "But he is not insane" Are you sure about that? He satisfies all criteria for "narcissistic personality disorder" in the DSM-5. There may be other co-morbibity conditions present, but narcissism explains most of his behavior.

Before there was YouTube, there were ... educational classroom videos.

This is a sequel/continuation of a sort to the Turning an Adventurer into a Sidekick? thread. This time we are looking at modification of the unused prefabs in characters.unity3d to create a new custom party member. This method potentially allows for something more feature than the Hired Adventurer with a conversation item I described in the other thread. However it does require a great deal more patience to get a functional character in game. There are some compatibility and logistical caveats that should really be solved before it would really be easy to share characters with others. That said here's a quick example of what can be achieved. What I want to highlight in the above video is: A specified conversation can be initiated by clicking on the character. When in the party the "Talk To " button appears on the UI that triggers the conversation. Adjusted appearance. The character's hair/skin/eye, and primary/secondary cloth colour can be any combination of RGBa. The head, facial hair, and hair models are restricted to the existing Player and NPC assets though. Scripts can be triggered on events like the party resting. In this example it's another conversation but could be anything listed in the documentation. What is needed?A tool for modifying the contents of assetbundles. UABEA is what I used for the above example. Then it is just a case of pretty much finding any prefab that contains the components: CharacterStatsMutable, CompanionInstanceID, Equipment, NPCAppearance, NPCInteraction, Portrait, and ScriptEvent. There are 13 such prefabs that are unused in the game: companion_caroc companion_ggp companion_gm companion_hiravias companion_sagani companion_test_barbarian companion_test_chanter companion_test_cipher companion_test_druid companion_test_monk companion_vspriest companion_vsranger companion_zahua and an additional 4 that are used only in the Backer Beta mode: companion_generic_fighter companion_generic_preist companion_generic_rogue companion_generic_wizard A couple of them are familiar names from PoE1. However their presence does not constitute any form of cut content. More likely these are remanets from various stages of prototyping or testing. Which of these lads is your favourite PoE1 companion? By filling in various components with the values and GUIDs pointing to certain gamedata (CharacterStats, CompanionData, and others) and a conversation you can get a custom party member! They can then be spawned into the game with a console command such as SpawnPrefabAtMouse, or as part of an encounter for a less intrusive ways. Though interestingly encounters seem to force the character into attacking so there is some jank in need of solving there. Would that this were only problem to solve... There's a catch.Currently the only way to achieve this is manually making adjustments to the prefabs components inside of the characters.unity3d assetbundle. Needless to say it's a very finicky process. Best worst case, the change you make doesn't take. Worst worst case, the game no longer works. And that is just summary of my past experience attempting assetbudle modding. I'm as shocked as anyone that I got anything to work! And if doing it yourself weren't tricky enough, you would need to explain how to import changes to others Does that make sharing the modified characters.unity3d file the best option? It is on the lower side of 2gb. Which is not massive by modern game filesharing standards sure, but given the changes made to it only account for something like a couple of kilobytes, it does seem a bit ridiculous to me. And we're back to square one when 2 independently created custom character mods want to be installed together! So, there are certainly some fairly tricky problems that need to be solved to make this viable in my opinion.

I made an earth-themed barbarian subclass called earthshaker. It took inspirations from geomancy and earthbending from variou media. Nexus Mods Portal: https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/825?tab=description Class Intro Bonus Gain access to Earthshaker abilities Penalty Lose access to base Barbarian abilities Core Runestones Modal abilities, auto-unlock at odd barbarian levels Provides situational benefits at the cost of Constitution Multiples can be activated at the same time Crushing Boulder Passive. A "consume-stacks" type of buff for Boulder Toss Stacks can be gained from the following abilities Boulder Toss (and its upgrade) Stone Spikes (and its upgrade) Earthfall Level 1 Runestone: Exfoliation While Hurt (<75%) or worse, gain health regeneration based on missing health Earthshaking Yell Replaces Barbaric Yell Cone-shaped aoe, applies Sickened Fortify Replaces Frenzy Grants damage reduction, grants Strong and Fit inspiration, reduce Reflex defense Level 2 Boulder Toss Replaces Barbaric Blow Ranged ability, hit the first target then explode for aoe Level 3 Runestone: Fossilized Amygdala While having an Intelligence or Resolve affliction, become Petrified and greatly reduce its duration Shoulder Charge Replaces Wild Sprint Single target push and Stagger Grants bonus movement speed on successful hit Level 4 Earthshaking Shout Replaces Barbaric Roar and Barbaric Shout Reduces enemies' power level Blinds the barbarian Stone Armor Replaces Blood Frenzy and Spirit Frenzy Grants bonus armor and bonus Explosives skill Summon Explosive Stones into quickslots, which function as Bombs Stone Spike Replaces Savage Defiance Aoe pierce or corrode damage Level 5 Runestone: Tremorsense While having a Perception affliction, grants bonus accuracy and increase engagement limit Unrelenting Toss Replaces Crushing Blow and Barbaric Smash Reduces rage cost and recovery time Trample Replaces Leap Functionally same, but reflavored Level 6 Land Tank Replaces Lion's Sprint and Ram's Sprint Single target push and Stagger Grants bonus movement speed, resistance against ranged attacks and aoe attacks on successful hit Using this ability again while the buff is active will consume the buff and Stun the target instead of Stagger Level 7 Runestone: Earthen Wound While having an Injury, gain bonus Armor Penetration and boost healing effect Dust Storm Replaces Blood Storm and Spirit Tornado Fortify spawns a dust storm around the barbarian, dealing raw damage and petrify nearby creatures Rusted Spike Replaces Savage Courage and Stalwart Defiance Stone Spike reduces armor Level 8 Heart of Stone Replaces Heart of Fury Self-inflicts a Concussion injury Convert some incoming Hits to Crits, and reduce incoming Crit damage Generates rage when critically hit Gravitating Trample Replaces Panther's Leap and Dragon's Leap Pulls in nearby enemies upon landing and deals crush damage in a slightly increased aoe Disorient the barbarian Level 9 Runestone: March of the Colossus While flanked, grow in size, cannot be Interrupted and gain damage reduction Debilitating Shout Replaces Driving Roar and Dazing Shout Reduces enemies' damage output Doesn't do damage Earthfall Replaces Instrument of Boundless Rage Aoe crush damage Leaves behind an aftershock, dealing raw damage and petrifying nearby creatures

Can you get a hamster?

Crimson Desert: Best weapon types | Rock Paper Shotgun

I spoiled my kitty and he got fat. -- j/k, it's a different black cat. At last a game where I can be a true "cat lady". Forget gameplay, I'll just tame cats for hours. Sadly, cannot rename. There's a few outfits to start, rumor has it one can get more. MUST GET.

Form_of_Helpless_Item_Glitch_fix.zip I moved the -10% Hostile effects duration to a passive ability instead, which does indeed seem to fix the issue. Though with the way this transformation works it seems like Helpless Beast removes abilities when active so the duration of the spell is unaffected. I don't know if that is intended behaviour for all transformation abilities?

A war of regression: how Trump bombed the US into a worse position with Iran The Guardian has a pretty cynical view of the current conflict, but it's hard to say they're wrong. What a cluster.

Also I see very useful the hotbar slots customization as food, weapons, meds, etc. I don’t like to open the menu just to change something I don’t need in that slot, we need it back from grounded 1. Both are very useful features.

Crimson Desert - 35ish-40ish hours in. I'm getting a little bored. --- maybe I'm missing something, but I feel like weapons/armor is mostly all the same, because of the upgrade system. If you upgrade anything enough - whether a seeming starter you buy in 1st city or some cool looking thing you looted, everything ends up with similar stats. You can eventually socket items and stick "gems" into them that give some bonuses/effects, but you can swap these out and put them into anything else, far as I can tell. This makes gearing feel more about cosmetics - what you like the look of - more than function. Which is good for those that don't want to be stuck with something "ugly" because it's the "best." But it means there's not much reason to care about finding a new armor, outside of do you think it looks badass. eg, loot hunting/treasure finding is boring/feels pointless after a while. I find nothing by looting that is "better" than what I've already upgraded and I have no desire to swap (meaning I'd have to upgrade new stuff, all over again). --- I don't know if it's the patch nerf or that I've already gear-upgraded much more than they expect, but combat, even MQ bosses, are so far easy. I've just button spammed them, food-healed a few times, didn't need any fancy moves, and win in 60 seconds. I'm sure I'd hit a "wall" somewhere late game perhaps but I was expecting boss-combat frustration and it's not there. I guess one could conceptualize that the upgrade system is like a Difficulty option. >.> --- MQ combat surges are visceral and very busy/large but eh Anyway, it's not that it's bad - but the appeal in this game is largely/simply visceral/visuals/cosmetic and for those that never tire of finding yet another small POI/cave/castle over the hill over there with mundane loot or simple quest, because it's discovery. And I do very much like discovery, but if you're talking 100's of hours of a map of untold size, I feel like I need to have more of a mental or game goal to go with - there is no base-building or mega resource hunting, outside of one time type gear upgrade costs, as example - but so far I already have enough "money" to not worry much re: general or frequent small purchases. City/regions have a "you're popular/respected" currency that is slow to accumulate but mostly that gets you - more cosmetic gear options. The visuals/vistas are great, but that only takes me so far before I get bored of looking at them. EDIT: oh, some exploration tedium after a while, is because the main traversal methods are too slow/drain stamina super fast. Enshrouded-gliding it's not. So far the best thing in the game for me long term is - you can gear up your pets with adorable costume pieces. SO CUTE. EDITEDIT: I think for most of the forum long-timers here, this would be a $30-40 game at best. But optimization/performance IS pretty good, if you're not trying to 4k it. :D

Denmark just har elections. Besides a messy patchwork of small parties, which will spend months negotiating who gets to lead a coalition of the reluctant, it was also the youngest parliament ever elected in Denmark. "Young" is of course relative, but it was the first time the average age was below 50. The gender split is oddly enough also almost 50/50. I tried to find a newspaper source to link to, but they are all behind paywalls. Dang capitalists!

Postscript: I'm definitely of the opinion that this is a game where one has to give it 10-20 hours before it starts to shine. You can judge two things in two hours: whether you're going to put up with/let yourself get used to the interface UI, and whether the way any story/chr stuff is done appeals to you. The rest is a slow burn. Combat gets more interesting, exploration gets more interesting, puzzles get more interesting - in a way, the 1st castle-region/starter area gives some bad impressions but get past that and there's a pretty good game. Not GOTY material tho. Unless continued and rapid patches turn that around.

Yeah, I usually don't like jRPGs and I really liked this one. From what I remember stats are most relevant to weapon scaling - as to effectiveness of individual stats - meh, the harder the game gets the more dominant player's ability to dodge and parry becomes.

I gave in and bought Death Stranding 2. Was sick the week and couldn't do much else, so there was no distraction for me. Oh well. Anyways. Game feels like a straight continuation after the first game. Even gameplay-wise, a lot of the old features are unlocked quite fast, and then the new combat stuff added on top of that. There's a lot more shooting going on now / feels a lot more like MGS5 than before, and it kinda felt like that already before. Ambience and music and all of that is very nice again, no surprise here, I guess. Visuals are good too, though my PC is blowing steam quite a lot more than in the first game.

Playing CO:E33. I wanted to try it just so I can say I tried it, but tbh I am surprised by how much I am enjoying the game so far. Is there any point in pumping any other stat apart from luck?

That floating shield & weapons are triggering me.

Early Crimson Desert reviews are in/trickling in over the day. As expected, seems fairly polarizing. Some love it (after 60-100hrs, no one has finished it), some think it's middling etc. Note: I do not "trust" any reviewers re: yays or nays, I only look for gameplay information re: bugz, mechanics, UI, and gameplay loops that may increase or decrease interest for me. For which, I gather, for myself, for this game: 1--world exploration/discovery is dense, vast, immersive and I would utterly love it 2--big boss combat is likely going to have multi-phases and be something where I want to toss my KB out the window, or pull out cheat engine, a lot, and for some progression areas cannot avoid. Perhaps if one explores oodles first it'd help mitigate some of that via over-preparedness but dunno. 3--you can have a cat or dog companion that ends up following and picks up loot, although not always and not always quickly. But still, YES. Also, you can do a slide while on horseback (the horse body-slides). Not sure when one would want to this, but ok, it's still cool. 4--general combat I could probably deal with fine 5--inventory management/space is a nightmare. They will supposedly add a "town/base" storage. Right now it's only chr. inventory/backpack. 6--devs seem quick to patch in/alter things like bugs, UI/QoL complaints (eg, waiting a week for a couple fast patches might be best) 7--no one is going to talk about the game's fantastic story or chrs, because (as expected) that's not what this game is 8--could be the best "wish this MMO was single-player" we're ever going to get Summary: Just like Enshrouded, I would love exploration/discovery/non-combat systems but everything else I'll be neutral to critical of. Except in Crimson Desert, it might be 200-300 hrs before exploration stops motivating me to keep pushing on beyond any criticism, vs. 60-80 hrs in Enshrouded. So - hmm. 🤔

Well, for me personally, it's very easy to decide, what am I going to do. Especially with the crazy out of touch prices of RAM and GPUs. I'll stay with my AMD CPU and GPU, which I have purchased in 2021 and keep purchasing awesome games I've never played on GOG 🤷‍♂️ And there are other options as well for other people to chose as well, to avoid AI slop and still have enough fun within their budget. The console emulation is also getting better each day, and in my country it is legal to make a backup copy of software you purchased on any platform of your choice 😊

Since Denuvo changed their licensing model a while back, I'm not really bothered nearly as much by its inclusion. Denuvo works orders of magnitude better than any other DRM that came before it, and most games protected by it do not get cracked or at least do not get meaningfully cracked - i.e., maybe one version of the game, usually one close to release, might get cracked, but then nothing after that: it's just too difficult and too time-consuming for cracking groups to really handle. However...while Denuvo used to sell perpetual licenses, they are now a real proper money-gouging "service" (and this is one of the only times I'll ever celebrate that) in that publishers must pay quite a hefty sum to continue to protect their games with Denuvo on an ongoing basis, and this means that even very big games eventually lose Denuvo - at the very least, the singleplayer ones that aren't earning the cash to continue to warrant it. Way I see it, this means games get protected for 6-24 months, which strongly encourages the people who really want to play them to actually buy them (which is good for the prospects of bigger singleplayer-only titles in particular, which have always been at higher risk of being pirated en masse relative to multiplayer titles), but it also means publishers will eventually push clean builds through Steam et al. somewhere down the road...which is good for those of us who either don't want anything to do with (or straight up can't play with) Denuvo, OR for those of us who would be waiting to buy something at a lower price point anyways. I think this is a fair compromise, and a much better and sustainable situation than those nasty perpetual licenses Denuvo was selling previously. Now that they've pretty reliably proven their DRM works and many publishers use it and will want to continue to do so, it makes sense they'd change their pricing model to take advantage of that, and the rest of us can luckily benefit from it.

^^ Yeah, it does look like stable diffusion slop.

I'll be sure never to get a GPU that supports that slop.

I totally agree! I think the Mutation Wheel absolutely needs to be added. In the first game, when a teammate was down in multiplayer, you could instantly switch to a reliable friend's mutation, revive them, and then switch back to combat mutation – so convenient! The current multi-tool is definitely a plus, saving a lot of inventory space, but the lack of multiple quick access slots is really a problem.

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