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Drive, cheap hotel, poor sleep. Hubby in surgery. Maybe couple hours. Sitting in parking lot wondering if Im going yo nap or find a snack. Hopefully drive home tomorrow.

I had a really stupid idea and fed a part of my old MSN Messenger history to an LLM. I've been going over 20 year old messages I've exchanged with someone I once loved dearly, while listening to Blackmore's Night's cover of Joan Baez' Diamonds and Rust on repeat. The chat history is excessively personal at times and clocks in at almost a million words. We've basically written a short novel every other month back then. Not a particularily healthy place to be. Can't sleep. Stupid song is incredibly fitting, she was always really good with words, although that's an understatement. Brilliant, more like. Brilliant in more than one way though: eloquent, highly intelligent and empathetic. And, at times, cruel and manipulative. Turned everything into a joke. Especially the darkest of things. Given the time and intensity, you start developing your own compressed language and set of references. Like this: That was almost 19 years ago. I still know why she wrote that, what happened that day, and what exactly she meant. Linguistically, that's incredibly precise, painting the perfect picture with words.

Watching Rand Paul go after Dr. Fauci shows how bankrupt the conspiracy theory right has become. But thanks for "saving us from science", Dr. Paul. 🙄

Living dangerously. Sister went to Riga to attend the Pitbull concert, kept giving her updates on the front. The concert got cancelled and now she is stuck there sightseeing Riga, they said the stage couldn't be secured in time whatever that meant... @Raithe good luck. When I was looking for a place I looked at dumps with a good layout, figured I would renovate it either way so why pay extra.

Agree 100%. For me as well, it's my single-player game, and even when the game itself doesn't acknowledge my RP choices and decisions, they matter greatly to me just to be able to make them within my game (including with character creation and development/leveling). So that's why, even when there are no consequences whatsoever, I won't rob from ordinary people and only from the elites, won't harm innocents, am happy to accept a fair price from merchants and won't steal from them, etc. It's why playing BG3 I refused to ever use the tadpoles or their powers even though there were no meaningful negative consequences and only powerful beneficial consequences. The whole point of playing an RPG, and why that genre of games is my thing, is to be able to play my game my way. And that's why I get really pissed off when developers won't give me certain freedoms or options within their game for me to be able to play the game my way. I suppose ToEE will now end up just sitting in my Steam library as a never-played game. I did do my due diligence looking at various youtube videos before I bought it. But I should've waited until someone here in this forum provided an honest and trustworthy appraisal. And now, that's exactly what I'll be doing with the PoR remake.

I completed the Co8 quests after about 40 hours so Im sadly finished with my ToEE adventures but all good things have to come to an end Total game time was 135 hours I wont repeat in detail what is fantastic about this game. Its the best adaptation of D&D ruleset and combat mechanics of any party based D&D game I have ever played and that creates the most exciting and challenging combat I highly recommend both Co8 and Temple + mods. Its not just the increased level cap and extra quests. Its the stability and how you can make rule changes that matter, for example you can remove Fog of War which I did for one hard battle As far as bugs were concerned, nothing significant except where I suddenly lost 80% of my XP for 2 party members after a hard battle on level 2. But I used console commands to restore this XP which was really simple I had a very frustrating battle during the Hickory Branch quest where you face 50 enemies. The problem was every turn you get hit by explosive runes that do force damage to your entire party and I assumed the enemy archers were responsible. I spent about 6-7 hours until I finally won this battle and tried about 6 times. I nearly raged quit. Afterwards I read a guide that mentioned the explosive runes are buried in the ground and its advisable to attack all the enemies from the left and not the normal right side of the field. I wish I knew about this prudent strategy before I spent all that time trying to avoid the rune damage The only criticism I have of this game is it doesn't have a complex or thought provoking narrative like PoE or any companion interaction and side-quests which I always enjoy because it adds depth to my RPG experience. So you dont really need to make any serious choices. But that's not enough to detract from its strengths ToEE gets a solid 78/100 on the globally respected " BruceVC game rating system " and its highly recommended for anyone who wants to play a party based RPG where combat is its greatest strength

Ha, then maybe I'll wait to buy it until after your review of it?

It is also hard if you have to analyze people actively, instead of intuitively knowing body language and the subtleties of verbal communication. That takes a lot of effort, really, and it will only get harder with age. You really should examine yourself and answer these questions: is ist actually hard to make the effort to attend social gatherings, is it actually exhausting to be there, or is it really just exhausting to agonize over what has happened and what you have missed? From that answer, you can begin to deduce a number of things. You aren't very likely to be able to solve the first two just by accepting yourself. That much I can tell you from experience. If it is just the latter, then you really need to follow the advice I gave her a long time ago: feel a little more, think a little less. :) I'll give you two models to work with here. Or maybe three, depending on your point of view. First is going all nerd-metaphysical and quoting Stargate: If you immediately know the candlelight is fire, then the meal was cooked a long time ago. Second is what she would do, assuming for a moment that she would care enough. She'd say something like: Look for someone if you want someone. Don't look for nobody just so you can congratulate yourself when you find them, doofus. :P and then proceed to bat you over the head with a mallet and kick you when you're down, because you're combining a foregone conclusion with the idea that someone can do all the emotional work for you. Reality doesn't smell of sunshine dust, dear. Third, well, the more explicit telling: if you already expect to find no one, then you will not. However, you're not going to find anyone that will make putting in the effort not feel like putting in the effort. You can find someone who makes you feel that it is worth putting in the effort, yes? That is not the same as finding someone who makes it easy to put in the effort. If that is actually the block, then you need to identify and remove it - and that is also something you really need to put your back into. Because, in the end, at the moment you simply don't have anyone to hit you over the head with a mallet, or else someone who is patient enough to tell you what you already know, for like, the seventh time. I realize half of that makes no sense without context. I'm sorry. But not really. :P It's been a wild three days now.

The first thing you probably need to understand is that we were both broken and damaged at that point in our lives. Now, unless that applies to you too, you probably should not be envious of a connection that was both incredibly loving and nurturing as well as destructive and cruel. I know I said she could be mercurial, but I wasn't above testing our bond either, at times (it is so easy to guilt trip people when you know what strings to pull and which buttons to press). You'd also need the patience of an angel. You know, like me, but that's because I'm awesome. :p That said, one thing you need to keep in mind is that you cannot force connections. You can also very safely ignore self-help comments like love yourself, otherwise you cannot love. That is utterly poitnless drivel, one can love someone else to the point of sacrificial self-abandonment while thoroughly hating oneself. I am living proof of that, therefore simple logic dictates that it cannot be true. What is true, though, is that self-hate makes it hard to accept love, and being loved the way you are. At worst, it makes you interesting for people with a savior complex who see you as their project to fix. Now, it's not impossible for that to lead to lasting, stable and deep connections, it is a potential minefield to navigate and can end badly if you're not very careful. The other thing is, well, you do have time, and if you are not unhappy and do not feel any psychological strain, then there's no need to change things, and no need to let society dictate how you should live your life. I'm saying that because I know that culturally, that is still much worse in the Balkans than it is in the western world. I know a couple of people through my wife who actually had their parents set them up with someone to marry and have children with just to fulfill societal and cultural expectations. Honestly? Don't do that. That's terrible. It can work, but more often than not it just leads to affairs and a divorce with kids being hurt, or being miserable all the time for the sake of the children. If you think having a relationship just to try how it is to have one is unfair, imagine how keeping up appearances for decades might be. Lastly, if you find that you consistently have problems reading people, then you might want to really look for help. There's nothing wrong with getting a psych-eval. I had one forced on me at the age of six. It did not actually do much good in terms of finding a diagnosis (well, but it did prevent the school system from lumping me in with the other retards and downies, zing, now if you can't take that statement and get all offended, then kindly go f*ck yourself - not talking to @Sarex here), but we have come a long way since the late 80ies. You're not guaranteed to find someone else with over two years worth of time to work through your issues, locked into a constant intellectual and emotional back and forth.

It was worth it. So much so that I, with some confidence, can say: without that connection, I would likely not have made as much of my life as I did. It was a transformative experience, the value of which I cannot properly convey in public. Aaaaaaaand a lot of her way with words and English rubbed off on me. It is visible in the posts, but only if you know the contrast to how and what I wrote about before, none of which is still around. All the forums dying was the main reason we switched to using an instant messenger in the first place.

US admits 'unfortunate error' after mislabelling countries on map of Africa Heh, I see the administration has fully embraced AI; it aligns perfectly with El Jefe's near complete divorce from reality.

Agreed. I still believe Ukraine faces a potential collapse on their front lines because of how widespread draft evasion has become among young Ukrainians. But I certainly didn't expect the Russian side to fair so badly in this year's battles. I guess Russian battlefield incompetence is endemic, and the only way they ever "win" is by throwing masses of their people at the enemy.

lol I just got a notification because I've set a reminder for this post. Mark my words. If the war drags on, expect Ukraine to be fighting to hold on to Kiev by July or August '26. Guess that didn't work out so well.

Summer is almost over. This month has been a lot of training. A couple weeks ago we went to Sacramento and previewed the course for the race. We swam about a mile of the Sacramento river and then did a 58 mile loop on the bike course. The swim was a blast, it was super fast with the current and only took 30 minutes. The river is kinda gross. I'm used to the ocean, so swimming in something that isn't salty is weird and it was pretty warm. There was a lot of logs and debris to avoid, but it might be cleaned up a bit at the actual race. The bike was super flat. I've never really ridden that flat of a course. I'm surrounded by hills where I live, so you are pretty much climbing every timer you ride. I'm feeling good about race day knowing that I should be able to fly on the bike. Strava says I've trained 40 hours this month. That seems reasonable. 12 weeks until raceday.

I fully expect all of you to avenge me

Dear Grounded Team, One of the things that I love the most about the game is building, it is genuinely a very relaxing and creative experience. However, I would like it for the grid to be more flexible. For example, when building a wall across a 1x1 box, it would be nice to be able to build quarter walls into different angles. So that a quarter wall could be positioned diagonally initially, and another quarter wall into a different direction, instead of only being able to cut the 1x1 in half with another half wall. That’s it! Just a small tweak that I believe could make a really huge difference in the flexibility for building. Thanks! Best, Dante

Dealing with a whole heap of work, and a bizarrely long running heatwave in the UK. Also, still dealing with the house hunt post dealing with my father's estate. Not sure when I last dropped an update on my life in general here 🧐 So I've been living out of a rented room about 9'x8' with a bed, my desktop PC, a wardrobe, and about two weeks worth of clothing since end of March with alllll of my stuff in the storage unit. Started the process on purchasing my first home, but the surveyor's report flagged a whole heap of "possible serious" issues, so I've been having to get the various specialists to look at it, confirm what is or isn't an issue and how much it'll cost to sort. So that's been the last 4-6 weeks, and now I'm getting the nudges from the estate agents that the sellers are getting antsy and want me to get my solicitors to start signing paperwork. I'm pushing back with the "No, not until I know it's financially viable for me because I don't have the budget or mental energy to deal with a fixer upper". So we'll see where it all breaks out.

In Estonia for 3 and a half weeks.

The Trump administration is threatening my kid's school district for being woke or whatever by withholding federal funds. So they're suing to get the money because they're already struggling to get by. Because better we have no school than a school that trans kids feel safe in, obviously.

Its really interesting reading this post because Im exactly the same but you have explained it better I want choices even if its not about any significant gameplay change and that tadpole example is an excellent example even though I haven't played BG3 yet I always try to RP like Conan. He is at heart an honorable man, he will always save a damsel in distress but he also wants wealth so he often goes on quests and missions for the money. But he wont abandon his principles and integrity

I remember reading up on this adventure game and it looked very interesting and I see they have other similar games. I like playing adventure games as a break from my favorite genre, RPG. Im currently playing Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers Escape From Mystwood Mansion on SteamIn this first-person puzzle escape room game, you are trapped in the mysterious Mystwood mansion. Explore the mansion and find hidden compartments while solving puzzles and deciphering codes to find a

Lots of people will say the narrative doesn't matter or the RP choices are basically irrelevant because you still end up finishing any RPG in a similar way and you only see your outcomes around choices at the end where you see a 1 page summary screen of each serious decision or what happens to various NPC or party members And they believe combat is much more relevant than party interaction or narrative choices. And its a perfectly reasonable difference in opinions because we all different people and our definition of an RPG will always be relevant to our own sense of fun and fulfillment But for me I fall firmly into the camp of narrative choices, party interaction and side-quests. Because my favorite outcome of RPG is the RP choices that get presented even if they dont change anything significant. Its the option of deciding and then thinking " what will happen if I choose this path " even if the game doesn't go into detail. I use my imagination for this Combat mechanics definitely matter, its a huge part of the experience but most games deliver on both more or less So ToEE provides exceptional combat but a very simple narrative where its really a linear dungeon crawl. Still highly recommended for what the game delivers on

There might have been the slightest smidge, soupcon, iota/ the merest suggestion of sarcasm in referring to NATO as purely defensive. (Iran isn't going to send troops and Ukraine is probably out of range of its missiles anyway, which leaves firing missiles from Russian territory. Looks like Ukraine didn't get the reaction they wanted anyway, since their FM has phoned Iran to apologise. A very... Ukrainian apology, but still)

They have shown multiple times that they are not just a defensive alliance. That they hide it under different names is just bs... Do you think the EU would let Ukraine lose if Iran escalates and sends troops? Europe worst fear is that Russia exits this conflict intact, either politically or economically. They know that the first thing Russia will do is arm EU's enemies.

I just finished Botany Manor. It's a pretty nice puzzle and exploration game set in an English manor. The premise is to search rooms and follow clues to figure out how to grow various strange plants. It's quite relaxing and well-made. A good little experience if you like the genre, and it's rather short at around 4 hours. A rare and great touch: the options include a dedicated motion sickness menu that groups together settings like FOV etc... to help prevent it. My only real gripe is that once you discover clues, you can't view them directly from your inventory, you have to physically go back to where the clues are located to re-read them. Overall, though, still worth a look!

Yes and this was one of the considerations I was going to raise with you It has no real narrative and how you can influence the outcomes even if its superficial and more about choice summaries at the end Its basically an incredibly exciting dungeon crawl where you dont need to think about any choices. I absolutely recommend this game for its combat mechanics but I dont think its the right game for you And thats also why I didn't give it a higher score, I feel an RPG has to have an overarching narrative with choices to be complete around the RP aspect In PoE you get to make these huge choices in the background of this cosmic narrative about the future of gods In Pathfinder you interact with powerful entities and you can influence who ascends to divinity Anyway I dont want to put you off ToEE but Im just trying to be objective about its strengths and what it isn't

The idea of the buggy trinkets was to allow players to customize their buggies to better fit their playstyles, the idea of ones that allow buggies to cross over abilities is intriguing. I figure, some craft able trinkets for your buggies would be neat as well. A few more trinkets effect ideas, one that allows them to travel in sizzling or chilling areas, one that boosts their defense while a player is riding them, and meaby one that makes their attacks have a chance to summon mini larva, like some O.G.R.R. creatures can.

This is the concern for me with these old games, and very likely the reason why I passed on playing them back in the day when they first came out, because for me this is expectation #1 even while combat is not even on my list.

--Borderlands 4 - supposedly about 30 hours played. I think the first large region is the best thing - going into the other two regions the MQ sends you on are a snooze. Gunplay is even better than BL3, exploration ok, they tamed the "loot explosions" a lot (a good thing) and other positives, but it feels more repetitive for some reason (all the fight areas feel the same), loot hunting is meh. The "story" chrs are at least better than BL3 but not by much. --7 Days to Die - 3.0 is now my favorite 1.0+ version. Although the pure cheese of stealth in early 1.0 is still a fave mechanic, ha. But overall, all the options = easy to make the combat/gameplay feel more like A10-A12. More Walking Dead, less sci-fi looter-shooter/zombie-Skyrim wannabe. It was getting to the point where I turned zombies entirely off half the time, and 3.0 (after fiddling) is the first time I like having them on all the time, again, and I play a map far longer. I keep the zombie spawn level to "strongs", increase density of spawns, and none of the sci-fi/weird, bee-spitting, acid-exploding/spitting, bomb tossing or whatever else zombies are allowed to spawn. And no zombie digging. I've been playing it way more than BL4, still.

I will definitely be playing it, any re-release of these classic D&D games is always fun I dont think I played the original?

What are people's thoughts on the old game Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor? A remake of it has been announced, and so I'm now curious about the game, having never cared about it previously. Is it just a dungeon-crawl? Heavy in combat with little/no story? https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/a-forgotten-dungeon-crawler-from-the-baldurs-gate-era-is-coming-to-steam-and-gog-for-the-first-time-ever/ Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor on SteamPool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor is a turn-based party RPG set in the Forgotten Realms. Build a band of heroes, descend into the haunted elven ruins of Myth Drannor, and use tactical positionin

I showed that to my wife, who is a lifeguard and is terrified of Sharks.

The real issue is animating them so that they move in a way that looks naturally. They'd essentially need to be treated like a train without a track, with the head being the "engine" and the rest of the body separated into "cars", connected by a spline curve system that guides animation. Each body segment would have 2 layered animations controlling the angle for the front and back end of the segment, ensuring it connects smoothly with the rest of the body.

That and millipedes!

Feeling a lot better now. I've realized that I was wrong about so many things, and letting go of 20 year old rage, guilt and resentments is pretty freeing. I'm not okay by any means, and it'll take me a long, long time to properly process ripping the band-aid off of ages old emotional and very deep wounds, but at least it looks like they can begin to heal. Properly, this time. Turns out this wasn't the giant mistake I thought it was, but like so many things, a blessing in disguise. And to make sure everyone realizes that I'm still me: also turns out that I significantly overestimated the timeframe. 91% of the million words we've exchanged were in two years, and the rest in a handful of larger spurts over less than three months of the third year. So that's basically a shorter novel's worth every month, not every other month. In Gen Z terms: basically the entire length of all the Harry Potter novels combined, written in 27 months - in both of our spare time. Not like you could chat on your phone back then. You had to sit on these things called computers and see if the other person was actually sitting at theirs too. I know, I know, that's wild. Old people things. Except we were young back then, and the internet was a better place. :yes: So, minor correction on the productivity and time invested. I also suffer from the detrimental effects of insomnia so bad that I barely slept in three days, but that'll go away eventually. :p

Well attacking directly escalates things. Russia torpedoing a ship carrying missiles from the US would be the same. Iran can do asymmetric attacks as well, saw this today The i PaperPutin's war has collided with Trump's. The threat to us a...Ukraine’s actions may widen both conflicts in unpredictable ways

Kavinsky is dead. Rip. Was rewatching Drive just a few days ago 😢

Idk if Ukraine is getting extremely ****y or extremely desperate, but they are on their way to trigger another world war.

Türkiye TodayIpek Yavuz, co-founder of TaleWorlds and Mount & Blade cr...Turkish gaming giant TaleWorlds co-founder Ipek Yavuz, whose vision helped build the Mount & Blade franchise into a global phenomenon, dies at 54

Yes, exactly. Putin has already rejected the European version of the plan. The US is still pushing its original version, with some small modifications, on the Ukrainians, but they're sure to reject that. The problem now is very obvious. Russia has the upper hand on the battlefield, so Putin has zero incentive to accept something *less* than what he (very realistically) can get from fighting on. And he is not just in it for land anymore. Now, he wants a post-partition Ukraine that is effectively subjugated to Russia, where Russia calls the shots in Kiev. Hence, small Ukrainian army size, no military agreements of any kind with anyone unless approved by Russia, Russian language sanctified in the Ukrainian constitution, and an election that Putin can manipulate and get an at least open to deal-making with Russia figure as the new Ukrainian leader. And why not? Putin does hold (almost) all the cards. But of course the worst actors here are Macron and Merz. They went to Geneva on Sunday and told the Ukrainians to reject everything by selling Zelenskiy false hope. False hope that they will help to save Ukraine from Russia, including even if Trump walks away from the Ukrainians. Macron and Merz are using the Ukrainians as a pawn to be sacrificed to Putin to buy themselves some time to get their heads out of their asses. Mark my words. If the war drags on, expect Ukraine to be fighting to hold on to Kiev by July or August '26.