Leaderboard

And now for something completely different

My email says that Barak Obama sent me a PM on linkedin today, must be real. Big things are happening for Gorgon.

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.

“Surpassing the Evolutionary Boundaries of Biological Photoreception”: Scientists Invent Eyeglasses That Let Wearers See the Infrared in Full Color - The Debrief I wish I could see in the full spectrum. Also, go ahead and load me up with chromatophores so I can control my skin pigmentation like a cuttlefish.

Few years ago, I have bought second hand PS Vita TV, just to play Tales of Hearts R, just to be discouraged about the bad localization, and Vita TV having some stupid ass HDCP DRM which does not allow streaming the game (I solved the latter, still hate the former). This weekend I decided to give it another try. I got through my issues with localization, and slowly starting to get into the game, despite being clumsy playing it. You can feel, that the controls were made for handheld Vita, so there are some shortcomings when playing with the controller. Yesterday, I have defeated the first boss. Pretty easy and straightforward fight, he just hit like a truck. Anyway, I still have issues with the localization, despite not understanding Japanese. The worst culprits are, when the party talks for 20 or more seconds, but the English text is just few words. All other Tales games, even the older lower budget games tried as much as possible that this would not be a case, even though the localization was not 100% true to original. Not in this game... And this can ruin my immersion...

Scientists Develop New 3D Printing Method That Can Build Directly Onto Existing Objects in Seconds - The Debrief Next up, replicators.

Finished Stellar Blade, not quite sure how I feel about it to be honest, and not sure whether I even want to go through NG+, or try to get the other, presumably worse, endings. It doesn't really resolve much of anything near the end (imho), and most of the things EVE finally figures out in the last few areas were likely obvious to most people rather early in the game. Can´t quite put my finger on it, but the story felt a lot like Background Spoilers The cliché villain monologue of a certain character also felt...misplaced...after the buildup. The world building was generally enjoyable, though both open word regions being deserts sure was a choice. That said I did not mind quite as much as I expected to when I arrived in the second one (note: deserts are generally my second least favourite map type in games, a close second to "ice/snow-deserts"). Lots of backtracking, and a lot of the camp locations feel like they are chosen to drag out play time. Not something that particularly bothered me first time around, but the idea of having to deal with some of it again in NG+ is kinda offputting to be honest. Combat felt kinda "meh", and, to me at least, very unnatural, and counter-intuitive. I should note I'm not a "Soulslike" player, but I did finish NieR: Automata and mostly enjoyed that. Dodge timing just felt extremely inconsistent to the point I mostly stopped bothering, instead relying on interrupting the attacks that required dodging. Didn´t have such a problem with parrying, at least until the final boss at least ("Providence"). There's also the blue (or purple, can't tell: colourblind) abilities where you need to do a two button thing that I just never could get the hang off, it's such an unnatural combination for me, and it's just way too easy to trigger this one "wrong" and get slapped. I think I only pulled it off by accident, really. Likely a "skill issue", but I sure hope they improve upon it, because I tried getting a hang of it and I didn´t manage over the course of...well the entire game. Until the final boss the hardest boss for me was easily the Juggernaut, likely because he's basically all about dodging... Last few bosses (aka "the boss gauntlet", because there's like no downtime between them) were not particularly enjoyable for me, even though I mostly got through all (except the final one) in a few tries. The difficulty at the end ramps up extremely quickly and they are so unforgiving I ended up having to play extremely defensively dodging/parrying/interrupting until I got them stunned, and then repeated that until they die. Any attempt at aggression just got me killed, so the fights ended up being long, sloggy burns, not really my idea of a good time. The last boss probably should have been reserved for a challenge mode or something (imho, of course). Most of his attacks are fakeouts, so everything timing-wise you learned up to now you can basically throw out, he is stupid fast, does stupid amounts of damage, and has a ridiculous health pool. He also has some QTE-attack that I still don't know what the correct thing to do is, because whatever I tried I always seem to fail it (a general problem with in-fight boss QTEs I found) You now suddenly have to combine multiple evasive manoeuvres in extremely quick succession, or get absolutely murdered. I ended up deciding the juice just was not worth the squeeze for this fight and put it on story mode to get it over with after getting through the entire game on normal so far. I'd probably give the game a 6.5/10. I finished it, it's decent, no real regrets, but there is, in my scrub-tier opinion, some serious room for improvement.

I was in college during the last few years before the wall came down. And I was a fanatical Cold War wargamer. I had the entire orders-of-battle for both Warsaw Pact and NATO forces across the IGB perfectly memorized. The grand total of combat troops, tanks, AFVs, and especially artillery tubes the Soviets had amassed among 1 Guards Tank Army in the north, 2 Guards Tank Army in the south, and 3 Shock Army in the middle was staggering. I always felt really bad for the troopers of our Blackhorse cavalry regiment at the Fulda Gap, because their lifespan was estimated as mere seconds if WWIII ever broke out. Their entire job was to die sending word back to SACEUR that the Soviets had crossed the border. And I also agree with you that winning the battle/war is fundamentally separate from a subsequent occupation. In Afghanistan, Iraq, and dare I say even Vietnam, the US decisively won every set-piece battle it fought. It was only occupation that sucked hard and cost us so very dearly. I still recall being on a panel at my university a few weeks before Bush sent us into Iraq in 2003. I was the sole person in the room who rejected both sides in the debate about going to war. I disagreed with the Administration's military plan, but I equally rejected those opposed to invasion, both here in the US and especially certain European governments, who were ridiculously arguing to stick with an obviously failed status quo. So, when asked what my plan would be, I suggested the classic Machiavellian realist alternative, which was to secretly cut a deal with Hussein for him to be our patsy and do exactly as we say in exchange for us walking away from all UN sanctions and our blockade. But then I also added that if that was too distasteful for our squeamish liberal internationalist elites (liberal in the poli sci theory sense and not the US politics sense), then another alternative would be to go in hard and fast, remove Hussein from power, hand over the country to an Iraqi version of Egypt's Mubarak (which we had there), and then get the hell out of that counrty ASAP. The domestic politics of liberal democracies are just not capable of handling what one must do to effect a successful occupation of a hostile enemy. Hint: it's what the Allies did to the civilian populations of both Germany and Japan in 1945.

Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor hat the best bug ever. You uninstalled the game, which was very likely because it was pretty bad, and it would kill your entire Windows installation with it. For the sake of reproducing the fun of the original, perhaps it would be good to include that particular nasty as well. :p

I've been told that it's not too not hard to trip people up on the stand. I don't know this personally as I've never been a witness, let alone one in a highly publicized and contentious interview where it's the entire goal. This is from the one trial lawyer I know in real life, so take it with a pinch of Lot's wife.

My understanding is that his attorneys believed Dr. Paul was hoping to trap Dr. Fauci by causing him to speak a falsehood while under oath. (See, for example, Clinton's impeachment over him stating he did not have sexual relations.) That would be a prosecutable offence, since his pardon only covered a fixed period. By taking the fifth, Dr. Fauci escapes that fate. It's all political gamesmanship, and rather a waste of the government's time.

So, like, when wasn't anything Kai Lentit said not too true. :p

Picking up lots of individual items from the ground in certain circumstances can be very fiddly and irritating, especially when they bounce and roll around a lot. I'd propose the following: Ideally, dismantling buildings should add the materials directly to the player's inventory if there is space, maybe including planks and stems. Failing that, or if there is not space, remaining items should always drop in a single "bag" (as happens for buildings with lots of materials, but not others). The above could also apply when breaking things like candy, berries, clay, pebbles, etc, though I concede this might detract from the "gathering" vibe and probably shouldn't apply to things like grass seeds or spiky burs. Alternatively, adding an option when looking at an item on the ground to hold the pickup button, which would also pick up all other loose items in a small radius (or even just all items of the same type), could be a great help. I've added the accessibility tag to this as it arguably applies in scenarios where repetitive fiddly mouse/controller joystick and button press coordination are involved, and especially in less than full quality graphics settings.

I played the latest Fighting Fantasy PC game book, Return to Firetop Mountain. These games are all PC versions of the iconic Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone RP gamebooks and the PC versions are not only nostalgic but they create a better experience than the books because of certain mechanics and design. If you die you dont need to start the whole story again, you can restore Tin Man games has created about 23 of these original games and I have played about 80% of them. Highly recommended if you enjoy the books, they dont take long. Maybe 4-6 hours to complete Now Im busy with Far Cry Primal. Its your typical Ubisoft successful and tried and tested design, a large open-world map with lots of repetitive activities and then main quests to progress the game. You also need to build a village and find resources But this is obviously set in 10,000 BC and this unique time period is very entertaining. I'm having lots of fun taming beasts and interacting with the animals and enemies of that era I am also playing on Survival Mode to make the game harder so you have to rest to regain stamina and animals are harder to fight at night Im about 15 hours in and so far Im not experiencing any of the inevitable fatigue with mechanics around this type of Ubisoft game. That normally happens to me after 40-60 hours or so because you can only do the same types of activities so many times before boredom sets in

The Confluence line is too true

Spain's work visa schema was somewhat of copy of schema that Italy did couple years ago. https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/60346/italys-new-flows-decree-stricter-controls-and-expanded-work-visas-for-migrants Main culprit in the Spain's current migrant crissis is Morroco's government. Even though they deny it, whole crisis seems to be organized by them to get Spain to back off from their issue with Algeria and West Sahara

I'm almost at the end of my run through Black Geyser, but I needed a break so I fired up Humankind again. For any of you who have played that game through to the end, how do you keep city management interesting in the mid-game? It just feels like you have to keep building more and more districts in a never ending tedious cycle.

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/08/03/politics/us-military-iran-war-troops-punish "Hoping to find an alternative, the official at CENTCOM kicked off the brainstorming session via email to see if anyone had a better idea. The second source said CENTCOM is looking at everything, acknowledging it needs to reevaluate the strategy. "

The recruitment problem is one Ukraine has had since near the beginning, to an extent. Then, a lot of people volunteered thinking they'd be defending their home town and weren't keen at all to be sent off to fight in the Donbass. However, many of those people dodging TCC patrols would still potentially be willing to fight, if it were their town threatened. That's more true the further west you go. The problem now is that those who signed up to defend Ukraine in general are in various ways unavailable and that only leaves those who don't want to fight at all, and those who'd only fight for their own area. Thing about Afghanistan is, you'd think with 30(++) years of technological advances the west would have done better than Vietnam at counter insurgency, and no doubt they thought they would have as well. Objectively, they very likely did worse, even significantly worse. That's with drones, satellite technology, far better communication and in theory far better munitions, no jungle (but mountains, certainly), the example of the soviets in Afghanistan prior and the Taleban using Vietnam era soviet kit for the most part and no capacity to hit aircraft flying above manpad ceiling. It's not really a direct homology to Ukraine, it's definitely analogous; but the attitude, expectations and the result when the opposition don't behave as you hoped is similar.

I don't think it's a good comparison at all but I also don't think what's left of Ukraine is all that friendly towards Russia or is going to be after it's finally conquered. Just as we in the US turn people against us by killing them and their kin. I have no special insights into the opinions of Ukrainians in Ukraine, just anecdotes. But yeah, if Russia just eliminated everyone that wasn't demonstrably pro-Russian then that could likely kneecap a lot of insurgency efforts. Incredibly hard to defend though.

Probably pretty easily, airpower and vast numbers. Only hope would be for domestic resistance to attacking us (lol, right)

Hehe, yeah, people are talking about that bug a lot in the game's Steam forum, and SNEG commented they will definitely make sure that bug doesn't return. 😄

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.

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

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.

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

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!

Buggy trinkets I think it would be cool if buggies had their own trinkets that only they can equip, that players cannot equip. For a few ideas, the nightstalker fangs could be changed into a buggy trinkets, there could be one that gives them the major threat effect, another could make it that, after the buggy is downed, you have more time to revive it before it is knocked out, one that makes the buggy do bonus elemental damage could be a rare drop from O.G.R.R creatures. There also could be ones that can only be equipped by specific buggies, for example, one that only soldier ants can use that allows them to recruit a additional worker ant, or one that can only be equipped by orb weavers that makes their roar boost nearby allies damage for awhile. New buggies Praying mantis nymph buggy Active abilities Pounce-the praying mantis jumps forwards and slams down when it lands, damaging enemies around it Shockwave-the mantis slams both claws down, creating a Shockwave that shoots straight forwards, this ranged attack can break enemies blocks Passive abilities Deals extra ambush damage, attacks do chopping damage and can cut down grass and weeds, can jump rather high. Mutations Clawmaster-makes the pounce ability inflict bleeding buildup, unlocked by hitting a large amount of enemies with it's pounce attack Reaper- grants the third hit of the mantis nymph's 3-hit combo the life steal effect, unlocked by defeating a certain amount of enemies with the mantis buggy Bombardier beetle buggy Active abilities Acid shot- the bombardier beetle fires a globe of acid forwards, bursts into a acid puddle on impact, puddle remains for awhile, inflicts sizzle buildup Acid spray- shoots a close-range spray of acid in front of it, leaves behind a acid puddle that remains for awhile, Inflict sizzle buildup Passive abilities Immune to sizzle, grants the rider sizzle resistance, acid puddles created by it's active abilities can remove other elemental puddles, like the tang puddles in the garden Mutations Acid blaster-acid puddles the bombardier beetle creates last longer and Inflict more sizzle buildup, unlocked by hitting a large amount of enemies with the acid shot Beetle barrier- lengthens the bombardier beetle's perfect block windows, unlocked by blocking a certain amount of attacks with the bombardier beetle Cricket buggy Active abilities Leap of faith- the cricket jumps high into the air, then slams down into the ground, creating a damaging area of effect around it Screech- screams loudly, dealing a large amount of stun to all nearby enemies Passive abilities Can jump very high, immune to fall damage, other crickets won't flee from cricket buggies Mutations Bardic buggy- the cricket's screech will grant random buffs to nearby allies, unlocked by using it's screech a certain number of times Crippling cricket- the cricket's charged attacks inflict a random negative effect on enemies,unlocked by defeating a large number of enemies with the cricket buggy Buggy skins I think buggies should have equipable skins, to change their appearance, for example, you could make the orb weaver buggy look like a diving bell spider, of a wolf spider(or meaby even the hedge broodmother), make the ladybug buggy look like a potato beetle or a ladybird, and you could make the bombardier beetle look like a rust beetle. Thank you for taking the time to read this!

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.

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

Hi devs, I was thinking that a fireplace or fire area of some kind would be sick to have with a giant fire that can be on during the day and at night it could turn off. It could resemble a volcano with the fire and all, allowing the player to enter at night into a hidden cave in the centre. It could also give armour and weapon upgrades with fire, which would be cool.

It has been a long time

After that other company stripped everything good out of Fallout for #4, hearing that Obsidian potentially got the rights back to make the next Fallout game gave me hope. For whatever it's worth, here's what I would like to see: 1) bring skills back. 2) perks that matter more than just combat. 3) actual builds. E.g. a stealth focused character won't be built to properly pick up a heavy weapon. 4) Don't throw power armor at us in the first 10 minutes. It should be rare and powerful endgame stuff if it's in there at all. 5) please don't do the thing from Avowed and Outer Worlds where the open world isn't really open but rather corridors disguised as open terrain. Go back to how New Vegas was in terms of the world. 6) allow real stealth. Not the "you can only stealth where we allow you to stealth with this special grass" nonsense from OW and Avowed. 7) did i mention bringing back skills already? Yeah. that. 8) please try to recapture the specific sense of humor that made Fallout FALLOUT. E.g. Fo1 and Fo2. I still remember a quote from the end credits of (I think it was F02) - "Bring in Marketing. I wish to taste of their unsavoriness as well." Tragic cards, etc. That other company sucked the life out of the game. (along with destroying almost all of the RPG aspects of it) 9) Please do not do the "Omg my baby is missing I have to go find my kidnapped baby - after I do these 4200 side quests" thing. There's no need for the main story arc to be super mega urgent time crunch. 10) please do NOT do the b-soft "level scaling" thing. When everything is always the same level as the player it absolutely destroys any feeling that you've advanced or made any progress. It eliminates the RPG side of the game and just turns it into an action shooter. Maybe i'm old, but I like it when you try to go into an area, get your butt handed to you and realize you're not high enough level for that place yet... then go back later and get revenge once you've caught up. That is fun. Everything always being your level is samey, generic, and lame.

Ixion. This game is good despite its gameplay. The game has negative QoL mechanics, it's like they tried to make the game difficult by making the gameplay obnoxious. The simplest example being cargo ships which will go pick up a resource from a pile and if that pile has 1 unit of resource it will pick it up and go back to base to deliver it, instead of first filling its cargo limit from another pile before going back. But wait it's even worse than that. If another ship picks up that 1 unit that remains in the pile and a second ship was also going to that same pile, the second ship will visit the empty pile, not pick anything up because there is nothing there, and then return to base with nothing before going to the next resource pile. That is just one example out of many, but even taking that in to account the game is very addicting and fun to play. It's just that it could have been that much better...

It's annoying when you are logged in too. Can you not log ip addresses and add them to a whitelist? The site is already slow, this is just adding to the pain.

While there might be occassional posts from bots, seeing this ("checking that you're not a bot") on every step when not logged in is quite annoying. I think it started 2 days or so ago. I suppose, I appreciate the reminder that Obsidian is owned by MS, but could it be shown once per session rather than every time?

eu are burning in the heatwave all they can think about is how much this will make their shrinking economy shrink further pathetic

Playing Neo Cab for no reason that immediately comes to me. For the sub $5 it's worth it, the idea is somewhat interesting to play as cab driver in a cyberpunk-ish setting, even if the writing is a bit cliche. Oona is a fun character, wil replay it to finish the side characters as the main plot sucks - someone described it as an emotional abusive relationship simulator and it is.

But what would they occupy exactly? The local population would not be against Russian rule as most of the territory they are after is or would be Russian speaking. I don't see the comparison between Afghanistan and Ukraine there at all. They would do what Croatia did in the 90s, a mass exodus of undesirable people and just ethnically cleanse the new territories. The rest of Ukraine would have lost at that point and be without a military organization.

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

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