xzar_monty

Your manner of arguing isn't very convincing, nor is it conducive for a reasonable discussion. I did not judge a whole country on the basis of a few nationalists. Nor did I suggest that (some of) the countries you mention do not have a problem with neo-nazis. Also, neo-nazism can most definitely be a problem even if there aren't any neo-nazis in the parliament. It's always both amusing and disappointing to have one's words misconstrued. If you go back and read what I wrote, you will notice how I pointed out that I cannot be certain of the severity of the problem. If you know a lot more about this than I do, then I think the most appropriate response would be to correct me where I am wrong. And maybe, you know, keep your emotional reaction out of the discussion altogether? I realize that my response can be read as patronizing, but that's not my intent.

Thanks. You can of course find all sorts of people pretty much everywhere, but then it is inarguably true that Ukraine does have serious problems with corruption and such, and at least some kind of problems with neo-nazism within its borders (I don't know how big these problems are, but they aren't sweepable under the carpet). The Finnish parliament recently voted about joining NATO. One of the very few to oppose the idea is a guy who argues that the situation in Ukraine has no ramifications at all for Finland and recently asked the Finnish PM how Finland, as a country, is going to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Finno-Russian non-aggression pact. (Her reply: "Given the circumstances, we are probably not going to celebrate it at all." And that's all she said, applaudably.) For me, one interesting question is whether this guy actually receives some kind of support from the east or whether he's simply the proverbial "useful idiot". I really don't know, but I'd like to. Btw, this guy is also a confirmed racist and has actually had his business severely damaged as a result, i.e. he's lost some serious customers because of what he's said. I don't know if this is the case, but I think it's quite likely that he also doesn't write all that well, so that if you were to see his social media posts, for instance, they'd quickly betray a demonstratable lack in various kinds of education. It's interesting how many folks like this share certain characteristics...

@Zoraptor, so who's the guy on the left? I've no idea.

Owlcat titles provoke paranoia. If you get a bit nasty and decide to save-scum on a skill roll where you have 50% chance of success, you may have to roll it 20+ times. There is nothing impossible about this, that's for sure, but when this has happened with two different titles and in five or six instances, something in you is likely to go "Hmm". Thought experiment: you toss a coin. It comes up heads every time. After how many tosses will you start thinking, "Now this is weird", and after how many tosses will you say, "This is impossible!"?

I hope this is not off-topic or inappropriate or anything, but with people falling out of windows in Russia, I was reminded of the classic evolution of a picture taken with Stalin and some other people (or not) in it. This sort of tinkering with history is of course not unique to Russia, but this is a particularly interesting example. There's huge potential for a game of both "He was never with me" and "I was never with him" right now as well.

Wow -- I didn't think it was quite that bad. My German is very basic, though, so I couldn't read it anyway, at least not yet. How would you compare Süddeutsche Zeitung and Die Welt these days? I mean to each other, not to Bild, as surely they're both a lot better. It's unfortunate that plenty of newspapers need to be taken in a fairly high-sodium way.

No, it's not. The US is currently attacking Canada and holding Mexico by way of having its designated puppet as president there; Joe Biden's ranting speeches contain all the same themes of satanism and what have you. The forcibly mobilized hordes sent to Canada consist mostly of indigenous American peoples, such as the Pawnee and the Navajo. I can't see a difference between the US and Russia in this or any other regard; you're quite right and your observation is remarkably astute and pertinent.

An interesting visualization of how the Russians are, as has been said before, destroying people on the basis of their ethnicity on the home side, too.

@Gorth, it has to be remembered that quiet is of course relative, as you yourself said. Here's something interesting: https://meduza.io/en/news/2023/02/28/fire-breaks-out-at-rosneft-oil-terminal-after-two-reported-drone-explosions

You know, if you're prone to paranoia and you're isolated and there's plenty of quiet and it lasts for over a year, you can become very uneasy indeed... But I know what you're talking about. Imaginaton always has more room when there's less to attach to, in terms of concrete news, for instance, and this isn't generally a good thing. The business-as-usualization of a war is not a good thing, either.

A pool is a small area of still water, typically one formed naturally, so I don't think the confusion was about that.

Let us not turn this into a lexicographical exercise, but your definition of pond is wrong, and you can look it up if you want.

Yeah, the water elemental was memorable. This is kind of funny: in Deadfire, the fights at the Digsite and Gorecci Street are among the most memorable, too. And they are right at the start. After that there is... well, almost nothing.

Agreed. Sorry to digress somewhat, but there may be a linguistic issue here. For instance, I've often heard someone refer to a body of water as "a lake" and thought that's never a lake, it's way too small, but then neither is it a pond -- but there are no English terms that seem exact enough. @Mamoulian War may also be thinking of a term in his native language that is nicely inbetween. But yeah, not a pond.

Would you say that that means after the Abyss, or what? The most difficult fights I had were in the Abyss -- indeed, I sometimes turned the difficulty way down. But after that... not so much. (Well, Playful Darkness is before the Abyss, and that was also really difficult.)

That kind of upgrading wouldn't have had any meaning. There are no difficult fights towards the end of the game. They are in the beginning.

As far as I know, there's really nothing you can do with it. I mean, nothing worthwhile. After a certain point, no shop will have anything worth buying, and expanding your army etc. won't have any meaning. I was annoyed by the same problem in Deadfire, too, but it's worse in WotR.

Extremely interesting stats on equipment losses during the battle for Kiev right at the start of the war.

Isolation is pretty bad for just about anyone. Isolation is particularly bad for people with paranoid tendencies. If you're prone to paranoia and you've also got megalomaniacal ideas, isolation is going to, well, maybe make you start a war, if you can. There are very few things I'd applaud Jordan Peterson for, but he made a good point in criticizing both Freud and Jung for making mental health so much a question of the individual and ignoring the collective. This is a good observation: social ties can keep a lot of people from drowning, because they improve us in so many ways. The manifold ways in which the collective keeps us afloat often become apparent once that collective disappears. Interestingly, this is something that I think almost everyone can anecdotally confirm. There are problematic cases in nearly all high schools and their equivalents, people who only just about manage to hang on. Once high school ends, they are in deep, deep trouble.

There was no innuendo. The US government really does have a terrible track record when it comes to lying to its citizens. It also has a terrible track record when it comes to horrendous illegal practices involving its citizens. I'm sure you know MK-Ultra, for example.

I wonder if you realize that this has almost nothing to do with what I wrote. I was, for instance, not talking about confidentiality, which is an essential and completely different from outright lying.

When it comes to treaties and such and the US, the situation is indeed complex and less than flattering. We have, for instance, things like the ICC in place -- but the US does not recognize them. Another less than flattering thing about the US is that while conspiracy theorists tend to be, shall we say, less than stable as people, the US government does have an awful record when it comes to lying to its citizens. When Thomas Pynchon started to describe a certain kind of paranoia as an important theme in American life, he was really onto something, as unpleasant as that is.

Ahh, ok. Thanks. Yes, I'm sure there's plenty of mythic path related content I have no idea about. "Home for a Lich" sounds like an interesting headline in a magazine on interior decorating.

Here's a band that was momentarily big in the 1980s and then essentially disappeared, as far as the general public is concerned. They're still going, but I don't think they've been going strong since about 1988. Anyway, this song is an absolute treasure, in terms of somewhat sentimental romance as a topic. The lyrics are just wonderful. I think the line "I saw teenage girls like gaudy moths, a classroom's shabby butterflies..." is superb in the way it defines both moths and butterflies in the exacpt opposite way of what you'd normally expect -- but it fits wonderfully, because these are the girls that dress up for the night and then sleep in the classroom. The drum track is a wonderful exercise in dynamic control and subtlety; I've played it on and off for years, and it never gets old. The guitar solo is also great. This would be a nice karaoke song except for the fact that some of the notes towards the end can be tricky. I can't do them, for sure.

Is this DLC content? Sounds like that to me.