Epaminondas

I've been watching an Amazon Prime series called Bosch. I'm enjoying it quite a bit. Unlike Hurlshot, I think the lead actor is the strongest part of the series. He's been in a couple of other shows I've enjoyed, but generally as a bad guy. Small parts mostly in things I've seen. I also especially enjoy the theme song.

Now, gents, isn't there a politics thread where all the mud slinging can take place? This is supposed to be a silly thread for videos that can lead to disparate views into one unified vision of Nero fiddling while Rome burns. Did Nero fiddle? No one knows. Is Trump fiddling? We may never know. There's room for all in this particular pub. As long as both sides can feel vindicated (or confused) by the evidence.

Well, hell, why not? For all my other sins, I'm always willing to hear a good tip and give it a try.

Aw, hell, I decided to get Hitman Absolution. I'll probably break down and buy Dishonored 2 and Death of the Outsider. Daud, in particular, is a great character. However, Dishonored made me think of the Hitman games. Now to beat my head against the brick wall of Silent Assassin. Never got that much into NWN. I played the original campaign and it had it's moments, but it didn't wear well for me. The user content didn't either, but I always have this feeling that I'm going to back to it someday and give it one. more. chance. lol

That's what I thought when I saw it. It can mean different things to different people.

Got an email that I'm starting clinicals at Kaiser Permanente on January 10th. Everyone else in my group found out last week, so I spent the day more or less doing paperwork, taking quizzes on various practices ranging from hand hygiene to hazmat removal. All of that and I still got my paperwork ready faster than some of the people who found out last week. The people in my cohort are good folks. I haven't met them all yet, but the ones I have are outstanding people. Younger, smarter, and swifter than me to be sure, but I somehow manage to get the old brain cells working and prove I'm still in the trim. I would say that I'm cautiously optimistic about my academic performance. I had thought about applying for med school, but that would have entailed quite a bit of time and debt. My record is good, but I'm old and so I wasn't sure I'd be accepted. Pursuing a DNP is more practical in terms of time and money balanced against income. ...And, most importantly, it's a faster path to what I really want, which is hopefully find a way to do some good for someone other poor bastard instead of just looking out for myself my whole life.

Has anyone Played "Inside?" I'm thinking of waiting to get Dishonored 2 until it goes on sale. ...Or maybe getting Death of the Outsider. I'm remarkably open to suggestions and I need a game to last me until January 8th. I guess I could SA all the levels on Dishonored but that's kind of a vanity thing and I'd rather play a new game instead.

Naw, I can respect that, Mr. Moderator. As someone new to your community, I appreciate that there must be some point where personal freedom is curtailed for the greater good. It's not that there should be no line but only where that line should be drawn. On one hand, people intent on self-destruction won't be stopped. On the other hand, people can be redeemed and we *should* step in if we can help them. Certainly, we want to keep these folks from taking other people down with them as best we can. The floating line between personal responsibility/freedom and society is apparently right over the drain in the toilet bowl.

I didn't buy Dishonored 2 because I wanted to try the first one. I wish I'd bought them both. I just finished the second Daud DLC. Simply brilliant. The ending cutscene put the base campaign to shame, and I liked the base game. I'll have to buy Dishonored 2 while I have time to play it. Simply splendid game.

Yeah, Sunless Sea really surprised me. I approached it with trepidation, but it absolutely shines. Talk about a game that really hits you. Anything that can be that goofy, funny, strange, irritating, suspenseful, and sad at the same time simply must be on any list of top games. I doubt that it makes the end list, but it deserves to be. This community list was an excellent idea. Algorth did a great job. In fact, giving us 25 games and 125 points forced me to give serious thought to which games were on the list and how to rank them. I'm sure my list doesn't perfectly reflect every factor. I'm sure it could be better. ...But I'm happy with my list and my rankings.

Sadly, I was on distant shores when Oregon Trail came out and by the time my life returned to normal, the game was not in vogue with my age group. Still, like so many of the old school games I used to play, I might give it a try some day. So many games, so short a life.

Yeah, somewhere around the house I have a copy of all the infocom games. Great stuff. I never played Oregon Trail, but it's almost a classic games legend according to a lot of people I know.

Hmm, Rise of the Argonauts sounds interesting just because of the name. Castlevania sounds interesting because I played and finished one of the games on the Nintendo about 20 years ago, I think. I'm on the second Daud campaign and it amazes me how much better they did with the Daud character than Corvo. On Low chaos, he's extremely sympathetic. He's got good dialogue. His story is interesting and although none of the 'surprises' have surprised me spoiler the lady in the sewer? give me a break. She *looks* creepy the mystery and unfolding are extremely well done. A good mystery doesn't necessarily have to keep you guessing. It simply needs to provide the feeling of mystery. Anyhow, I stopped after I got jumped in the sewer. For my sins, since I'd unlocked the Master Assassin, I've been playing on that with no kills. If so, it's their own damned fault.

Can new people play also? Planescape Torment Zork I New Vegas Fallout 2 Pool of Radiance (original) Doom Zork II Zork III A Mind Forever Voyaging Civilization (original) Baldur's Gate 2 Fallout American McGee's Alice Bioshock Bioshock 2 Sunless Sea X-Com (original) Hitman: Blood Money Half-Life Escape from Castle Wolfenstein Might and Magic World of Xeen Might and Magic 6 Might and Magic 7 Europa Universalis (original) M.U.L.E. KotOR

I am Epaminondas and I approve of this message.

Dishonored was an excellent game. yeah, I know, the 'surprise.' Over the years, I go into games and movies not only suspending my disbelief but filling in gaps or paving over potholes in the story because I find it allows me to enjoy the games, movies, tv shows, and books more. hell, I remember my wife reading the Pale Blue Eye. It was around and I started reading it. I think it was in the prologue or first chapter... anyway, in the first few pages, I spotted the killer and told her. It wasn't because I'm particularly smart. I'm not. It's practice from so many whodunnits. That was a great book and Dishonored was a great game. However, I finished the Daud DLC. I honestly think it was better written than the base game. There was far less of being dispatched regularly to do other people's bidding. The surprise at the end wasn't a surprise, of course, but the way it played out was still well done. I didn't know the exact arrangement it would be, and that was a pleasant change up. It's one of the few xpacs that didn't just give me extra quality time in the game, but actually improved on it in many ways. Not only that, I found an ominous poem close to Delilah's statue that made me worry about the kid I saved from the base game. Daud is, in many ways, a more sympathetic character than Corvo. That simultaneously sucks and is splendid.

At this point, I'm surprised when I'm *not* betrayed by a 'surprise' twist. I was actually a little surprised when

I could say the same thing about people who can't concede the over-reaction to a problem can be bad and that now that regulation has become the knee jerk reaction it's the hammer that sees every problem as a nail. We're not talking utilities, medicine, or banking, right? We're talking video games and we're going to pull out the hammer because every issue is a problem and every problem is a nail. Anyhow, I don't doubt that you could have studied more recent history better than I have. I'm more of an old school kind of guy. I'm also not so invested that I see all regulation as bad. In my zeal, I probably proposed my argument with little too much fervor. Let me restate and then give some time to digest other arguments. Here goes: We should be careful about regulating straight away. This phenomenon has been building, but it's not decades old. Let's see what happens as the market shifts around and people become more savvy consumers. It might be a little painful, but it also might lead to a better solution than hammering the problem with regulation, which is a different kind of pain. Last word, promise, I'm much more irritated that every entertainment corporation wants to have its own streaming service. I have Netflix and Amazon Prime but now we have Disney and CBS and all these places that want to cash in on the streaming charges. It's going to be a pain eventually.

Who made an argument that the corporation would suddenly realize its inner flower child? The market will only bear so much screwing before a significant amount of customers jump ship and go other places. ...But let's say the people who buy from EA simply can't help themselves. So what? When they run out of resources to engage in the behavior, they'll stop. Meanwhile, people who believe the product is worth the pricing will buy it. Why should a group of people change that for 'their own good?' Those words, born from the mouth of every tyrant as he stripped more freedoms from the citizenry, are the antithesis of responsibility and freedom. ...And what if it there is abuse? Are the customers defrauded? In that case, there's no need for more regulation. Laws exist. Enforce them. Does the company engage in other types of illegal activity? Does it launder illicit money? Does it fail to pay its workers? Does it charge for a product it doesn't provide? Laws exist to govern these things. Enforce them. I make it a point never to become so personally invested that I'm angry about disputes on message boards. It's unhealthy. ...But too many people buy into the notion that the government is somehow better than the market because it's fairer, or maybe it's more logically designed, or even that it cares more about people. I don't take any of these things for granted. In fact, I doubt them. I'm probably one of the few people who despises net neutrality around here, but from what I can tell at least by following my friends' arguments in favor of NN, the vast vast majority of people who used the internet before went into effect in... 2015? didn't suffer the problems that NN allegedly addressed and the vast majority of those complaining about the change back wouldn't notice the difference if advocacy groups hadn't made such an issue of it. Even then, most of them won't be able to give a single example of something amiss at the change if they aren't spoon fed talking points by those advocacy groups. I know my friends. I love my friends. One of those beloved quirks is that they often make the best decisions for society by simply engaging in self interested behavior without buying into big causes dredged up by others to make issues out of things that will never be perfect, no matter how intrusive the government becomes in our lives.

Ghosted the first of Daud's missions. I was almost done and had to take some time away at which point I got mixed up with Granny's recipe and the whatnot. I shrugged and restarted. No kills, no detections. ...But, damn it, two of the sleeping jackasses were spotted... at which point I choked each of them out. I only had three guards I didn't subdue the whole mission and that's because they stood gossiping like murderous old women and I didn't want to be detected when I sleep darted them.

Furthermore, how well does the government self regulate? The public, as I gather from and agree with what this bloke says, is impatient and calls for intervention for things that will iron out in the long run. No one is putting a gun to anyone's head and forcing them to buy content. We can either accept that individual freedom means the ability to make stupid decisions or we don't have individual freedom at all. The government should be reserved for making sure that the field is level in terms of outright fraud or deception. If we're counting on states (writ large) to provide reasonable self-restraint then we're essentially screwed already since I don't know of one that hasn't demonstrated out and out stupidity in terms of governance at some point along the line and some of them seem to have mastered stupidity and made it an art form.

I truly hate this. I know that they want to give cred to everyone, but come on, at least let us fast forward through the national versions we haven't played! I mean no disrespect to the Italian, Spanish, French, and German QA guys, but I tell you what, don't make them sit through the US ones if they don't want and we'll call it even.

Yes, this was the worst part of the game. The DLCs and D2 are pretty good tho. I do not regret playing them all. This is the sort of suspension of disbelief that a lot of games don't finesse very well. Anyhow, I briefly started the Daud content last night. I have both in the package I bought. At least I think I have both. I definitely have the knife one you guys suggest.