Bartimaeus

I've never seen any of the movies, but I've (very casually and somewhat incidentally) seen a lot of the shows (the original series and TNG) - are they generally considered better/the pinnacle of the series, or what?

The Birds (1963). I was...not very impressed, to be honest. The best and worst part of this film was Tippi Hedren - the best because she's enjoyable to watch (and listen to!) for the most part, the worst because I find it somewhat unbearable for an otherwise strong female protagonist to instantly go into either hysterics or a catatonic state at the slightest sign of danger, both of which she does plenty of throughout this movie. Gosh dang, that gets annoying real quick. Is it a Hitch**** thing, or simply a product of the times? Why are all the female characters (...children included) in this movie totally losing their minds instantly whenever there's danger? How the heck did people think that was a good idea? ...But besides that, I guess it was a decent movie. Thank you for censoring "Hitch****", Obsidian forums. These word filters really need to be improved...

In technicality, no, it shouldn't be that much different...since both (and many more) are pretty absurd impossibilities...but in reality, the stuff that gets abstracted away that you don't really see (enemies losing AC or THAC0 as a result of various status effects, if we were playing Baldur's Gate, for example) is just that: abstracted away. You don't really see it, so it doesn't really occur to you that a whole lot of it doesn't make much sense...whereas characters clearly doing physically ridiculous and impossible things in front of your eyes is likely to be a much bigger issue for anyone really absorbed in the setting - at least, when there's no explanation given that we would find very plausible. For this particular example, Nonek...and I (based on the description of the action: I did not actually watch the video)...feel as though such just an action clearly steps over the line in keeping a setting grounded. Clearly, we and the developers are at odds here.

Not that 538 is gospel or anything, but it does not have a rating for Strategic National...and three other polls taken after it with better ratings have all given Clinton leads (+1 C-, +4 A-, and +5 B+).

Different words in different settings have different connotations. Who knew?

I think "lady" sadly lacks the same measure of authority as I would say "lord" generally carries, which would make me opt for the latter even for women, personally. It's the same in regards to saying sir vs. ma'am in military settings - "sir" simply has a greater tone of respect and authority to it than ma'am, so that's what's typically used. I also feel like I have heard "lord" used for women characters in other fictional settings, which probably has desensitized me to its use for such, but I can't remember where.

Hey, if we're allowed to post song videos uploaded by people who don't own the copyrights, I don't see any reason we shouldn't be allowed to post movie videos uploaded by people who don't own the rights.

Yep, I have the Criterion Collection BluRay algroth just linked, so I watched the 142 minute cut. I read about the controversy in advance, so I made sure to get the "best" version available. I loved the madness and Monty Python-esque nature of the movie...I just think that how the director used Jill (or rather, didn't use Jill) really bogged down the film for a while. Like, in 12 Monkeys, Kathryn starts out off as just a minor character, very besides the point...but as the film goes on, she becomes more and more central to the film, and an increasingly strong and essential part of each scene. Here, in Brazil, it's the opposite: she starts off strongly, clearly important to the film and Sam by way of her constant reappearances in his dreams and in the real world as she just keeps barely getting away from Sam in ridiculous sets of circumstances...and then finally, after Sam actually gets to her, she just kinda mostly disappears character-wise beyond the very initial scene of her kicking him to the curb, which kinda had the effect of making scenes involving her fall a bit flat for me. The film doesn't really pick up again for me again until their capture, which is basically just the ending scene (admittedly it's a very long one) anyways. But yeah, besides that, I thought the film was pretty great.

Brazil (1985). First time watching it, had been planning on it for years and years, and finally did it. I liked it, though it had its flaws, and I think 12 Monkeys, also from Terry Gilliam, was better. First half of the movie was pretty great, but the second half fell a little flat because of how poorly the movie integrated Jill into having screen time (barely spoke, kind of nonsensical actions and dialogue for what was there). If anything, it's the opposite of 12 Monkeys - a somewhat slow and perhaps confusing beginning that slowly ramped up into a more and more incredible and concise, I felt, experience as the movie went on. Brazil instead started off both direct and focused as well crazy...but ended with mostly just the crazy. Still good, though.

Owlboy. Basically a 2D Zelda platformer with flying. Enjoying it so far.

I feel pretty confident in saying that Romo is the superior QB, if only he can stay healthy...and if he can't, then he'll be replaced anyways, so that point is rather irrelevant. It was only two seasons ago that he received MVP votes...I personally find the dislike and/or disrespect for him from so many to be a bit unsettling. Yeah, he's infamous for boneheaded mistakes in season-critical situations, but that's football: Brett Favre was the same way, except way more extreme and he did it over a longer period of time...

football doesn't make sense cowboys look to be the closest thing to a complete team* this season, strangely enough. good for seemingly roughly half of the people who post in this thread, I guess. (edit): *sorry, I meant in the NFC; obviously, the patriots look rather complete as well

I don't think you're allowed to post more than two videos per post - they start becoming normal links if you do.

A mediator is an INFP, actually...unless these labels fit multiple combinations? When I first took one of these tests long ago, I used to be pretty solidly an INTJ, then I became an INFJ a few years back, and now apparently I'm an INFP. Hmph. To be fair, even here, I'm pretty close on the edge for both of the last two letters, so it's probably debatable...whereas it's not so much for the first two.

You're probably having a plugin issue with your browser, because these forums automatically convert youtube links to videos we can play. So if that video isn't showing up, it's probably because your browser has blocked it. Here's what your post looks like right now:

There is actually a bit of a reason for this...or at least, there may be a bit of a reason that I learned from when this issue was being discussed in regards to the Baldur's Gate Enhanced Editions: ownership of the fixes. Unofficial mega-patches are typically the work of a bunch of different modders who have agreed to have their work featured in that mega-patch...but as the years go by, many of them disappear or change names and are otherwise uncontactable, making it difficult for Bethesda to incorporate their fixes without potentially running into ownership issues. While these modders may have given permission for their work to be featured in that particular mod, they probably didn't give the company itself explicit permission to use their work in an official and commercial capacity, and when unofficial patches like that involve perhaps dozens of contributors, or even more, fixing hundreds of different issues where credit to each individual modder may or may not be given, it's a sort of landmine that companies tend to want to avoid lest they be financially liable for unrightfully using another person's work. Instead, they'll probably just focus their manhours implementing their own fixes of some of the worst issues instead of trying to incorporate other people's work. This is, at least, how I understood the situation to be for the Enhanced Editions. BeamDog still got more done with the help of modders than most companies, though - or at least I think so - because they tried to reach out to the community and get as much collaboration, being a small company, as they could.

"You are more of a natural improviser than a careful planner." *then after on the same page* "You would rather improvise than spend time coming up with a detailed plan." Okay, personality test. Mediator.

I don't like cities in RPGs very much, actually. They always feel so...small, because, well, they have to be, because it's a computer game and it's difficult to simulate an actual city by any stretch of the imagination. Baldur's Gate, Athkatla, Sigil...there are so very few people actually in these "cities": if we assumed the number of people in them to be even relatively correctly represented by the number of people we actually see while playing, Baldur's Gate would have a thousand, maybe two at best, Athkatla probably somewhere around 5 thousand, and Sigil maybe a few thousand. It's just like when you're playing the fighter stronghold in BG2, and your steward tells you that Lord Roenall is launching an attack on your keep with his "army"...and then you get out there to defend your lands and he and his invading "army" is actually like just 10-15 dudes. I mean, the sense of scale is always so off, immersively-speaking. I try not to think about these things, because I know you really just have to use your imagination sometimes, but often times the games really press it into my face. On the other hand, games that try to simulate an even somewhat accurate amount of people in their setting almost always face the problem of there being very little content or depth to that setting, and especially so if a significant amount of time is wasted on trying to make an accurate city. Smaller, more detailed is definitely better...but for various reasons, including the sense of scale issue I mentioned above, cities are just not my favorite setting for an adventure, really.

What's up with CRPGs and silly "strongholds"? Personally, I don't feel as though they were very good in BG2, and I haven't seen them be much better ever since...

I used to play games of this type in Warcraft 3 custom games all the time back in the day. Dark Deeds, Werewolf, Happyville (this one sounds especially similar to how you described Tower of Salem). Nostalgia... (edit): "Happyville is a paranoia-oriented WarCraft 3: The Frozen Throne custom map, set in the happy town of Happyville. This town is home to many happy people, but it is threatened by...the UN-happy! One or more players are randomly selected at the start of the game to be unhappy, but no one knows who they are. As you search the town, the unhappy will try to covertly kill the other players one at a time. The rest of the players must identify and kill the unhappy before Happyville becomes a ghost town." Fun times.

Ah, if only the world actually worked in such a wondrously ideal manner...

We should go back to the EverQuest (the original) days where raids took often literally half a day to properly setup and complete, never mind the time that went into planning them and making sure that everyone (60+ people!) can play on that specific day...and never mind the eventuality of somebody doing something stupid and causing everyone to wipe. Kids these days just don't have the proper appreciation for how easy it is now...

That, combined with obligations that prevented me from sleeping when I was actually finally capable of doing so.

The missed field goals were pretty funny, though. https://streamable.com/18cp