Bartimaeus

My brother was a huge fan of Dark Souls 1, telling me it was going to be soooo awesome and that I should totally pre-order it because there's absolutely no reason not to if I even sort of like Dark Souls because they're totally going to improve on it in every aspect... As he's a console gamer, he's already played it. First few days, he told me it was great and my skepticism was not deserved at all, and shame on me - it's better than Dark Souls 1, even, he said. A few days after that, he said it was really good, but had some problems, but it was just as good as Dark Souls 1 - just a little different. A half week later, he says it's good, but just not as good as Dark Souls 1. Another half week: he feels a bit disappointed, and misses Dark Souls 1, and how it was when he first played it. Now, a few days ago, he said he's done playing Dark Souls 2, and he's going back to playing Dark Souls 1. As for me, I thought Dark Souls 1 was good - maybe even really good, depending on the person playing it - but not so completely perfect as so many of its rabid fanbase seem to suggest. I think it's possible I'll feel roughly the same way about Dark Souls 2 - though now my expectations are at (the very) least a little lower. We'll see.

...on the other hand, you can go through the entire game with the most basic equipment, if you really want to, (I've gone through all of SHoC with just the starting Makarov, for example). That's rather masochistic...especially if you also only used the standard armor (well, except where you're forced to us another one, of course) My game is modded a bit, so I have it so that 100% of all attacks register, (instead of the 60% or so not having any effect on the easiest difficulty, or the...I want to say either 20% or 30%, I think, on the hardest difficulty), so it's a bit easier than vanilla game. Ukraine and their broken difficulty settings, where the hardest difficulty is actually easier than the easiest...(Metro did the same sort of nonsense!),

Funny, my first thought was something Lord of the Rings related, but I couldn't fathom why the Vergina Sun would be any LotR group's symbol, and doing a quick Google search didn't turn anything up, so I rejected that guess.

...on the other hand, you can go through the entire game with the most basic equipment, if you really want to, (I've gone through all of SHoC with just the starting Makarov, for example).

Given that she's already been to the hospital at least twice that you know of, I'm pretty sure she knows. A person has to try and help themselves before others can help them, I think. I know this because it very much applies to me in some ways, (though not for food related reasons). Best of luck, Bruce.

I see the Vergina Sun emblazoned on your character's chest, but I don't recognize the game...

I was joking. It is indeed GPU artifacts, but not as a result of overheating, (sadly - that would be preferable). It's getting close to five years old, and it's started to artifact semi-regularly, with occasional bouts of more extreme artifacting like you see above. Not related to temperature, as I said - the hottest it's gotten in the past week is 59C, according to my temperature recorder, and the fan is working just fine, etc. Just getting old. Poor thing. I have an even older video card laying around that still works perfectly after many years of use. Might have to switch to it if it gets any worse.

There's something strange going on, but I just can't seem to figure out what...can anyone else figure it out?

And Lower Resistance, as you might expect, is subject to neither spell resistance or saves. Um...probably. Honestly, I can't differentiate between Spell Revisions spells and what they used to be in vanilla anymore.

Is dominate and confusion not subject to spell resistance? I thought magic resistance mean % to negate a spell being cast on you. Second sentence first: that's correct, but some spells (or, to be technical, their effects) simply are not subject to it. As in, they will go right through regardless of what your magic resistance is. I couldn't say absolutely for dominate/charm, but I would guess that the standard mage/cleric variants are very likely subject to it. Any innate variants I would be less sure about.

Some spells are not subject to magic resistance, just as some are not subject to saves, (though very few are both). I always thought vanilla Carsomyr was ridiculously powerful. Maybe not for pure melee combat, but that's hardly ever challenging anyways when you've got your own spellcaster or two. I like to play with Item Revisions, which nerfs it rather nicely against spellcasters, but increases its regular combat capabilities: Special Abilities (once per day): Dispel Magic: dispels all magical effects upon any creature in a 30 feet radius Equipped Abilities: Magic Resistance: +20% bonus Combat Abilities: Dispelling: removes all magical effects upon the target (save vs. spell neg.) Holy: deals 3 additional points of damage against all of evil alignment THAC0: +4 bonus Damage: 2D6 + 4 Damage type: slashing Weight: 10 Speed Factor: 6 Proficiency Type: Two-Handed Sword Type: 2-handed Requires: 16 Strength Usable By: Paladins

http://www.clipartbest.com/cliparts/niE/RoL/niERoLxiA.png

The source of the mod in question usually matters more than the mod itself. I wouldn't worry at all about downloading anything that's had more than a dozen downloads from the Nexus.

Carsomyr? The weapon that gave 50% magic resistance on equip and dispelled magic without save/resist on every hit? Carsomyr +5? +6 if you upgrade it? ...

You're really buying that crap? Every new government in history always said "the previous administration was a disaster and worked miraculously" to justify its present shortcomings. And you really bought into this centuries old excuse? Please... You've never seen the code, so why are you repeating someone else's bullcrap like it's an established fact? I have to 100% agree with Nep on this one Bester, sorry but I have to be honest Just curious, but on what basis are you making that agreement? Both Nepenthe and Bester make, in my opinion, valid points - yet neither one is substantiated (so far) in this case, so why believe - especially "100%" - either way?

I think the XP is fine—you shouldn't be forced to complete sidequests to be able to advance the main quest without being gimped. If you do absolutely every quest available to you, including possibly killing any dragons you come across, it shouldn't be surprising that you end up being overpowered. Also, by the time you are ready to take the thieves or Bodhi up on their offer, you will be way over 20k, which is hard to justify from a roleplaying perspective. Don't get me wrong, that's the way I used to play it, too. But I wouldn't say it's a design flaw. In one of the many balance mods I used to have, the Shadow Thieves' fee was raised IIRC to 80k... and I still had plenty of money to go around and buy high level scrolls and stuff. If, on the other hand, you are referring to how XP completely breaks the game if you are playing a solo Kensai/Mage, that's another story... Sorry, I didn't mean to imply it was a flaw, per se, as I agree - you're absolutely right. But I've always completed pretty much everything when I go through the game, so I find that the game completely breaks (for me!) unless all XP rewarded is scaled to at least 75% of the original - though I'm actually tempted to try 50%. Sword Coast Stratagems, the mod I just mentioned earlier, has that fee increaser component you just spoke of...and an additional magic license fee increaser. The amount of money you can make in the game is also ridiculous if you do everything, as you mentioned.

My dad tried to treat his depression with alcohol. He became an alcoholic, and as a result of related transgressions, his entire family left him. Poor guy. Alcohol seems like a pretty poor treatment plan to me, but that's just my anecdote.

A game where you never have to retry (or aren't allowed to) sounds like a game where you don't have to try at all to begin with, (whether it's a result of the game naturally being easy or because you've gotten good at it), and seems rather boring. Not to mention I like playing with Sword Coast Stratagems, (AI/difficulty enhancing mod), combined with a rewarded XP reducer. There's too much XP rewarded in the game, IMO. Mmmmm....I hate it when people use logic and truth to dispute my words I try! Although...I have to point out what I said wasn't strictly true, just generally so...but I'm sure you were aware of that. (e: a word)

A game where you never have to retry (or aren't allowed to) sounds like a game where you don't have to try at all to begin with, (whether it's a result of the game naturally being easy or because you've gotten good at it), and seems rather boring. Not to mention I like playing with Sword Coast Stratagems, (AI/difficulty enhancing mod), combined with a rewarded XP reducer. There's too much XP rewarded in the game, IMO. At this point, thanks to having to play smarter due to difficulty enhancing mods and having played for years and years, it'd probably be fairly easy to do an iron run of vanilla BG(2). But since vanilla BG(2) doesn't interest me, oh well. (e): The last time I played through BG2, (a 3/4th of a year or so ago?), my party (of 4) was epic level before I made it to Chapter 3, (Chapter 3 starting after you side with either Bodhi or the Shadow Thieves). I completed all of Watcher's Keep and did most of the non-main quest sidequests before that. I gave up the run after that, of course, because my game was completely broken.

I said "maybe"! That implies I'm not really sure either way and therefore am not necessarily making a judgement. ...maybe

That's pretty crappy. Was that the initial version of the game, first patch, latest patch or close to, or..? Either way, sounds pretty unacceptable, especially since those companion quests are pretty major, and not being able to restore a companion from Imprison is also somewhat drastic...particularly if you saved after the battle it happened and went wandering around for a Freedom scroll and lost saves prior to the battle thinking you could restore them.

As Woldan said, be proactive. I say that because I've heard it's supposed to be great for at least helping to treat depression...and I personally was not and am still not and I don't think it'd be entirely incorrect to say that I'm at least partially insane as a result. To be fair to myself, though, I was a bit anorexic at the time, so it would've been hard to be physically active without magically fixing that, too. And...honestly, I still don't eat entirely right. Ah, the joys of moderate (but greatly varied) neurosis...

lol maybe by your logic

I find taking an occasional intellectual **** is good for the soul. I actually wrote that post as an addendum to yours - in support - not as any sort of retort. I (basically) agree with all of your statements...at least on this issue. "Opinion" news shows I, too, find incredibly unappealing. As if I needed any additional bias in my life by filtering it through more people who clearly have agendas, whether I am for them or not. I've pretty much given up on all TV news, except perhaps local news in very small doses. I like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert in small doses, too, - primarily because they actually are pretty funny - but find that I can't really stomach watching them much, either. TV really just isn't my thing these days. @Valsuelm: No, I disagree. A person intrinsically, for no "absolute" - absolute in the sense of being completely reinforced by something else - decides that some things are right, and that some things are wrong. As an example, most people believe that murder is "wrong" - not all, but most. Why? Such a concept, the innate wrongness of killing, does not exist anywhere else in the animal kingdom, (not that its existence elsewhere would justify it, mind you). Yet most of us have decided that it is indeed wrong - evil, even. It is a fiction - a social construct - that we have completely made up, and one that most of us choose to follow. Any rationalization you could use to explain our belief in its "wrongness" is similarly unabsolute - such lines of thought are (at least to my knowledge) completely circular and recursive. What's even worse, I think, is that though most of us believe killing is wrong, many of us also believe that certain conditions can make it unwrong, whether intellectually (really thinking it's no longer wrong) or in actuality (still thinking it's wrong, but assigning no blame/consequences for it). Apply this principal to less extreme examples, where more people disagree with each other - abortion, as an amusing (to me, as it's still to do with "killing") example - and you find that such biases paint the lives of every single person. There's no [human] logical root to why we believe what we do, or value what we do, yet such beliefs and values still persist. Not that I think that's necessarily a bad thing. Humans would be very boring otherwise, I think. I think the only type of person that is intellectually unbiased is the person that completely lacks any sort of intellect - sapience - to begin with. And even then, only intellectually. There'd still be behavioral - as in, what we actually do - biases. Dang. I did it again.

Clarification, TrueNeutral: Imprisonment's duration is normally permanent. Do you mean the spell "Freedom" didn't restore the Imprisoned character(s)? "all joinable NPCs except for the romance options no longer trigger any dialogues" Not that normally romance-able characters of the same gender as you hardly ever freaking talked, anyways...stupid BioWare NPCs...