Bartimaeus

Posts being eaten has been a thing with this software since the upgrade some years ago (those of us who have written lengthy posts only to see them mysteriously vanish with no draft saved have learned to always CTRL+A and CTRL+C before posting!), but there seems to be times where it's especially bad and it repeatedly happens.

The only work of his that I've seen is Spy Kids, back when I was like seven or eight years old. It looks very unlikely I would enjoy anything he was director or writer for. Apparently, James Cameron wanted to one-up it when he was slated to be director before he was canned because he was too busy with Avatar trash: "With James Cameron as potential director, the film was to be produced with the same mix of live-action and computer-generated imagery that Cameron used in Avatar. Specifically, Cameron intended to render the main character, Alita, completely in CGI. Cameron had stated that he would make use of technologies developed for Avatar to produce the film, such as the Fusion Camera System, facial performance capture, and the Simulcam. In May 2006, Variety reported that Cameron had spent the past ten months developing technology to produce the film." Like...couldn't we just give her a normal head/face but metal android body, like the show did? Wouldn't that look and work a lot better? I don't know, that would just kind of make sense to me. I'm not a famous Hollywood hack director, so my opinion on such things is eminently worthless. I watched Jojo Rabbit recently, does that count for anything?

Battle Angel Alita, a two-part OVA about an amnesiac android girl named Gally. Her head's picked up by some semi-mad scientist in a scrapyard and he resurrects her and treats her like his daughter. Turns out, she musta been a gladiator in her past life or something, because she just destroys. To be honest, it's a little dumb but was a bit more enjoyable than most similar 80s/90s action trash. Overall, not too shabby for a minor cult favorite. I have no idea why they gave her such gargantuan eyes in the live action adaptation (which no, I have not seen): I wonder how much money of their 200 million dollar budget it took to make her eyes like that. (e): Apparently, James Cameron co-wrote the screenplay for Alita: Battle Angel, so that's gonna be an immediate nope from me, dog. Never heard of her.

@Chilloutman Imoen gets access to 9th level arcane spells and HLAs at 3,000,000 XP plus the 40,000 XP that went into her 7 levels of Thief; Aerie will instead take double that at 6,000,000 due to her XP being split between mage and cleric. That's a pretty significant issue if you need the arcane firepower; cleric spells can be nice and all, but being able to get Improved Alacrity and Time Stop at the end of SoA (and certainly for much of ToB) is probably nicer. Though mage-cleric is probably the best multi-class available, dual classes tend to...er, outclass multi-classes pretty heavily simply due to the economy of XP and the fact that a mere 40,000 spent on Imoen's thief levels ultimately amounts to practically nothing. Edwin, on the other hand...yeah, okay. Single-class Conjurer (by far the best kit for the additional spell slot per spellcasting level) combined with his absurd necklace (which gives him an additional two more spell slots per spellcasting level!) makes that a bit of a no contest. @majestic There are some other edge cases for different kits - for example, Invokers pair great with a sorcerer that takes the best and oft-repeated AoE enchantment spells (i.e. Sleep, Confusion, Chaos, Greater Malison, Emotion: Hopelessness). But yes, Conjurers are definitely the "power gamer" pick due to Detect Invisibility/True Seeing really being the only halfway important Divination spells.

That was pretty existentially soul-crushing, but nice - thanks.

I was thinking the visuals looked a little strange, as the backgrounds and character animations didn't look like they quite matched each other. The character animations being actual scanned physical embroidery, I will forgive it, because that's rad and I love it (and also, I would say that character animation is the most important bit to do quality animation for in a game like this, so that was a wise choice). No idea if the game will be any good, but I'll wishlist it and wait for its release, hopefully it'll be enjoyable. And hopefully there won't be too much platforming/combat, as these kinds of games tend to miss the mark pretty badly when they go too heavily in that direction.

I've played a few games of Golf with Your Friends with some friends before. I was pretty bad at it compared to them, but it was fun enough. ...My style of playing anything even slightly competitive with my nieces is that I'll generally play much more risky/daring than I otherwise would. If I were to play this with them, I'd probably be trying to go for wacky shots and bombing it most of the time, . I see that you're the..."I will win every time" type instead.

I've changed my mind.

That was part of the intent, but really, it's more just a general warning on these kinds of threads, whose subjects obviously hit very close to home for some, simply not being a great arena for civil meetings of the minds when feelings and allegiances differ in such an inherently irresolvable manner. Saying this would seem to make me the forum's biggest hypocrite, seeing as I am pretty infamous for being the god-emperor of putting people on ignore...but I'm O.K. with that, particularly given that my criteria for putting people on ignore is a little different in that it's usually just "do I consistently dislike reading posts by this person across the forum?".

I feel like you got the opposite intended reading of my admittedly deliberately ambiguously worded post. C'est la vie, .

No, .

He who desires not to look at his fellow man with contempt should avoid this thread and others like it: nothing good ever comes from arguing with those whose feelings are more determinant to their positions than fairness or logic.

Good people, this friend of yours. You, on the other hand...well, the record speaks for itself, .

I haven't played a ton of Civilization, but I didn't like them they become too important to accelerating early game progression. Getting additional units or random free techs/resources are so important to making sure that you start faster than you otherwise would, that if you fail to get a good amount and of the optimal types, it kind of feels like you've failed the early game. Just turning them off means you don't have to worry about it at all and that it's a bit more fair: the peace of mind in not having to obsess over too much random stuff mostly out of your control is worth it. I realized how extreme it was when I got a number of particularly good ones and accelerated progression so much that the game was effectively decided in the first era due to an overwhelming advantage that the AI wouldn't have ever been able to make up. I don't think Civilization does great at giving a sense of verisimilitude in the first place (which is why I've never been able to play it too much - playing a simulation game where it feels like everything about it is randomly generated makes everything I do feel meaningless), but it's that much worse when it feels like I've already won (or lost!) because of silly RNG stuff like that right at the start. Unsurprisingly, I'm much more of an Europa Universalis 4 kind of guy than Civilization...but Paradox pretty much ruined that game for me by making a million expansions that added so many unnecessary mechanics that don't really fit or feel good together that I can't really play it anymore. It's probably just as well anyways.

Redline was also the very first thing that Sarex recommended to me when I mentioned that I was watching an anime for the first time in my life, specifically Sailor Moon from the early 1990s. Redline is a 2009 action-racing film that's positively dripping with masculinity...which is to say, it was the complete opposite of what I was currently enjoying in the more silly and girly Sailor Moon, and so while it would've been bad for me even in the best of times, it was an utterly miserable experience in that particular context. Suffice to say, it took me a few more tries of things Sarex recommended for me to realize that we perhaps do not quite see eye to eye on what is either meaningful or entertaining in shows/movies, . But I'm me for a reason, so maybe Azdeus would fare better...

His voice actor is Rob Paulsen; don't see any Mass Effect credits for him. From the different roles I recognize him as, he actually seems like he has a pretty good range and there are many I would never have been able to tell that it was him. I think Ashley vs. Kaiden is totally dependent on whether you're a male or female protagonist; if you're male, you kill Ashley, while if you're female, you kill Kaiden. Ideally, you'd really be able to kill both. I mean, ideally, I'd kill probably half or more of all the characters throughout all three games, but those two especially. It's more of a mentality than anything else: there are people who play the game that will rest every every battle because the game allows them to and it means you're at full strength every single time. This is the sort of thing that Pillars of Eternity attempted to stifle with the way it implemented resting...but I think I'd rather let the player decide how they want to play, whether that's the player placing limits on themselves or not, than to deliberately make too many elements of the game obnoxious like Pillars did.

Really, all the details are immaterial: Anomen cannot be in the party because he is Anomen. Anomen is Anomen is Anomen, and that's just not acceptable. You see him in the Copper Coronet, he calls out "fair lady" to you as you walk by, you throw his corpse into the dumpster, and then you go about your day. Seriously, I am not going to be called "fair lady" by that smarmy stupid voice and let it go unpunished, it's just not happening.

Meanwhile, you two weeks ago addressed directly to me: Would you care to revise your statements, tepid in nature or not?

Viconia has 18 wisdom compared to Anomen's 12 (or 16 if he passed the knighthood quest): give me them bonus spellcasting slots and I'll give her a girdle of strength.

Discussion of anime should stay strictly quarantined to the anime thread, as per the authorities; I believe it is you who has been naughty, . ...What if I have a problem with a quote in your signature that isn't of something that I wrote? Okay, good: I thought you'd taken complete leave of your senses.

@Amentep Yeah, I remember liking the second part/episode a lot more than the first, motorcycles flying out of the helicopter notwithstanding. Seamless, . Somehow, I get the feeling that I might not so appreciate the supposed "rich and interesting friendships" element from a 2022 fantasy isekai anime with a male protagonist(s?), particularly one where just looking at the art style and how scenes are framed makes me want to tear out my eyeballs, . Luckily, I don't have an issue with any of the things you've put of me in your signature. I think majestic currently has a pretty raw deal in comparison.

Is that the one with the old dude and his daughter...and the million or so motorcyclists who just come pouring out of a flying helicopter right at the end? If it's the one I'm thinking of, I'm pretty sure that's the episode that broke me, but in an unexpected way: I thought the episode was largely ho-hum, but all the motorcyclists dropping out of the sky and bouncing off mountains and stuff was so mind-breakingly absurd that I just started laughing maniacally for the rest of the episode and for some minutes after it had ended. That was kind of the beauty of Speed Racer for me: the goofy weird stuff that it (and no other show) would do had the effect of befuddling and amusing me into enjoying it in a way that few other shows could.

I'm pretty sure the first party I had in BG2 was Bard PC (ten year old me: "they can fight, have some thieving abilities, and can do arcane magic - what more could you want?!"), Minsc, Jaheira, Nalia, Jan Jansen, and Valygar...and then Valygar got thrown out for Imoen. I was apparently a very stupid ten year old, as not only did I play as a bard, I also apparently did not recognize that having three freaking thieves was probably three thieves too many. I remember the final battles of SoA being very not fun because my party balance was total crap...on top of being a very stupid ten year old that didn't know how to play very well in the first place. I always do, don't I? I would settle for a game where you have to play as an unwitting villain where everyone inexplicably treats you like you're the absolute worst while they have rich and interesting friendships with each other. I don't know how that would really work in an actual game (i.e. with gameplay) in practice, but...

No, that's why I said they're better off that way: it'd be weird if they were supposed to be all lovey-dovey or whatever. The thought of Jaheira being anything but the grumpy old lady that she is seems pretty weird to me...but really, it all goes hand-in-hand with the last sentence of your second paragraph: I don't want to romance anyone at all. Player romances in video games are universally bad(?) - certainly BioWare ones are, at least. Always playing female protagonists* mercifully saved me here, I suppose. *Technically, I first played BG2 when I was like ten or so and initially selected a male protagonist...buuut I'm pretty sure Aerie joined my party and tried to romance me and I summarily threw her out of the party and that was that, . Wow. Haer'Dalis was the next option? Really? ...I'm not a girl, so my opinion on such things is eminently worthless, but...I mean, I guess he's better than the second worst option after Anomen, which would have to be stupid baby man Cernd. That creep gives druids a bad name. So at least it wasn't intended to be him, I suppose.

I've played Baldur's Gate II quite a number of times, and I've never consciously realized that the human trashcan known as Anomen is your only option as a female character. While I always play as a female protagonist, I've never had Anomen in my party because I throw his bloated corpse into the nearest dumpster the moment I get to the Copper Coronet, and I guess I really just thought about none of the other characters attempting to initiate a romance. Well, it's just as well anyways - Aerie is almost as much of a trashcan as Anomen is, and Jaheira and Viconia are both better as bitter and mean respectively, .