Vaeliorin

Martin wrote several short stories starring a knight named Duncan and Aegon Targaryen, but I don't know how exactly they relate time-wise to the main books/show.

Nah, in the last episode Dunc will somehow inexplicably end up king. (I'm kidding, of course. I've never seen the show, and only got about halfway through the first book before it made me start grabbing people by the collar, envisioning them as Martin, and shaking them while screaming "Pick a point of view and stick with it for more than 5 pages, goddammit!" I do like the Dunc and Egg stories, though.)

Well, given how often Roach ends up humping trees...swimming wouldn't be too bad.

Do you sincerely believe this? Sheesh! if you do. As it certainly isn't so. I wouldn't even levy that accusation at Hillary's camp. Both campaigns know what they are doing methinks. While Hillary herself might be an incompetent sociopathic Eviloid, her string pullers are at least competent, if not still sociopathic Eviloids.. Get those 'The Great Valsuelm has spoken!' posts ready. As someone who lives in a battleground state (quite often the battleground state) we've been pummeled with anti-Trump ads, to the point I almost want to vote for him out of pure vindictiveness (I won't, but it doesn't change the desire), but I have yet to see any pro-Trump or anti-Hillary ads (no pro-Hillary ads, either.) Makes it kind of hard to believe Trump knows what he's doing, unless he's counting on people like me to vote for him out of sheer annoyance at political ads, which seems unlikely. Regardless, it doesn't matter either way. They're both terrible.

Personally, while I enjoyed getting extra discounts from a flash sale, I hated having to check Steam every 8 hours to see what they were (and possibly needing to play a demo to see if something was worth buying) more. Not that I've bought anything in this sale, though I've got my eye on Dark Souls II and Dragon's Dogma.

Eh, don't know about that. Honestly I found it kinda boring - it felt like a world designed for a videogame as opposed to a believable place, which Witcher 3 nailed (and then ruined with overabundance of places of "interest" and nothing dynamic ever happening.) And the quests are all variations of "Bring me 3 bear asses" - EVERYTHING you do is a checklist of n things you need to bring to y, or n things you need to destroy or even erect (and it's not even the fun kind of erecting, just boring erecting). Generally, quest design in W3 is several levels above whatever DA: I threw at me, even tho I could do with less of "Use witcher senses to..." Still, the low layer of how the DA: I's gameplay is constructed works a lot better for an open world - you've got a goal you're building towards, and the goal is one which makes sense to build towards by exploring, talking to people, making alliances. That was probably my favorite part of the whole thing. And then I had to erect. Uuugh. The key words there were "for me". I'm not saying it's better designed as realistic areas (because it's not) but it's better designed in terms of being a fun game for me (I'm not even remotely a simulationist. I care if a game is fun as a game, not how realistic it is.) The points of interest in Witcher 3 were just horribly annoying. I said the other day that I had somewhere around ~45 of them to do in Velen/Novigrad, spent hours getting it down to ~10, then hit the two noticeboards I hadn't yet because they were tucked up in the corner, and I had ~45 to do again. And they're not fun, but I can't ignore them because it's not in my nature (heck, it was all I could do not to start the game over when I failed Gangs of Novigrad because I didn't go talk to Cleaver right away.) DA:I's quests I just kind of do as I'm wandering around, and there's only been 1 "Go get me 10 X" quests so far that I hadn't already gathered the stuff I needed just playing the game (and it was go get me food for the refugees, which seemed an entirely reasonable thing to do, given I'm trying to win hearts and minds.) There are the requisitions, of course, but those aren't that important, and again, just kind of happen while I'm wandering around doing other stuff. Witcher 3's large quest chains are better, but the points of interest feel like busy work and padding, not an integrated part of the game, while all the sidequest stuff in DA:I just feels better integrated and like it's part of the exploration and regular gameplay. That may change in later parts of the game, but that's how it feels to me so far.

I'm kind of ashamed to say this, but I've played 22 hours of DA:I now, and I'm honestly enjoying it more than Witcher 3. That's not to say it's a better game (it isn't anywhere near as well written, Witcher's horse is a millions times better, the combat's kind of a wash with a sligjt edge going to DA:I) but I'm not being dragged down by all the pointless points of interest in DA:I, and I don't have to pay attention to the combat (which feels much better now that I know I can rotate the camera in tactical mode.) I still haven't left the Hinterlands (I've got like 3 or 4 quests left there going by the list on the wiki...not that I've been following it, I just wondered what I'd missed, and except for the tiny corner I haven't explored yet, I haven't really missed anything I care about...I'm missing some mosaic pieces and shards, but who cares), which by all accounts I've read is the worst part of the game, so hopefully that turns out to be true for me as well. Heck, even most of the companions I expected to hate aren't as bad as I expected (though I don't have them all.) Sera's pretty terrible, though (she can't possibly be as stupid and immature as she seems, but no way in hell am I going to put up with her to find out.) I think what it boils down to is DA:I's "open world" works much better for me than Witcher 3's. If Witcher 3 was more tightly focused, I've no doubt I'd enjoy it more, as the parts when I was working on long quest chains were really enjoyable, whereas with DA:I I've basically ignored the story (mages, templars, demons, blah, blah, same old, same old is what I'm getting so far.) Still probably never buy another Bioware game until the game plus DLC is under $20 ever again, though (whereas previously I'd pre-ordered Collector's Editions of pretty much everything since BG2.)

So, I'd said that I was going to buy DA:I when the Game of the Year version was <$20. I don't check the price religiously or anything, just when I happen to think about it. So today, I went and checked the price, and it was on sale for $19.99, so I bought it. I've played about 5 hours (most of which was just talking to people) and it's...not terrible writing. It's not particularly good, but it's not terrible. The combat, on the other hand, is...I think saying it was bad would be generous. Maybe if the camera zoomed out about 5 times as much as it does (maybe more...it's hard to tell) it would be okay, but as it is it's basically impossible to see what's going on. I had to turn the difficulty down from Nightmare to Hard (which was a ridiculous drop in difficulty...I went from getting killed and going through all my potions in the first boss fight to using 1) because I kept getting killed in the first boss fight because I couldn't tell what was happening. Cassandra was run off about 3 screens away getting killed by the boss, I couldn't see the freaking mechanical gimmick (the rift) because apparently it was above the camera, the camera don't snap when you change party members (I know some people hate that, but I like it) so I'd find myself not realizing who I was controlling (because apparently casting an AoE can also select a companion when you click, or something...) and just generally it felt like a clusterf---. I can't even imagine how you can play with friendly fire on, since you have no control over what your companions do (I guess you could play with only single target abilities, but that seems like it would be a bad idea.) The menus are horrible, the gear is silly (why do I only have weapon and armor? What happened to individual armor pieces?) and I don't know who thought it was a good idea to make me spam the 'v' key to put things on the mini-map instead of just...putting them on the mini-map, but I'd like to smack him upside the head. It almost has to get better (I'm almost positive it had generally good reviews) but I'm not really sure how that could happen. I wasn't expecting it to be great (or even good, really, but being Dragon Age I had to give it a chance eventually...) but I was expecting better than this. Maybe I can find some mods that will make it less awful...here's hoping.

It's interesting, Rangers tend to have those kinds of missions in the early game, but, at least for me, by mid-game they always get the "Never left concealment or fired a shot" award pretty much every mission, barring some bad luck that reveals them. If it weren't for concealment/Phantom, I don't know that I'd ever take a ranger (2 Sharpshooters, 2 Grenadiers, Specialist, Psi Op sounds pretty ideal to me.)

See, the common complaints you mention don't bother me, either. However, I'm a completionist, so I can't just leave all those points of interest uninvestigated, and so many of them are basically nothing, or at least nothing interesting. I feel the game would be much tighter, and better, if they'd had it be more focused. Also, I'd cut down from 49 or so undiscovered points of interest to 14, hit one of the two notice boards I hadn't hit yet (in far NE Velen) and I'm back up over 40. Argh!

Back to more Witcher 3. I have to say, this is probably the most frustratingly inconsistent good game I've ever played. So many of the quest lines are brilliant, to the point where I think some of the writing is comparable to PS:T. Then there's all these other things (mostly one off quests and most of the points of interest) that are just pointless and make me wonder if the game even had someone with editorial control. For example, there was a woman who showed up after I cleared an occupied outpost whose husband was missing. I traveled <200 meters, killed some wild dogs, told her her husband was dead, end of quest. I get that on some level it's supposed to develop the world, but I'm already well aware that it's a crapsack world, so...why? She even went over to his body (after Geralt warned her it might be dangerous), so I decided to escort her (just because, there was no quest or anything, I just wanted to see what would happen.) She just walked over to the area where his body was and stopped. If they were going to make her walk over there, she could at least have done...something other than just stand there (cry, be torn about by wolves...something.) Also...when I kill something 5 levels above me that's guarding a "guarded treasure" point of interest...the treasure should be something worthwhile, not just random crafting mats that I already have tons of and some gear that's worse than what I have. Also, monsters 5 levels above me should be harder than 5 or 6 random dudes 10 levels below me (who are admittedly, only hard when they surround me and I get careless and they get to stagger-lock me for a while.) I know that open world was one of the big selling points, but I honestly think that it was probably a mistake. I'm pretty sure almost everything bad I have to say about the game is a result of them making it open world. There are good things about the open world (I like riding Roach around, I'll admit) but I think the bad probably outweighs the good.

I am, admittedly, not a firearms expert (heck, it's been 20+ years since I've fired a gun), but what's the point of a bullpup configuration on a pistol? My understanding is that it gives you more control when hip-firing a shotgun or rifle (though it seems like it would make shoulder-firing uncomfortable), but with a pistol, it seems all it would do is make powder burns more likely.

Honestly, about the only reason I replay BG is because every few years I decide I'm going to finish BG2 and I have to play BG first. Then, I get partway through BG2 and realize how much I dislike it (the writing is inconsistent and largely bad, imo, and I hate 2E D&D) and stop playing. I'd honestly much rather play NWN or NWN2, as 3.X actually has interesting (if completely broken) character building, though none of the campaigns outside Mask of the Betrayer have decent writing, and none of them have good combat (in truth, I'm more likely to spend hours playing with the NWN2DB character builder instead of actually playing the campaigns.) Personally, the games I constantly return to are Wizardry 8, and to a lesser extent (mostly because the windows version is horribly buggy), Wizardry 7.

More like hyperbole. I just really, really dislike Hillary, and have for about 20 years. She's always seemed entirely a political creature to me, and there's just something about her that I don't trust. I'm not sure she cares about anything but power.

I'd been planning to vote for Bernie over Trump, but now... Honestly, it's enough to make me not want to vote (though I'll admit, the freaking anti-Trump political ads we're getting slammed with almost make me want to vote Trump out of spite.) Probably end up going with Gary Johnson as something of a protest vote, barring a country-saving indictment.

Still think this looks interesting, still not buying a console.

There were two 80s pop song references I encountered in short succession that honestly kind of annoyed me. One of the prostitues in the brothel has a bark about being a material girl in a material world, and then in the dueling lessons quest Geralt says something about girls just wanna have fun. They honestly both seemed kind of out of place, but likely wouldn't have bothered me if I hadn't run into them within a few minutes of each other.

That was meant to be mostly tongue-in-cheek, hence the sticking out tongue smiley. Huh...I thought I'd seen a mod to that effect at one time, though that may just have been unrestricted dualing-classing of classes.

Uh, actually, Kensai doesn't even exist in 2E to beign with, and its appearance in Baldur's Gate is a totally made up (by the BG developers) derivative of the 1E class, and it was clearly never really thought through enough to be balanced with the 2E systems (and hence why some mods change the class to disallow it from being dual-classed, which would also presumably disallow multi-classing with it). So I'm not sure I would feel so comfortable justifying using a totally broken combination by saying "but PnP!", personally... That was more a comment on having a kit for a single class in a multi-class being allowed. I honestly didn't know the Kensai wasn't an actual kit, as I don't have them all memorized (I haven't played 2E in forever, and I honestly kind of hate the ruleset.) Also, I'm kind of surprised it never ended up being a kit given all the official extra stuff that got published. It's not like it's that wacky compared to multi-class paladins and bards in a 2E context. To be totally honest, I don't really care even if it isn't technically true to PnP, and it honestly isn't even that broken compared to things like ranger/clerics, sorcerers, or just simple pure mages (f/m/t doesn't get 9th level spells or mage HLA's, after all.) In truth, I'd rather play a F/M/Swashbuckler, but you can still backstab when you do that, so it feels more cheaty to me. Edit: In extra truth, I'd rather play a F/T/C, but that's not possible (though I imagine there's a mod for it.)

Low level kensai doesn't really have much of an edge over regular fighters, and they are decidedly at a disadvantage because no armor and you don't get good AC bracers until later on. Kagain is an excellent tank, but since there is no "threat" in the BG games to speak of, kensai requires a hell of a lot of micromanagement, more or less the way you described, because your "tanks" will not be able to reliably keep enemies from attacking other characters in melee range. Go in, put down the hurt, get out before they can strike back. Prioritise archers and especially mages, but keep in mind that even clerics can give you a run for your money one-on-one, if they can get some buffs off. It doesn't get better in BG2 either, which is why kensages are so popular. edit: best item for a kensai, bar none: Boots of Speed Kensai-Thief=Use Any Item=Best Kensai-Mage-Thief = Use Any Item + Magic = More Betterest (Yes I know this only works if you cheat and use EEKeeper, but is a perfectly allowable combination in PnP, so I don't care. )

Honestly, it's not the number of quests, it's all the undiscovered locations. I've got 56 of them, plus another half dozen places where the monsters were way too high level (I had a level 21 wyvern chase me half across the map when I was level 13) and I don't want to skip any of them, because I know there are going to be recipes and crafting ingredients I'm going to want in some of them (not to mention places of power.) I know, though, that most of them are going to have terrible gear or be level 9 bandit camps or something equally pointless, which makes them feel like kind of a waste of time.

It's okay to have equal options for male and female at character creation. It's a game, and adding gender bonuses and penalties would be mostly a waste of devs' time (and people would probably complain that his/her character is penalised and it's not fair). That doesn't mean that, since you've simplified your games' systems, you should make the world completely incoherent though since the systems have very little to do with worldbuilding or narrative. Having armies filled women is stupid. Even in fantasy they're still weaker than their males counterpart, they have other advantages but strenght is definetely not one of them. Some women could overcome their physical inferiority and become good warriors, and that's fine, but most men will remain more effective soldiers. There are plenty of other ways to make powerful female characters in fantasy, without disrupting the world's credibility. Having the game mechanics not reflect the lore and vice versa is one of the best ways I know of to make the game world unbelievable. That said, I probably wouldn't have even noticed the preponderance of female characters were it not for the comment about it (which I read prior to reading the story.)

Yeah, I'm kind of suffering from content overload as well. I'm level 15 and I just arrived in Novigrad (still haven't talked to Triss yet, but I spent ~2000 crowns on books...), but I've still got ~45 POI in Velen I haven't checked out just because I was about at the point I was going to be screwed out of xp (seriously, I don't mind getting less or no xp from enemies I overlevel, but quest xp should be level independent...I should never be thinking "I want to finish this questline, but I need to go do that other quest before I overlevel it.") Also annoyed that one quest (the Swamp Thing contract) updated and wouldn't let me talk to the quest giver because I apparently ran through the area for the quest while on my way to do another quest. I had no way of knowing I was doing so, and lost out on the chance to negotiate price (not that it really matters, it just seemed strange for a quest to update just because I ran through a random area of a swamp...it's not like I examined something using Witcher Senses or anything.)

I'm playing The Witcher 3 but I'm only level 11, so...Blood and Wine would probably be a little tough. I'll admit, I'm wishing there was a skip combat button. Not because it's hard, but just because it's dull. Comparing it to Shadow of Mordor, Dark Souls or even Kingdoms of Amalur may be unfair (say what you want about Kingdoms of Amalur, but it had the most fun not trying to be super difficult or cinematic action combat I've ever encountered...quick switching between weapons, juggling enemies, and over the top finishers is lots of fun), but I even found Witcher 2 combat more fun (outside of the stupid potion mechanic). At least in Witcher 2 I could screw around with traps, bombs and just generally goof around, but in Witcher 3 all the enemies are so jumpy that hitting them with bombs or the crossbow is a pain (it would be less so if I didn't have to hold down the middle mouse while aiming.) Yrden got nerfed to uselessness, too. I feel like I should always be using oils since they don't get used up, but actually applying them is a pain (if I could make the mouse wheel scroll through oils and middle-click applied them, that would be so much better.) The occasional "LOL, here's an enemy 3 times the level of the other enemies in this area!" I could do without, as well (I was in a cave earlier tonight killing level 7 wraiths, then all of a sudden here's a level 20...something with an L that teleports, is now between me and the exit, and proceeded to 2 shot me with 2 quick strikes.) The fact that blue mutagens seem to drop like candy (I already have 2 greater blue mutagens made, which is what I need for my build), green are somewhat common, and getting red mutagen is like pulling teeth (I've found 1 lesser and I'll need 2 greater eventually) is a bit frustrating. I'd rather they all be somewhat rare rather than having 1 be incredibly common. I love the quests, exploring, and even just riding Roach around. Gwent is fun (though I'd like to be able to try out other factions, I just don't have the cards for them yet) and so is horse racing. The quests are incredible, the decisions are often really hard (I still am not comfortable having released whatever it was underneath that tree, but screw those hag things in Crookback Bog) and the game is just freaking beautiful (though I did have an issue earlier where I started a conversation with Geralt's back to the sunset, and the color and brightness of the setting sun made the dialogue options all but impossible to read.) Also, installing Blood and Wine reset my keybindings. Hopefully any future patches won't do the same.

That sucks. I swear I should just stop paying attention to new shows. Every single one I like gets cancelled.