BruceVC

Do you know whats laughable, that you honestly believe that a state controlled media in an autocracy where people can't protest or criticize their government is somehow more credible than a free media in any country where an independent media exists Thats the real joke And when you say "Russians love of Putin" what about those Russians that dont support him or believe in political change. They arent allowed a voice and political opponents get arrested or assassinated, great country to live in

I completed Deadfire, it gets a solid 80/100 on the globally popular " BruceVC game rating system" and I know people are thinking " thats a very high score for this highly respected game rating system " and I will summarize why But I had a surprising end to the game, I was expecting an epic and final battle at Ukaizo like with Thaos and PoE1 and as I mentioned I prepared for this by getting my party to level 20. But because I had released the Water Dragon in a previous quest the Ukaizo guardian was automatically defeated by the Water Dragon....so no final epic battle, I was disappointed But in summary what I loved about the game and some of this I have already mentioned in previous posts Obsidian successfully created a new IP with lore and mechanics that works, this is a feat in itself and it should be recognized if you think about the popularity of D&D or Elder Scrolls The strategic nature of combat for hard battles is fantastic, its one of the main reasons why I play party based RPG The overall narrative and lore of the world is very thought provoking and you really end up thinking about who you should align with and what will the outcome be. But I cannot stress enough how important the Enhanced User Interface mod is so you become familiar with the lore and understand it. I used it a lot Deadfire is as close to open world as you can get with this type of game. You can sail to almost any island you want, explore any dungeon you want and face the consequences...brilliant risk vs reward outcomes and you feel motivated to explore and find new islands I enjoyed the crafting and how you can customize your character build and especially the abilities and spells at higher levels, they make a significant difference in combat Deadfire also provided some uncommon but appreciated features like the sailing mechanic and how naval combat works. I ended up just doing normal combat on the decks of the ships but there was the other option So excellent game and Im really disappointed there wont be a PoE3

Im 76 hours into Deadfire and loving it I decided to change my approach to completing the game, when I got near the end with the journey to Ukaizo and who should I align with around factions for the journey I was only level 15-16. So I decided to complete all the DLC and get my party to level 20 before heading for Ukaizo Great idea and it allowed me some epic end boss battles that demonstrate for me the best part of the game, the strategic nature of tough battles And for most of the DLC I couldn't defeat the end boss but then I came back later on level 20 and I have been successful on every end boss so far I loved all the DLC with my favorite probably being the Crucible arena fights and I really enjoyed the Beast of Winter. Neriscyrlas was my hardest fight and particularly because of Llengrath's Safeguard but once I had access to Arcane Cleanser the battle became much more manageable But my favorite spell is Concelhaut's Crushing Doom, nothing better that seeing enemies getting smashed by the hammer I also have Concelhaut and Nemnok as pets, Nemnoks comments are some of the funniest I have ever heard in any game Now I still need to complete the final battle with Porokoa who I haven't been able to defeat but now Im level 20 I should be victorious and I need some new crocodile skin shoes and a handbag And then I will complete the main quest and the journey to Ukaizo But overall, fantastic and enthralling party based RPG. Obsidian created a gem with this one

Are you comparing the reality of the lack of freedom in Russia to any Western country or the US ? Would you say its similar ? It reminds me of this debate on Codex, and I know you not suggesting this, but there are people who have never been to the US and just have an opinion which is influenced by SM and what they read on sensationalized forums which are all anti-Western\US So they do think the lack of freedom in the US and Russia is the same and when I ask them for examples and I use this comparison In Russia no free and fair elections no free media no criticism of the war or government allowed no real right to protest journalists and political opponents get arrested or assassinated They respond with these points about what they think about US no free and fair elections: Trump should have won and election was stolen no free media: deep state\Jews\CIA control media in the US no criticism of the war or government allowed: you cant criticize LGBT policies which government is forcing on society no real right to protest: people were arrested during Corona and werent allowed to protest and dont forget " Canadian truckers protest and how that was crushed " journalists and political opponents get arrested or assassinated : Again Trump gets mentioned or Snowden is used as an example But the point is there are people who genuinely believe the lack of freedom is the same in the Russia and the US or its not much different

https://videogames.si.com/news/disco-elysium-dev-zaum-layoffs Im not a big fan of Disco and its one of the 4-5 games I have never completed but retrenchments and companies possibly going under is never good news Apparently its linked to mismanagement?

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukrainian-forces-destroy-large-russian-landing-ship-military-says-2024-02-14/#:~:text=KYIV%2C Feb 14 (Reuters),on Wednesday%2C Kyiv's military said. Another Russian ship hit badly in the Black Sea, it makes you wonder about the future of this type of asymmetrical warfare and the usage of drones. They very effective in this type of war

Unfortunately it will get blocked in the House and this is another example of the political inconsistency in Congress

Gorthfuscious, come on How many years have we been debating Trumps grandstanding and populist rhetoric? When Trump is at a rally you cant take anything he says seriously, Im honestly surprised anyone is still "shocked " but what Trump says. These types of statements are expected Trump 101 rally theater and political hyperbole

Can I you tell what I think went mostly wrong with the interview, Putin doesnt understand the US or the Carlson audience or rather how people in most Western countries resonate with interviews No one wants to hear a long, boring and rambling answer about history from hundreds of years ago when you get asked a question about an invasion from 2 years ago. Putin doesnt understand this and its because he seldom has independent interviews from journalists who arent Russian state propagandists and especially since the invasion Codex is a good place to understand this sentiment because there lots of Carlson supporters and Vatniks who wanted this interview to provide new insights and be relevant. But its telling because they all saying how boring it was and how Putin missed an opportunity to get a relevant message across to the US audience To quote from one guy "Bleh, fell asleep yesterday and couldn't watch it live. From what i'm seeing, i didn't miss much. Putard is being typical retarded Slav droning on about **** nobody outside of Slav land is going to give a **** about. Disappoint. Guess the botox finally got to his brain "

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/02/08/tucker-carlson-putin-interview-released/ The Carlson interview with Putin is 2 hours long and as predicted it was full of Putins historical ramblings and revisionist views of the world and geopolitics and he didnt like Carlson trying to get him to stay on point and at one point said to Carlon "“I’ll tell you, I’m coming to that. This briefing is coming to an end. It might be boring, but it explains many things,” said Putin in a condescending tone " I think Carlson did the best job he could do considering Putin was obviously always going to repeat Russian propaganda so its not like we were going to learn anything new. By definition thats not how propaganda works But Carlson summarized the interview afterwards " “I’m not exactly sure what I thought of the interview. … It’s going to take me a year to decide what that was,” said Carlson in a video published on his website. “Putin is not someone who does a lot of interviews. He is not good at explaining himself. … But he’s clearly spending a lot of time in a world where he doesn’t have to explain himself.” For me it demonstrates Carlson is not a Russian shill in the normal sense, he definitely sympathizes with Russia on somethings but thats not the same as being a Vatnik or typical shill

Actually I have raised that question on Codex many times but its more directed towards Vatniks and anti-Western people who all live and benefit from the lifestyle that Western countries provide and I ask them " if you love Putins policies so much and Western countries have become degenerate why don't you immigrate to Russia. If you think Western countries have the same lack of freedom as Russia then whats stopping you? Get your migration going ?" And of course no one wants to emigrate to Russia, they just Internet ideologues. And yet anyone can emigrate to Russia if they want, Putin has said he wants like minded people to emigrate to Russia and Russia has offered to absorb white Afrikaans farmers from South Africa https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/why-russia-is-wooing-south-africas-white-farmers/2018/09/23/3308a7c4-b6a3-11e8-ae4f-2c1439c96d79_story.html But some Americans have immigrated to Russia to escape the " tyranny of LGBT rights ", this guys looks like a fantastic neighbour

The failure of Congress to agree on the latest border deal is ...a joke and just highlights culture wars disfunction and people playing politics instead of whats best for the US Biden and the Dems failed to do anything meaningful over the last 4 years and even repealed prudent Trump policies like " remain in Mexico " But the last 3 months committed people from both sides have been working on a deal that addressed many points of what the GOP wanted or asked for Trump then jumps on his theater soapbox and basically destroys the deal because sycophant MAGA Republicans do everything he rants about because of the base and they dont want to lose support So the best deal to come out of Congress in decades is torpedoed and both sides will blame each other but both sides share responsibility for the disaster the border has become The border crisis will continue because for many people in Congress they not really concerned with fixing problems in the US but rather what the optics look like for the 2024 elections

I dont know how accurate that is because US culture war garbage is spread by people in the media on both the left and right but it doesnt apply to everyone in the media. There are still people in the US media who have integrity and believe in the important role the media is supposed to play which is about reporting on events in an objective way as much as possible But what does concern me is how so many people consider Carlson to be a paradigm of truth and literally only believe what he says, they dont even trust Fox anymore and if you are Conservative thats unusual. We should try to have a wide range of sources around the media and always be prepared to question or confirm a story But its like personality politics and personality media is more important than objective reasoning

No , you dont understand Carlson cares about THE TRUTH, he is not controlled by the deep state like all other media in the US....remember how he exposed the cheating in the 2020 elections with the Dominion voting machines No one knows anything about Putins opinion on the invasion and only Carlson can bring us Putins truthful views

I like to give people the benefit of doubt and hope they do understand there own argument, what he is talking about is the normal BRICS narrative and anti-Western rhetoric and I have heard it all before on Codex and I have had several debates on this same topic but I still am interested in the questions I asked And there are several common points that always get raised around the BRICS narrative and this gets repeated in SA by BRICS activists and one of them is where people confuse GDP and GDP PPP where BRICS is ahead in GDP PPP but not GDP compared to the G7 https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-comparing-the-gdp-of-brics-and-the-g7-countries/ But that debate is a distraction because both GDP measurements for BRICS or the G7 is not because of specific or unique trade deals within BRICS, its normal trade and economic activity that would exist even if BRICS didnt exist So the data is correct but not the reason for the data. Which is why I always ask the same question " what is the real economic benefit for being part of BRICS" , what is the BRICS equivalence to the EU single market or AGOA for Africa? Because then you can say " these are the specific economic benefits to join BRICS " but if there arent any substantive benefits then it will continue to be a talk-shop

Oh I know all about BRICS, I live in a BRICS country What are the specific economic benefits for being part of BRICS? What trade deals does BRICS provide that only BRICS members get access to ? You can trade with any BRICS country and it doesnt matter if you part of BRICS or not part of BRICS because normal WTO trade rules is used For example AGOA (African Growth and Opportunity Act ) is a specific trade deal between certain African countries and the US but it has real trade benefits that help African countries because they get reduced tariffs to sell there exported goods in the US https://ustr.gov/issue-areas/trade-development/preference-programs/african-growth-and-opportunity-act-agoa What are similar economic benefits for joining BRICS, I am not looking for broad generalisations or rhetoric like " The result is a growing multipolar global economy, with lots of bilateral trade and economic blocs outside the influence of the U.S." What does that even mean , any country can trade with any country in the world . The US doesnt control that but whats more relevant to this debate is I am looking for specific trade deals like AGOA that apply to BRICS members. You can find me any unique benefit that applies to BRICS members and I will read them For BRICS to become a meaningful and beneficial economic union it has to have some sort of common institutions like a Central Bank which controls monetary policy for BRICS like the EU and the ECB, BRICS doesnt have a shared currency and it has countries that have very different types of governments so the legality of economic policies cant be enforced within BRICS like how the EU successfully functions around internal EU trade on things like tariffs for EU members But the point is just post some links about what specific economic agreements you get from joining BRICS and these are benefits that if you not a BRICS member you cant get

36 hours in to Deadfire and its still lots of fun My party is level 12 and I use the skull quest rating system to decide if Im ready for a quest and its generally accurate. I decided to do the Bekarna's Folly after robbing from Arkemyr And I ended up having one of the hardest and most exciting battles with the foul and arrogant lich Concelhaut, he slaughtered me the first 2 times but then I changed my strategy. I kept my party at the bottom of the stairs as you enter the roof of the observatory but sent Eder in solo mode to draw aggression and run away back to the rest of my companions That worked and I was able to separate Concelhaut allies and defeat them all in 2 separate battles , it was still really hard but I was victorious I love the strategic nature of these types of hard battles in party based isometric RPG. I enjoy how literally each turn matters and how you assign combat tasks to your party and then you wait to see the results

Chicken livers on pizza is delicious, you can also make it hot with chilli's and red peppers and peppadews, Im not sure if you get peppadews in Austria? They an SA export but really popular https://www.peppadew.com/products/

I have started making my own pizzas, I dont make the dough but I buy a fresh good quality supermarket pizza that you cook for 20 minutes with standard Margherita base or 1-2 other ingredients but then I add other toppings This allows me to be more creative and experimental This weekend I cooked fresh chicken livers and added that with onions and banana. Then I always add extra cheese and this really enhances the taste because I have used mature cheddar, gruyere, blue cheese or goat cheese but it always differs. So the pizza will always have Mozzarella and one other type of cheese

You mean like BRICS, I have heard about it? Its all about creating a more equitable and fairer world and giving the Global South a seat at the table. And its deeply influenced by China and Russia and these are examples of countries that have always cared about global inequality, because they not Western countries, so it has to succeed and then the likes of Saudi Arabia should also be joining BRICS. Another fine example of country where human rights and a multipolar world matters

No its not that bad as the Newsweek article suggests, this is an updated article 1 week after the Newsweek one https://www.politico.eu/article/commission-declares-victory-in-million-artillery-round-mission/#:~:text=The EU executive's de facto,has hit the magic number "The EU executive's de facto defense commissioner, Thierry Breton, pledged last year to get a million rounds of ammunition ready for supply to Ukraine by the close of March 2024, and while actual deliveries to Kyiv are way below that figure, he now says that manufacturing capacity has hit the magic number. "We are already at this level today, in other words — we are two months ahead of schedule in our capacity to produce more ammunition in Europe, of course for Ukraine but also for our own security," Breton said Wednesday on the sidelines of a defense ministers' meeting in Brussels.

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/experts-react/experts-react-three-us-servicemembers-were-killed-in-jordan-will-the-us-strike-back-at-iran/ We know about the US response to this yesterday but Im not sure if everyone is aware that US interests in the ME have faced over 150 attacks since 7 October by Iranian proxies Now the justification for this seems to be "but look at what Israel is doing in Gaza" and I find that hand waving unconvincing. Israel is not the US and Iran is not the Palestinians or Hamas Iran is continuously provoking the US and escalating tensions with the US and we shouldnt be surprised how the US responds

Im 20 hours into PoE2 and still loving it I appreciate the whole design of finding islands and exploring them, its a good way to motivate exploration especially if you need supplies on a long ship voyage I also decided to implement Level Scaling but only upwards, this was strongly recommended from people on Codex who pointed out combat becomes too easy if you dont do this and the level scaling is only by 4 levels so you wont find a level 10 rat, if the rat is level 2 it will only scale upwards to 6, which is silly and unrealistic Anyway it has made me much more strategic in battles. I was using the AI most of the time for my companions and now Im micromanaging more Im also really enjoying the broader narrative and interacting with the gods and understanding what are Eothas motives, I can see myself having to make huge and difficult decisions later on similar to the end of PoE1 but this time I understand more about the lore and history of the game world so my final decision about who I support should be better informed Im pursuing Romance with Xoti, Im helping her with her soul burden journey and I love her cute Southern accent

Its hard to read intent but you dont seem happy? Ukraine needs funding to continue its defense against the Russian invasion and this aid is a huge part of a successful Ukrainian military strategy This is good news and well done to the EU, here is an updated link about this https://www.dw.com/en/eu-leaders-reach-deal-on-50-billion-ukraine-aid-package/live-68140069#:~:text=Just one hour into the,in Brussels in mid-December.

@Malcador Dont you remember what we all thought before the invasion of Ukraine? "Of course Putin wont invade Ukraine, no chance of that. Stupid Western intelligence, they always lie ...remember WMD in Iraq " ...and look what happened We cant assume anything when it comes to Putins warmongering and nationalism