BruceVC

Im about 12 hours into Witcher 1 and its been an excellent and nostalgic experience Now that I know more about the Witcher lore and world I am appreciating the game even more The combat mechanics are not great but Im use to them now but Im using a mod called FCR (full combat rebalance ) I had to use a cheat in the Beast battle because of how badly designed that battle was, I hate using cheats but I had no choice You end up having to fight the Beast with no potions and you immediately get attacked in a relatively small area and having to use the frustrating overall W1 combat system It just wasnt worth spending hours to win this battle, so I loaded a cheat mod that gives you 1000 health and then once the Beast was defeated I uninstalled the Cheat I am having loads of fun with the Romance card system, it makes sense because its better than the silly Bioware Romance scenes And then W1 highlights again what an honourable person Geralt is compared to many of the " good " humans he meets like all the degeneracy and iniquity in the village on the outskirts of Vizima The hatred towards Abigail from all the influential hypocrites in the town made my decision to support her easy It surprised me when someone like @Hurlshot said he doesnt like Geralts personality because Geralts core beliefs are about justice and helping the downtrodden and he is a good person at heart who demonstrates real humanity in a harsh world that lacks it

https://www.nknews.org/2025/01/ukraine-ready-to-hand-over-kim-jong-uns-soldiers-in-prisoner-swap-zelensky/ Further evidence of NK deployments in Ukraine But what made me laugh is one of the soldiers would rather stay a prisoner than to be returned to NK Imagine how terrible it must be in NK when you would prefer being a prisoner than going home " But video of the soldiers’ interrogation that he released the same day suggested at least one of the POWs may not want to return to the DPRK, raising concerns about the potential for exchanges to violate prisoners’ wishes and international laws against sending people to countries where they could face persecution. "

It looks good, I had never heard of it How is it compared to Sunless, it does seem simpler but similar?

Thats a good and quick summary of the Lost ending and overall narrative , it works for me more or less I still think there were unanswered questions But the main point for me is From must be more definitive around its ending Why dont you start watching From, it would be interesting to get your insights now while its still on season 3 with all the questions Its better than Lost and if you watched Lost to the end and enjoyed it you will be more than happy with From?

And what do you think the US deserves, can you give 2-3 examples that would be relevant to Trump becoming president? I sometimes hear this but I never hear specific examples of what it means?

Great read, its not a surprise that the common thread in most of the blogs is the appreciation and love of the strength of Obsidians story telling and world building Someone might say " but every RPG has to have good story telling " but thats not necessarily true. You can find entertaining RPG that are strong on combat mechanics or quest choices that you enjoy but the overarching narrative is not fantastic A grand and compelling narrative that is truly thought provoking is an art that Obsidian delivers on. And I gauge that on when I literally have to stop the game and think for 15-20 minutes about what choice I need to make and the consequence around that choice Like with PoE2 and with F: NV and who I should support around who ends up controlling NV

Not really because most people voted for Trump around the main voting issues which the Dems ostensibly failed on miserably And these issues were the border\illegal migration and inflation. They didnt vote for Trump because of his stupid comments about him wanting to annex Canada or Greenland

I have been preparing for my Witcher series replay I am going to start on W1 EE and I found this informative modding guide which I am following

I just want to clarify, did you watch to the end of Lost and did you not enjoy it? Or are you saying you didnt enjoy the ending and explanations but you enjoyed the formulae of " not knowing whats really going on " ? I loved Lost, it was the first time I had ever watched this type show and it blew me away with all the possible theories. I was disappointed by the ending, I thought they rushed certain things or changed certain things that were not part of the original idea. Like the smoke monster But Lost is still one of my favourite series and there were so many memorable scenes or developments like this one with Charlie, one of the saddest and most evocative moments I had ever experienced in any series.

I do have a problem with it and its one of the main reasons I said I didnt want Trump to become the US president He doesn't take the job seriously or he makes comments like this But thats not the same thing as me believing he is going to somehow annex Canada or Greenland

But Trump is not serious about wanting to annex these places. He is basically trolling, exaggerating and grandstanding about Greenland and Canada becoming part of the US

At least Russia is no longer involved in Syria and Assad is gone, so there is potential good news for Syria becoming a stable country and then millions of Syrians living in refugee camps can return home Thats something to be hopeful about

Im not sure why people believed that because it doesnt reflect the reality of the ME especially since 7 October and Trumps support of Israel and what Netanyahu considers is necessary to secure Israel from another attack There is as inaccurate view that Trump wont commit the US to any wars but there are certain geopolitical events the US has no control over but will get involved because of alliances But this particular " deadline commitment " from Trump is silly because what more can you do to release the hostages? Hamas has demonstrated " to the last Palestinian " so I dont see how the US getting involved will change that. You cant bomb the rest of Gaza to the ground because then you will kill the remaining hostages? Iran has some influence with Hamas but how much would they have around releasing the hostages?

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/07/politics/trump-warning-gaza-hostages-negotiations-inauguration/index.html Trump said lots of things in his latest media interview yesterday And as usual it was combination of theatre, hyperbole and things he believes and can implement But he stated several times " all hell will break out in the ME if the hostages arent released " by the time he becomes president "“It will not be good for Hamas and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone. All hell will break out. I don’t have to say anymore, but that’s what it is,” Trump said in remarks at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Tuesday, adding that “there should have never been” the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel." So this is what I call a Trump deadline commitment and he now has to to deliver on it The question is really what more can the US do to get Hamas to release the hostages, Gaza is already utterly devastated and Irans proxies have been severely eroded and still the hostages havent been released? It would have been better if Trump had said something like " one of my first priorities will be to get the hostages released " but now he has created a deadline that he needs to act on

I completed the main Underrail narrative after about 130 hours As I mentioned in previous posts its an excellent game and well worth playing What stands out as exceptional are these main mechanics and components Combat and how you have to adopt different strategies to win. In most large battles you cannot use the same approach exploration and the vastness of the map and then different places to find how you can use different builds to solve quests, lots of effort was put into this and it works The single hardest battle I had outside of the final battle was with an enemy AI called IRIS, it took me about 12 tries but I finally succeeded by using mines, EMP grenades and my PSI abilities and then I used the side room to control how the Robots could attack me and then I could focus my attacks on a specific area The only real criticism I have is the final Mutagen puzzle was too hard, I have never come across a puzzle that was so difficult to understand. I ended up using guides to finally create Exitus which is a basically a Mutagen and helps in the final battle I find it hard to believe that anyone could solve this puzzle without guides but obviously some people did that. If you a gamer who prides themselves on being good on solving puzzles here is an example of the solution to this. If you havent played Underrail it might not make sense but this link is an example of the complexity of what is expected https://steamcommunity.com/app/250520/discussions/0/412449508288532344/ And now Im playing Expedition and its great fun. I really appreciate how they add components like the NavCom device to help you navigate the map without making it too easy I like the factions and Im aligned with Aegis

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/06/americas/justin-trudeau-set-to-resign-canadian-prime-minister-intl/index.html Trudeau has resigned @Malcador Whats your opinion on this is, is it good or bad? Are you glad he has resigned And what would be the real justification, I see article says " A viral confrontation with a steel worker, who criticized Trudeau for not addressing the high cost of living, captured the growing discontent among Canadians. “You’re not really doing anything for us, Justin,” the worker remarked, highlighting a sentiment that resonated widely. " So is it really about inflation? I can understand that but this is a global reality and every country has suffered from that since the lockdowns ended and people will naturally blame the government but in this case inflation was caused primarily by a global event and no country was spared

I get the criticism, this is not the first time I have heard it before about these types of shows Lost and From is not for everyone because one thing that wont change is you will never know whats really happening until its confirmed in the last season But since you have watched season 3, heres my theory

Yes its very similar to Lost, 2 of the executive producers on From also worked on Lost And its a good formulae if you enjoy that type of design, you not suppose to know whats going on and you end up guessing as the series unfolds. But lots gets revealed @LadyCrimson watch till the end of season 3. I have a very good theory about what the town is about and we can discuss it once you updated to the end of season 3 From has become my favourite supernatural horror series of all time

Yes thats a huge and obvious difference between state sponsored human rights abuses in places like Russia or China and the West or countries like South Africa You can literally find daily protests in the latter group and the media covering both real and exaggerated criticism of the state. For some people its how they earn there money But you wont find that within China, there is no legal recourse for citizens Its definitely not the same

Al-Jazeera has reported consistently and constantly on what China is doing to the Uyghurs and they have an active page dedicated to this ongoing state sponsored abuse of a minority group And they not " Western media " so you should be able to trust them https://www.aljazeera.com/tag/uighur/

https://abcnews.go.com/US/new-orleans-attack-latest-fbi-dhs-warn-copycat/story?id=117290889 Im sure everyone is aware of the ISIS affiliated terrorist attack in New Orleans, terrible event especially during this holiday time Its been a while since the US has had an ISIS domestic attack?

I have some very exciting news I am about to finish Underrail and after all this debate and discussion around W4 I have realized how much I miss the entire Witcher universe I have decided to replay the whole Witcher series, I only played these iconic games once and I didnt mod them This time I will use extensive mods I am looking forward to revisiting the world of Geralt

Melkie I havent played Skyrim yet, I have been preparing to play it and I have been researching the various mod collections I am going to use Wabbajack to automatically install the several thousand mods that will be part of the Wabbajack collection I finally decide to use And it seems to be a choice between Wildlander and Lorerim but I am definitely going to use Requiem as the foundation and all these types of Mod collection do But I highly suggest using Wabbajack, it makes it much easier to see and browse the main Mod collections and all the collections have been tested and they have active Discord and other similar support forums for any issues

I was laughing about this joke about uuuhhi because its funny when I have been accused of being an alt-account its been with people that I have very little in common around our posts So I was sometimes accused of being Obys alt-account Oby was someone who I dont think I ever agreed on one thing he ever raised and thats unusual. I would hope my alt-account had somethings in common with me I do agree on uuuhhii on certain things and I do read his posts and he raises issues that are a concern

Sorry I wasnt suppose to make the post yet and I did leave out the Trans issues that are the reasons for the political attention and the Trans issues become issues for many Conservatives because they are often seen in a negative light that they believe wants to really undermine functional American values and the Trans rights is just an excuse to do this. I dont personally believe this but I can how some Trans rights laws can intentionally undermine some positive values that do work So for many people its not a dislike of Trans people so much as certain realities and state laws that say they about protecting Trans rights but the outcomes influence other things So the main points around this are the whole pronoun debate and also how you now find multiple terms in many forms around your identify reference : seen badly because it overcomplicates normal identification and is used to get attention as opposed to being something that was necessary Trans athletes in sports: I would say its the "biggest " issue because it is seen as a decision that can undermine the fairness of women's events, we do have solutions around this but its an active talking point When young people can or should transition and states have different laws around this but end of the day I believe parents have a right to say no to a school that they dont want there child to transition. California has laws where a child can decide to transition and the schools dont have to notify the parents or get parental permission and this differs from school to school because several schools are challenging this because they have a view that parents must be involved https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/californias-ban-lgbtq-parental-notification-policies-faces-legal/story?id=112038082 I realize the California decision was well meaning because they wanted to address cases of suicides where parents said no to the child transitioning so the legislation is basically about reducing how Transphobic parents could create suicide But its too much to now pass a law around this because the reality now is a child can decide to transition and the parents wont have any influence in this decision but end of day its parents that raise children and its not the schools that end up doing this And also parents can have a myriad of reasons to not support a child from transitioning until 18 and its not because of transphobia The reason for this post was the original and legitimate question around "why is there so much political and media attention on Trans people when they represent such a small group " Because its about the laws and decisions around Trans right that can impact other things outside of the objective of just being about Trans rights