BruceVC

I just bought both DLC for PoE1 and then PoE 2 Great price on Steam with 75% off I am currently playing NWN2 and its expansions so I will play White March and PoE 2 after that

You joking right? The Red Sea is an important global freight transportation route and who are the Houthis to decide what ships can use it? And apparently they not attacking Russian or Chinese ships. Its long overdue what the US did and hopefully they continue to protect the Red Sea Much of the world doesn't care about conflicts in the ME so why should there economies be impacted by whats happening in Gaza? I didnt think I would find anyone who would defend the obvious criminality and opportunism of groups like the Houthis?

https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/israel-supreme-court-strikes-down-governments-controversial-legal-reform-4782728 The SC in Israel has striked down Netanyahu's attempt to ignore what SC says and make him and other politicians less accountable Good news for Israel's Democracy and bad new for Netanyahu and his right-wing coalitions attempts for legal overhaul

Hurlshot its fine to criticize BG3 but please dont be racist about it BG3 has feelings to and words have an impact, never forget how words have agency

Well thats a huge part of the problem in Africa with corruption and policy failure in several countries that include Zimbabwe. Populist rhetoric blaming things on Colonialism and not being an effective government but enriching yourself at the expense of the future of your citizens is real And Malema is not just an anti-white, ignorant, racist demagogue. Every single one of the EFF economic policies is about nebulous and extreme mass nationalization of banks, land, mines and even our Central Bank whose monetary policy is global and defined in the Constitution. So the "shareholders " are not normal shareholders, they dont define policy and they have no influence to appoint 8/15 members of the board which include the Central Bank governor and deputy governors. The EFF wants to "nationalize " our Central Bank but the policies are already controlled and managed by government appointees. So the EFF dont really peddle " lets blame Colonialism" as much as they have really bad economic policies they want to implement and they spend most of the time blaming the ANC for things but they dont provide any realistic alternative solutions, they all about grandstanding and populism. Its easy to do that when you are a opposition party, 11% of national vote, and don't control or manage anything politically or have to take responsibility for the policies you espouse But the point being I dont have framed pictures of Mugabe or Malema for these reasons

This is a good point, we all so opposed and outraged by Colonialism and Western Imperialism in Africa so we should accept and support all countries that dont want anything to do with Russia and Putins attempt to recreate the Russian empire and its borders. Who says sovereign countries must learn Russian or care about Russian history, it should be a choice that the elected governments make. Russia doesnt get to decide that for other countries Always say NO to Colonialism !!!!

Guys lets all vote for BG3 where its been nominated @melkathi Melkie dont get angry but I voted for Starfield for innovation because with mods I believe it can achieve great innovation, its about the potential for innovation

I did enjoy the game, its definitely worth playing. It scored a 70/100 on the " BruceVC game rating system " But I do remember the final battle being very frustrating, @Hawke64 may have a different opinion on that battle. I did some research afterwards and there certain abilities you can take that make it less exasperating

I checked now on Steam and I played Vampyr on the 1 October 2020 so I dont remember much of the game except for having to find people to feed on which was fun and then advancing certain skills over others is advantageous in combat I do remember the final boss fight which involved an incredibly painful and laborious strategy to win, I cant remember exactly what that was but you will find that out yourself

We did something different this year for Christmas lunch,we went to a really good restaurant called Simons at a Wine Estate called Groot Constantia, red wine was amazing. I had at least a whole bottle to myself https://simons.co.za/gallery/ It was an excellent Christmas buffet and one of my brothers has a daughter called Amelia who is 1 year old and she is as cute as a button with chubby cheeks But my sister bought me one of the funniest presents and completely appropriate ...a NK joke gift, she knows me well

Merry Christmas everyone, I hope you all have a good time with family and friends. Eat lots of food and enjoy the break

I completed Steve Jackson's Sorcery and I really enjoyed the nostalgic experience as the book series was my favorite Fighting Fantasy series of all time. The developers understandably changed several things for the PC experience but many aspects of the game were traditional and appreciated I then decided to play NWN2 again, Im loving it. I loaded some recommended mods and the journey is great so far, I love my companions and the party interactions....hilarious exchanges Early days, 20 hours in so further updates to follow

I enjoyed Vampyr and it was always a conundrum about who I fed on...I didnt really like killing any good people but I had to survive

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/21/us/politics/russian-assets-ukraine.html Some good news, the West and specifically the US is moving closer to being able to seize the $300 billion of frozen Russian assets that will then be used to fund Ukraine and continue the war against Russia If this happens there will be an inescapable irony with Russian assets funding the war against .....Russia

I completed PoE 1 after about 70 hours, it was a very good RPG experience Firstly I give this game 75/100 on the globally followed " BruceVC game rating system " and one of the reasons it gets such a good score is because Obsidian was able to successfully create a new fantasy game world with interesting lore and a new ruleset. And thats hard with the understandable popularity of D&D rules Some of the things I enjoyed about the new ruleset was how any class can use any armour or weapons and also I liked the new classes like the Cipher. So kudos to Obsidian for being able to create something different and still enjoyable I thought the overall narrative was very unexpected and exciting, at the end I didnt think to discover the truth about the gods and I decided to release the souls back to bodies they were intended and end the hollowborn curse but I considered all the options and the consequences.Thought provoking choices at the end Combat was a big win for me and I enjoyed the mechanics involved. By slowing down the game and using pause you can literally create dozens of strategies and approaches to win battles. I did have a hard time winning certain hard fights like the Sky Dragon and the final battle with Thaos but once I started using the combat log I was able to identify what I was getting wrong with my attacks so I then started becoming strategic and used buffs to increase my accuracy and spells to decrease Will. Paralyze become my friend and Prayer against Fear was critical in the dragon fights. But I also tried to kill the Sky Dragon at level 9 and then came back later at level 11 and had a much better time I also enjoyed the Endless Paths and I decided to free the master instead of combat, great side quest A few negatives, I lost interest in reading souls after 30 or so people because you cant do anything with the knowledge you learn. It would nice to see a way where you could incorporate what you learn into a quest? And then I found some of the companions lacked depth or didnt have very compelling side quests. I would also have preferred Romance as well But overall a really good game and I plan to now play White March 1&2. Im going to have quick break and then play these expansions over Christmas holidays

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67505674 Interesting story in the US and another example of unnecessary outrage around culture wars garbage and how some people dont understand race or they have their own definition of racial identity In SA one of our races is coloured people who have their own identity and history and they mostly descendants of the Khoisan A really talented R&B singer called Tyla is breaking into the US market and she openly and proudly identifies as coloured But she was heavily criticized by some black people in the US because the word " coloured " is offensive and she is expected to say she in black...but shes not black, she is coloured In SA these are separate races but she is not mixed race either like Trevor Noah who calls himself black in the US but he is not black in SA. Black people in Africa are Bantu tribes How to avoid this , American activists mustn't assume the world is defined by there definition of race. Its not, it much more complicated than that

Let me ask you and others a different question. And I think most of us are guilty of selective outrage and what matters to us around that outrage. And I put myself in that group There are several active conflicts in the world at the moment but our focus and commentary is mostly Gaza and Ukraine And my question is about ICC war crimes and who should be charged. Do you think the following countries\people should be charged Israel\Netanyahu Hamas leadership Russia\Putin And each group should be charged for different war crimes based on what they have done in each conflict. And Putin is not being charged for what the Russian military has done in Ukraine, he is being charged for openly admitting he moved Ukrainian children to Russia I think all 3 groups need to be charged

Its terrible when journalists are killed in wars or by a state. Imagine just getting killed for doing your job and trying to bring the truth to people Here is a list of journalists killed by Russia in Ukraine and this list extends far beyond the current war. And Russia still sits on the UNSC and claims moral stances like outrage against the US but yet its blatantly political. The worlds so full of falseness and crocodile tears https://cpj.org/data/killed/europe/ukraine/?status=Killed&motiveConfirmed[]=Confirmed&motiveUnconfirmed[]=Unconfirmed&type[]=Journalist&type[]=Media Worker&cc_fips[]=UP&start_year=1992&end_year=2023&group_by=location

its just an early video and it highlights some of the themes but the twerking is just a small part of the game like stripclubs ( saying all that I do hope for a Megan Thee Stallion cameo appearance ) Here is another example of an early GTAV trailer, its more about broad concepts. If you played GTAV you will see that only one main character is in this video and this trailer had very little to do with the actual game Here are the views from a former Rockstar animator who worked on GTAV about this latest trailer. Its very positive but its more about the animations and graphics and how brilliant they look

But I do think its time for Democratic representatives to compromise on the border measures Republicans want Ukraine will get the funding if Dems compromise on that and the border has become an absolute nightmare so its another legitimate target for increased funding. Biden cant agree by himself but yes he can influence his party in Congress

They could have avoided it by answering the question in the same way they would have answered the question and do answer the question if any other minority was threatened by violence or genocide. But they didn't answer it because since 7 October they have allowed violence and anti-semitic protests and they did nothing about that either at all these universities And they knew the next question would be " why havent you done anything then about the bullying and intimidation of Jewish students " So they got terrible legal advice and failed to explain or convince anyone they were committed to what the University is suppose to represent which is a safe place for students where they not bullied or intimidated They failed to do that over the last 2 months and they failed at the inquiry

Sure but they could have easily avoided the fallout and criticism if they stated the obvious " yes it is harassment and bullying " Watch this apology video from Magill afterwards, this is exactly what they should have said or at least something similar. I do think she is being sincere and I blame there lawyers for not preparing them properly because all 3 of them had the same types of response and it was understandably a united legal response they tried to make at the inquiry ....it was just an epic failure

I'm not sure if you aware what a backlash the terrible and tone death responses the 3 presidents gave has created ? They might be fired and I wouldnt be surprised. There is lots of criticisms towards how they responded but it was clear they had listened to their lawyers too much and lacked any expected empathetic response. They couldnt answer definitively things like " is calling for genocide of Jews considered harassment and bullying of Jewish students " And there has been no real actions towards the students but lots of lip service Imagine if it was far right students calling for the genocide of black people or LGBT, there would be no uncertainty if that was considered bullying or harassment . The presidents have subsequent apologized but the damage is done Here is a video that summarizes the disaster and then apology that came afterwards

I hear you but I am not convinced that the decision to become a soldier in a foreign war, even if its for economic desperation, is the same as illegal immigrants trying to get into Finland and Russia taking advantage of that immigration objective and then the abuse of the border fails so now Russia wants to enlist them in its cannon fodder military tactics The immigrants to Finland had no intention of going to war in Ukraine until they were coerced and this is not the first time Russia has done this. People from Africa sitting in Russian jails also " joined " the Russia\Wagner army and died in Ukraine, this is common around Russian conscription https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/ukraine-crisis-russia-wagner-africa/#:~:text=Of the three African men,a hero%2C” said Prigozhin.

But if people want to volunteer and get paid to fight in any war that should be there choice, your link is different to @Gorth The BBC link is about illegal immigrants being coerced to joining the Russian army Your link says "In October 2023, The New York Times reported that hundreds of Nepalese citizens went to war in Ukraine for money - they are fighting for both the Ukrainian and Russian sides. Nepal's Ambassador to Moscow Milana Raj Tuladhara previously said that there are 150-200 Nepalese mercenaries serving in the Russian army. According to him, they are recruited with promises of big money. "Every day we send back at least one Nepalese citizen. All of them were brought to Russia to serve in the army. If a person does not have a Nepalese passport, we issue a travel document and send him back to Nepal," he said." Gorth link says "The BBC has seen evidence of several cases in which foreigners were rushed into a military camp on the border with Ukraine, days after they were picked up for breaching immigration laws. The practice of coercing people in pre-deportation detention centres to sign contracts for army service in Ukraine is not new, but the numbers swelled as foreign migrants arrived at Russia's 1,340-km (833-mile) border with Finland" But they are different ways Russia is recruiting but the Nepal example is fine because its a choice?