IndiraLightfoot

Mr Burns seems like an apt nickname now: And btw: Chris Krebs That press conference was the most dangerous 1hr 45 minutes of television in American history. And possibly the craziest. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re lucky.

Being overseas, in northern Europe, I can clearly see a decline on the interwebs as far as anything Trump goes, and I don't just mean a decline compared to the hectic months before the US election, I mean quite a notable decline - the number of reports about Trump is at a low frequency soon matching the one early 2016. In a few months, at this rate, he'll be almost forgotten over here. For instance, I read more reports already about Ivanka than about Donald and his administration + his lawyers, and I predict that the reports will be more tabloid-y by the week. So, the scary thing, to avoid oblivion, he needs to start a fire and a huge one. I fear the worst, but hope for the best.

Well, that's reassurring... Not! That is one humongous group of people. I wish it wasn't so large, but propaganda and misinformation are powerful tools, as history has shown us again and again.

Just watched the movie Motherless Brooklyn on Netflix. It was great, decent script based on a book, fantastic photography and lighting, and the actors and the music, almost stellar straight on through.

The US system with electors is flawed in many ways, but I hadn't really given this aspect much thought. A ruthless president could very well use his power and dubious connections to put extreme pressure on an number of electors, working like a mafia boss, threatening them and their families to change their votes. Has anything like this ever happened over the pond? My guess is no, since we would have heard about it, or perhaps it's ancient history.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey was the first installment of that series that I've played, and I really liked it, so I've just bought Ass Creed Valhalla, but this time I didn't splash out for a season pass. I'm even going through the trouble of downloading Ubisoft Connect (sadly no Steam this time around), but I know that this game will be fun enough to be great value for money.

Food for thought: Given the huge amounts of votes for Trump and all this talk of Trumpism, and him have taken over the Republican party, what on earth made many of those people (those old enough to have voted the last decades) vote for George W Bush earlier (more or less carrying the torch of his father and Reagan, simplistically speaking)? Were they harboring Trumpism "views" (mostly prejudice, ignorance and fear, with a deep-seated longing for a great leader), but felt that they had to settle for Bush's rather different direction (reasonably consensus, conservative-liberal, international alliances and warfare, not very protectionist, free trade, etc.)? And, so, has the Bush politics lost all traction, even its existential validity? How many would vote for a Mitt Romney package deal in the US nowadays, for instance? 5%? Not even that?

The spirit of Ronald Reagan can wake up from his nightmare now... [

I see, this calms me down quite a bit, still, really life-wrecking stuff. I have had heroine-using buddies die on me at a young age.

I'm fine with needle exchange. But I feel very non-liberal when I say that each and every heroine addict should be registered and given best possible treatment ASAP, hopefully detoxed at the expense of the state. I realize that the crimes they do would do to get it would be reduced (still not much, people hooked on it will keep on doing that stuff anyway), but I don't want any heroine coffee shops Amsterdam-style. Pay for their treatment at specialist rehab centers and give them substitute drugs, sure. I know, this is utterly naive on my behalf, but any cost is okay to keep them miles away from that drug.

I'm pretty liberal, no doubt about it, but what Oregon did, legalizing heroine (also cocaine), but I'm talking about heroine, specifically, is not a very wise move. It takes so little to become absolutely lifelong addicted to that ****, and it ruins each and every life it infests, not to mention the lives of friends and family, if any, surrounding the user.

Just one more turn... *Darn! Gandhi nuked me in the year 2021*

Great to see that you're back, Aarik! Or Kiraa! As the Backwards Dragon would roar...

*glancing at above poster's avatar pic*

After like 3 hours more I decided to put it down. I really enjoy it, and unlike my extensive beta testing sessions for PoE1 and PoE2, I'll not make that "mistake" again. This is fun enough to have unspoiled. I just want the game to happen to me like in the good old days. Unfortunately, I took a glance at Tale's post, Wish I hadn't. I'll avoid spoilers from now on. My final feedback is that I really liked the updated old school inventory system, but updated with some of PoE2 innovative stuff (from my invo, I get to send cumbersome "to camp" - and speaking of camp, I love how resting, camps and death works in this game, as well as the slow d20 rolls for skill checks), and when you find scrolls, my wizard can learn them as spells for a fee. So, I'll be stalwart and uninstall it and wait for at least a year for the finished product. Wish me luck!

Here's mine (which I bought like 3 years ago) https://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-Omen-15-7700HQ-GTX-1060-Max-Q-Full-HD-Laptop-Review.236264.0.html

Alright, here's my little report after a very slow playthrough 6h in: -Using my Omen laptop, the very nicely done cutscenes managed to press my system to the max, and finally, one of the scenes caused the game to freeze (my first and only crash). Larian advised peeps like me to switch from Vulkan to DirectX11, and that did the trick for me. -I could've sworn I named my Ranger Indira Lightfoot, but in game she's consistently been called Tav. Well, thank you for the surprise, I guess. -The thing that's bugged me the most is that screen edge panning constantly resetting itself. Half of the time it doesn't work. Also, a pity that I can't adjust the font size. Otherwise, the tutorial aspects of it and the systems are pretty intuitive for any CRPG veteran. -My party is level 2 going on level 3, and you spend quite some time in both these levels. So levelling doesn't feel too fast, which I'm happy with. -The ability to interact with the environment, all the level differences, the use of ice, fire, brine, grease and acid, although over the top in effects, is really fun This is right up Larian's alley - I dare say that this makes combat more entertaining, but also slower, and not necessarily more complex. -Combat takes time, moving around in the environment takes time, since you need to rotate your camera and actively search, and also often move objects, destroy others, place surfaces on hostile surfaces, and so forth. The first couple of hours, this annoyed me as being too sluggish. But perhaps I'm getting old, but the pace's growing on me. I guess you'll get tired of it later, and it will make the replayability suffer a bit. But this game is not a cold beer on a hot summer day, but rather a really nice wine to savour indoors some stormy autumn evening in a log cabin, preferrably at a sturdy Ron Swanson piece of a dining table, bedazzled by flickering candlelight and nostalgia. -The biggest general praise I can give so far is that the game really feels like a PnP session. Most enemies and NPCs are quite fleshed out and so are the environments and the entire atmosphere. Very well done, Larian! -Being one of the few people that actually enjoyed Sword Coast Legends, I'll use that D&D CRPG as my benchmark (I suspect that most of you will regard that standard as ridiciculously low and desperate for new D&D content). Perhaps, but to me, If this game can be at least that good, then definitely thumbs up, worth at least one playthrough. Everything else, anything surpassing that kind of achievement, is simply icing on the cake. So far, the characters and the story are indeed better than in Sword Coast Legends. Still, the characters aren't that mature and adult in theme, but rather more simple, Teenage Witch style/quality of vanilla NWN2 OC - which I don't mind at all. The graphics in BG3 is far superior than SCL, it's like Pillars of Eternity 2 and NWN2 had a baby (most likely, it's rather DOS3, but like I said, I haven't played that game, so I can't compare them). The Inon Zur music in Sword Coast Legends is slightly better than the tunes I've been presented with in BG3- but this is just the opening sections. I'd say this music is really good, like PoE2, but not yet as PoE1. The number of character build possibilities seems to be limited, I'd guess it's like Sword Coast Legends (no deal breaker for me), but for those of you that crave a D&D CRPG statistics bonanza, I still think NWN and NWN 2 are the pinnacles of that kind of guilty pleasure.

I hope this is not the summary of what they've done with our companions. If so... Hells, hells!

Great feedback, Chilloutman! I'll give it a deeper whirl this weekend, but I agree with plenty of your points based on what I've seen so far.

Thx a bunch, SChin! Worked like a charm for me! Now I get to enjoy these forums at their fullest width!

I nearly always pick a ranger when I start a D&D game, and I did that this time too. And I recall that one of the specializations (it was called something else) you could pick from level 1 was in fact a ranger that disrupted spellcasting in some shape or form. I haven't tried it out yet, so this is very preliminary info on my part.

I actually like the new size of things, at least on my old-ish PC, but the width of the posts is too small. I have like 30% of my screen to the right doing nothing, just a dark block. Can the entire Announcements column be moved and placed at the top instead or at some home page slot and not be present always when browsing the forums? That would fix things with a vengeance!

I insta-bought it, obviously. I've played like 1h 30 min, but mostly fiddling with settings and making my first character. I haven't played DOS2, and I played the first half of Act 1 in DOS1, so to me, this is all pretty new stuff. I find that I have a real hard time with movement, camera movement, different levels, and doing this on my laptop makes it even more wonky. I'll report back. Laterz!

Avowed, Baldur's Gate 3, Humankind, Realms Beyond, next Elder Scrolls, Vampire the Masquerade, and Diablo 4.

What Remains of Edit Finch is a decent short game - it takes you along on a unique ride, that's for sure.