Keyrock

The last Armored Core game I played was one of the PS2 games, I don't remember if it was 2 or 3. Anyway, AC6 looks really good. It's cool to see From Software return to its roots. Well, I guess From Software's roots would be King's Field, but there's not much point in returning to that series when Dark Souls exists.

BioWare is certainly not alone in pulling a stunt like that, I've encountered that crap quite a few times and it drives me crazy every time. There will be a boss fight and when you reach a trigger point, 33% boss health, 25%, whatever, the cutscene plays with the boss leaving me a bloody, beaten mess barely clinging to life. it doesn't matter if I was absolutely mopping the floor with them during the actual fight. Why even have the fight if you're going to have me get stomped in a cutscene? Forget the fight, just have me get stomped in the cutscene. Better yet, there are a few games that handle this sort of thing in a much superior way by putting you in a battle you are supposed to lose (usually very early in the game). However, the battle is not impossible, it's just LUDICROUSLY difficult. If you manage to beat this battle that you are supposed to lose the game continues and it will slightly alter your early game, but there comes a time where it doesn't matter and the game is the same regardless of if you lost like you were supposed to or you beat the nearly unbeatable battle.

I am cutting a swath through the northern part of the map on my way toward the diamond mine in the northwest corner. As a bonus, there's another diamond shipment I can intercept on the way. On maps where I can set up a really good defensive position I employ the ol' let the enemy come to me and introduce it to the concept of overwatch strategy. Now that I got my hands on a Dragunov and a RPK, this is only going to get worse for the legion. I left Fosse Noire be for now, I'm not hard up for money and attacking it would piss off Definitely Not Che Guevara. I'm not looking to break an alliance just yet. I may do a scorched earth run in the future with Meltdown and Nails and any other psychopaths I can hire, with the aim being to piss off everybody and to leave Grand Chien a smoking ruin. With my current group, though, I'm going to play nice, for the time being, at least.

You could say they were lacking... Ambition. I'll show myself out.

Elon stole the old X Window System logo

All Your Banks Are Belong To Elon

I liberated Pantagruel and met with Definitely Not Che Guevara. Right now I'm playing ball with him because something something an enemy of my enemy, but if it comes down to it I'll put the commies in the dirt, same as the legion. For now, though, we're "allies". @LexxThere might be a mod to increase maximum zoom.

I made naan. It won't win any awards for presentation but who cares, it's delicious. Side-note: I always thought the most Murican breakfast was cold pizza.

Delete pls. I meant to edit my post, not quote it.

No issues with quests so far, as far as I can tell, but I'm pretty certain I'm nowhere near as far into the game as @Hurlshortthus I haven't completed nearly as many. I had a 2 for 1 special where in one sector I both rescued Claudette and intercepted a diamond shipment. Some good money that diamond shipment, I wouldn't mind intercepting another one. If nothing else, I'm more than set for the next time my mercs' pay comes due, which is still a few days away. I'm slowly making my way toward the diamond mine in the northwest corner. Hopefully I'll be strong enough to take it when I get there.

How did I not know about this earlier?

I recently got my Pathfinder 2e core rulebook in the mail and I'm slowly sifting through the 640 pages to see how it has changed. It seems like most of the streamlining is for the better. I like complexity and options as much as the next guy, but 1e can get quite overwhelming. I think I like 2e better than 1e; too early to say if I like it better than D&D 5e. I suppose it's all speculation until I put it into action. As for Pillars, I finished the first game and I liked it well enough at first, but that faded over time and about 2/3 of the way through, around the time I encountered the 857th filler battle, I really really wanted to quit. I was so worn out but I forced myself to finish the game. As for Deadfire, by all rights it should have been a game I enjoyed more than the first, but it just didn't hold my interest. I don't know if I even got halfway through it.

We've seen from the Twitter Files and a recent interview with Mark Zuckerberg that US government agencies were putting pressure on social media companies to remove content that in Zuck's own words turned out to be worthy of debate or true. Many individuals that proposed the lab leak theory for the origin of the Covid pandemic were slandered, demonized, and in some cases deplatformed (hence why there is currently a lawsuit, Missouri vs Biden, against a slew of government agencies). The lab leak theory since has not only gained traction, it's considered to be the most likely scenario by many, including the FBI. There is currently a bill proposed in legislation called the RESTRICT Act that's been dubbed the Patriot Act 2.0. In its current iteration it would give the Secretary of Commerce the power to block or withhold finances of any tech product that's even partially owned by a "foreign adversary". Given the multinational nature of tech companies these days, that could be almost any company (it's up to them who's a "foreign adversary"). In theory, the bill does include exclusions that are meant to keep free information flowing, but it would be a dangerous step down a slippery slope.

OpenMW 0.48 released The most notable addition is shiny new post processing effects.

Some of my most memorable characters in D&D were very flawed, granted this was p&p D&D where a good DM can (and did) alter things on the fly to make spectacular failure fun and interesting and not a game over screen. I realize that within the limitations of a vidya game it's much more difficult for the devs to account for and make failing interesting.

This was likely a limitation of the Infinity Engine, but it used to drive me crazy when a cutscene would play and my party would just stand there frozen in place (well, their idle animations would play, but I couldn't move them) while Sarevok or whoever would walk onto the screen, give a lengthy speech, do something horrible, and walk off, all while my party are standing 40 yards away like idiots. Sometimes the devs would at least put something there that could conceivably block me from getting to the villain while they are doing villainous things, like a chasm, never mind that I could shoot arrows across a chasm, but at least it's something. However there were times where there was nothing in between me and the villain and my dumbass party just stood there and did nothing. They had enough time to where they could have made sandwiches, eaten said sandwiches, cleaned up after themselves, and still had plenty of time to intervene, but instead they just stood there like idiots. Anyway, please tell me that Larian did away with that in BG3.

This refugee camp assault was the most smooth battle I've pulled off so far. I took zero damage. I had Blood sneak up on a goon and kill him with a thrown knife to the schlong. Another goon noticed the dead body but not before Blood got into hiding, so the enemies were alerted but didn't know where any of my mercs were. They all funneled toward the dead body where one by one they all got shot in the family jewels, largely by Dethwish from up high, but everybody got in on the junk destruction. This guy has his priorities straight.

I'm getting ready to assault the refugee camp and Dr. Q wants me to kill every enemy in the sector with shots to the schlong. You know what, doc, just for you I'm going to make it happen.

I took advantage of an unusually cool July morning to hike up to King's Pinnacle in Crowder's Mountain State Park.

Disagree. If I had no other choice I would put a sticker of a cutesy anime magical girl with sparkles and cherry blossoms over the demon dog to make the card less embarrassing.