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PK htiw klaw eriF
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Posts posted by PK htiw klaw eriF
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11 minutes ago, Hawke64 said:
The key systems, the narrative style, and plot-points are somehow too similar to D:OS2 (also, most battles were possible to "cheese" there). If the worse aspects were improved (the game spent years in EA with them present), it would be preferable. Larian did decrease the amount of environmental features (everything is not on fire all the time), but there is still no pause, the inventory and party management are awful, the party members sound like someone's first PCs, the lore does not work well with D&D or BG1/2, the final choice between two obviously Evil NPCs, etc.
I definitely agree about the pause and inventory management, and I'd say that besides the lack of a day/night system those are my biggest complaints about the game. But WotC routinely changes the lore in a way that doesn't work well with previous dnd things so I'm not particularly bothered by Larian doing it here (it also doesn't help that Forgotten Realms kinda sucks). The final choice in BG3 is mostly bad for some spoiler reasons, but the TL;DR is that it's not that much different than the big choice in BG2.
SpoilerThe biggest problem I have with the binary endgame choice is that the negative consequences of it aren't there in the game.
If you don't really investigate The Emperor, everything he does and says comes across as genuine. You have to really look into his background (which means passing some hidden/passive checks I believe) and have some knowledge of recent Forgotten Realms lore to realize that he turned Duke Stelman into his thrall and was running an evil business syndicate for decades (centuries?) before he was captured, to say nothing of what he did to Ansur. If you miss this, and it is easy to miss, then the Emperor is exactly what he presents himself as, a mind flayer with free will who doesn't want to be under the Netherbrain and the game ends with him happily floating off to be a free mind flayer who definitely won't be doing shady business deals or mentally enslaving people.
If you free Orpheus he transforms from the heir of a brutal empire to an honorable hero who will reform the evil Githyanki empire into something less evil. He went from wishing my bard was dead "YOU FORNICATED WITH A MIND FLAYER!" to calling us friends in like two conversations. I'm perfectly willing to accept that Orpheus is not a bad guy, or even clears the subterranean hurdle of being better than Vlaakith, but the game needs to do a better job of showing that than him being chill.
Basically the game needs to do a better job of fleshing out what both choices mean before you make it and it doesn't because they're both Act 3 issues and Act 3 is a bit of a cluster****. I hope that Larian does another enhanced/definite edition that fixes the last bit because that would make the game much better.
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I don't think sales are an indicator of quality, most Bethesda games sell extremely well but they're half-baked piles of **** that crash every 15 minutes. Sales matter for a business perspective but on our end as players it seems weird to be obsessing over them, the experience you had playing a game isn't going to be impacted by how many other people bought it.
Unfortunately for BG3 enjoyers, it selling well isn't going to necessarily mean that you get more BG3s. As much as I'd like to see Sawyer's PoE3, a AAA Pathfinder game, a AAA Shadowrun, etc. I think "Star Trek with a crew that ****s" or "LotR with waifus" is as likely a beeg studio response to BG3, perhaps moreso.
59 minutes ago, Wormerine said:While that is a conclusion a publisher might take, and they would totally rush a half-baked BG4 to cash in (like Dragon Age2, after DA1), I am not sure if Larian would take that route. Before that making BG3 might have been an odd choice, instead of making D:OS2. And D&D and BG IP definitely brought attention to the project, I am doubtful that people who enjoyed the game, enjoyed it because it was D&D and Forgotten Realms.
I think we're going to see a BG4, whether by Larian or someone else. I'd hope that if Larian doesn't do it that we'd get something similar to Kotor 2 (but finished properly) or NWN2....MotB, but we won't know until it's out.
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Halloween Ends (2022) - out with a whimper. The film tries some new angles with moving on and some dumb **** about getting infected by evil, but that can't save it from being boring. Many of the kills are too telegraphed and almost feel justified, with few exceptions the murders committed by the Shape very much have the stamp of just deserts on them. It just can't capture the feelings of terror that Halloweens (both the original and the 2018 sequel) and Halloween 2 did, and ends up being a confused mess in a bad way.
Fargo (1996) - Ah gees. It's great, I adore small scale crime films without hypercompetent ant/protagonists and this delivers that beautifully. Even when getting into grim territory like triple homicides it's able to bounce back into a comedic tone that feels almost wholesome, which I can partially attribute to the midwestern accents that saturate the film.
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2 hours ago, Malcador said:
Reminds me of
But nah, just applies to uncool kids. The others enter a realm of greyness and nuance.
That's exactly the kind of thing I'm thinking of. While I'm not particularly surprised by the content of it, the brazenness of this open about who gets to be considered humanity and who doesn't is just too on the nose.
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1 hour ago, uuuhhii said:
what is the lesson here
That international law only applies to Russia.
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Spy X Family s2 episodes 1-3: Return of the Anya face. It's ok, but forgettable. I probably wouldn't keep up with the show of this was the introduction.
1 hour ago, InsaneCommander said:No movie. And you aren't really missing much. These first episodes are not the best.
I watched them last night. Looks like the movie drops later this year.
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On 10/16/2023 at 11:11 PM, Bartimaeus said:
Don't think I'd ever even heard of the Venture Bros. before today, and now I've come across it twice in different places. Odd.
Edit: I decided to watch two episodes, worst show I've ever seen, but probably not worse than all the ones I haven't.
28 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:Spy x Family 28
A Yuri episode. The other characters barely appear, unless you count the short scenes in the end. We learn why telepaths don't go to public swimming pools.
Anya finally met Yuri and, apparently, he never thought anything bad that she could hear.
She also heard people thinking while they peed in the pool and got traumatised.
I forgot this was back.....again. Didn't they make a movie or something?
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14 minutes ago, Sarex said:
I think he could too, he just needs to stop fighting windmills.
Comedy in moderation never made things worse.
After letting BG3 digest for a while I think it managed to hit a lot of the same notes of BG1+2 by having absolute maniacs being incredibly silly. Things like the talking chicken or strange oxes are memorable and add texture to a game. I don't think PoE did that as well and really could have benefitted from some dumb bull****.
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6 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:
I've now had two people say I should like it, and two people say I'll hate it. An exhilarating curiosity indeed: who are the fools amongst me?
Well I said you'd like it or hate it, so I'm covered either way.
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4 hours ago, Sarex said:
I wouldn't mind seeing him take another crack at it, if for nothing else but to see how or if he would change the formula.
I would very much like to see more mid and big budget RPGs that aren't off-brand Elder Scrolls things. Sawyer is a component guy and I think he'd be able to make something I'd enjoy more than BG3 if he had the budget.
One thing though, BG3 characters are absolutely insane and that works for me. Stuff like His Majesty or the foot fetish goblins are absolutely great and a hypothetical PoE3 would benefit from some of that zany nonsense.
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The Fall of the House of Usher. Mike Flanagan (loosely) does Edgar Allan Poe in a modern setting. It's a return to form for Flanagan, a tight miniseries that feels like a miniseries as opposed to an 8 hour movie.
@Bartimaeus may like this, assuming his brain doesn't short circuit over some arcane rule unknown even to him and push him into a murderous rage. I say this with love....and in hopes I will be spared from the brutality of Bartimaeus. Everyone else who liked Midnight Mass will probably dig the show, which I think @majestic did.
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6 minutes ago, Wormerine said:
Josh Sawyer would be up for making Pillars of Eternity3 if he got a lot of budget fot it. So... still no hope for PoE3?
I think if BG3 does very well, and everything I've seen points toward it having doing very well, then there's going to be at least some interest in trying to recreate that. PoE 3 seems like an obvious contender for Microsoft to try that and I'd think Sawyer would be a natural choice to helm it. So maybe a bit more optimistic than no hope.
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29 minutes ago, Sarex said:
I never could get in to it and I got pretty far with it (season 3 or something) I even "watched" the movie and I got the same felling as when watching the series.
The new VA for Rick (Rick and Morty) sounds like it's AI generated.
Different strokes. For me it hits the right notes of nostalgia and parody, like the "boy genius" who is a 37 year old man that lives in a trailer with an albino ex-gameshow host or anything with Dr. Orpheus.
I have never seen a single episode of Rick and Morty but AI is consistently terrible at anything so I assume the show is worse. Just get someone to do a completely different voice and have it be a running joke.
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The Venture Bros. S1-7 and the movie.
I think the first time I saw The Venture Bros. was on a one-off when I was a kid and Adult Swim had just come out as the place to see dubbed "mature" anime on cable. It was different but I liked it, but since I didn't have cable and CN's schedule was insane I couldn't keep up with it. Later on I watched the whole thing again when I had cable and it was easily the best western animation I had seen, while still being extremely silly it was a beautiful long-form parody on the world of superheroes and scientist-adventurers that just felt right. When it was canceled I was pissed, when the movie was announced I was elated, and when I finally saw the movie I was satisfied.
Anyways with no series that were very interesting to watch and not wanting to play BG3 for too many hours on end (I ended up loving the game, would recommend even with the jank) I started re-watching The Venture Bros. again. And it hits better than I remember, moreso than any other show I can think of. It's mocking, sincere, heart warming, depressing, and more seemingly contradictory things all at the same time wrapped up in a wide ranging parody of everything from ye olde Saturday morning US cartoons to Ted Bundy. It was an amazing ride.
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I found this to be a good essay that gets a lot of the thoughts I'd been having down. It's very strange seeing what I half recall as a kid repeating itself. I just hope it isn't as catastrophic as Iraq.
31 minutes ago, Malcador said:Well IDF using WP sooner than I had thought. Sort of funny to see people fainting about the Russians using it in Avdiivka (the RF really likes incendiaries)
Yeah, I was holding off posting about it because there is just an astronomical amount of disinformation going around, even by the standards of social media. Thanks Elon.
But anyways, sadly it looks legit. Looks like white phosphorus was used on Lebanon as well as Gaza.
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Depending on implementation, I can see the Separatist being a good way to pick up the Animal domain for a pure 20 cleric early and without a mythic ability. Last time I played, WotR wonkiness was giving a free dip level to pets (ie a Hunter 19/Fighter 1 would have a level 20 pet instead of 19), if that still holds you could grab Boon Companion and end up with a full level animal companion on a Separatist 20 for the tradeoff of a proficiency in a single martial weapon.
I don't see much other use for the archetype in the main game, and this is largely conditional on a specific interaction. Obviously Owlbrew applies, like the datamined Shadowcaster shows it getting an increasing profane bonus to intelligence instead of what pnp gets, so who knows what the Separatist will actually end up being.
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https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/heirs-property-black-owned-land-brazos-county/
Not necessarily political and a long read full of some legalese, but it's well worth a read.
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1 hour ago, InsaneCommander said:
Spy x Family 26
NANI!? It's back? Time to watch.
40 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:look, i hate to double-post, but even @Hurlshort won't show his children the Matrix sequels
This line alone would be worth a double post, perhaps even a triple post.
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7 hours ago, MrBrown said:
Those layoffs seem to have been mostly about union-busting too.
Yeah that's what makes it worse than if they were just laid off.
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11 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:
The premise is interesting, the execution leaves me...wishing it weren't quite so play/theater-like. Scene after scene where characters are sitting, standing, or slowly walking around while pompously pontificating endlessly about various things in a very untrue-to-life fashion seems to always be a bit of a difficult sell for me, no matter who or what it's about, or what it all eventually culminates in. It's just not really my preferred manner of storytelling, no matter how many times I've experienced it. It may be because I never really get a strong and independent impression of the characters, who they are, or what they're trying to accomplish, as they end up feeling like lifeless extensions of the film with no real setup, personality, or agency of their own - instead of the film being an extension of the characters, which is always my preference. I think The Banshees of Inisherin is a good example for comparison, as that's a film with some vague similarities in style and comedy to El Conde, but the moment I think of that film, I'm instantly recalling the three main characters, things they said and did, what they wanted and needed from one another, each one's specific and personal eccentricities, and how they all connected to the themes of the film, whereas...with El Conde, I don't know, it's all very much a muddled mess with characters that I can't really pin down for the most part, and that makes connecting with the film in a broader sense very difficult for me. Boil it down to just not getting much out of the experience, I suppose.
Speaking of Utena, I always thought Utena was at its best when it was just being silly and letting characters organically interact as opposed to getting singlemindedly focused on bolting whatever it was trying to say straight to my forehead. I think El Conde would've benefited from being a little more silly, which you think would've come naturally with the premise, but somehow it didn't manage to get there for me.
I loved the play/theater feel it had in some places as opposed to more organic neorealist fare like Sean Baker's recent work (which I love, but for different reasons), it sort of played up the absurdity of the situation and combined with the narration/narrator felt like we were seeing a story within a story.
SpoilerWe can kind of apply this to the characters who outside of Pinochet and Maggie Thatcher, were either of no interest to or subjects of disdain of the narrator. I think of the film as an unreliable narration on the part of Thatcher rather than an accurate depiction of events, and because of that we see little of the characters in their own right and almost entirely as they relate to Pinochet. I think it specifically works here.
I don't think it's really comparable to The Banshees of Inisherin in terms of comedy or style. El Conde is much more explicitly a magical realist satirical horror-comedy with surreal aesthetics meant to separate it from real life while The Banshees of Inisherin keeps it's absurdist tendencies rooted in a historically accurate Ireland with natural compositions of the world. I honestly would not have thought of them in the same sentence if you hadn't mentioned it. I guess our brains are broken in different ways.
And I think El Conde was silly enough, but I'll admit I would prefer more stuff like.....the smoothies to seeing the (middle-aged) kids talk. Like we get it
Spoilerthey want his money and they don't care that their father was a monster, in more than one use of the term. I don't need to see the seductive nun (nuncubus?) gloat over them with it. Show me the vampires swapping smoothie recipes or have weird dance breaks or turn someone into a cow.
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Looks like public education is under assault in Texas... again.
13 minutes ago, ShadySands said:I never said that there's no issues with immigration, I specifically pointed out what you wrote about it now affecting liberals which is patently false and has been making the rounds on conservative sites. There are 4 southern border states and only one is red ...and one is the communist hellscape of California.
In Texas the border areas tend to be less red than the state as a whole, with El Paso being particularly liberal. The idea that only now are libruls dealing with immigration is just absurd to anyone who has lived in the southwest.
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I don't read reviews at all, at most I'll take recs from people I know and whose taste can align with mine.
Anyways....Bioware is getting sued for not paying enough severance.
I'd say I'd boycott anything Bioware puts out until they pay up, but everything they've put out for a decade or so has been mediocre bargin bin bait at best so it's not like I'd be buying it in the first place.
4 hours ago, Hurlshort said:Of course the AAA just gets a lot of random haters
Excuse you, I'm a (semi-)pro hater. Like The Monarch.
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10 minutes ago, ShadySands said:
I see this repeated a lot, especially on the right but it's a flawed premise. There are liberal border states and liberal cities in red states. I'm from a liberal border area.. and immigrants in NY being the breaking point is laughable.
There are real issues with immigration and border policy but these things are gross oversimplifications and outright lies.
It's like the crime wave thing from a year or so ago, with the same people peddling it or falling for it.
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33 minutes ago, Amentep said:
My understanding - correct me if I'm wrong - is that the money was already set aside by Congress during the Trump administration for the wall, and since Congress declined to rescind the funding when the current Homeland Security Secretary asked, the money has to be used for its intended purpose as allocated. Biden is irrelevant <insert joke here>.
While that may be true, the fact that 26 laws are being waived concerning things like environmental protection and indigenous rights is not great. Maybe this was also baked in with the money set aside, but it's still pretty ****ty and is going to **** up people's water, some graves, and endangered species for an ugly wall that doesn't work.
Gaza - conflict, war, land, water rights, bad colonional legacies...
in Way Off-Topic
Posted
I'll just come out and say that collective punishment, killing civilians/non-combatants, cutting off access food and (clean)water to civilians/non-combatants, cutting off power and internet to civilians/non-combatants, and specifically targeting journalists are horrific things that can't be justified. Call me crazy, but when I see over 3000 children dead in three weeks I can't help but think that's ****ed and needs to stop. When I see certain world leaders at best voicing some mealy mouthed concerns while still supporting (both politically and materially) killing 1000 kids a week I can't help but think the rules based international order applies different rules to different people.