majestic

No, you're right. Skarpen posted that already. It was just a little smaller.

I don't know, I like(d) THEDAS as a setting and the lore behind it but you're right of course, the presentation of Mass Effect 2 is a good deal better and the origins could have mattered more beyond a few interactions in the respective origin zone, although playing a Dwarven noble and helping Bhelen makes for a few fun conversations. Inquisitions delves a bit deeper into what happened in the Tevinter Imperium, what the Fade really is and what the Gods of Thedas represent. It's just hidden underneath a layer of checklisty pseudo-open-world exploration of the most meandering sort, and the worst offender is right after the introductory mission. The gameplay is okayish and on a technical side the game suffered heavily from EA forcing Bioware into using Frostbite. The game sure looks good but it is noticable that Bioware spent a lot of development time on making this thing work with large open areas. As such it feels more like a first game in a series with a newly developed engine where half the resources were spent on developing the tech. Kind of like PoE and Deadfire differed.

You're on a board full of pretentious pricks. Posters have changed over the years, the games came and went, but the debates stayed the same. Way, way back Sarevok was a better villain than Irenicus and Icewind Dale actually told a fantastic story and was a so much better game than Baldur's Gate. Even though it was mostly combat, dungeoncrawling, combat and some dungeoncrawling sprinkled with more combat on top - something that's also universally agreed on to be terrible in the Infinity Engine (nowadays also known as RtwP is always terrible). It's true that the game is too long for its own good, especially if you add Awakening's game time, and only has a rather shortish - I'd almost say excuse - plot. But that seems to be a staple for Dragon Age except the universally disliked one. The game lives from its lore and world building. Not that having an excuse plot is a bad thing per se, the original Diablo had a very short and pretty staple fantasy storyline but it was told so effectively and well that it didn't matter. Both Origins and Inquisition, though the latter more so than the former, suffer from pacing problems. I'm not sure that's because the plot is barebones. There's a Fade skip mod for Origin for a reason. Heh. Mass Effect 2 has essentially the same plot but that didn't bother most players. Although in that one it's mostly character development, not worldbuilding. That happened mostly in the first game.

Oh, fun. As of tomorrow we're in lockdown. I'm someone who rarely gets sick. In the past 10 years I was on sickleave for perhaps a handful of days. I always chalked that up to having a well working immune system, but now that I think of the upcoming lockdown rules and I realized I've essentially lived the lockdown rules for the past 20 years. Hah. I always knew there'd come a time when being a socially awkward recluse would put me in a position where I can belittle the common rabble.

I can play that too: Star Trek V is better than TMP.

I think Discworld is one of those series iconic enough for almost everyone to know through popcultural osmosis. At least when you're an Obsidian board regular.

Well, I think as of this episode of Picard this is now officially a Mass Effect crossover universe. The reapers Destroyers will be coming, as foretold by the Prothean beacon unkown precursor race's Admonishion. Marina Sirtis can have a double role as Troi and Benezia.

I'm looking forward to each new day's dose of insanity, and our beloved, glorious leader already told us to expect more draconian measures to be revealed tomorrow. Well, today, considering it's almost 0100. Kinda expecting a full lockdown like in Italy. That could be fun. Except of course the government also already said that any measures will not interfere with the transportation of cargo. Gotta keep the spice flowing... what a time to work at a transport and logistics company. I'll still be working (probably from home) after everyone else gets some days off, or reduced work time with equal pay. Bah.

Maybe some DS9 will help. Reminded me a bit of this. Except one was funny, the other... probably not so much.

Modern Talking disagrees too. Heh.

Night of the Living Loading Times: You wait for five minutes, then a jump scare happens, then you wait for another five minutes. The more you save the tenser it gets. It's going to be waity. Just wait for it.

Well guys, just let Rich Evan stells you who you should vote for: Granted that's four years old but still relevant.

Oh wow, this Picard episode was again an exercise in dumb. Picard acts completely out of character and promptly gets told off by Troi. She literally tells him to behave more like Picard would. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. I mean... I honestly hope I'm just sleeping and this is a nightmare, but I doubt that. Oh and speaking of dumb, I just found this little gem: Arguing with Star Trek Picard that that Hollywood moved too far left and that the "left" messed up Star Trek is pure comedy gold. I wonder what Rich thinks about that video. Good ol' Sargon of Akkad. Wait, I thought YouTube banned that assclown?

There was also something refreshing in being able to look forward to patches, not equally hoping that they'll fix issues you're having while not screwing your characters or playstyle over. Yes, I'm looking at you Pillars of Eternity and your constant Cipher nerfing. Everything's hilariously broken thanks to how the game defines enemies as flanked or once you realize that Alchemist grenades are ranged touch attacks and armor is competely useless against them. Facing a ridiculous juggernaught of doom that your frontliners can't hit save for crits and your casters can't touch thanks to high spell resistance? Oh, don't worry. Catch a grenade with your face. Woops, wrong damage type? Ah, well, let's just use the other grenades then. Loved it. I think Jubilost single handedly killed every boss in my playthrough. Especially once Owlcat fixed the application of certain debuffs and character builds. Having your frontline flank and flat-foot enemies is hilarious.

...until a better one comes along, right?

If I were a boss in Hollow Knight I could have "Elder God of Dead Dreams" as my moniker.

To be fair to Owlcat they dedicated some dialogue options to exploring the sexuality of the undead. Or, well, Jaethal in particular.

Eh. I know I should just laugh but the nitpicker in me wants to point out that this is more like a job for industrial automation than... eh... never mind.

That picture made me sit and think for a minute or two. People solved that a while ago though. Just google Goldfish in a Hookah.

It's frustrating how the show is occasionally brilliant in tackling somewhat problematic issues while switching between ridiculous love triangles in order to, uhm, I don't know, keep the target audience watching? I mainly watched it because my early 90ies infatuation with Dana Scully never fully went away. As such it's time spent well enough. Heh.

Just imagine the setting possibilities we'd have now. Discovery, Picard, Kelvin... we could space dive onto a mobile plasma drill that can dig a stable tunnel in the molten core of planets, jump through the entirety of existence in an instant, hire or possibly play a Noldor Romulan warrior nun, fight Klingorks on a jihad, destroy planets with red matter and maybe stop a supernova from threatening the entire galaxy. Who else wants a quick time event where you control Spock as he's beating the manure out of Khan?

The technology used for current machine learning software has been around for decades. Up until recently we just didn't have the data or computing power to make use of them. That's why all this essentially started with image recognition "AI"s, with the advent of social media researches suddenly had access to millions upon millions of properly labeled images and could start to train their algorithms to say "banana" when something elongated, curved and yellow was to be seen in the picture.

I liked Blaze (I even have some of his solo stuff), but Bruce was better. Hey, what's with the torches and pitchforks there guys? It could have worked if they all sat down and reworked the pieces on the tour setlist(s). Granted I've only seen Anette live once during the Dark Passion Play tour, and Dark Passion Play is - for me - by far and large their weakest album, but she did well on the new songs, but having her sing Over The Hills And Far Away or Ever Dream without adapting the songs for her range and vocal style was one of the less pleasant experiences in live music I've had. The audience responded by chanting "Tarja, Tarja, Tarja!" which I thought was in extremely poor taste. As if that was her fault. I loved Imaginaerum and was sad when Anette didn't work out (to put that fustercluck mildly) for Nightwish. Considering the gap a Nightwish vocalist these days needs to bridge between old and new songs Floor is probably one of the few vocalists on the planet that a) can do that easily and b) doesn't mind being part of a metal outfit. I have no idea what Nightwish rakes in but she could easily do something more prestigious or with more income. Or both, probably.

Well that's not what Obsidian's forum software said. /scnr