majestic

Don't bother save scumming for scrutinize, it has a reasonable success chance anyway and you can easily afford to restore your reputation at the tavern. Sure money looks tight at the beginning but it really isn't. Especially once Tressa learns her divine skill (minor spoiler: It gives you the damage it causes in cash).

While there are eight characters and eight path actions they come in similar but not equal pairs. Cyrus and Alfyn both use their path actions to acquire information - Alfyn's never fails but is level gated while Cyrus' can fail but can be used at any time. Tressa buys items from NPCs, Therion steals them. Primrose and Ophilia will get NPCs to follow (for quests or to be summoned in battle) and finally H'aanit and Olberic can fight NPCs. Essentially you've discovered the full extent of the NPC busy work already. Guide and allure are only used to bring NPCs to their destinations. There's actually very little grinding along the character stories and eventually your main party can pull lower level characters through their respective chapters. Out of the path action busy work you can generally skip barter/steal and challenge/provoke unless necessitated by quests up until you hit chapters 3 and 4, but you can find enough gear on your own through quests and shops that it doesn't really matter. Side stories also never give experience, only money and a couple of items. Inquire is essentially the only one that really has benefits good enough to warrant extensive use. Many side quests just require knowledge gathered from some other place and knowledge can improve your path skills and unlock new items at shops, give discounts, etc.

Figured as much. Meh. Thanks for the heads up.

Yeah, that would be really interesting. For all the translations I could find they seem to espouse the same sort of policies that the other parties of the ECR do just with a more xenophobic bent. From what I could gather from online sources they're all for sweeping tax cuts (including, but not limited to inheritance tax and taxes related to capital investment) that should be financed by cutting financial support for immigrants. If they want to keep the welfare state as it is but simply reduce the inarguably massive immigration to Sweden and manage to finance tax cuts with the savings then more power to them. Lucky Sweden. But it sure reads like every other conservative program on the surface. I've seen parties (well technically the same just in different iterations after internal schizms) with such promises rise to power twice here, and while that's not fully comparable the promised welfare cuts for immigrants just ended up being welfare cuts for everyone, merely in areas associated mostly with immigration, i.e. child support and needs based minimum income - both of which are still paid out by far and large to natives and EU member state citizens. But we'll see, I guess. Maybe Sweden can become a model state again.

Still playing Octopath Traveler, I don't get around to do much playing at the moment. All my characters are in their chapter 4 now and I've unlocked all regular secondary jobs. Oh, and I walked into the Devourer of Men unprepared. That wasn't... pretty.

I'm not Amentep but I'm pretty sure that is Hazel Brooks.

Nah, because Baldur's Gate came out before Bioware took a turn for the worse and we're all edgelords here who would never admit to linking a BioWare game made after the first Mass Effect (if even that).

For what it's worth I felt the same way after Agents of SHIELD's first season 4 episode. It's certainly the low point of the season. Actually it might even be one of the worst episodes of the show, and that's saying something after the first half of season 1. It gets better though. Especially the last third of the season is pure joy.

Having a blast with this chemistry teacher and a few loonies who argue that water isn't actually made up of hydrogen and oxygen but is an element in its own right. Best comment I've read so far was that water can't be H2O because it puts out fires.

Yeah, that must be it.

Adopting a single policy that originated as a left wing idea but has long since moved to mainstream status idea doesn't invalidate the leaning of the entire platform. Not to mention one can easily right-wing benefits for having children in the same way our government is going to do: By replaying universal benefits with tax cuts that only fully affect rich families with children. I don't know if Poland had child benefits of a sort before the new program but it's basically something that (almost) every other party in Western and Central Europe that wasn't part of the soviet bloc adopted decades ago. Such benefits are a matter of fact policy for the entire political spectrum for us, it's not much of a surprise that no one would consider it a reason to claim any party is left-wing. Lol trust me, east Europe have more social state than most western countries, free schools, state health care, unemployment benefits, pensions, we got it all. But of course its left policy on political spectrum, thats so mind blowing that someone thinks it right wing. BTW left wing policies are populistic, who would not want free stuff? Not that i complain I am supporter of some of them myself That's not really what I was going at. Yes, state funded child support isn't a right wing policy - how could it be. But it also don't move a party - especially in Germany these days - todwards the left enough for them to stop being right wing. It's too little a factor due to its widespread acceptance. It's also dishonest*, but that's populists for you, regardless of where they sit on the spectrum. *Sometimes it is even borderline schizophrenic, the Freedom Party in Austra for instance is the self-styled social homeland party and openly demanded higher minimum wages and support for the working poor, while at the same time having their economic programm developed by the Hayek Institute. Now that they are in power they have done absolutely zilch for the working class or the poor. *shrug*

I don't know. I never really read YA novels but we watched some pretty disturbing anime as children because every channel manager seemed to believe that all animation is for children. Not talking about the lighthearted depiction of brutality of, say, Tom and Jerry cartoons here, but something soul crushing like Dog of Flanders. I watched Niklaas doing hard labor day in and day out just to get by, having all his hopes and dreams crushed every other episode and then, finally, when it seems like things just might improve both he and his dog freeze to death. I think YA novel readers will be fine if they get some bleak grimdark. Times are going to change, look at the stuff that's on TV for children these days. *shrug*

Adopting a single policy that originated as a left wing idea but has long since moved to mainstream status idea doesn't invalidate the leaning of the entire platform. Not to mention one can easily right-wing benefits for having children in the same way our government is going to do: By replaying universal benefits with tax cuts that only fully affect rich families with children. I don't know if Poland had child benefits of a sort before the new program but it's basically something that (almost) every other party in Western and Central Europe that wasn't part of the soviet bloc adopted decades ago. Such benefits are a matter of fact policy for the entire political spectrum for us, it's not much of a surprise that no one would consider it a reason to claim any party is left-wing.

He also starred in an X-Files episode that really fit him to a tee titled Terms of Endearment. I remember it well since it came after How The Ghosts Stole Christmas which is probably one of the best bottle-episodes ever made and I thought they might still turn the ship around... but eh, the ship had long sailed off into the sunset at that point. Some silly critics complained about the plot but what the hell, you don't invite Ash to guest star on your show and then play it straight.

I had an incredibly stressful and crappy day at work so on my way home Ipicked up six bottles of Stiegl Paracelsus Organic Zwickl beer. That was pretty good. Also somewhat drunk now. It's been a long time since I got drunk. A couple years ago I would have shrugged off six 0.5l bottles of beers with no real issue but I am certainly a good deal sh*tfaced right now. It's kinda hard to type. Damn.

Well to be fair I doubt any of the Plinkett reviews will ever capture the magic of the prequel reviews (or technically the Star Trek ones which came first). I do agree with a lot of Mike's points though. Not much of a surprise as I walked out of the theatre hating the film.

It's finally here! In spaaaaaaaaaaaaaace!

So what did you end up watching and how did you like what you saw?

Oi, the remastered version's Berserker battle in Harkyn's is a one time event . Understandable given the XP changes.

Fake. the earth is flat. Don't believe the lies! Eh, pretty impressive picture there tho.

Messing around with The Bard's Tale remaster. No, scratch that. I intended to mess around a bit, rolled up a party and started to slowly make my way through Skara Brae. And lo and behold, 15 hours later I'm trudging through dungeons and grinding levels. Currently grinding my spellcasters up a bit after the first round of class changes. The automapping is a great addition, as is being able to save without going back to the Adventurer's Guild, and the lessened XP curve for all classes is a godsend too. All in all well worth its money. Well, it would have been, had I not gotten it through backing BT4.

Finished watching the first season of Disenchantment. I'm not sure what I expected but this is eight episodes of boredom with a semi-parodical outlook on medieval swords and sorcery fantasy where every last joke falls completely flat. The show got one very short laugh out of me during the Hansel and Gretel bit - and that was making fun of Germans which is very much not a fantasy thing. There's some nice meta irony in the final two episodes. The show becomes interesting the moment it stops trying to be funny and starts playing its setting completely straight, down to an incredibly obvious plot twist. On the technical side the animation and art style is very Matt Groening (and thus also something I don't care for much, but at least it is servicable) and the voice cast does a top notch job. Except for Merkimer maybe. I'm not sure casting Matt Berry was such a good idea. I kept switching back to IT Crowd - something that's actually funny - every time he appeared. In all fairness that's more of my own personal problem though.

Burn the heathen. Grab yor pitchforks and torches!

Some of the Soviet campaign videos were pretty cheesy in Red Alert, but yes, compared to Red Alert 2 and 3 it's really down to earth.

So +1 for the wedding band theory.