majestic

Having never played the game before I grabbed the Dark Souls remaster on the Switch and I just killed Ornstein & Smough on my first try, no summons*, Smough first. Considering it's, uhm, legendary difficulty I expected a bit more. In all fairness I read up on their weaknesses and brought fire and fury (eh, bleed) to the fight - here's where you can tell me using Pyromancy is a cheap ass way to play the game, see if I care. Knowing myself I'll probably get stuck for a while on some boss everyone else considers easy. *Well actually I did summon Solaire expecting he will help me get a feel for the battle but he glitched out and got stuck with the Royal Sentinels outside the boss room, I just ran past them. Heh.

I'd still chalk up most of the games failures to interference by EA. Especially the forced engine switch. Adapting a shooter engine to suit an RPG is a tall task, just ask the guys who worked on Torn how much fun adapting LithTech was. Anything that didn't directly have to do with the engine was pretty much Bioware par for the course. Which I do enjoy every now and then, but the actual gameplay, eh... it kept me suitably entertained to finish the game. I suppose that counts for something, right?

It might not be becoming increasingly anti-science but it sure feels like the world is becoming more and more pro-magic. We recently had a nice scandal where city funded hospital paid 95k € for... eh, well, it pains me to write this, for a circle of protection against negative energy to be laid down. Just let that sink in for a bit here. The dude just walked around the building once with his dowsing rod. The hilarity doesn't end, because shortly after this was discovered and made news the Association of Human Energy Practioners* (they're actually part of the Federal Economic Chamber, subsection Personal Services get that) showed up and denounced the energy practitioner that laid down the circle as a fraud, with one of its members actually stating in an interview that he went to the building and immediately noticed that there isn't any protection circle and that they would have only charged 150€ per hour for the same work and their protection circle would actually work. Another gave an interview stating that it saddens him that actions such as this make his entire trade look disreputable. Because obviously it isn't disreputable when you sell dew collected from flowers for 1000€ per liter to go along with a 150€ hour of faith healing. The Federal Economic Chamber even offers quality assurance courses where you can get bronze, silver and gold certificates to show off. They're also purely designed to make money because all you do is an online course and a quiz the end, and each is more expensive than the one before. But I guess that's okay because it's the frauds that have to shell out the cash. *The description of the trade is literally the study and application of the scientifically currently not observable ubiquitous energy field that surrounds and links us all. Does that read like the Force to you? Because it sure does. So I guess we actually have official Jedi healers.

I'm still undecided on what I should think about the show getting a sixth season, let alone a seventh one.

Pulp porn novels, I'd imagine. They're not technically romance in the way e.g. Rosamunde Pilcher books are and while they're fantasies they're not fantasy.

I'm not really interested in shelling out another 20$ for a game I backed at a rather high Kickstarter tier. Usually companies have the good grace to include any future DLCs in such tiers. HBS didn't, and that's fine, but at the risk of sounding petty now that Paradox bought them I'm waiting for a high percentage sale.

As far as the rumors go I'd be fine with Chibnall leaving the showrunning to someone else but I'd like to see Whittaker's Doctor being allowed to grow into her own instead of being a Matt Smith derivative with bewbies. I expected more from the show - The Master's change at least had an impact and Missy was fun to watch playing off the Doctor. It might not have been the best idea to remove Bill Potts from the show along with Capaldi. Not that I liked her that much (although at last season's point, anything is better than Clara "The Wesley" Oswald) but she could have had some interesting interactions with the new Doctor. But now all the companions are new - and I agree, too many! - and the Doctor is new and all the enemies will be new. There's nothing and no one for the Doctor to play off after the change. Why bother, then? Sure it maybe makes for the feminist message of gender not making any difference by having the show continue just as before without even acknowledging the change past the first epsiode but does it make for interesting storytelling? Ah, hell no.

After 20 years I'm almost 100% sure that Volo is actually an online form of folie à plusieurs. Like an inverse Eldar - we're all alts of Eldar but Volo is an alt of us all. Eh... or have you seen Volo anywhere else? He's only around because we expect him to be, wheverer there are more than a few posters that are somehow linked to Black Isle.

Did you miss the commotion about banning Huckleberry Finn from schools because of the n-word a while back?

It's in the ground. The Na'vi aren't.

The best part of the light side Sith Warrior storyline is lecturing Jedi about the light side.

The sequels are bound to become even sillier. What's going to stop Earth from carpet bombing everything? It took the combined forces of the Na'vi and a somewhat literal Deus Ex Machina Luna to fight off an ill prepared attack from a small defensive military force that employed terrible tactics. Unless Earth employs General Hux as supreme commander how's that going to end well for the Na'vi lke, at all?

Someone said fantasy?

If you really want to use (Great) Cleave then reach weapons are the way to go as they make having viable targets in range easier. You can pick any one of them you like, there are plenty of good options available (IIRC there are good Glaives early on). Just keep in mind that Cleave adds another layer of micromanagement to your character - one that you necessarily have to pay attention to once you get additional attacks and buffs like Haste or a weapon with the Speed modifier. In general most weapon types are fine. There's a distinct lack of Star Knives and most racial weaponry except for Elven Curved Blades. Which are top tier two handers but probably not worth losing a feat over compared to Falchions for a STR based build unless you're playing an Elf.

An RPG set in the League of 20000 planets or even only The Cluster would be so awesome. Man... now I want a Lexx game.

I'm not surprised that Mike liked TMP (but even he calls it dull ). He's right about it being the most Trek of the Trek movies. Still, this'll be one of the times I disagree with him on. The film is dull. There's so much filler because it's just an episode of Star Trek spread over feature film length. Quite literally even given Phase II's development history nad how it ended up being this dull travesty of a film. It's made worse by seeing all elements in place - special effects were good for the time, there's the exploration parts of V'Ger and Spock does some exploring of his own (or maybe the human) condition. They just don't mesh into something enjoyable for me.

I think I speak for all of us and truth when I say that you should think with your brain not with your nostalgia. Today's games are much better than Betrayal at Krondor was when it came out, and they're only getting better... ...eh, nah. Can't do it. Sorry.

If you make such a character yourself you should probably use an Inquisitor for Stern Gaze. Gromnir talked about this build earlier in the thread.

Thug has been fixed recently so giving her some Thug levels, Intimidating Prowess, Dazzling Display, Power Attack, Cornugon Smash and Shatter Defenses should make good use of that charisma. Still not ideal but at least it makes her do something useful instead of wasting a party slot if you really want to take her along.

Oh, yeah. It takes some doing to get any actual value out of Valerie. She's not strong, as dextrous as a tree but has the charisma of a Paladin. That last one at least makes sense roleplaying-wise given her character background but who in their right mind makes a DEX 13 character for an archetype that is built around allowing a high dexterity bonus in heavy armor (and as far as fighters go TSS isn't even really good even with optimal stats). As far as pregenerated NPCs in roleplaying games go her stats are probably among the worst, and that takes some doing considering some of the characters in Baldur's Gate or NWN.

You silly globe believers and your fake pictures. Tsk.

Argh. I wanted to take a Kickstarter break but I failed... again. ^^

Well... yeah. Here's the rub though, I thought Anette was terrible on Dark Passion Play but ended up really enjoying her performance on Imaginaerium. I've by far and large stopped listening to Nightwish. No real desire to get used to another vocalist only to have her fired shortly thereafter. Speaking of new things, new single from Within Temptation. Not sure if I like that more than the pop-gothic they've put out in the past few years, although I don't mind them being a bit heavier again (or actually heavy, for a change, it that makes sense). I just never expected... well... dunno, this sounds like Nine Inch Nails at times. edit: Speaking of NIN:

Posters who ignore Volo are NAZIS. Fact.