majestic

I finished a quest in Octopath Traveler without even knowing there was one. I just randomly challenged townsfolk to duels and after one my characters gave a verbal smackdown to someone and cashed in 20k. I'm a bit confused now, but that's okay, I'll just be looking up what the quest was about.

I had like 15 or so flies yesterday. Opened the window and let them all out... that was hard work, because they are dumb as a brick. Went to work and when I came back, there had been another 10 to 20 flies. Thing is, all windows were closed, so they must have come from inside. I've let them out again and then started looking for a source, but couldn't find anything at all. There was no old leftover food, nothing that would smell, or a ventilation or whatever... I really have no clue where they came from. I'm hoping that I just missed something and they got inside over the other day when I had everything open for hours..... I'm living in a small town right next to a major floodplain so all my windows have a finely meshed insect screen. Otherwise various stinging insects would murder me in my sleep. Which means the fly came through the door and it is still sitting somewhere and not moving much. I swear it only comes out to mock me when I walk out of the room. We also once had a fly infestation with no apparent entry point. It turned out they were coming through the chimney cleanout door. A small rodent had died inside the chimney somewhere and the freshly eclosed flies squeezed through the small slit between the door and the wall. It was pretty impressive to see. And also pretty annoying. Not only where the flies everywhere they also were all sooty.

To be honest I think that Baldur's Gate 2 is a much better game than Baldur's Gate, but I recognize that the reason I have an issue with the empty areas is because I just can't leave them be. The obsessive having to look everywhere problem is also ruining most (semi-)open world games for me. Especially those where most of what you do is busywork. There's a reason I spent 160 hours on Dragon Age: Inquisition and it wasn't because the game was so great it warranted the time invested. I'd still rather replay BG than D:OS. I get bored in the first area already, and I've only seen it once. Even Bioware's dreaded first level offerings were more interesting. It took me longer to get sick of Taris or Chataeu Irenicus than Cyceal...

I started yelling at the open letter for spoiling the actual fate of Gamora and then I realized Yondu also signed. Crisis averted folks!

Different climate. When I went to Hurghada we landed to a crispy 45° in the shade... at 0900. But noly once during that vacation did I sweat my ass off like I do right now with 15+° less. I almost melted when visiting the bazaar in the city proper (and that was at night).

There's a fly in my flat. I feel like Walter White right now. With less drug cooking, but with cooking heat outside...

Fixed that for you. And yeah, there's a pattern.

Having four of the eight characters now in Octopath Traveler... off to get the others and start thinking about party compositions. Hmmm. edit: This talk about the new XCOM games is fun to follow. I keep thinking of the old ones where you opened the door of your landing craft and were greeted by a bunch of reaction shots and dead people before being able to take any action. Or the inevitable psi test where you find out all your best soldiers have the brain power of toast. Eh, or that time when enemy commanders mindscrew your heavy weapons guy into blowing himself and your squad up.

It is old. Maybe not in terms of release dates but in everything else? Yeah.

I started playing Octopath Traveler. The game is really enchanting. Loving the atmosphere and am currently on the way to grab my third party member.

What, Soldat rocks. Especially when you play it with friends.

Oh, English dubbed anime has more problems than just the quality of the voice actors. They're often censored and have parts re-written, or in cases like Bismark even have replaced entire episodes with newly created ones that fit better into the new narrative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6pwwzsAuI4

They keep being told how free they are and how they are fighting for their freedom overseas, so at some point they start believing it. To be honest I very much doubt that is true for Gromnir and given his occupation he was probably talking about certain laws. Freedom of speech I can imagine, for instance.

That comes up every now and then, and I'm genuinely curious - what sort of personal freedoms? I kind of want to see if that would be anything that I would care about (so that means leaving out the entire gun debate, that would just derail everything).

Yeah well, I just think using decline as an adjective highlights the innate silliness of the term when it is applied to convenience features. I grew up drawing maps, exchanging currency (both for weight and for different areas) and carrying food around. I miss none of these things if they don't show up in modern games. Funny how Grimoire: Herald of Incline has none of these things and is still celebrated. edit: Oh, and sorry, should have known better than to drag KKKodexian lingo here.

Is the map update out yet? I remember some very delicious whining from "haadcoah" d00dz that resented the very idea of the game having anything than a self-drawn map. I've no idea what you're talking about, brother. Care to elaborate a bit? http://www.underrail.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=170:global-map&catid=43:dev-log&Itemid=61 The incliners were whining their ass off. Because maps are decline! Errr. Sorry, KKKodex terminology. Games that actually have useful features such as automaps are decline because automaps take away from the hardcore experience of drawing a map yourself. Underrail didn't have maps in the beginning. Now it might have. Or not, hence me asking. I haven't played in years.

Sorry, but here's a parrot learning to laugh like Rich Evans: Parrot Rich > Metallica Dog.

Is the map update out yet? I remember some very delicious whining from "haadcoah" d00dz that resented the very idea of the game having anything than a self-drawn map.

I never really had a NES (I had a Master System, our parents thought having the same console twice in the family is a waste of money). My cousin had one and a friend from school so we ended up playing a lot, but playing and finishing a Zelda game was out of scope for simple visits. I do remember hellish platforming sections and dying liberally. And weird old ladies in small villages talking in annoying riddles. It's one of the NES games I always mean to go back to via emulation and finally finish it.

Terror From The Deep :>

In Eastern Europe we didn't got access to consoles you are used to. We are PC master race all the way While I'm not Barti I doubt that is what he meant by that comment. He wondered which Zelda title would actually resemble a Soulsborne game and came up with Zelda II, the red headed step child of the series (and the most difficult of them).

Well, I think that narrative coherence and non-linearity are on opposite ends of the same spectrum in an interactive medium. You can have non-interactive, non-linear storytelling that is still coherent like e.g. The Time Traveller's Wife or Memento but as soon as you allow the viewer (well, player in case of games) to actually alter what is happening you inevitably end up with a event progression that's increasingly less coherent based on the amount of freedom given. It's not a matter of the technology or budget at hand. Sure with unlimited size and money you could create a branching tree type of game where the narrative branches never collapse on a critical path but that would be having several narratives, not one coherent narrative. Since that is not really feasible the common solution is to have a directed network of choices - a narrative where everything eventually collapses on a single point before branching out to (possible) different endings. And yes - quite frankly, if you leave the directed network out of the design, the narrative automatically becomes more focused by virtue of being, uhm, the single focus or the narrative structure. Although that has nothing to do with skill trees. Eh...