Hurlshort

Do we deserve it? PoE 2 sold less than the original. We did this to ourselves.

The combat in Avowed seems greatly improved from Outer Worlds.

It's not like WoW, although I wouldn't say it is as developed as Dishonored. You can sneak around, and you have a silent ability takedown.

I disagree. K:CD2 and Avowed are tremendously different types of games. Sure, they are both RPG's, but that's about it. One goes for historical accuracy and tries to recreate a living breathing medieval world. You aren't a super soldier, your just the son of a blacksmith who can't hold his liquor and has lucked into some nobility. It relies on minigames and precise combat controls. Avowed is high fantasy set in a fairly alien world. It's weird and otherworldly. The combat revolves around fantastical powers. I don't know how that runs counter to the first 2 games. You were literally tangling with gods in the games. Avowed compares more to Skyrim in that regard, even though I dislike those comparisons as well. I can see what you are saying if you feel Avowed lacks the complexity of K:CD. On its surface, it does seem to be a simpler game when it comes to mechanics and extra stuff. I feel like Obsidian has made a concentrated effort to not overextend itself. I haven't played enough to see if there is more to it. It has cooking and crafting, but it isn't as crazy as other games. Anyways, I love that we have both of those games on the market. They are both great and play very differently.

I made my character pretty light on the shroominess. You can also choose to hide it, but for purposes of the story, people need to be able to tell you are godlike. I'm sure a few people will be turned off by it. But there's also dumb people turned off by a pronoun option, so you can't please everyone.

Avowed - It's fantastic. It looks great. The intro area is really well done. I just reached the first city.

The fact the forum is still running and hasn't crashed means it is doing better than previous releases.

I haven't played a ton, but there is a super easy combat mode that you can set separate of the puzzles. So you can set the puzzles to regular or hard, but breeze through the stealth and combat stuff. So it might be worth a try.

Nice. I'm taking the family to NYC next week for the first time ever. We are staying in the theater district and catching some shows. Glad to hear you are doing well.

Ok, the Indiana Jones game is pretty dang good. Is this the rebirth of adventure games? I know there is some action, but really the best part is the puzzles and exploring. It might be time to re-launch Dr. Brain.

Woke go broke is such a dumb movement. They love to cherry pick the games that do badly while ignoring all of the massive hits. Dragon Age clearly had unrealistic sales expectations. It was a long dormant IP that had little buzz around it. The expectation seems to be that it needed to compete with BG3, when the reality is it is closer to the Divinity series. I'd guess the sales of DA:V were probably close to the first Original Sin game. But Bioware was already pretty much dead before this game came out. It had nothing to do with politics. They messed up Andromeda and Anthem and now they've ended Dragon Age. It sucks. Make sure y'all go buy Avowed.

I decided it was time to set aside my Battle Brothers play through and get ready for Avowed. So I re-upped my Gamepass account for $11.99. Then I splurged on the $25 pre-order so I can play it in a few days. It was still a lot cheaper that the $70-90 on Steam. But now that I have the Gamepass, I'm thinking I might give Indy a try. I downloaded the massive game overnight, so we'll see if I have any time to play it before Avowed drops.

For the first time in about 12 years, I don't actually owe money in taxes. This is a huge relief. Buying a house made a massive dent in what I can deduct. Sure, it means I paid like $50k in interest, but it is still better than throwing away money on rent.

I'm no legal expert, but I'm guessing the pardon won't protect against all the lawsuits that will be filed by all the people his made up agency is targeting. There will be plenty of judges and lawyers happy to go after him civilly. Which considering how fragile his ego is, might create some tragically comic moments.