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I just finished the standalone SF3 Fallen God campaign with my friend. I got the supposed good ending, but it was more bittersweet... if not downright cruel. They really did a great job on the narrative front, developing characters, even secondary ones, and giving them fleshed out personalities. The game does still have a hefty amount of ME WILL SMASH YOUR FACE, but motivations and subplots are more involved and I enjoyed the focus on the tribal and mystical aspects of troll society. This one is more of a role-playing game than the other SF3 titles, being the only one where your choices determine which ending you get. This is to the detriment of the RTS facet, with less RTS missions overall and those not being very interesting. Generally you can just crush everything with your hero party if they are correctly specced and don't really need an army to do so. I'm assuming the experience would drastically change in higher difficulty levels. Visuals, voice acting and the score are great like in the other two. Such an underrated franchise.

Bioware isn't (re)making this game, for which I am thankful -- I don't think many of the people who made the 2003 game are still working there. Then again, I'm not exactly hopeful that Aspyr, a developer known for porting games, can really handle something like this. I've also seen speculation that the remake may include bits from K2. If true, that probably kills any hope for a K2 remake. In other non-news, I found this and thought it was interesting. Since we don't have a Random, Interesting and Weird thread in the gaming section and I cba to make one, I'm dumping it here.

Reforced isn't a word, so I have to assume it's a jab at Blizzard. In any case, the console release means that the main campaign and Soul Harvest will now be using the updated Fallen God engine, delivered as a free update to PC owners. As good an excuse to replay it as any.

Interesting. So now they have Starfleet Command Gold and Starfleet Command 3 in there but not the better game in the series, SFC2/OP. I guess the distribution rights for that one are a mess, with the Dynaverse crew actually holding exclusivity or something because otherwise it makes zero sense that they would skip it.

yes

Paradox CEO Ebba Ljungerud leaves due to "differing views on company strategy" Good riddance.

Hi, I'm pretty sure that you have the wrong Obsidian. This is the game developer website. What you are referring to is the knowledge base software developer. You are more likely to find answers for your questions in their forum: https://forum.obsidian.md/

If only modern Bioware devs were made to play their own games...

The BG2 ruleset really started to come apart at the seams starting at level 18 or so, and gameplay devolved into spamming Greater Whirlwind Attack and Dragon's Breath to end combat in 2-3 rounds. The railroading was very bad, indeed. The whole thing with Melissan pulling the wool over everyone's -except a certain insane half-orc warlord's- eyes and Balthazar being an idiot whose resistance to reason is only matched by his resistance to magic were especially infuriating. A consequence of ToB being an expansion rather than a full-fledged game. That being said, there were a few really cool moments in ToB, like fighting an army all by yourself and the multi-dragon brawl, and the conclusion to the Bhaalspawn saga was well executed, I think.

Nice, I missed that. But I don't see the game on GOG. Did they announce it will be on there? The expansion does take place between the first and second games, but it was just another act tacked on to the story. The transition between the two games was still abrupt. Given how the plot develops and the setup in BG2, that's to be expected to an extent, but there was a feeling of strong railroading from start to finish. Again, nothing new for that saga, if we're being honest, especially considering that the story before and after was set in stone for them. Hence the complaint from some that the whole expansion was... pointless. The interactions with the NPC you are referencing felt a bit too frequent and on the nose for me, though. It didn't help that the voice actor in question sounded fairly different from what he used to due to aging. I remember enjoying SoD more mechanically than narratively, which is the opposite of BG2 for me. BG1 is... something you do to set up your character and background for 2, heh. But yeah, as Wormerine said, we can discuss it more once you've completed it.

wat

Is it? I only know of one such case, but the content isn't exclusive. Guy simply set up his Patreon for people to give him money if they wanted, but his -it's more of a team's now really- content is available freely.

I'm pretty sure that's a bug. Upon joining your party, NPCs should be given a bunch of XP up to the 161k normal cap of BG1 -- much the same as it worked in ToB if you summoned someone to your pocket plane. You're not supposed to run around with level 1-2 NPCs in the expansion. @Bartimaeus perhaps can tell you more, but I think it has to do with encountering an NPC early and it thus being "set" vs never meeting them in the first place and the game pulling the proper level .cre file. I'd just set the correct XP through console, if you're not on an Ironman game or something.

My experience is literally the same as yours with SRTT and IV. Just dumb fun with a friend in an over the top-themed sandbox with no pretenses of being higher entertainment or anything. Just running around causing mayhem with a **** bat or dubstep gun while my character yells "I am the greatest!". In other news, I don't know if you guys have heard, but there's massive internet drama regarding what's for many games the go-to site for mods, Nexus. https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-07-02-nexus-mods-will-no-longer-allow-authors-to-delete-mod-files The article is incorrect in that the change was only notified to authors after someone tried to delete their mod and found that they couldn't. The less than open way this was rolled out and the obvious monetization of other people's work has burned a lot of goodwill with some modders, who have simply up and left to make their own site, Mods-in-Exile (yeah...). I don't expect much to change honestly, Nexus is simply too big and it's easy not to notice or care.

What can change the nature of a parazoan?

"Between memorable setpieces and lovable characters were moments of casual sexism and homophobia within its main cast and beyond—the sort of stuff that I breezed by in all media when I was a dumb 15-year-old." Ah yes, and now at the wizened old age of 25, the wisdom of the ages reveals how boorish and unsophisticated these games truly were. Of course, it wouldn't be a PCGamer piece without pointing to some -ism or two. Why do I keep clicking these links at all, I wonder. Interestingly, the trailer itself fell even flatter than the article, a bit of a pattern for me with everything that tries to be #currentyear.

Well, the opposition surrendering after it deems it has already lost simply means there is no late game, but it doesn't address the late game being boring or pointless. It's interesting because in chess it takes mental discipline to press the advantage, but not letting impatience and wanting to get it over with drive you to make mistakes. That very rarely can happen in computer games, though. I think Stellaris did it better than other games -- if not necessarily well. The idea of optional endgame crises is, I think, a way to keep the game interesting after the normal factions have been dominated and regular mechanics and gameplay have little else to offer. More games should explore that concept, but maybe toy around with other kinds of crises beyond war. Maybe your empire succumbs to ennui? Sudden environmental changes upending the conditions that underpin economic output? The problem is that kind of thing can feel gamey, contrived and heavy-handed as in Stellaris. Catch-up mechanics that prevent the player from ever gaining an excessive advantage may be another solution.

It's not just conspiracy nutjobs -even if they are the most glaring example- it's most people, generally speaking. For all the talk of the importance of "critical thinking", it seems the criticality is rarely, or ever, applied inwards -- often true even for scientists. Statistics are an incredibly powerful tool to help make sense of the world around us, but ultimately statistical models are models and not reality itself, being subject to biases, errors and limitations. This is not to say they are worthless and any old wives' tale is just as good which for some seems to be the result of one scientist making an erroneous claim at some point. But it also does not mean that just because it turned up in a peer-reviewed journal, it's straight up Word of God. Especially if it's cutting-edge stuff. I remember last year when people were taking preprints as gospel. I wonder how much of that ended up with substantial revisions... or even in the trash. Educating people to deal with uncertainty and reject quick answers to complex questions has always been an uphill battle. I figure it's not getting any easier in the age of instant expertise. ...dunno why I went off on this tangent, but thanks for coming to my TED talk I guess.

He didn't when he first formulated General Relativity -- it was all just a bunch of math. Actual empirical proof wasn't verified until years later by measuring light bending around the sun during an eclipse, IIRC. Which only adds to the genius of the whole thing, and why a century later, we still get news items about "XYZ once again proves that Einstein was right". Problem is when people turn from religion to science to look for absolute certainties. At the heart of science is "we don't know". Which is good because GR predicts that FTL travel destroys causality... eternally condemning humanity to remain in this solar system.

lmfao So, here's the deal. 1) google "covid mask children" 2) paste literally the first link without even reading (it's Harvard, must be good, right?) 3) ??? 4) Profit!!! The single mention to masks in the article: "In July 2021, the CDC recommended that all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to schools wear masks while indoors, regardless of whether or not they are vaccinated. They also recommend that everyone who is eligible for vaccination get the vaccine." So basically, children should wear masks because CDC recommends they wear masks so obviously they must wear masks (while indoors). CDC and WHO seem to have different opinions, and that's fine. But irrelevant. As I said, we only listen to WHO... sometimes. Another interesting bit about this great science-based article which you obviously didn't read is as follows: "The amount of virus found in children — their viral load — was not correlated with the severity of their symptoms. In other words, more virus did not mean more severe symptoms. Finding high amounts of viral genetic material — these studies measured viral RNA, not live virus — in kids does not prove that children are infectious. However, the presence of high viral loads in infected children does increase the concern that children, even those without symptoms, could readily spread the infection to others." It really is baffling how you manage to post links to shoot yourself down. So yeah: At this point though, I honestly feel somewhat stupid. I really am doing your homework for you when I could be doing something useful. Like sleeping.

Obligatory I mean, it comes as no surprise that Brucie would utterly fail at reading comprehension, but I'd expect anyone else who's taking two seconds to copy paste the text from a site they are citing to, uh, glean the basic idea. It literally says so in the first sentence which you repeated: "children aged 5 and under should not be required to wear masks". Yes, "children" technically encompasses a broad range of ages, technically from 0 to whatever happens to be the threshold for adulthood wherever you live, for which WHO naturally has different criteria. In the context of the point as it was raised, however, children should not be required to wear masks per WHO. This is why it's so pointless to even engage on the internet. Doesn't matter how plain or evident the idea is, there's always someone immediately willing to stretch the meaning of words used and turn everything into a semantics discussion so they can be technically right. ****'s exhausting.

WHO discourages use of masks by children, btw. But we only listen to WHO sometimes. Is ol' Tedros an irresponsible flat earther now? Who knows, who cares. More hysteria, please.

Alexander "ruled" Afghanistan by marrying a Bactrian woman, adopting the trappings of an Eastern despot and bringing to heel the local satraps who did the actual running of the country. Not to mention extensive colonization of the former Achaemenid empire areas with Greeks. But neither him nor his successors were arrogant enough to try to impose Hellenic culture directly. The emerging polity, the Seleucid empire, was as Eastern as it was Greek. I'm sure you know this, of course. Blasting the Taliban and leaving would have had the Taliban back in power within a year, I'd think. In retrospect, perhaps a better outcome in terms of lives and resources wasted, but hardly a "good" one. Bin Laden would still be at large, as well. It may be the modern man's biggest flaw to think himself so much smarter than his ancestors.

Thanks. I was thinking of giving it a spin. A friend of mine also wasn't very impressed so I guess that's that. I'm playing a bit more BATTLETECH. Found a mod to enable playable vehicles and VTOLs on top of Extended 3025, so that's fun. Deploying combined arms lances is different, though I can see why they didn't include that originally. Non-hover vehicles are really really slow and one bad hit can knock them out, setting you back a few millions and possibly killing a pilot. Still, it can add a layer of strategy based on the biome and terrain that is more or less absent due to jump jets in the unmodded game. A LRM carrier is great for badlands or desert contracts because it can rain indirect fire on the enemy without worrying about heat. A Demolisher is fantastic for laying ambushes in urban enviroments. But they are both poor options for tundra biomes where 'Mechs just outperform them, etc. VTOLs are great for spotting, but poorly balanced and generally get shot down too quickly to be useful... but they are cheap. Ah, it's so sad that HBS seem to be done with the BT license for good. Maybe Obs could give it a shot...