kanisatha

Here's hoping 2025 is a good year for everyone. Happy New Year!

Except that Disney is (ostensibly) an American company. So, why China's rules?

Merry Christmas and a happy holiday season, everyone!

What happened to the December blog?

Again, it would be nice if someone from Obsidian cared to come here and tell us this very basic bit of information about the game, whether it will have a third-person option. Seems to me this is so basic to the game that it ought to be something mentioned in all the PR releases and on the game's Steam page.

Here's the trailer for Solasta II. I'm stoked for this game

I'm on the fence about playing as Ciri, but the trailer looks good to me. I agree that story-wise, how do they square the ending of TW3 with this?

Again, as it was with Avowed, I have to wait on an announcement about whether this game will have a third-person option.

I'm replaying Dragon Age: Origins after a very long time. It's going great so far, though after a lot of aggravation initially just to get the game to run. I first tried running my Steam version, which would launch some sort of "Configuration Utility" which immediately kept crashing. No matter all the tricks I found online I could not get it to run. So that was a waste of $4 buying the game on Steam. Then I tried running my original copy of the game in the EA App. That worked, but it crashed constantly if I used a graphics setting higher than the default setting, or if I used any mods involving graphics/cut scenes upgrades. But once I fixed all that, and only limited myself to a handful of gameplay mods, it's been running fine. But clearly there is a reason why there are so many mods out there for the game. The game has so many small issues that simply would not be tolerated in a contemporary game. So I have to wonder why EA hasn't moved to create an enhanced/remastered version of all three older DA games like what they've done with Mass Effect Legendary Edition. That I would surely pay for.

The concept of the show is good, but I don't like the main actress - find her a bit annoying. Still, I have so very few shows I like so I'll keep watching.

Actually, there is an application for AI that is extremely beneficial for someone like me who is hearing impaired. AI is hugely improving the performance of captioning systems.

Yeah, I saw that article too. But to note, in the first article they are citing a source within EA who leaked that info, and several other articles at that time claimed EA was actively hunting down that leaker as they were super angry that that info had got out.

There is this, re. DA:V sales: https://thatparkplace.com/dragon-age-the-veilguard-rumored-to-have-sold-less-than-star-wars-outlaws/

So I finally completed my run through the old Baldur's Gate games: BG1, SoD, BG2:SoA and ToB. I did a very thorough completionist run through them, doing all side quests and all companion quests, and even all the Unfinished Business mod restored quests. And on account of a mod, I even got to do all of the stronghold questlines, some of which I had never done before. As I'd mentioned previously, although I'd replayed these games many times in the distant past, this was my first playthrough since the EEs were released. As such I'm glad I did this, because I feel very certain this was my final time playing those games, the simple reason being that I just cannot stand playing 2e ADnD rules and mechanics anymore. The story and the characters still stand the test of time, and I don't mind the dated graphics but I cannot abide the gawd-awful 2e system, and so with a certain amount of sadness I've uninstalled all the Infinity Engine games from my Steam library.

Apparently because they lost comms with the booster's computer, and decided to play it safe. But only one more water recovery for the ship, after which even the ship is to be caught by the launch tower.

Third person option was confirmed a good while ago.

Well, I hope he returns here, as I would love to get his thoughts on retiring to that part of the country as I am hoping to retire to Wyoming about two and a half years from now. If any of you live in WY or know it well, would love to PM you about living there.

Well, not quite. The entire Atlantic Charter is an international treaty, and as such, if a state has "ratified" it, then they do have a legal obligation under international law to abide by its requirements. However, because it is international law, yes, there are no mechanisms available that can be used to overrule state sovereignty and compel a state to do so. In the case of the U.S., however, things are different. Per our Constitution, once the Senate has ratified a treaty, that treaty then becomes U.S. federal law. And the president is oath-sworn to uphold all federal laws. So a president can be impeached for not following through on Atlantic Charter Article 5 obligations. This is why Trump would want to withdraw us from NATO. Also @BruceVC, FYI, Article 5 has been activated once. It happened a few days after 9/11, and resulted in NATO AWACS aircraft flying patrols over NYC and DC. Subsequently, NATO's participation in the Afghanistan war was legally handled under that Article 5 activation, which was precisely why some NATO members like Germany agreed to join the NATO force there.

Sorry, @BruceVC, but I disagree. I'm very strongly convinced that even if Article 5 were activated (and even that would happen only after weeks of ridiculous "discussions," thereby making any aid too late anyway), many NATO states will simply ignore their Article 5 obligations and choose to do nothing. Obviously countries like Hungary, Slovakia, and Turkey, and now also Bulgaria, but very possibly even states like Germany and Spain, and of course Trump's USA. The fact that NATO has become bigger, but still holds to unanimous decision-making, means NATO cannot and will not act in a timely manner.

I also always play male, and as much as possible a melee warrior type. But that's the thing about playing fantasy games. It's all about being able to do things you couldn't do IRL, such as slaughtering the bad guys. And for me it also includes my physical appearance. IRL I'm a scrawny academic of average height, and now that I'm old also bald. So of course I'm gonna' want to play as a tall buff hottie!!

Well, also, today, NATO membership is not all that it is cracked up to be. Personally, I would not place my country's survival entirely within the basket of NATO coming to its rescue. I actually can envision Article 5 being invoked and NATO nevetheless doing nothing/very little to help a member state that's the victim of naked aggression. Ukraine is better off settling for a Germany/Korea-style border separating itself from Russia-occupied Ukraine (and yes, the whole world must continue to see it as occupation and never conceed to Russia any legitimacy for Russia's actions since 2014), and then enter into binding bilateral defence treaties with multiple strong Western allies who keep Ukraine well-supplied with advanced Western weapons and training.

Preach!!

I don't remember exactly, but in DA:I were there not some dialogue choices where one may end up clicking the romance option just because all the other options were rude/stupid/ridiculous? I seem to recall feeling 'forced' to click the romance option because clicking any of the others felt like you were being a jerk.

May also have been a way for the Bioware execs to guarantee this is the end of the road for the franchise. Bioware creative director Epler has repeated in multiple interviews that there will be no DLCs/expansions for DA:V, and that this is because the game is "story-complete." He's even confirmed that the DA:V devs have shifted to the next ME game, and only a small team will be kept to work on a limited number of patches and updates. Me thinks Bioware is done with the DA franchise.

Finally got the chance to watch the Skill Up and Matty videos in full, and also check some other negative reviews, and then very sadly went into my Steam wishlist to remove DA:V from it. If I ever play the game, and now that has become a big if, it will be years from now, and I don't want it cluttering up my wishlist.