kanisatha

Haha. I saved and did both to get both achievements. For someone staying behind I also left my PC behind <sob>

I think ( I may be wrong) the gap between you and Monty is that you are talking about all RPGs whereas Monty is being limited to classic, old-school cRPGs. I also used to limit myself that way, but eventually decided I wasn't going to get too many of those old-school cRPGs without TB combat nowadays. So now I have embraced ARPGs up to a point. I still won't do games that are pure dungeon-crawlers or pure hack-n-slash. They still have to be story-rich, character-development-rich, and roleplaying-rich. It is interesting that given the choice of expanding to ARPGs versus accepting cRPGs with TB combat, I am very much more accepting of the former over the latter.

Finally completed my Solasta: Palace of Ice run. Overall I liked the game very much. The only issue was that because I was using the big UB mod for the game in which I had set allowing the XP cap to go above the game's 16 levels, I ended up being rather over-leveled at the end (level 18), which made the final battles a bit too easy. But that's my bad. The DLC had a very interesting story all the way through to the end, and I actually ended up caring about at least some of the NPCs I interacted with in the game. Now I have to figure out what to play next. I'm still waiting on a good sale price to buy my new gaming computer (with a 14th-gen i9 processor and the RTX 4090 GPU), so I cannot yet buy the "big" games like CP2077 or Starfield.

I looked at this game, and do like a lot about it. But I draw a firm line against their pawns concept, specifically the idea of sharing pawns with other people. That is a very hard 'no' for me.

I am completely in agreement with you on this question. Your game preferences are exactly mine as well, and I also am very unhappy, even angry, that I'm not getting any games that fit those preferences.

I saw this story some time ago, and fully agree. I am quite certain BG3 cost even more than CP2077, over half a billion, and that is indeed not sustainable. But I also feel the silver lining is that other than a few studios here and there, most studios have come to understand and appreciate this point, and are signaling that they will be scaling back, even if this makes those gamers who want and demand the huge-budget AAA games mad. For my part, I'd MUCH rather a studio make five $200m games than two $500m games, or even better ten $100m games.

Any weapons for the Ukrainians is a good thing. But the most important thing they need now, more than anything else, is artillery (both tubes and shells).

I don't see why it need be one or the other. Since you've just played PoE1, I would suggest PoE2 to follow up. And you can (and should) play BG1&2 later on. But I can also see some people recommending the opposite because they like taking a break from what they just played. I, however, favor continuity over taking a break from something.

Hey I still have one of those pants!

R.I.P. Alexei Navalny Murdered simply for caring about your country.

Yup. What I've been talking about with my students in my National Security Policy class, that the Russians will soon test (and deploy?) a nuclear space weapon for anti-satellite use. Not as much of a threat as an orbital bombardment system, but still a major escalation in space-based weapons.

Hope things like this are splashed all over global newsmedia. Being made a complete joke would so drive Putin bananas.

Oh good. I added it to my wishlist (won't consider buying until not EA), and am looking for useful feedback, specifically about playing it solo offline. The devs really emphasize the game was made for co-op, so I want to know how decent of an experience it will be played solo (including if combat will be too difficult), as that's the only way I would play it. Hope you will share.

Yeah I'm looking forward to trying out some of the user created modules next. I've read in places that some of those modules are really very good.

Still working through the Palace of Ice DLC of Solasta. I'm enjoying it so far. The factions questlines are not mutually exclusive the way they were in the previous DLC, and I'm actually liking that. And they have been interesting so far. Just now reached level 15 with my party.

This is a tough one for me. It is indisputable that Zelenskiy has done a huge amount for his country, including personal sacrifices amounting to putting his and his family's lives on the line. But in a democracy, the people have the right to and can kick him out of office, as incredibly unfair as that may be.

Not all of us.

LOL On the Larian forum I've put it as: BG3 is to video games what Taylor Swift is to music, or 'Barbie' is to film. For some this will obviously be a huge compliment. For me, equally obviously, it is sooooo *not* a compliment.

No, what I'm saying is that net profit and not net sales/revenue is what matters. For example: Game A) 12X revenue, 10X cost Game B) 4X revenue, X cost Which game is the better deal for the developer? But even if you had: Game A) 20X revenue, 10X cost Game B) 2X revenue, 1X cost Does this mean every developer must only make Game A and never Game B?

Yeah, lots of similar articles in Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy as well. Main argument seems to be that as Russia and Putin get past their shock over how the war went at the beginning, and now see the war being successful for them (whether true or not), they are becoming more emboldened to push back against NATO, including renewing their core policy of trying to drive a wedge between Europe and the US.

No, it is net profits that matter. Otherwise, what you are saying is that every game made must sell as much as the biggest seller or else it is a "sales failure.," which would be an unsustainable creativity model.

And what of the lies of the Clintons and Obama and Biden?

The deep-dive only made me more sad, because there was no mention of whether there would be a third-person option. So much of the interview was about gameplay. Surely the question would've been an obvious one to ask. But it was not asked, and the interviewees did not say anything about it, which makes me feel it must only be because it is confirmed the game will be exclusively first-person. And that in turn means I won't get to play the game. So very sad.

But why would any Russian ultra-nationalist be concerned about/upset with this? This is exactly what Russia is doing, which they consider to be okay. So why shouldn't others also do the same thing?

Please, please, please Mr. Putin the Great, send your troops to Alaska. The people of Alaska, oppressed by the nazis as they are, will surely welcome your troops with flowers!!!