kanisatha

For now. That can eventually change.

Don't do it, Microsoft. There's no "lesson" to be learned from the garbage that is BG3, and I don't want anything similar from Obsidian.

I can't wait for AI to take over the world. The worst AI *has* to be a better person than the best human.

The summary of this analysis to me is: bear sex = awesome game (which is rather pathetic)

This is it exactly. And it is the direct result of the world overall being very realist whereas the West is the only part of the world that is liberal (in the academic sense of that word and not the US politics sense of it). In a realist world, the lone liberal will get eaten alive.

Many academics in international security are beginning to wonder about this as well. A very recent article in Foreign Affairs asks if the world is now significantly more war and conflict-prone. Another one posits that Russia and China are moving the world towards being more militarized. I have been making these same arguments for some years now within my academic circles, and have been referring to China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea collectively as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Sorry Bruce, but SteamDB estimates are total crap. The VG Insights estimate of 10-12 million is the FAR more reliable number.

Yup. Now I'm going to up my pledge to help fund some of those stretch goals.

Thanks for the post. It makes me very sad and unhappy that Sawyer would go with TB combat for a PoE3. I would hate that. I hope he would at least still keep both systems in the game.

The problem I have with these games is their pawn system. I don't like that complete strangers can take my pawns for use in their game.

Yeah it was utterly surreal listening to Russia's ambassador at the Security Council a few days ago debating the resolution the US vetoed. With a straight face he went on and on about how it is so very important to ensure that civilians are not harmed in Gaza and how "everything" must be done to protect them. And then Lavrov repeated those same talking points. My real frustration, though, is that neither the press nor Western government leaders are jumping on this and publicly calling out the Russians for their rank hypocricy. Western governments are so atrocious with handling global PR.

But won't that be direct competition for the new inXile steampunk game?

Even though I will get the DLC no matter what, because I paid for it already with my original KS backing, I will be giving them quite a bit of money for this KS. I truly hope it makes it. But I am pessimistic about their chances. And that will mean they will go out of business, which truly sucks.

I'm pretty much the same, but would also add that I am also happy to pay full price for the games I like and don't wait on a sale to buy them. And to add to previous discussion, I also never ever pay any attention to Steam's collective ratings of reviews (i.e. very positive, mostly positive, mixed, etc.).

Continuing on with my Solasta playthrough with the Unfinished Business mod. The 6-person party is just so awesome! Exactly how the game should be played. I'm not using too many other features from the mod, mainly the option of removing attunement and including multi-classing. Difficulty has not been affected in any meaningful way. I've made a few tweaks here and there to keep the challenge balanced, and that's it. Only wish the game had more story and characters heft.

Yes. I die when my time comes up. You don't have a point here with whatever it is you're trying to imply.

To quote John Stark's succinct and pithy words: "Live free or die. Death is not the worst of evils."

Yes this is exactly how I operate as well. The thousands of Steam reviews for big/AAA games mean absolutely nothing to me, but Steam reviews for a small indie game I will take into my consideration.

Because how dare those annoying Ukrainians be courageous and brave and stand up to the Russians and fight back, and in doing so make us feckless and amoral Westerners who don't want to be bothered doing anything to help them look bad!!

Hey, any of you see the new NBC drama 'The Irrational'? I watched the pilot episode yesterday and it looked pretty decent (for now). As a behavioral scientist myself, I found a lot of what they were talking about re. our memory often being our own worst enemy very interesting. Wondering if anyone else watched the show and/or has any thoughts on it.

Yeah I also have come across these same points being made by people when I did my research on Dell machines. So that's why I'm a bit torn. From a customer support POV Dell has been very good to me over the years (two Dell machines in a row at around 8 years each), and the machines generally worked fine. But those issues of inadequate power supply and motherboard do worry me.

I thought about this, and although I'm above average on being tech-savvy I don't think I know enough (on both the hardware and software sides) to do a trustworthy job. And with a DIY I would also need to know how to fix/maintain the machine later on for years. Oh, I should also ammend the cost estimate. Dell currently has an additional discount of $850, so it would actually cost me $3250. Plus free shipping. And since my understanding from Googling is that the 4090 alone is currently retailing at around two grand, that price seems okay for: i9 CPU, 2 TB SDD storage, 32 GB SDD RAM.

Yes it can certainly come across as overkill. But the reason I always go for as much as I can get when I buy a new machine is that I then keep that machine for a very long time. My current machine is 8+ years old, and that's roughly been my average. So my pattern is to go big and then sit on that machine for longer than most people would before the next refresh, because I'm very pro-status quo/don't like change until change is absolutely necessary, and I also hate the whole process of migrating my stuff from the old to the new. Heck, even my car is now 16+ years old and definitely needs a refresh. But at current new car prices ... sheesh!! Edit: CPU is the i9

The problem is I don't think I can wait too much longer, as my current machine is now crashing a lot. But good advice on the Ti. Thanks! On RAM, I use my desktop only for gaming and for emailing and web browsing (though never many tabs open or anything like that; pretty basic stuff).

Yup. 2 TB SSD.