kanisatha

I would play with an 8-person party. And I always have at least two animal companions. 😀 I've never cared about "balance." Party interactions, and having as many of my companions along for the ride have always been among the most important characteristics of the games I love to play. It's why I find it really difficult to truly enjoy solo-play games like Witcher or Elder Scrolls.

Well, you're never "cheating," because it's a single-player game. It's your game. You can play it however *you* want.

You are right. But if you look carefully, you will see this is the same with China too. And I have previously addressed why. It is because the current US administration views the world through a lens where the most powerful states have a privileged place in the world compared with all the other states. And for Trump, there are only three states in the world today that qualify for this privileged status: US, China, Russia. So Trump's actions toward Russia are not "pro Russia." They are deference towards a fellow great power state.

This was never in play. I think the problem with many observers, and especially foreign observers, is their ideological orientations+emotions rather than reality motivating their interpretations of what Trump is all about and what he wants. Neither Trump nor Vance are truly "pro-Russia," and they never were. But their critics desperately want to believe that. So they will. <shrug>

Following giving up on DA:I, I decided I needed to return to a good, old, classic cRPG. So I've started a replay of Pillars of Eternity 1. After playing PoE2, I thought I wouldn't ever want to go back to PoE1. But after one day, things are looking great. Playing a talky wood elf paladin.

No mods. And I did complete the game back in 2016. But now, replaying it, it's just too damn tedious. Maybe I just don't have as much patience anymore.

After giving it almost two months, I've decided to quit my replay of DA:I. As much of a slog as the game has been, surprisingly it was dealing with the main quest in the Winter Palace that finally did me in. Trying to get the final quest outcome I wanted was just too painful a chore because the game requires you to have everything work out perfectly a certain way through a very long quest. One little misstep or oversight and you're locked out of the preferred outcome. That's just way too much pressure and stress I don't need in my life right now. So, DA:I is done, very likely never to be revisted again. 😞

I thought Owlcat had said they were *not* working on another WH40K game (as in, it's neither Pathfinder nor WH). So they were faking us? Regardless, it seems they're now very much a WH40K developer and are done with Pathfinder, which means I'm done with them. 😞

I wonder what this means for the future of Avowed? No DLCs? They just now announced a road map for continued development of the game, so I am left somewhat confused.

Yes, some significant improvements over P:Km. And it's a very long game. So take your time and enjoy the ride. Relatedly but separately, have any of you done Owlcat's community survey? I think it is a very useful exercise: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/P9XHP2L

Recently got my CD with this song on it, a song I loved hearing on the radio back in the '70s and early '80s. You folks from the UK and Australia may remember it 🙂

Same here. And in my case I have completely stopped watching those movies and TV shows now because the moment they say time-travel/alternate blah blah, it is immediately a hard 'NO' from me. I even refuse to play video games that do that.

Yes, China can do it too. And Trump is signaling he is okay with Russia taking Ukraine and China taking Taiwan if that also means he can take Greenland and/or the Panama Canal. Trump is essentially creating a 21st C. version of the 19th C. Concert, with the US, Russia, and China as its only members, and where those three states can do whatever they want in the world so long as they consult with each other and don't cross each others' red lines. And all other states are irrelevant. It is classic hardcore realism. As Thucydides once put it, "The strong do what they will; the weak suffer what they must." Btw, on Taiwan, although China could invade, and still may, I strongly believe they won't -- for this simple reason: China has spent the past few years ramping up its infiltration efforts inside Taiwan. It's strategy is to push in pro-China Taiwanese into positions of power within the Taiwanese government, military, intelligence services, law enforcement, industry, and civil society. This effort is pretty significant, even though no one, including the Taiwanese government, is talking about it publicly. And when the time is right, these infiltrators will launch a coup and overthrow the elected government and set up a Chinese puppet government that will then "invite" China to come in and "save" the Taiwanese people from US/Japan-controlled "splittists." This will all happen lightning fast, and will be all over before whatever governments exist at that time in Washington and other allied capitals can get their heads out of their asses. Classic Sun Tzu: victory without war. Mark my words.

Of all these old RPGs, the only two I really want remasters of are Neverwinter Nights 2 and Dragon Age: Origins. The first I am hopeful that recent find in SteamDB proves true and we will have it. The second I highly doubt will ever happen, which is a shame.

But still nothing on whether a third-person option will be available. :(

Well, apparently between 2016 when I first played DA:I and now, something's happened to my memory, which is rather disconcerting ... and scary.

I just started my first ever replay of DA:I, and all I keep thinking is: how did I not remember this stupid/horrible aspect of this game from my first playthrough many years ago? There are just so many things about the game that I simply would not be willing to accept in any contemporary RPG. And somethings downright make the game *not* an RPG, such as distributing attribute points not being in the hands of the player. The only thing I seem to like about the game is its story and characters, so I've dropped it to 'casual' difficulty and am continuing with my playthrough just to enjoy my revisit of Thedas, especially given how much of a bust DA:V has turned out to be.

Pathfinder 1e is often described as D&D 3.75e. So it does have a lot of the same rules and mechanics bloat of D&D 3.5e. For me, D&D 3.5e is the best D&D edition, so I have no problem with Pathfinder. But others will disagree of course. But overall, P:Km is a great game. I played it with the strategic subgame turned on, and I actually enjoyed at least some of the elements of that part of the game.

Arcanum is the one game from that era that I also have never played, but which I have wondered about playing. And then I keep telling myself to wait for a remasterd/enhanced version to come out. 😀 But maybe I should play it now before it gets way too old to enjoy.

It feels very strange that I'm finding myself in complete agreement here with this post of yours.

And on the other side of the world as a teenager, I also used to have my radio always on and tuned to the English Service of the one and only radio station for the whole country. And they also played Leo Sayer, among many others, all the time. I love this song as well. Another of my favourites is Orchard Road. 😀 If you're interested in getting a Leo Sayer album, get "All the Best." It has all of his top hits in it.

Heh. I didn't think anyone else here even knew of Leo Sayer. One of my all-time favourites. Listened to my Best of ... CD just last week. 😀 Thanks for the videos. Though I listen to my CDs often, I've not seen these videos since the early 80s. Nice trip down nostalgia lane.

Not saying a literal return to the past. It's about returning to a certain way of doing things, where only a small group of the most powerful states matter, the other states don't matter, and the powerful states are the only ones with a say on how things work in the world and whose interests get taken into account. Furthermore, the powerful states each maintains deference towards the behavior of the others in return for the same. In Trump's view, only the US, China, and Russia (and possibly India) matter. And in return for the US not criticizing Russia for its actions in Ukraine, and potentially not criticizing China for actions in Taiwan, he expects they will return the favor when he takes certain actions in the future against Mexico (cartels), Panama (canal), and Greenland.

I don't care for the combat encounters in RPGs generally, but yes especially when the game is TB. But I also can better tolerate it when the combat encounters are relatively few in number and are not tedious (enemies with ridiculous hit points, immunities, etc.). In a tactics game, then, it is precisely all the things I dislike that would converge in it: the whole game would be a series of combat encounters with little or no story or character development or world-building; the combat would (likely) be TB; and, the combat would involve silly levels of "challenge."

To be fair, 'rules-based order' (liberal internationalist) is the thing of Biden and the old guard of both parties. For Trump, it is, and has always been, about returning us and the world to a form of the pre-WW1 'power-based order' (realist).