I may get Starfield at some point, but not yet. Having just spent a whole $100 on Baldur's gate 3, I'm not dropping another $130 on Starfield. I'll probably wait until it goes on sale, that should give us time for some of the more egregious bugs to be patched out.
I'm getting close to the end of my first run through Baldur's Gate 3, and I really appreciate what the narrator does for the game, in a lot of ways it reminds me of how Disco Elysium used narration to add detail and let your knowledge skills actually contribute to the game.
Now that you mention it, this is a difference I've noted with polling here vs the US (we're six weeks out from our election so there's a lot of polling going on right now). We basically don't have the polls that ask about specific aspects of policy quite so much. The polls tend to focus on just which party you support and preferred Prime Minister.
I wonder if that's due to our smaller size making polling more expensive, or whether those other types of polls are seen as less useful.
I recall from when I studied Julius Caesar at high school, being told that Brutus would have come across as less sympathetic to Shakespeare's audience than he does to a modern one. After all, monarchy was the normal and accepted mode of government at the time, making Brutus less of a tragic figure making a desperate attempt to save the Republic from an usurper, and more of an obstacle to the march of history.
To be blunt, if it is impossible to prosecute someone for trying to steal the Presidency because they are too popular, the US has already failed as a state and needs to be dissolved.
To supply some outside context, a month or so ago, New Zealand changed it's gender identification laws to allow self-identification. This event caused approximately no controversy or outrage.
A lot of the TERF renaissance genuinely appear to be the English doing what the English do best - ruin things for everyone else.
I feel in a lot of ways that a large part of the Republican leadership has lost sight of the need to obtain popular legitimacy to rule. So much of Republican electoral strategy seems to be about bending the rules to technically win regardless of votes, but this isn't sustainable. Ultimately the public care less about whether the forms were observed than that their voice is heard, and if they don't feel that it was then all the technicalities in the world won't stop a government from falling.
Show nudity? Calm down! We just met! But then I thought: Would this be a *PROPER* review if I didn’t say “yes”? So, in the interest of making sure that everything was covered, I picked “yes”. For science.
Surely If you want to make sure everything is covered you leave "show nudity" off, yes?
I didn't play Baldur's Gate much back in the day, I don't care for AD&D and I hate real time with pause, especially for a rules system that is premised on being turn-based. Also Baldur's gate was exceedingly fond of throwing combats at you that would instantly kill you unless you got very lucky or cheesed them in a very specific way (much like the example you gave above). I'm sure this counts a good game design to someone, but that someone isn't me. My big RPGs from that period are Arcanum, and the first two Fallouts.
I'm still early in BG3, and I'm really enjoying it so far. I like that it's properly turn-based and I really appreciate how they've implemented 5E's resting mechanics.
I have a low opinion of the integrity of the American politicians, but nothing has convinced me more that Biden is clean as a whistle than the fact that the Republicans can't stop banging on about Hunter.
I saw it over the weekend, and I enjoyed it a lot. While long, I didn't really feel the runtime and the suspense building up tot the Trinity test was phenomenal. I also thought the movie did a good job of considering the ethical issues with nuclear weapons.
I'm playing a game that's a bit of a nostalgia trip for me.
A bout 20 years ago there was a series of game books (think Choose Your own adventure but with actual dice-based combat and other RPG mechanics) called Fabled Lands. What made them different from most books of the genre is that these books weren't a single quest, but rather an open world you could quest about in. Each book represented a different region and you could move from one book to the next. Sometimes you'd get a quest in one book that would be completed in another.
Well anyway, a computer version was released last year. So far it has books 1, 2 4, 5 and 6(in a DLC) of the 7 that were published.
There's a spectrum of how reasonable it is to separate the art from the artist. But Rowling is very public about her transphobic views and uses her famer and success with Harry Potter as a tool to advance those views. Barring the (literal) death of the author, or at least her resiling from her views, I don't think its feasible to separate art from artist in this case.
But then, as Desantis has proven, they don't really care about capitalism either. The fact is, a lot of conservatives would be happy to live in a Stalinist country as long as they got to be General Secretary.
Their commitment to capitalism is as thin as their commitment to the Constitution, or democracy or states' rights. This group of conservatives only cares about acquiring power - everything else is rationalisation.
Her public support's been waning for a while now. She handled COVID in 2020 very well, but our vaccine rollout was one of the slowest in the developed world. As it stands today, bivalent boosters are still not available in New Zealand, and fourth doses are only available to those 50 and over.
And now we have a lot of non-COVID problems to deal with, and Labour have handled those, less well.
I would have brought this up last week if I wasn't recovering from having my wisdom teeth out, but Jacinda Ardern has resigned as Prime Minister of New Zealand. The Labour caucus elected Chris Hipkins (previously Minister of Health) over the weekend, and he has swron in about half an hour ago.
This isn't in response to an specific scandal, the official word is that its burnout, which is plausible given the last 3 years. But her popularity has been declining over the last year (her favorability dropped into the negative in polls that released shortly after she announced her resignation), and there's an election in October, so this may also be getting out of the way before election season starts.
Sounds like your recovery was like mine has been - although they did give me codeine for the pain. But then, like you, I have been following the instructions quite closely.
I'm at 5 days and honestly I feel pretty close to normal, this may be an area where medicine has advanced a fair bit. Monday is a public holiday, so I won't be going back to work before Tuesday at the earliest, but the way things are going I might be ready by then.
Honestly, it hasn't been too bad. They were taken out under general anesthetic because two of them hadn't erupted at all, and one was impacted. This was done at a hospital by an oral surgeon, but my insurance covered it so it was fine.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: Starfield”
Maybe in your currency it is.
"
I may get Starfield at some point, but not yet. Having just spent a whole $100 on Baldur's gate 3, I'm not dropping another $130 on Starfield. I'll probably wait until it goes on sale, that should give us time for some of the more egregious bugs to be patched out.
I'm getting close to the end of my first run through Baldur's Gate 3, and I really appreciate what the narrator does for the game, in a lot of ways it reminds me of how Disco Elysium used narration to add detail and let your knowledge skills actually contribute to the game.
On “How to Make People Care About Democratic Achievements”
Now that you mention it, this is a difference I've noted with polling here vs the US (we're six weeks out from our election so there's a lot of polling going on right now). We basically don't have the polls that ask about specific aspects of policy quite so much. The polls tend to focus on just which party you support and preferred Prime Minister.
I wonder if that's due to our smaller size making polling more expensive, or whether those other types of polls are seen as less useful.
On “Sunday Morning! “The Tragedy of Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare”
I recall from when I studied Julius Caesar at high school, being told that Brutus would have come across as less sympathetic to Shakespeare's audience than he does to a modern one. After all, monarchy was the normal and accepted mode of government at the time, making Brutus less of a tragic figure making a desperate attempt to save the Republic from an usurper, and more of an obstacle to the march of history.
On “Trump and 18 Others Indicted By Fulton County Grand Jury: Read It For Yourself”
To be blunt, if it is impossible to prosecute someone for trying to steal the Presidency because they are too popular, the US has already failed as a state and needs to be dissolved.
On “Open Mic for the week of 8/7/2023”
To supply some outside context, a month or so ago, New Zealand changed it's gender identification laws to allow self-identification. This event caused approximately no controversy or outrage.
A lot of the TERF renaissance genuinely appear to be the English doing what the English do best - ruin things for everyone else.
On “Ohio Issue 1 Soundly Defeated”
I feel in a lot of ways that a large part of the Republican leadership has lost sight of the need to obtain popular legitimacy to rule. So much of Republican electoral strategy seems to be about bending the rules to technically win regardless of votes, but this isn't sustainable. Ultimately the public care less about whether the forms were observed than that their voice is heard, and if they don't feel that it was then all the technicalities in the world won't stop a government from falling.
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: Baldur’s Gate III”
I haven't done a complete look, but it looks like they've focused on the core book.
"
On “Whether Hunter, Wither Biden, Wether GOP Theories”
I have a low opinion of the integrity of the American politicians, but nothing has convinced me more that Biden is clean as a whistle than the fact that the Republicans can't stop banging on about Hunter.
On “Ten Things I Think After Watching Oppenheimer”
I saw it over the weekend, and I enjoyed it a lot. While long, I didn't really feel the runtime and the suspense building up tot the Trinity test was phenomenal. I also thought the movie did a good job of considering the ethical issues with nuclear weapons.
On “Weekend Plans Post: School’s Out”
Speaking of 3-day weekends, this weekend is King's Birthday weekend down here, the first time the holiday has gone by that name.
I'll be playing some board games with friends on Sunday, and I'll probably start actually planning the D&D campaign I want to run next year.
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: Hogwarts Legacy After A Week and Revisiting Duskers”
That's a little surprising, he's the second-best selling English fiction author:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Pratchett
"
As an older millennial, it was more Terry Pratchett than Tolkien.
On “TSN Open Mic for the week of 2/20/2023”
No wonder they're so fond of the Confederate flag.
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: Three Reviews of Hogwart’s Legacy”
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1299620/Fabled_Lands/
"
I'm playing a game that's a bit of a nostalgia trip for me.
A bout 20 years ago there was a series of game books (think Choose Your own adventure but with actual dice-based combat and other RPG mechanics) called Fabled Lands. What made them different from most books of the genre is that these books weren't a single quest, but rather an open world you could quest about in. Each book represented a different region and you could move from one book to the next. Sometimes you'd get a quest in one book that would be completed in another.
Well anyway, a computer version was released last year. So far it has books 1, 2 4, 5 and 6(in a DLC) of the 7 that were published.
On “Hogwarts Legacy: The-Game-That-Must-Not-Be-Named”
There's a spectrum of how reasonable it is to separate the art from the artist. But Rowling is very public about her transphobic views and uses her famer and success with Harry Potter as a tool to advance those views. Barring the (literal) death of the author, or at least her resiling from her views, I don't think its feasible to separate art from artist in this case.
On “TSN Open Mic for the week of 1/30/2023”
But then, as Desantis has proven, they don't really care about capitalism either. The fact is, a lot of conservatives would be happy to live in a Stalinist country as long as they got to be General Secretary.
Their commitment to capitalism is as thin as their commitment to the Constitution, or democracy or states' rights. This group of conservatives only cares about acquiring power - everything else is rationalisation.
"
Its become increasingly clear that the only reason much of the right objected to Communism was the branding.
On “TSN Open Mic for the week of 1/23/2023”
Her public support's been waning for a while now. She handled COVID in 2020 very well, but our vaccine rollout was one of the slowest in the developed world. As it stands today, bivalent boosters are still not available in New Zealand, and fourth doses are only available to those 50 and over.
And now we have a lot of non-COVID problems to deal with, and Labour have handled those, less well.
"
I would have brought this up last week if I wasn't recovering from having my wisdom teeth out, but Jacinda Ardern has resigned as Prime Minister of New Zealand. The Labour caucus elected Chris Hipkins (previously Minister of Health) over the weekend, and he has swron in about half an hour ago.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/131057178/chris-hipkins-formally-sworn-in-as-new-prime-minister
This isn't in response to an specific scandal, the official word is that its burnout, which is plausible given the last 3 years. But her popularity has been declining over the last year (her favorability dropped into the negative in polls that released shortly after she announced her resignation), and there's an election in October, so this may also be getting out of the way before election season starts.
On “Weekend Plans Post: A Glimpse Into Another Life”
Sounds like your recovery was like mine has been - although they did give me codeine for the pain. But then, like you, I have been following the instructions quite closely.
"
I'm at 5 days and honestly I feel pretty close to normal, this may be an area where medicine has advanced a fair bit. Monday is a public holiday, so I won't be going back to work before Tuesday at the earliest, but the way things are going I might be ready by then.
"
Honestly, it hasn't been too bad. They were taken out under general anesthetic because two of them hadn't erupted at all, and one was impacted. This was done at a hospital by an oral surgeon, but my insurance covered it so it was fine.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.