legend

The boomers.

I guess it's early so there is time for change, but I'm not liking what I see with the enemy AI in Avowed and Indy.

Elder scrolls. GTA is at best serviceable. ES is at worst good. It’s not a given but with no other good information it’s what I got. They have already said Avowed will be more narrative and less ES sandbox so I don’t think that will be a good trade.

Incidentally, I think FF7R did a good job finding this balance!

Agreed. My summary of 16 is Good story, good graphics/art, excellent music, fun set pieces, flashy but shallow combat, almost no character customization.

I mean, you shouldn't play Rebirth without playing the first or at least watching all the cutscenes, but if you want to know what the environments are like in part 2, watch the first few minutes of this.

Something that's great about Act 3 is it's place not just for "the" ending, but lots of endings. Every origin party member gets a very satisfying ending to their personal arc, with different possible outcomes (okay, Karlach's is debatably up in their air still, but we might still get something for that later). And it's not handled second class, it has some really epic and emotional finales for them. And if you play Dark Urge, you also get your own personal ending in addition to "the" ending too! Those of you who haven't finished also get the benefit that you'll get to finish the game with the added epilogue. Its original ending without it much to abrupt and was the only real criticism I had about the game. But the epilogue that's there now does the game justice.

I had the exact same thoughts. I'm also hoping it includes a way to

Not digging the art style. It feels like it falls into the classic trap of trying to emulate what old games looked like instead of presenting a more realized vision (given modern hardware) of the art style the old games used. Sea of Stars is how I wish more retro games were designed.

Every day the novel Rule 34 appears to be more prescient.

Divinity Original Sin 2, the developers prior game, was perhaps even more arcane in how to do things, but in a pleasant way. That is, there were all kinds of cool mechanics you had to figure out just by interacting with things. Want to be able to heal outside of combat? Get a bed roll and use it. You can carry it with you in your inventory so it's always available. Want to stop slipping on ice? Craft your boots with some nails to get boots with nails that don't slip.

Sure seems that way. Except maybe Warren Buffett.

The original Prince of Persia holds a special place in my heart. When I was kid in something like the third grade, I was not a great student (I wasn't a good student really until grad school when I finally became interested and kind of decent at the end of my undergrad). To get me to do well, my dad showed me the very beginning of Prince of Persia on mac (on mac it is was pretty technically impressive for the time, much more so than the DOS version). He told me if I wanted to play it I had to get a 100 on a spelling quiz or something like that. And Whad'ya know? I got a 100 on the very next quiz. Funny how that just happened to happen. So yeah, I'll play this and pay full price.

That's fucking stupid and is going to be impossible. Aren't investors supposed to actually understand how business works? How are they so bad at their one job?

Get the full party to join you, even if you're off put by them at first. Use shove liberally around any cliffs or pits you see. Be aware that there are two kinds of actions: your main action, and a bonus action. But they are not interchangeable (without some feats), so they let you do different things. Give Gale light armor. You can "knock out" rather than kill enemies if you go to passives and choose non-lethal and defeat them with a melee attack (as opposed to magic) With the latest patch, when you find Minthara and if you're playing "good" side, knock her out, don't kill her.

Yeah I absolutely sympathize that if you've never played DnD before, there is a ton of complexity and the game doesn't attempt to explain it all. (Probably because trying to explain it would be long and boring. Even in real DnD sessions it takes new players a very long time to really get it all and arguments about rules still pop up among seasoned players. I think it's probably is better to just let the player go and have them figure it out along the way.) I changed my parties armor a fair amount. There's probably not a ton of good stuff until the last third of act 1 though. Also, if you use Gale, make sure you equip him with some light armor unless you find some robe with fantastic magic stats you want (which you probably won't find much of in act 1)

Haha fair enough then. I don't think I realized how many people regularly restart their games while they're in the middle of them. I can't remember the last time I did that.

Just respec if you just want a new build.

The worst thing about the internet is being made painfully aware of how many fucked things the future holds while being completely powerless to change any of it.

RE: learning spells: Wizards can learn from spell scrolls to permanently know the spell on the scroll. You can also change what set of spells he can use from a massive list anytime outside of battle. There are also some unique spells you can't get outside of scrolls, so having him be able to permanently use them is amazing.

Giant AoE spells that won't have any friendly fire and a massive spell list he can learn.

Gale is awesome.

Yeah Act 1 is crazy big. Act 2 is really good with a very different vibe and some excellent story beats, but is the shortest.

Happy birthday Wade! Incidentally I started the first year of my 40s in November and almost immediately started having new physical issues I've never had!