claycle @ claycle @lemm.ee

I am an independent director and producer who likes to ride his motorcycle

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2 yr. ago

I just finished my CP2077 (first) play-thru. I had no fore-knowledge of game or outcomes. When I play RPGs, I abide by a strict "choices matter - there are no mulligans", in that I won't fish reloaded saves for "better" outcomes. If I make a bad choice, I live with it.

About a week before I finished, I was having dinner with some friends who had played it already and they were probing me to see how I think the game would end. I said, matter of factly, "Oh, I think my V is doomed, like Arthur [RDR2] was doomed."

And if there was a magic happy ending in Phantom Liberty, as there seemed there might be because Sol pointedly asked V twice "Are you sure you don't want it?", my V had given it to Songbird.

When I came to the pinch at climax where Jonny presents you with your options and you have to pick what to do, I probably sat on that dialog wheel for 15 minutes. I'd vacillate between the options presented and listen and watch carefully how Jonny reacted and think things through. I had played a V who was never comfortable with the loss of his autonomy and desired, more than anything, to live his own life his own way. This V was also sort of a mensch, too, inclined to empathy and sympathy. He had pity for Jonny's situation. After much contemplation, V reached out to Panam - I would say almost desperately as it seemed the only path that really gave V any hope - and events ensued and they arrived at what I called "The Sunset Ending" (which I considered a great success).

I felt I had arrived at a very satisfactory conclusion for this V and I really have no desire (in a good way!) to play CP more - the story was over, if bittersweet.

The feeling of completeness matched reaching the Sunrise Ending in RDR2, which kinda devastated me.

Just finished CP myself yesterday, with a 9 hour push through the "final day". I had previously in my run rejected the (possible) helpful offer at the end of Phantom Liberty to find my own solution to my problem and, after spending far too much time debating over a single dialog choice, I settled on one that lead to a satisfactory, if bitter-sweet, conclusion.

The sense of finality was quite profound and pleasing. I have no wish to play my V anymore, as I think their story is done. While this means I may never revisit NC again (which makes me a little sad), I can live with that. I guess I can look forward to CP: Boston in 10 years :-).

Same, my friend and I gave up on Baldur's Gate and will let the developer "finish" tweaking it. I like what Larian tries to do in its games, but I really, really despise the need to mash the quick save button after anything representing even minor progress because you might stumble into TPK combat while exploring. This happened to us in Divinity and when we got a whiff of the same in BG3, we wrinkled our noses and left the game.

I subsequently went on to play CP2077 v2.0 and really enjoyed myself, which I just "finished" yesterday with a satisfactory, bitter-sweet ending.

all'y'all is the plural second person form.

Sheriff, speaking to a number of bandits: All'y'all just put yer guns down and come out with yer hands up so we can end this all peaceful like.

True story: in the early 00s, my company was acquired by a Large Silicon Valley Company. LSVC sent a "business integration" team across the country (to Dallas, Texas where we were at the time) to welcome us into the fold. At these meetings, these Perky Northern Californian Women - they were all Perky Northern California Women, for whatever reason - opened with the following sentence:

"We'd like to welcome y....ya.....y'y'y'y'y.....YA UL(!) to LSVC."

Repeated throughout the meeting, the integration team kept stumbling over "y'all" instead of just saying "you" when talking to us. Clearly, someone thought that - being Texans - we wouldn't understand them unless the did.

At one point, one of us spoke up and said something like, "First, thank you for attempting to use our local dialect to talk to us. But, we can understand you perfectly well when you speak your native Northern Californian. Second, by way of correction, the word is just "y'all". Also, if you want to use the plural second person, like vous in French, you may say "all'y'all", but it is optional."

And here I am deliberately working my way though Origins->Odyssey->Valhalla so that I can completely ignore Starfield for a while until the hype train settles down and some bugs are fixed :-). I keep my eye on NMS (I was a Day 1ish player) but I feel it is soooo wide and soooo shallow it would just bore me to tears now.

Really enjoying Valhalla...

Yes. We just had a scoop of homemade coconut sorbet tonight, super simple to make:

• 1 cup of water
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 can of unsweetened coconut cream
• 1 can of unsweetened coconut milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon almond extract

Bring the water and sugar to a boil, lower the heat to medium, and let it simmer for 10 minutes to make a simple syrup. Let the syrup cool to room temperature, then mix all the ingredients together in a blender briefly, then pour into your ice cream maker and freeze. Set the sorbet into the freezer for at least 2 hours to finish the freezing.

If you can't find coconut cream, you can just use 2 cans of full fat coconut milk, but it will be icier.

#1.

Don't you just know it?! I work in media and I have pitched commercial projects to business executives many times only to see them completely choke on the costs. They say things like "Can't we just film the commercial on an iPhone, I see that on YouTube all the time?" FFS. I'll be like "Sure, we can. What's your budget for that? You realize I still have to pay the cameraman, the makeup artist, the writer, the producer, the director, the gaffer, and the talent. Do you want music with that, too? Oh, you want a Credence Clearwater Revival song in the background? That'll cost you."

I'll pull out some sheets explaining what they see on YT that they think is so cheap... I mean, sure, it's less expensive than other options, but crew and talent gotta eat and pay bills, too.

People have no idea...

To be fair, Wheel of Time may be one of those garbage in, garbage out scenarios.

I've lived in Texas all my life and while it is far from a "shithole", I am unapologetically disgusted by my home state's current political climate.

When I was growing up (in DFW), I got a liberal (as in the tradition sense, not as a political spectrum) public education which I look back on to fondly. We were taught about sex (starting in 5th grade) and encouraged to be aware of racial issues and the root causes of hatred and encouraged to be friends with all our peers and egalitarian towards people of any color. Gayness was not mentioned, but also not condemned, and I definitely had gay friends and knew at least two gay couples in high school who were open, supported by students and teachers, and happy.

My own childhood outside of school was one of amazing freedom and self-responsibility. My parents' rule was "be back for dinner". We all had bikes, and we would range dozens of miles a day on them. We did crazy, stupid, amazingly fun things all by ourselves as children. We got in trouble, we got hurt, but we learned how to be self-reliant and entertain ourselves and we never did anything "criminal" nor were we ever threatened by anyone.

I saw my state elect a liberal female governor who was amazeballs and famously stuck George W Bush with her barbed tongue.

But what always existed, underneath, was what we called the "Old Boy Network", which really was just code for white, wealthy, privileged, bigoted men. Clayton Williams, who infamously ran for governor, was a prime example of the type.

So, while Texas was - and I think still will be - on a grand trajectory towards being an enlightened, liberal, egalitarian state in my childhood, it got twisted up and corrupted (I point my finger at Reaganism and Religious Extremism as the starting points, at least in my awareness) until we now have a hateful little troll as governor, a shitbag full of cronies, and voters who think Donald Trump represents the ideal American who should be president (again).

I love Texas, or loved it, but now I am dismayed by it - by the hatred and the ignorance that it just seems to be oozing now. I hate the fact that this has happened to my state and after spending my entire adult life voting and speaking against this trend, I now just want to leave.

Unfortunately, I can't think of any other state in the Union I would leave to. They all have problems. The symptom of Texas is just one of the most visible of the disease that affects our entire country.

Hatred and fear of the other, the least American value I can think of, has finally blossomed, nurtured by people who would rather see this country descend into war than dare teach that the powerful people in this country have treated the powerless people in it very, very badly for a very, very long time.

Panzanella comes immediately to mind, as does gazpacho and Thai stuffed cucumber soup.

While the oats (steel cut) are cooking, a take a cup of frozen mixed berries out of the freezer, put them in a small pot, add 1 tablespoon sugar and 1 tablespoon of water, bring to a boil, and make a quick compote (or very slack jam). This goes on top of the oatmeal (2 people).

I also don't "believe" in Skyrim modding, at least in terms of mods that fundamentally alter the game.

However, I do make exceptions for eye-candy and bug-fixing mods. Perhaps start there.

Though I only speak a minuscule smatter of Italian - and none is necessary to enjoy these videos - I really like anything with Giorgione in it, for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q5i5C35ISE

OR even better

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WLMm08P-u8&t=9s

Just dive down this wonderful rabbit hole.

While there is cross-pollination between macOS and iOS Macs are general purpose computers. And while it is true you cannot, like most PCs, crack open and customize a Mac and that to date most games are developed for PCs and not Macs as a side-effect of this (game development and hardware/graphics card development are incestuous), Macs are extremely capable computers that can meet demanding needs.

I have used Macs and PCs all my life. At this very moment I am playing Assassin’s Creed Odyssey in full pretty mode on a PC while my Mac in the other room renders a film and I type this message in an iPhone. I prefer using my Mac over the PC for most things - and certainly the Mac is where my bread is buttered - my PC is a fancy launcher for Steam.

Without being impolite, it sounds like you looked at the Mac, but didn’t bother to actually use it for anything practical, tasks at which it excels.

Although I delight when I hear Keith David in Mass Effect or any game, I can reach farther back in time memory: Keith David will always be this wonderful man to me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN8Z7y_QcwE (slightly spoilers)

Counter-point. I have used Maps over the past 8-ish years exclusively on three thousands-of-miles cross-country (US) excursions on my motorcycle, I use it to locate unpaved/off-beaten path roads to take, and I use it regularly as my local way finder and when I am in unfamiliar cities. Not once has it lead me astray...

Don't you mean: Statistically speaking, you will die.

Wow. Just wow. That is one of the best explanations of this I have seen. Thanks.