Stationary rowing, 5 days/week. It's a good whole-body exercise, heavy on cardiovascular & low impact, but not particularly strengthening. Can sit in front of a movie and just go. Got a tracker to record performance & heart rate, and I really like seeing new bouts appear in the graph. That may be more motivating than the nebulous protection from future cardiovascular disease.
Gotta admit, I only went looking for the dragon because everyone in game said it'd be super helpful, and there's a quest called "Gather your allies." My talker had like 20 charisma and expertise in all the charisma skills...I resolved a lot of conflicts without violence. Disappointed to be forced into combat with the dragon by our guardian angel.
Kind of disappointed with all the interactions with our 'guardian angel' once their true nature was revealed. Maybe I made wrong choices, but their guidance just seemed...off. Not wrong. Not evil. Just somehow not quite right. Maybe somehow inconsistent with their revealed nature, and pushing towards ex machina, like a number of things I don't see how I'd have discovered if they hadn't outright told me. The dragon interaction is part of that not-quite-rightness.
I definitely found the ending to be the least satisfying part of the game. I went straight from the dragon to the final battle, and I think that sequence intensified the less-than-satisfying feeling.
The absence of a running karma total is a surprisingly powerful difference. I do still look back at old posts, and it's nice when there's votes, but without the little number next to a name or when I mouse-over a profile, there's no motivation to be the first in a thread to repost a cliche joke or to ragebait for fake internet points.
I was alive for the Columbia explosion, 9/11, the Challenger explosion, and Reagan's attempted assassination. I saw them all as highlight reels on TV hours after the facts. I saw OJ's glove escapade on the evening news. I expect there to be a Trump trial moment like that, but I don't need to see it live, and I definitely don't need to sit through hour after hour of courtroom procedure waiting to see that one moment.
I'm glad the trial will be recorded for posterity. That seems like the best way to answer claims of shenanigans in any trial. Actually watching the trial, all the way through, seems a little too much like watching Nascar hoping to see a big crash.
Own 8/10 - assuming you count Phantom Liberty different from CP; finished 7/10 (likewise PL), mostly before this decade. Some of them before 2010. I wonder if I can still find my Baldur's Gate CDs...
It's a lot easier to accept criticism when it has no power over your job, salary, perks, or lifestyle. SCOTUS sure wasn't "comfortable" when the public scrutiny was camped at their driveways.
A lot of Bethesda content is quasi-procedural. TES and FO maps are littered dungeons/encampments that are pretty formulaic. Re-used passage & room artwork, generic antagonists, just little opportunities to engage in combat mechanics. And they respawn periodically, so you can go back and get your mechanics fix.
Everything in BG3 is scripted. There are no random encounters, wandering mobs, or replayable dungeons. Everything in the game is there intentionally, and everything in the game has been hand crafted.
NCF has an interesting history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_College_of_Florida I can see why it would be a target for right wing culture warriors. Equally important, I can see why it would look like a good substrate to give an intellectual veneer to right wing dogma.
Sucks for the current students, but the new administration will eventually be able to replace all of the faculty with conservative voices and get their "Hillsdale of the South." With the right funding, they'll be able to start their own slate of classical studies, intelligent design, and probably eugenics journals, and buid a body of peer reviewed academic research to support whatever god said. By 2027 there won't be any progressive students left to complain.
Yeah, but it's part of the fantasy world they inhabit, and they make voting decisions based on their fantasy world. The fantasy world where liberals cast millions of votes on behalf of dead people (which everyone knows, but no one has ever talked about), can't spend a week in NYC without getting mugged or gang raped, walk down a sidewalk in San Francisco without stepping in human feces, and where woke parents force their 8-year-olds to have gender surgery.
I wonder how many of these "nice but transphobic" people would revise themselves if they knew that even puberty blockers aren't OTC, but require extensive therapy and professional counseling. I mean, it's not a situation many people have direct experience with, so it's easy to fall for fake stories. Of course, I also wonder how many of them don't consider psychologists "real doctors" or psychology itself legitimate science.
I feel like there's two parts. On the one hand, Larian's engine is fantastic and allows really creative and diverse approaches to their puzzles. There's a number of fights that feel more like puzzles than fights, because they're nearly impossible if you just go in spells blazing, but not nearly as threatening with a little preparation. They've honed that engine through DOS & DOS2, so it's much more mature than you'd get if this were a pure derivative of BG1/2. The first time I lit Shadowheart up with Spirit Guardians and dashed her around a battlefield reaping the canon fodder...I actually giggled with glee.
Then there's the storytelling. My journal is filling up with quests & side quests, but I don't think any of them have been the "Kill 5 orcs," "gather 10 blood moss," or "deliver this McGuffin" variety. The NPCs you meet tend to reappear later and react differently depending on how their previous quest ended. I suppose, technically, that's similar to going back to the same quest-giver, rising in their 'ranks' toward some prize, but it doesn't feel the same. The NPCs, even the side-quest NPCs, feel like they're woven into the overall narrative and it makes for a much more immersive experience.
I can't imagine how much writing, animation, and voice acting had to be done to accommodate all the choices I won't make. Even just the times some NPC voices my gender.
It's a long walk from charged to convicted, and another long walk to serving a sentence. I've seen enough 'ordinary' politicians not convicted, overturned on appeal, or otherwise nullified to have confidence that a Trump-level cult leader, with literal militia backing, will sit in a prison cell before he dies.
I'm hoping. I'm shopping for a celebration bottle. But I'm not betting my 401k.
I kind of stopped paying attention to side quests. In a lot of RPGs, I feel like they're discrete, separate errands, and usually contained within the area where they're given. BG3 side quests seem a lot more integrated, in the sense that I'll often just happen along the next step in one as I pursue main quest. If not, then it may be because the next step is in the next Act. And some of them seem to be mutually exclusive.
Maybe because it's my first play through, but I'm now in 'if it happens, it happens' mode, and I'm confident that there are enough opportunities for me to make different choices to have a substantially different experience next time.
Stationary rowing, 5 days/week. It's a good whole-body exercise, heavy on cardiovascular & low impact, but not particularly strengthening. Can sit in front of a movie and just go. Got a tracker to record performance & heart rate, and I really like seeing new bouts appear in the graph. That may be more motivating than the nebulous protection from future cardiovascular disease.