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Post by mikegarrison on Jun 26, 2021 16:36:09 GMT -5
Now knowing what was going to happen, I went back to a previous save and dumped a bunch of clutter. You know, the "hey, I might need this scroll someday" stuff that you tend to get in your inventory in RPGs. Then I took basically every good item off the character I was going to lose and either sold it or gave it to other party members. Then I tromped back in. This time went right to "story mode" and killed both allies of the antagonist, then looted their corpses for their minor drops while he was still ineffectively trying to fight me. Then I killed him and moved on to the new game -- with all my precious stuff, some extra gold in my pockets, and a little more space in my inventory.
I then promptly gave my replacement thief most of the stuff my previous thief had been using.
My old thief is still hanging around as an advisor, but the in-game explanation for why I can't keep her in the group is that she's being turned into a thief/mage. I guess in a later game she comes back in her new multi-class incarnation.
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Post by mikegarrison on Jun 26, 2021 18:55:11 GMT -5
Well, that was a waste of time and effort.
After the prologue of the DLC, all my companions left me anyway. Now I have quests to find them again, if I want to. And all my money was gambled away by the Duke's no-good treasurer.
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Post by mikegarrison on Jun 27, 2021 6:06:29 GMT -5
In D&D (and many similar games), a lich is one of the most powerful undead enemies one can fight. Not only are they deadly and well-protected, but they cannot be permanently killed because (like Valdemort), they have hidden their soul in an object somewhere.
Anyway, in this BG DLC, I encountered a person making himself a lich. (He had another lich do it for him, in exchange for a favor.) The other lich teleported away in a cutscene, but his last words were "enjoy your eternal unlife". He enjoyed it for only seconds, because I promptly killed him (making use of a special weapon designed for killing liches). Then, because I read a walkthrough, I knew where to find his soul and also where to destroy it. His entire eternal life lasted for about 1 minute.
(It was not super-obvious, but it appears he had some kind of serious disease, and wanted to become a lich so he no longer had to worry about it. That might be more sympathetic if not that the game makes it very clear how much death and evil is involved in just making a lich in the first place. (Again, like Valdemort. Rowling's "horcrux" thing was actually pretty tame -- Valdemort only had to commit one murder per horcrux. Liches? A lot more.)
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Post by mln59 on Jun 27, 2021 11:59:45 GMT -5
beat the gravelord nito in dark souls remastered.
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Post by mln59 on Jun 27, 2021 15:22:15 GMT -5
defeated dark souls remastered. there is some DLC content available if i want to try that out
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Post by mikegarrison on Jun 27, 2021 15:28:57 GMT -5
defeated dark souls remastered. Praise the sun.
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Post by mikegarrison on Jun 27, 2021 17:06:40 GMT -5
Baldur's gate dates back to the 1990s, but this DLC I'm playing was released in 2017. The basic mechanisms are the same (although they added a few things to help keep the inventory clogging problem under control). But they really enhanced both the voice acting (voicing a lot more dialogue) and the party dynamics -- the scripted things that the party members say to each other.
I am playing a good/heroic party, but I picked up an evil character (one of the favorite evil characters of many players). It's interesting to hear what the other party members say to her and vice versa.
D&D at its core was very questionable when it came to the way it handled morality and racism. The whole concept that entire races of people are "evil" is kind of off-putting, and in particular it was notorious that the more "dark" your race was, the more evil you were.
The evil character in my party is a Drow (a "dark elf"), and people hate her just because she is a Drow, despite that she's my party's main healer. Her backstory is complicated -- when first encountered she is accused of murdering an entire family of farmers. If asked, she will even admit that she did it. But apparently what actually happened is that she was living near these farmers for some time, but kept herself cloaked and hidden. Then they figured out she was a Drow and decided they could murder her and take her possessions. She killed them instead, but all that the law saw was "Drow kills farmer family".
When I was a kid, I didn't really get the whole roleplaying aspect of D&D very well, and I didn't question many of the assumptions. Now I understand both better.
Famously D&D has a two axis "alignment" system, where you are aligned "good/neutral/evil" and "lawful/neutral/chaotic". I first saw this a your stereotypical "forces of good versus forces of evil" thing. Hobbits versus orcs. As a kid I tended to just play neutral/neutral and figure I could do anything I wanted, but I now think that completely missed the point.
The way I currently view it (and roleplay it) is that "evil" characters are essentially selfish. They do what they want to benefit themselves. "Good" characters are essentially selfless, and prioritize helping others over themselves. "Lawful" characters follow a code (which might or might not be socially approved). Chaotic characters believe the ends justify the means, and that codes should never get in the way of serving others/themselves. And neutral characters see the value in both points of view -- they don't want the codes to be disrupted, but they agree that slavishly following them is not always right either. Likewise they think there needs to be a balance struck between helping others and helping ourselves.
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Post by mln59 on Jun 27, 2021 19:53:04 GMT -5
going to return dark souls tomorrow. next game in the queue is chronos: before the ashes. i don't know anything about this game
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Post by mikegarrison on Jun 28, 2021 14:57:42 GMT -5
Well, it happened. I got too heroic, and my drow party member left my party. Interestingly, she wasn't all "I support EVIL" at me. Instead, she complained that my heroism was drawing too much attention, and she was scared of it.
Also, I think I could add her to the party again. Adding her to the party automatically drops us two "reputation" points, which would be enough for her to stay in the party.
But I've replaced her functionality as a healer with someone else, so I probably should add a more DPS-focused party member.
I did a wholesale party change. Some characters come with automatic partners, and you can only have five companions. I now have a scald (who functions as a fighter and a mage to identify my magic items), a goblin shaman (who seems to be a fine healer), a gnome thief/cleric (who can pick locks for me, the main reason I need a thief, but can also do some healing), and an archer. I should probably add another melee fighter to tank for me, but I'm a DPS/tank myself.
I may end up adding Neera, my "wild mage" from before. But I probably should add a tank. I already have a bunch of "squishy" party members I would rather be hanging back out of the fray, and I don't entirely trust Neera to cast offensive spells anywhere near me due to her "wild magic" surges. Also, she's a potential romance partner, but I'm kind of already wanting to romance my archer.
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Post by mln59 on Jun 28, 2021 21:36:57 GMT -5
i just watched a speed run of dark souls that took the gamer 34 minutes
i spent over 115 hours beating the game
gatdamn
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Post by bbg95 on Jun 28, 2021 22:50:42 GMT -5
I cleared what is considered by many as the toughest mission in Mass Effect 2. I actually did die once this time, though it was due to the wiki giving terrible advice about tactical positioning of my squad. I hadn't played the mission in several years, so I looked it up just to see, and what they said was the opposite of what I remembered doing, but I trusted it, and I promptly got killed. I got through it on the next attempt by doing what I had planned initially. At any rate, it should be relatively smooth sailing from here. There are some other reasonably tough missions, but now that I've acquired the OP sniper rifle, my stopping power has increased dramatically, so it should be easier. It has a base power 40% greater than the previous rifle, and it also has more ammunition.
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Post by XAsstCoach on Jun 29, 2021 1:11:41 GMT -5
Age of Z Origin
Just cruising along now, not really partaking in any massive brawls. Found my power ranking is 160+, kind of surprised I'm ranked so high. Guess building my army over the past several weeks will do that for my ranking. And I'm being asked by some power alliances to join them. Tempted, but I'm afraid they may be too into the game for my likings.
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Post by bbg95 on Jun 30, 2021 8:34:11 GMT -5
I just discovered that in Mass Effect 2, there's a hidden ending to a mission that I never knew about. One character has a loyalty mission in which he's trying to hunt down the leader of a gang that betrayed him 20 years earlier. During the mission, he goes rogue, and you end up having to either choose to save a refinery full of innocent workers or go after the guy he wants revenge on. If you choose the former, the character is not happy, and you have to pass a charm check or else you lose his loyalty permanently. Disloyal squad mates are more likely to die or get someone else killed during the suicide mission. Apparently, if you do this mission after completing the suicide mission, there's another option where you can just leave him for dead because he's too risky to keep around. Now, doing loyalty missions after the suicide mission kind of defeats the point, so that's why so few people were aware of this. But it's interesting.
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Post by mln59 on Jun 30, 2021 14:10:36 GMT -5
gamefly has shipped chronos: before the ashes. chances are that i won't be able to get it until the 10th, but it's on the way
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Post by mikegarrison on Jul 1, 2021 1:44:01 GMT -5
You have made me want to play Mass Effect, but it's $60. Yes, I know that gets me all three games and all the DLC, but it's still $60.
(Actually, it's only $50 right now on Steam on sale.)
If I didn't have a bunch of other paid-for-but-unplayed games right now, I would probably buy it.
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