IlyaP

Tis gatekeeping and I'll have none of that, thankyouverymuch. Like, ok, do I like Rudimental and Ella Henderson's Alibi, which heavily samples Gangsta's Paradise by Coolio? Or Kygo and Ava Max's Whatever, which heavily retools Shakira's Wherever, Whenever? I don't know. Will it bring either original artist new fans? ...I don't know? But I'd like to hope that Butterfly Boucher's cover of Bowie's Changes, or Dar Williams' cover of Starman by Bowie brought new Bowie new fans. It also helps that both covers are excellent, whereas I don't have quite the same praise for the first two songs, which aren't *quite* covers as they are samplers.

Precisely this. Whether we like it or not, they've been given very little narrative wiggle room, with the Lost Tales, Unfinished Tales, and Silmarillion all off-limits. When you're told to fill in the gaps of five pages of outlined text, and are legally unable to use material that could fit within those five pages of outlines, this is what one gets. (Whether this makes one pleased with or annoyed with the Tolkien Estate is an entirely subjective matter.)

Given the department in which he taught, and being educated in the classics, it's quite clear that Mediterranean/Greek/Roman mythology and epics, including from the Bronze Age and beyond, would have been part of his educational diet. Worth also recalling the Quenyan word for the fallen (or downfallen?) in reference to Numenor was "Atalante". In short, a cursory knowledge of Tolkien's professional and educational background would reveal that influences in his work can be traced back to numerous texts, mythologies, and epics, from Homer's Illiad and Odyssey to Virgil's Aeneid, to the nameless author of Beowulf, the Kalavela, and more. And of course the Old and New Testament as well as the poems of Tennyson, the texts of William Morris, and more. (All of the above isn't new information, as there are plenty of academic journals, texts, and university courses that have covered this ground - Tolkien's literary influences - in exhaustive detail.)

I managed to rescue her from the jail cell, but then overheard somewhere (I think in a conversation among randoms on the street) that she was dead despite my efforts?!

Also: Neil Patrick Harris is astonishing and a sight to behold.

Is this actually true, though? I've done sections where, because I took too long, someone ended up dead, like the kid with the harpies in Act 1. It seems like there's some kind of invisible background timer for certain plot points/quests spinning somewhere in the background.

This has frequently been a passive annoyance to me. Like I mentioned with Jaheira's house above - the game never led me there, I simply randomly walked into it to clear away the fog of war on the map. I know Larian are trying very hard to mimic the freeform play of a TTRPG, but this game also has a story to tell, and needs to not forget that.

Given the amount of sequential/process confusion that folks here alone have displayed, I can't help but get Arx vibes from DOS2 again, with Arx in the release version of DOS2 being quite different from the definitive edition that released approximately (approximately!) a year later. Like, nothing that I've done in the lower city or Wyrm's Crossing was due to the game guiding me. I honestly just entered random buildings, and talked to people, and stumbled my way into most of the quests - for example, the one with Wyll's dad and the location in which he's kept? Completely fell upon that by chance by discovering some priests of Umberlee singing a haunting song which led to wandering around some random building which led to clues to Wyll's dad. I can't decide if this kind of freeform, unguided gameplay is brilliant or not, as it's quite at odds with the first 2 acts, where Larian did a decidedly good job at guiding me around and giving me an idea of where to go. It's also miles different from the approach taken by Bioware in BG1/2/ToB, which did, I would argue, a better job of giving players a bit of guidance and information about where to go, what to do, etc. They're two different styles of gameplay guidance, admittedly, with neither being better or worse than the other - but a reflection of the kind of design approach taken by each studio. De gustibus non est disputandum and all that.

That's, uh...*x-treme*!

She didn't even do this until we met her kids. Weird.

Apparently the quest with Wyll's father is still a bit broken? Seems he's meant to give Tav a helpful book and instead keeps it on his person despite all animations and appearances suggesting otherwise. Ended up having to pickpocket him to obtain the text the game insists he gave up. Definitely one of the weirder bugs I've encountered in Act 3.

The characters as depicted in season 1 - and perhaps even a /bit/ in season 2 still felt like relatable human characters. Somewhere around season 3 is where I recall becoming frustrated as the characters started turning into borderline, if not outright charicatures of themselves - which is apparently is known as Flanderisation (thank you to whoever brought this term to light). I'm not sure why this change occurred, but it results in me experiencing severe dissonance as it almost feels like two different shows; a charming, earnest, and laconic slice of life sitcom in season 1 and a bit of season 2 on the one hand, and an almost aggressively unreal, self-parody with behaviours that don't remind me of humans at all. As a result, in my headcanon, Friends stops somewhere around Ross going off to China and meeting Julie.

What Wert said - PS:T is a deeply, deeply funny game.

Chandler Bing was something of an avatar of familiarity for me and my brother in high school. His awkwardness, emotional uncertainty, insecurities - man, it all spoke to us something fierce. Can still do a pretty decent impression of him if asked.

Planescape: Torment is still, hands down, still the most interesting of all of the Infinity Engine games by an easy mile.

Have you gone to the waterfront yet?

Delighted to see the inventory management system get a bit of a facelift. Really though, having several tabs to differentiate between types of items, as done in Pillars of Eternity, would be great. Had a chance to discover the chaotic joys one can have with fireworks, which made one fight with the metal engines made by Gortash infinitely easier.

Looks like Skyrim [Enhanced/Anniversary Edition] is outperforming Starfield on Steam. https://www.comingsoon.net/games/news/1572072-skyrim-massively-outperforming-starfield-on-steam Maybe once it becomes easier to mod Starfield, and indie designers can go nuts, the game'll find a new voice. And hopefully that'll happen, as the game looks to have potential, but just feels 20 years out of date. Meanwhile, modders are still adding amazing quality of life features to Skyrim, including a modder named JK, who's breathed an amazing amount of life into all of the holds, making the game feel brand new to me even after 500 hours of gametime.

Don't forget STP, NIN, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog, Smashing Pumpkins, etc., which helped shushy shushy glam rock until The Darkness arrived on the scene, and were further propped up by the glamishness (ish!) of Brandon Flowers and The Killers.

Forgotten Realms novels are famously, uh...fine. Bob Salvatore's Drizzt books are some of the more popular and well-received novels in the setting. There's also the Moonshae Trilogy by Douglas Niles, which were the first Forgotten Realms novels ever published. Evermeet: Island of Elves by Elaine Cunningham is...okay? Otherwise, it's really hard for me to recommend any other FR novels, as the prose leaves...a lot to be desired.

If you've ever got a LOT of free time on your hands and want to see some intense modding back before modding was a common thing, there used to be something called Total Conversions (TCs) of games, and a bunch of fans made a Dragonlance mod for Baldur's Gate: Throne of Bhaal, called Dragonlance: The Glory of Istar. I've yet to get it up and running myself, mostly just due to a lack of time, but if you're ever wanting to time travel and appreciate how bloody hard it used to be to mod games, check this out: https://www.forgottenlance.com/games/istar.htm

If you're getting a modding itch, I'd *highly* recommend trying out the editor available in Solasta: Crown of the Magister, and Neverwinter Nights as well, both of which have terrific community support and (in my view) very intuitive level editors.

Something new is on the horizon from the Crowbar Collective (courtesy of PCGamer). It's entirely likely that it's their Blue Shift remake, which they did say was in the pipeline for development after work on Black Mesa concluded.

It's in reference to this, Rod: https://www.pcgamer.com/please-stop-that-in-the-run-up-to-baldurs-gate-3-modding-support-larians-head-of-publishing-speaks-out-against-threats-and-toxicity-against-our-devs-and-community-teams/ (Jeezus, that's an excessively long slug, PCGamer!)

More on the upcoming Acolyte series courtesy of io9, which just sounds intensely meh. Is there *anyone* who's excited for or interested in this?