Durckad

Fevre Dream is an amazing book. Wonderful twist on vampire horror. The Armageddon Rag is like, partially, a really cool book and a really neat snapshot in time of the post-Vietnam 70's in the USA with a side dish of psychedelic/acid rock. However, structurally, it's kind of a mess and the end just kind of happens? I do think it's worth reading but it is kinda flawed.

Fifty Shades of Fae, ackshually.

I only noticed ads at the start of videos on Prime which is not that bad, honestly, certainly not to the same extent as, say, Hulu or Paramount+. If they get more prevalent then, yeah, that's annoying, but right now? Meh. Certainly does mark the end of the golden age of streaming, if there ever really was such a thing.

If my almost 9-year old potato can run Cyberpunk (and it still looks pretty good, even with the settings turned down), I think almost any computer should be able to.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuck. That.

I don't know if I want to live in a world where BG3 is considered short. I spent over 100 hours on one playthrough! That's short?!

It's a great little game with a neat time traveling-based plot with some good characters, an interesting world, great music, and pretty damn good gameplay. Best of all, it's not some overly long, 200 hour bloated monstrosity of a game like so many RPG's nowadays (or games in general). I think it could be finished in like a good 20-25 hours. That said... I do think this is fair even if I don't agree. What was once innovative often becomes old hat as time passes, that doesn't make the original any less good. Chrono Trigger, IMO, holds up better than some of my other favorites from that era of gaming. Even FFVI, a game that probably has even MORE nostalgia bias for me, honestly.

I mean, it's certainly possible, but I have replayed all of them (except for, ironically, Mass Effect 2) and they all hold up fairly well, IMO But, does being newer make something automatically better?

Well hate to disappoint you, but yes, I do think BG2 is better. Much better than B3. It's much more groundbreaking, better pacing, less linear, absolutely tons of optional side content. It's a classic game for a reason, IMO. BG1 and BG3 are on similar levels for me, though I think, "objectively" BG3 is probably a better game, but BG1 has a lot of nostalgia for me. Both are pretty flawed in different ways, but still quite good or great games in their own right. I don't think DAO really holds up well for me at all. IMO YMMV. That said I do think it's character and narrative choices are almost on par with BG3's and its roster of side characters is incredibly strong as well. Also other games I would argue are "better" RPG's: Planescape: Torment Chrono Trigger Final Fantasy VI Deus Ex Mass Effect 2 BG3's strength, to me, comes down that it does a lot of already established things fairly well but doesn't really excel at any of them and doesn't really do anything new. It's a very good game, but greatest RPG? That's a pretty high bar to clear.

Disagree. Very strongly.

Hmmmm... 1986 - The Legend of Zelda 1987 - Castlevania II: Simon's Quest 1988 - Super Mario Brothers II 1989 - hmm, fuck, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Arcade Game is the only game I have really fond memories of here 1990 - Super Mario World 1991 - Final Fantasy IV 1992 - The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (Ultima Underworld) 1993 - Doom (Sim City 2000) 1994 - Final Fantasy VI (X-Com: UFO Defense) 1995 - Chrono Trigger (Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness) 1996 - Mario Kart 64 1997 - Goldeneye 007 (Fallout/Diablo) 1998 - Half-Life (StarCraft/Baldur's Gate/The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time/Thief: The Dark Project, jesus fuck 1998 was a great year for gaming, holy shit) 1999 - Planescape: Torment (Age of Empires II/Unreal Tournament/Super Smash Brothers/Alpha Centauri/Homeworld, another insanely good year) 2000 - Baldur's Gate II (Deus Ex/Diablo II, BGII and Deus Ex were very, very close, Diablo II was a distant 3rd but I played the absolute hell out of Diablo II back in the day) 2001 - Halo: Combat Evolved (Super Smash Brothers Melee) 2002 - Warcraft II: Reign of Chaos (Morrowind) 2003 - Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2004 - Half-Life 2 (World of Warcraft/Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines/Rome: Total War) 2005 - F.E.A.R. (Civilization IV) 2006 - Warhammer: Dawn of War (The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess/Guitar Hero II) 2007 - Mass Effect (Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare/Bioshock/Rock Band) 2008 - Fallout 3 (World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, kind of a shit year for me, to be honest...) 2009 - Dragon Age: Origins 2010 - Mass Effect 2 (Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty/Bioshock II/Fallout: New Vegas) 2011 - Skyrim (Deus Ex: Human Revolution) 2012 - X-Com : Enemy Unknown (Dishonored/Mass Effect 3/Legend of Grimrock) 2013 - Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon (Bioshock: Infinite) 2014 - Shovel Knight (Wolfenstein: The New Order/Wasteland II) 2015 - Cities: Skylines (This War of Mine/Axiom Verge) 2016 - Stellaris (Civilization VI/Total War: Warhammer) 2017 - Prey (Hollow Knight) 2018 - Surviving Mars 2019 - Disco Elysium (The Outer Worlds) 2023 - Baldur's Gate III

Hey, no judging...

IIRC, the BG1 manual was pretty much a primer on how to play AD&D 2e. I know I learned quite a bit about playing AD&D before playing AD&D just by obsessively reading the manual. The Warcraft 2 manual was also a treasure trove of information: lore, story, and even some stuff useful to actually playing the games! Some other good manuals from the bygone days were for the NES Zelda games. I loved reading about the various monsters in the games. The copy of BG2 that I have came with a cloth map as well, which I still have to this day thankfully. The manual, alas, has been lost for a long, long time.

No ethical billionaires, but maybe... maybe edible? No, no... but maybe...

I think the skill problem is more a D&D problem honestly. Every edition has had some disparity in power between casters and martials and tried to solve it in different ways and none has really succeeded in doing so in a way that satisfies anybody. 1e/2e, wizards were horrible to play at low levels (no cantrips, 1-4 hp at level 1, and one spell, then rely on your crossbow with terrible to hit rating until you get to sleep and recover... maybe if the DM lets you), they leveled much slower than anyone else, but got to play with all of the big guns near the end. I'm not super familiar with high level 2e and 1e so I'm not sure how vast the gulf really was but also I think the idea of balance back then was just very different than it is now so the game was clearly aiming for a very different target than 3e and onwards. 3e was honestly the worst at this, because not only were wizards demigods at mid to high levels, but druids, sorcerers, and clerics too now. Any one of them could buff up and make a non-magic class obsolete. PF did a decent job at trying to fix this, but it did this by just adding more and more numbers and bonuses until you need a program to run your character at high levels. 4e, honestly, may have been the best at this, but it did this by essentially stripping out much of the uniqueness of casters (IMO of course). Again not super familiar with 4e, but out of everything I've heard, it is very, very well-balanced in this respect. And 5e, by rejecting much of 4e, just simply reintroduced many of the problems that cropped up during 3e. However, Concentration does seriously mitigate many of those issues. Also the fact that spells no longer auto-scale. Unfortunately, making feats much rarer than in 3e removed Very much agreed. From what I remember, this was a pretty common complaint of skills in 3e. Well, not so much skills, because they were still pretty useful, but that so many skills could be rendered obsolete with a simple spell. So yeah, the more things change... This is correct. Concentration in 3e and Concentration in 5e are only kinda, vaguely similar. 3e does not limit the number of spells you can have cast at a time, 5e does. 5e measures whether you can keep the spell active while taking damage or being interrupted while the spell is up. 3e measures your ability to successfully cast defensively or while taking damage or being distracted. I've honestly never heard of 5e Concentration being a home rule during 3e but I guess it's possible... Honestly, the Concentration skill in 3e is one of the weaknesses of the skill system. Every spellcaster takes Concentration. It's such an incredibly important skill for spellcasters that it's almost mandatory. It's a skill point dump. If a skill is mandatory, then just make it not dependent on being a skill, make it a class feature for spellcasters or something. There is no reason for it to be a skill. Congratulations! You've just invented 4e.