https://youtu.be/GiCaqA0ngRc?si=4HlmFAiCvuzWn2JQ

I’m just relieved they finally fucked off with the mobile checkout thing in Canada. They were pushing it so hard for a while there that I dreaded even going into the store. You couldn’t get through checkout without four different employees wanting to explain it to you and asking, “Why not mobile checkout? But you get ten times the points! C’mon, try it!”

I did try it, too. Twice. The first time was confusing, unintuitive, and clunky. The second time was exactly like the first, except it didn’t beep with I had finished paying and the woman at the counter had a heart attack thinking I was running out the door with stolen merchandise. By the time she checked everything and confirmed that I had, I decided those 10X points could fuck off.

I imagine he spent the entirety of the ban raging like Dennis Reynolds and counting down the days. “IDIIIOOOTS! IDDDIIIIOOOOTSS!!!”

Why the comma? That use of a comma is weird, right? Is it just me? They used one adjective. This wasn’t a drug-infested, cum-covered sex den. This was merely a drug-infested sex den.

Conservative? What in the fuck? The game is a soulful, anti-capitalist love letter to the earth, growth, love, hardship, seasons, animals, and personal relationships. The only thing conservative about it is a reverence for small community and a simpler way of life. I’m left-wing as hell and even I long for those things. It’d be different if the villagers were xenophobic or something, or if the main plot was to keep a Sikh family from settling down into the valley…

True, but who knows what image was used in this particular meme. Description-wise, I can’t thing of anything I’ve seen more spot-on than Ryuk, or someone dressed up as him.

Was it Ryuk?

STALKER, Stardew Valley, No Man’s Sky, Skyrim, Morrowind, WoW Classic/Vanilla, Mass Effect, Fallout 3/New Vegas.

Same with DAoC. I have so many vivid memories from playing that in my adolescence. It was extemely influential, and the way it made me feel was unmatched. The various town jingles still pop into my head regularly. Especially Cotswold and some of the little Hibernian villages.

I miss sitting out in Salisbury plains during the night cycle with a group of random people, casually chatting and listening to the chattering of insects. Game had great ambience.

The best WoW clone I’ve played was RIFT, hands down. That game was surprisingly well-polished. But unfortunately the last time I had returned to play it, they followed suit with other popular MMOs and nerfed the overworld content into oblivion, effectively ruining the experience.

I did appreciate their angle on the class system, though. By combining Pyromancer and Elementalist, I was able effectively mimic a Fire Wizard from DAoC, but with a bad-ass greater earth elemental as a tank pet. One of the most satisfying characters I’ve ever played in an MMO.

Still, Classic/Vanilla WoW was a better experience overall.

This reminds me of the time when I was like twelve and I decided at like 2pm that I really wanted some private time in my bedroom. Like, time was a-wastin’… Problem was, my bedroom door didn’t lock and my mother was home. Fortunately, mom was outside doing some yard work. Unfortunately, I was a fucking idiot and decided the best way to deter her from walking in on me would be to go find her in the yard and announce to her just how very incredibly tired I was, and how important it was that I take a nap right at this instant, and how it would be best that she not come into my room and disturb me from my slumber so that I may enjoy this important time of sanctuary.

Fortunately, mom didn’t walk in on me jerking off, but I remember her expression incredibly well.

I’ve smelled the mildly sour smell of saliva on skin, but I don’t know if I’ve ever noticed a specific odor when it’s cold.

That’s him, all right!

I swear I’ve seen this guy in an old portrait pack for NWN… Holding a mouse close to his face.

You’re experiencing the exact same problem as my wife, in the same time frame, but for her it’s the neighbor slamming his door on his way out to work.

I can’t speak for her, as she often just gets up after her mind begins cycling through anything and everything, but as someone who has a lot of difficulty falling asleep, I have some success with the following:

1. Massaging my neck, shoulders, and shoulderblades
2. Getting up and sitting in the dark of a different environment for a few minutes, like the living room or guest bed, then returning to bed
3. Alternating between trying to sleep flat on my back and on my stomach

Very well said. Skyrim is incredibly immersive. Vanilla would be difficult for me to feel the same way about it I went back to it now, but with flora mods like Nature of the Wild Lands, grass mods, and environmental audio overhauls like Sounds of Skyrim, the game continues to draw me in like never before. I play the game much more slowly now, and spend more time walking and taking in the sights and sounds. I hope Bethesda can match this on their next title.

I’d really like to play that one. I sucked at BG1 and was never able to get very far without getting my ass handed to me by enemies. Maybe I needed to be better at D&D in general in order to properly execute fights. Either way, I hear I don’t actually need to play those two to pick up 3.

TES books are the best, dude. I’m playing a (heavily modded but largely vanilla+) playthrough of Skyrim right now and just came across a large trove of tomes. I grab whatever I come across that I haven’t read while in dungeons or what have you, and at night when I return to my campsite (Campfire mod) I like to gather wood, roast a meal, and sit down to read through whatever literature I found that day. I have a stash sack full of some too for those nights where I’m feeling too wiped to really get into the game. I can just relax to the sound of crickets or morning birds and catch up on my lore.

I want the Morrowind levels of text, but let it be optional for those who want to delve into those branches of dialogue, and feel free to use splicing/AI to voice the extended options.

You speak to an NPC and it comes up with a few options like Skyrim, but included [More] at the bottom with far more topics.

I think the sweet spot is finding a way to make tradition mechanics a bit more casual friendly without removing them outright. I don’t think Morrowind or Oblivion’s attribute and skill system was difficult to grasp, but the leveling system was pretty bad. You either played the way you wanted to, using the skills you believed your character should be using, and received low modifiers as a result, or you meticulously selected and planned out major/minor skills that weren’t reflective of your actual playstle, just so you wouldn’t blow your chance at earning +5 modifiers.

You couldn’t just comfortably advance to the next level. You had this paranoia that it would be a weak and wasted level-up because you didn’t spend enough time jumping or something. It poisoned the gameplay with this annoying meta that was purely about exploiting the leveling mechanics so you wouldn’t be at a huge disadvantage. They remedied this in Skyrim, but at the cost of making all characters feel generic. The heart was taken out of your character and who they were. You no longer had a class identity. Everything was just kind of same-ey.

If they could at least restore attribute points so I could give my character a deeper identity and allow more dialogue checks related to said attributes so these identities mattered, we’d be heading in the right direction. They don’t have to be so impactful that casual players are put off by them, but c’mon, man… I want to feel like there’s a deeper system at work here. I want to measure my character in more ways than “Good with sword” and “Good with heavy armor”.

Did I mention how much I miss skill checks too? Fallout 3 and New Vegas handled these superbly.