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Off (and insane) Topic discussions / Re: Somewhat Random Absurdity

« Last post by Silver Sorrow on Yesterday at 06:19:18 PM »

All these problems are exactly why I chose to backup all of my games on punchcards. Upside: no automatic updates against my will. Downside: rats, floods, storage space.

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Off (and insane) Topic discussions / Re: Somewhat Random Absurdity

« Last post by Starfox on January 25, 2022, 09:32:01 PM »

It's less a problem with digital copies and more with the policy of the digital store. I like Steam, most of the time, however when they decided to remove the "Do not update this game" option I think this was one of their dumbest moves. GOG not only has the "Do not automatically update this game" option but if you choose this option, they even let you roll back your game to any of the up to four previous versions. It's also the case for both Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 (although in this specific last case, you wonder why you'd roll back your version).

The GOG handling of updates is far superior to Steam (which doesn't mean they don't do other things wrong) because yeah, there are reasons why you could decide to not update a game.

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Off (and insane) Topic discussions / Re: Somewhat Random Absurdity

« Last post by Doc_Brown on January 25, 2022, 11:51:11 AM »

Whew!  It's a good thing I'm old fashioned and have the physical edition from back in the day--and it's for reasons precisely such as this.

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Off (and insane) Topic discussions / Re: Somewhat Random Absurdity

« Last post by Starfox on January 25, 2022, 10:50:33 AM »

And meanwhile Bethesda was at it again. Did you try to play the Steam version of Fallout 3 lately? Because I did and FOSE suddenly complained that it didn't recognize the version of the executable. From the FOSE page:

2021-10-12 update (if you are seeing CRC = D32E228B errors): Bethesda has released an update labeled 1.7.0.4 on Steam. This does two things: removes GFWL, and updates the compiler to VS2019. I do not have a timeframe for when FOSE can be updated to this new version.

In short Bethesda pulled the same trick for Fallout 3 as they did for Skyrim AE (and at about the same time -- it's just nobody really cares anymore about F3 so there wasn't such a big deal made out of it I guess). As an additional note, I'm pretty sure that the excuse about removing GFWL is BS because as I remember it was removed by the last update to F3 more than 10 years ago because it was causing problems on both Vista and Seven.

Curiously only the Steam version "benefited" from this "update". As of today, a new FOSE is still not available which means that no FOSE mods for F3 can run on Steam current version of the game. If you have Fallout 3 on GOG however (which unlike Steam still offers you the option to NOT update a game and even to revert back to a previous version), you can always either use it or install it then copy the two files fallout3.exe and falloutlauncher.exe to the Steam installation which will restore the existing FOSE functionalities.

My advice now would be for you to backup the executable files of EVERY Bethesda game you have installed (from Steam) like Fallout New Vegas, Fallout 4 and even possibly Oblivion (who knows?) just in case they are the next ones targeted by a sneaky update.

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Off (and insane) Topic discussions / Re: Somewhat Random Absurdity

« Last post by Silver Sorrow on January 24, 2022, 11:41:02 AM »

It's been a while since I played DAO Awakening, so now I remember how I should do things: get both Sigrun and Velanna before the Blackmarsh. Justice doesn't need to go through the Joining, but the others do...and if you leave one of them for last, the dumbass game will bull ahead and won't let me finalize that one's Joining before initiating the endgame, leaving them non-Wardenized.

(Although...since I had left Velanna for last and thus couldn't go through the Joining, I rationalized that it was just as well because she didn't deserve to be a Warden anyway.)

In addition to the statement that whoever added the Overwhelm skill should be shot without trial, I would put forth the clown that came up with the Misdirection Hex.

More griping:

- Mages a mile away hitting me with Crushing Prison instantly on sight. No windup, nothing delaying a cheap shot. Just combat music starts, zap...Warden gravy.

- Bandits who can take three hits from a greatsword without 1) dying and 2) slowing down in the slightest.

- Velanna's a twat.

Well...look at that: almost noon. Another day wasted.

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Off (and insane) Topic discussions / Re: Somewhat Random Absurdity

« Last post by Silver Sorrow on January 23, 2022, 10:30:11 AM »

Allow me to revel in my neverending foul mood for a moment with another gripe:

I hate the Steam forums. They're like a love letter to the God of Incomprehensibility. Barely-literate brain-farts in an attempt at communicating in what I can only assume is the English language, interspersed with walls of Cyrillic text and yo soy el capitan gibberish...jeez. The thing is, if they implement a language filter NOTHING would get through.

Then again, that's probably a good thing. I saw one idiot complaining, in so many words, that nightmare mode in Dragon Age 2 is too hard.

That's why they call it "nightmare," dumbass.

While I'm on the subject of the human race's utter stupidity, what's the point of boasting that you beat a single player game on the hardest difficulty? That's a bit like proclaiming that you successfully jerked off with barbed wire.

*sigh*

Okay, how about a little positivity? I'll go first:

I'm positive that we're DOOMED.

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Off (and insane) Topic discussions / Re: Somewhat Random Absurdity

« Last post by Silver Sorrow on January 22, 2022, 10:11:57 AM »

Rule 34.

I ran out of colors.

Bioware doesn't cross-class very well. Either you're a warrior, a rogue, or a mage. Sure, they tried with Arcane Warrior, but it's not all that great. More of a novelty than anything else. I'm a battlemage and can wear heavy armor, but I can't swing a sword worth shit! Sign me up for that.

(To help with that, one word: mods.)

Never mind, not what I was getting at. Some of the origins skew towards one class or the other. Dalish, for example, want you to be a rogue. (Since there is no mage option...but again: mods can make that happen.) Mage...well, that's a HUGE slap in the face--

--ah, uh...never mind that. 

Human noble...rogue, perhaps. All those locked chests all over the castle.

On a side note: the only reason to open a locked chest is for the XP. There's almost never anything inside one that is essential to your survival.

City elf: rogue, maybe? Your mother was a rogue and so on.

Dwarves: ah. Noble: warrior. Commoner: rogue.

On another rant, why does the player always get the wrong end of the stick? You think you're doing pretty good, when all of a sudden you're jumped by a shitload of overpowered rogues with a million health each. And then here come a few tanks...augmented by a couple of mages who spam crushing prison on you before the combat music can really get going.

And this is on the easy setting.

I think what I'm saying is that, in a way, I hate this game with every fiber of my being. Once again: hooray for mods.

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Off (and insane) Topic discussions / Re: Somewhat Random Absurdity

« Last post by Silver Sorrow on January 21, 2022, 02:18:55 AM »

Well, that's it for her. In the end, perhaps it didn't turn out so well in telling Morrigan that, if she wanted a kid so bad, to go fuck herself and see how that goes. Oh, but all the things she did! She has plenty of time to be low-key now that she's laid out on the slab.

So here I am: mellow at last.

[10 non-transferrable bonus points for knowing what song I'm referring to without clicking this link.]

Oddly, you can import your dead Warden's save to Awakenings. I vaguely recall that being the case, but I ignored the whispers of despair and tried it out, wondering if it'd just let me create a new character with all the plot points from the dead girl's save blah blah blah laughing bitterly to myself.

But since Alistair became king and I kept Oghren on, the thing is pretty much intact. One thing it can't cover are the non-essential details in my head (which is a sure sign the foil hat is working perfectly), such ast he fact that my mabari made Arl Howe his bitch right before he died.

Anyway.

This one's from Orlais.

Holy shit I look good in black.

On a gameplay note, the rate-of-fire penalty for bows when wearing massive armor is just stupid. Then again, there are quite a few things about this game that are stupid...

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Off (and insane) Topic discussions / Re: Somewhat Random Absurdity

« Last post by Silver Sorrow on January 20, 2022, 03:57:04 PM »

As usual, A Thoroughly Needless update.

So I've been working Leliana as if my (real) life depended on it. Talking, gifts, talking, giggling over shoes, and even more talking, talking, TALKING. All the talking. Took forever. An actual relationship would have been easier. After all, I have duct tape and a shovel.

Finally plowed the chick engaged in intimacy involving a bassoon and a very confused penguin by the fireside, knowing that Oghren was...I don't want to think about it.

Couldn't get there until after the Landsmeet, but I think I could've bagged the babe showed her how I felt before that, had I engaged in wanton acts of sidequestery. As it happened, I just waded through the MQ with next to no attention paid to faction quests (Chantry, Mages Collective, etc). So had I done a lot more traveling and such, I'd have nailed her good shared my heart with her much earlier.

Thinking about it, I never did experience Wynne's near-death episode, either. Weird. I've always gotten that event, but not this time.

Ehhh...anyway, I think this character will tell Morrigan to try asexual reproduction if she wants that kid so badly, and then engage in an act of mutual destruction with the Archdemon. Goodbye, cruel Ferelden.

(Also: The Maker is a Reaper!)

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The Haunt Of Hilarity 2 / Re: Gloomwood

« Last post by Doc_Brown on January 20, 2022, 12:15:46 PM »

And in the same vein of games-deliberately-evoking-classic-Thief we now have Filcher.  Not sure how these keep flying under my radar, but then again I guess that's appropriate considering the genre.