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Cake day: July 20th, 2023

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  • Green flame blade is a great horde killing spell while still feeling cool. IMO everyone picks booming blade because it’s more useful against single targets, which is more fun against a larger range of enemies, from bosses to your equals, plus thunder is rarely resisted compared to fire.

    Some people implement minion rules where overflowing damage from killing a weak enemy flows on to the adjacent enemy, which of course is simplified and incorporated into green flame blade. One of the hardest things to capture in the standard D&D rules is that in fantasy, the warrior (Aragorn, Holga, Achilles) typically cuts down hundreds of mooks while the mage battles the giant powerful monster who cannot be defeated by a sword (Gandalf Vs Balrog). In D&D, either it’s totally inversed or the mage is better at both, largely because spells like fireball suit both situations better.

    Green flame blade is a very easy option to balance this scale, albeit via magic.


  • The flip side to this article is that most of the criticisms, while really valid, talk about the intended play style for life sim games to be to live through the key points of their character’s lives with immersion.

    For literally 20 years, I’ve barely seen it used for this purpose, instead people make themselves, their friends, their dream house, they cheat in money and turn off aging etc. Actually stopping to roleplay your character making friends is the activity most people do when their bored of the regular things they do.

    Still, InZoi seeming to not simulate the lives of any of the other NPC’s is a big loss. Even if you’re not interacting with that part of the game, knowing it’s there is great. The Sims 4 (or 3, I forget) strove to reach the dream version of this: You buy a cheap property in a fully open world and ‘functioning’ town and you could walk from your front door to the town center, and the neighbour you see may also drive to town and you’ll see them there. Then as you play, you go from working in the gym to owning it, and can now modify it like your property because it runs on the same rules, the same goes for everything else. The Sims didn’t manage this but their later games clearly launched with this as their design’s guiding light.

    I’m mostly interested in the game as a character creator and house builder, but that’s because I don’t expect any game to do a good job of what the article writer wishes for, The Sims included.


  • The main thing I’ve heard online is that it’s a pro-europe movement, particularly in support or rearming the EU, particularly in response to current US actions.

    I was speaking to an Italian guy at the pub on the weekend and he said that’s totally wrong and it’s just protesting general government corruption. I don’t know if he’s more credible than the internet, being Italian is a big plus but being a man at the pub means it’s likely wrong. Maybe there are protests for both.






  • I wouldn’t be surprised if basically every person with over 1k hours in a game isn’t seeking some sort of escapism, not counting the anomalies like people leaving servers running etc.

    I suppose every minute in a game is escapism of some sort, but escapism from dysphoria or something else significant, I think would be common.




  • This is what the US have encouraged Taiwan to do. Taiwan wanted to purchase a few incredibly expensive fighters and ship from the USA, but basically all war simulations just had China target these and secure a fast win. The USA instead encourage Taiwan to take the “porcupine” technique, spreading many small weapons, particularly handheld anti-aircraft type weaponry across the country. The plan is to make invasion too inconvenient. The flip side is that without a reliable way to show a display of strength, anywhere the larger aggressor does pick on (USA to UK China to Taiwan) can focus on one part of the country and reliably cause massive damage there.









  • I saw an announcement from Sega a couple of months ago saying that they’re looking to return to their MO: Being the punkrock to Nintendo’s mainstream pop. I think this is really the difference between Sega’s Sonic Vs Paramount’s Sonic. Paramount want to make a mainstream Sonic movie and mainstream mean filing off the rough edges.

    I don’t think it’s got anything to do with today’s political landscape as much as the nature of all high budget cinema. Never mistake the film industry as anything but venture capitalism, with art being incidental and anarchic messaging being a facade and only existing for profit. Any for-profit art, particularly a $122 million cost piece of art, is going to only care about the most profitable choices.