I’m your evil twin in regard to raisins. I like them in savory dishes and salads, but can’t stand them in desserts and baked goods.

I DO use Twitch and I don’t know what they’re talking about.

Helping with maintenance tasks like cleaning the grinder is a good idea, but I wouldn’t count on changing your parents’ preferences. If you don’t enjoy their preferred roast/ratio, just bring some of your own beans and make a separate pot for yourself when you visit. I had a similar situation with my in-laws and that is our solution. I bring my coffee when I visit them and they bring theirs when they visit us and we’re all happy.

So much emphasis on this happening “every time” you tell someone to wait in camp. How frequently are people changing their party that this makes the game “borderline unplayable?” Am I a weirdo for sticking with the same group 99% of the time? I’ve changed a party member a grand total of once in the past like 60 hours of the game. Do others switch on a fight-by-fight basis or something?

Perfect. Thanks. I’ve found the mausoleum (and had the encounter outside,) but haven’t entered yet. Just wanted to make sure I wasn’t screwing anything up by working on the Halsin/shadow curse quest line and just exploring the map before visiting Moonrise. I saw people complaining about ruining their playthrough by waiting too long to go to Moonrise and I suddenly got worried that this was a Mass Effect situation and some hidden timer was running on all the prisoners or something.

I’m seeing some conflicting information about Act II out there regarding order of operations. From what I’ve read, it sounds like I’ll get a pop-up warning when I’m about to trigger something that would affect other quests. However, I’m also seeing a lot of people saying that you should just beeline to Moonrise ASAP before doing any side quests. So which is it? Am I free to explore, work on Halsin’s stuff, etc. as long as I don’t trigger that pop-up? Or is there a timer going as soon as the stuff at Last Light kicks off?

From my understanding, that only happens if you pass the point of no return to enter the mountain pass or if you go to the goblin camp and advance the story there. You can find the Grove and then leave and take as much time as you want to explore before going to the goblin camp and progressing the story.

“Added a journal step for when the tieflings leave the Emerald Grove. The Forging of the Heart quest will also close if Dammon is no longer available in the region.”

Does this just mean that the quest log will update to clarify that the next step is later in the game? Or are you just locked out of Karlach’s story entirely if you recruit her after Dammon leaves the Grove now? I’m already annoyed that I’m locked out of her romance because I listened to the game and thought resolving the Grove stuff was time-sensitive, so I dove into it right away before meeting Karlach. I was hoping that they would change it so the romance options would trigger even if the first upgrade happens in Act II, but I guess my poor Dwarven cleric is just going to be lonely on this playthrough.

“Low” in this clip is describing social classes and “company” here just means the people someone associates with. He is worried that “polite society” will shun his family because of what he did and they will be forced to associate with people who would be considered lower class, like criminals, to survive.

Not a movie I saw as a child, but the Exorcist affects me a lot more in my late 30s than it did in my teens and 20s. When I was younger, the scary stuff was all surface level (scary voices, levitation, puking, the crucifix scene, etc.) but now I pick up on more character-driven horror elements. At its core, the movie is about a single mother with a demanding and stressful career whose daughter is sick and getting worse while doctors can’t help. She becomes so desperate that she pursues an exorcism, despite not even being religious. On top of that, you also have Father Karras desperately trying to save this girl while in the middle of doubting his own faith.

I think those human elements are why the movie is still talked about as one of the scariest of all time. Even if you’re not really conscious of it while watching, I think that’s why it sticks with people. There’s those underlying elements that everyone can relate to providing structural support for the scary little demon girl puking pea soup and throwing down “your mom” jokes.

I’m from Kansas City. For most of my life, a successful Royals season has been defined by simply remaining interesting until Chiefs training camp begins in August. I am more of a football fan, so most years, I just totally abandon baseball as soon as football starts.

Honestly, I don’t know how folks in areas with consistently good baseball AND football do it. It was rough in 2014-2015 when the Royals were making the postseason for the first time in my adult life while the Chiefs were starting to build something special with Andy Reid. September and October were just exhausting. But, you know, that’s one of those “good problems,” so I can’t really complain.

Charlie Bellmore - guitar, bass

Nick Bellmore - drums

Erik Rutan - guitar on track 1

https://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Corpsegrinder/Corpsegrinder/1020488

How extreme are the consequences for not bringing companions with you on their specific quests?

I’ve been rolling with the same party all game and I’m really happy with it. I figured on my next playthrough, I’d just pick a different party composition and really get to know those characters on that playthrough, which would keep things fresh for me.

I don’t mind missing out on random lore or conversation bits (that’s the kind of stuff I’m trying to save for future playthroughs,) but it would bum me out a little if one of my camp buddies got mad and just left in a “bad ending” sort of way (I’d be more ok with a bittersweet “friends going separate ways” type scene, though, if it makes sense for the story.) I want to help everyone, but it just feels so video-gamey to add someone to the party, level them up, give them decent equipment, complete a quest, and then kick them out again just to get a better cutscene or something when that’s not how I’ve been playing for the past 40 hours.

Specifically, I am about to enter the part of the Act 1 map relevant to Lae’zel and she hasn’t been in my active party since I met Karlach.

So what do you think? Should I stick to my preferred play style and see what happens? Or change it up because I’m a chronic “good guy” gamer who wants to help everyone and get the “goodest” ending?

American football fans probably remember the crazy wildcard playoff game between the Colts and Chiefs during the 2013 season’s playoffs. The Chiefs built up a big lead, but Andrew Luck led the Colts to an insane comeback victory.

I am a Chiefs fan. At the time, the Chiefs had not won a playoff game since 1993. After a devastating 2012 season, the team cleaned house and brought in a new regime, led by Andy Reid. It worked well and the Chiefs had one of the biggest record improvements year-to-year in NFL history. My optimism was at an all time high. This was the year the playoff curse would end.

I spent the week leading up to the game just absorbed in the hype, reading, listening, and watching every bit of analysis I could find.

When the game finally ended, I was absolutely devastated. It’s probably the hardest I’ve ever taken a loss as a fan.

…and then, I started getting targeted ads for Colts merch, including a cardboard Andrew Luck mask (which was just a cutout of his face with the eyes cut out stuck to a popsicle stick.) Everywhere I went on the internet, I was haunted by a grinning, eyeless, Andrew Luck reminding me that the Chiefs would never win a playoff game. This went on for several weeks.

I agree. Reading other people’s experiences makes it seem like my game is bugged or something. I turned Gale down once during his magic show and I’ve been offered a couple of flirty conversation options with other companions that I didn’t choose because I wasn’t interested in pursuing a romance in them. That’s it. Meanwhile, from what I’ve read, I accidentally locked myself out of the one romance I WAS intending to pursue because I didn’t meet Karlach until after I resolved the Druid/tiefling/goblin situation.

So while everyone else is looking for a way to make their party take a cold shower because they can’t take a hint, my poor lonely dwarf is just over there pining after Karlach, who never has anything new to say to him, and being ignored by everyone else.

Richard Belzer played the character John Munch first in Homicide: Life on the Street and then in Law and Order: SVU. Through various crossovers and cameos, the character John Munch has appeared in 10 television shows, from Arrested Development to the X-Files.

To add to that, Homicide had a crossover episode with a show called St. Elsewhere. St. Elsewhere’s series finale implied that the entire series had been a fantasy taking place in the mind of a boy with autism named Tommy Westphall.

So with all that in mind, we can extrapolate that…

St. Elsewhere

Homicide

Every version of Law and Order

The Wire

Arrested Development

Sesame Street

The X-Files

American Dad

…plus more all take place in the same universe and that universe is contained in a neurodivergent boy’s head.

I’ll admit that I’m getting a little nervous about the whole situation, but I won’t fully panic unless the Chiefs restructure someone ELSE’S contract before the Jones deal gets done. From everything I’ve read, the team was hoping for a new Jones deal to give them some cap flexibility this season. So if all of a sudden, someone like Kelce gets their contract tweaked, that’d indicate that the team has given up on a new Jones deal for now. At least, that’s how I’m coping at the moment.

EDIT: I have learned that since the Chiefs put him on the “did not report” list, his 2023 contract doesn’t affect the salary cap until he reports, so there goes that optimism. Now that I know about that, I’m just going to assume that Jones will hold out until week 8. That way, if he reports earlier, it will be a fun surprise. Otherwise, the first half of this season might look a lot like 2018. Ungodly offense paired with nonexistent defense (unless King Felix is farther along in his development than we realize.)

For reference, I’m a little behind you in the game (towards the end of Act 1) and there are 7 companions in my camp (not counting my custom character, non-playable characters, or animals.)

The guy on the windmill is not a companion. So you might just be missing Wyll.

If that’s the case, I’d just keep going, unless you’ve read about Wyll and really want to experience his story or romance. Since you can re-spec characters into any class or just use hirelings, there’s no gameplay advantage to the companions, outside of their storylines. That said, Wyll has just been hanging out at my camp ever since he joined in my game and I’m not super into his story, so I’m biased. Someone else could comment next that he’s their favorite character and you’re missing the best part of the game without him.

Bottom line: there’s no way to experience everything in BG3 in your first playthrough. If you’re having fun, keep going. If you think you’ll have more fun with every available companion, start over. It’s entirely up to you.

I had this thought when I saw a “what should Larian do next” post. It makes total sense to me. They could do a stripped down, combat-focused Icewind Dale game, as sort of an equivalent to a “tactics” JRPG. Then, they could do a Planescape game that is all dialogue/RP focused with minimal combat. And then by that point, the BG3 engine would probably a bit out of date, so they could create a new engine and make a new Neverwinter nights game.

It makes total sense to me, but I was also 14 years old when BG1 was released and the phone lines at my house were too old to be able to play Everquest with my friends, so those old DnD CRPGs were basically my life in high school.

That said, Larian is not Black Isle and they can do whatever they want. I’d be just as excited by D:OS 3 as I would be by another nostalgia bomb like BG3. It’s just fun to think about the possibilities.

Thanks for the detailed response. You gave me a lot to look at and consider, but it still seems like the TM2 ticks the most boxes for me. I just want to be able to grab a device, take a couple of rips, set it down, and then go enjoy my high. Long sessions, desktop devices, complicated processes, and excessive gear are not attractive to me.

I know I’d be jumping in the deep end with a hobbyist device, but I would rather deal with the growing pains of a learning curve than end up with something that doesn’t mesh well with my personal consumption habits.

Interesting point about switching up your methods to help with tolerance. I’ll keep that in mind.