Hah, like the Chinese version of Fight Club, where they throw some text up on screen at the end to explain that the authorities handled everything.

Would you care to expand on this? My impression is that he did what he did out of ethical concerns, and has paid a high price for it.

Bilbo (Bilbo!) Bilbo Tabbins,

He loves to click and scroll!

Bilbo (Bilbo!) Bilbo Tabbins,

Greatest little hobbit of them all!

Yeah, I was a big fan of lotr and the hobbit growing up (the books). I thought the lotr films were excellent, overall. Of course, they couldn’t include everything, and there were some minor deviations, but pretty damned good.

The Hobbit movies were hot garbage, imo. They diverge wildly from the book, and are very often indistinguishable from video game cut scenes.

Yes, if you’re at that point in the main story, it’s a great time to take a break and do a bunch of side quests. Come back to it when you’re better prepared.

So I shouldn’t be that upset that 1v1 bandits are very hard and anything more is actually impossible for me?

Nope, totally in line with my experience. It takes a fair amount of practice before Henry can consistently beat anybody, and you always have to be careful fighting groups of enemies. I would suggest picking a weapon type you like, and training with Bernard until you can consistently execute a perfect block. That’s a real game-changer in any fight. If you run out of stamina, you’re going to die.

Mace or axe paired with a shield is probably the most forgiving style. You can bash your way through any fight, provided you keep your guard up, and don’t let anyone get behind you. For taking on groups, you have a few options, but you’ll generally want to string out the enemy so you’re not taking on more than one or two at a time.

Archery is very powerful if you get good at it, but it takes a fair bit of practice just to get to competent. Get yourself a decent pair of gloves or bracers that you like, and you can use the contours to help line up where your arrow will go. Don’t try to use a bow that you’re not strong or dextrous enough to draw yet. Once you can hit the bullseye at the Rattay archery range pretty consistently, work on hitting the moving targets on the river up in Ledetchko. Hunting game in the woods is also a good way to practice. Just make sure you bring plenty of arrows!

Stealth is often very handy, and once you skill it up a bit, you can do silent takedowns with a dagger. In this way, you can carefully clear out bandit and Cuman camps at night, and scoop up lots of gear to sell. Several of the millers will be able to train you in stealth and lockpicking.

If you steal anything expensive, your best bet is to stash it in your chest at home until it no longer appears stolen. This will take longer for more valuable objects. If you’re desperate for cash, the millers will fence it for you at a steep discount. Invest in some good saddlebags as soon as you can—you can find them at the stables in Merhojed, Neuhof, and Uzhitz.

Be especially careful in the western part of the map; some of the bandits you’ll encounter there will be very well-equipped and well-trained mercenaries. Sometimes you’ll stumble upon a small battle between bandits, cumans, and/or local guardsmen. These can be opportunities to scoop up some loot without doing the fighting. Just be careful; guards won’t look kindly on you stripping their comrades’ bodies. This can also be a good way to deal with groups of enemies; make them chase you into a guarded settlement.

All I can think of at the moment—hope it helps!

ETA: just remembered one thing I wish I’d known early on. While the vast majority of quests aren’t time-sensitive, some are, so pay attention to the quest text. Also, minor oblique spoiler: >!a few quests related to your friends from Skalitz will turn out differently depending on how long you put them off.!< The game doesn’t really tell you this, and it can be a real gut-punch down the line.

I mean, they made the emoji movie. And fucking battleship. Nothing’s too far-fetched. A family drama based on Connect 4? Why not! How about Dwayne Johnson stars in an action movie based on Hungry Hungry Hippos? It’s all too plausible now.

Yeah, I thought that DLC was well-written, but it is a bit of a slog, especially doing it right off the bat. I would say training with Bernard is very helpful for learning to fight. Lots of people took issue with how difficult the archery is, but I kinda love it—YMMV, obvs. There are lots of mods for it if you want a reticle.

You definitely don’t need to master weapon combos to win (although they’re pretty fun when you can pull 'em off), but you’ll want to unlock Perfect Blocking asap. You can unlock it training with Bernard, and it lets you block without losing stamina, if you time it right.

A lot depends on how you want to rp Henry, but I’d recommend heading to Uzhitz, and learning to read from the scribe there. Once you’re literate, you can take advantage of skill books that you’ll find here and there. The combat is pretty difficult until both you and Henry know what you’re doing.

Pay attention to the stats on gear, and build a set of low-vis, low-noise armor for skullduggery. Also a suit of fancy clothes for impressing people (try and keep it clean!). If you’re feeling undergeared, do some treasure hunting; you can find good gear in most of the various buried chests.

Alchemy is super useful, and once you skill it up a bit you can auto-brew potions. Hope you have as much fun with it as I did!

I remember at the beginning of KC:D, there’s a bit where you’re fleeing headlong down a rocky path. I stopped at one point to look behind me, and was immediately struck down by a soldier who’d been chasing me. It definitely heightened the tension; it would have been totally immersion-breaking if the urgency was contrived, and so many games fall into this trap (and not just in the intro). Now, depending on the genre, immersion is going to be a different priority; it’s hardly the ultimate yardstick for gaming. But I do love a game that pays attention to it, and KC:D was great at that. Apparently I’m pretty hyped for the sequel.

I don’t disagree with your takes here, but they’re a pretty hilarious juxtaposition with your user name!

It’s also frequently the case that people are just scrolling everything, rather than a curated list of subs. In which case, there’s no shortage of doom and gloom, even after filtering out obvious bad actors. I tend to alternate between this and my subscription feed, which is mostly Star Trek memes.

Checkmate, libgargs!

Yeah, I fully agree with your take on this. If you’re going to walk around with an advertisement on, it’s incumbent on you to know what the hell it’s for.

Been a while since I’d thought about it, so I looked up some articles about it. They all seemed to think the film’s ending was bleak, whereas the story’s was hopeful. That wasn’t at all how I remembered it, so I went back and re-read the story. All the articles seemed to miss the idea that in the story, there was no National Guard coming to the rescue. There’s no indication that the mist has any end, or that civilization’s existing power structures have survived. The protagonist hears (or hallucinates) a single garbled word over the radio—that’s the entirety of the hope on offer. A disappointing example of popular literary criticism.

The movie was all right, but the finale was terrible. The short story ending was much scarier (and what’s more, would have left the door wide open for a sequel—I don’t know what the hell they were thinking with the ending as written).

Oh, noes! There’s only like a billion other instances you can access it from.

I haven’t read Sirens of Titan, but this did remind me of his short story, “Harrison Bergeron”, which explores some of the same themes. Worth a read, would you say? Haven’t picked up any Vonnegut in years.

My kids are in school in Texas, and have 100% brought home analog clock worksheets.

While that user is not the only one I have tagged as “feckin crisso,” they seem to be the most prolific of that stripe at the moment. I was using the singular they.

They do seem to pop up like a Jesus-in-the-box in every thread where someone brings up Christianity. I ought to have blocked them by now, but it’s kind of fascinating. They’re less aggressive than your garden-variety tankie, but just as stubborn and dogmatic.

Subbed, thanks! Looks like a good resource.