Oldmandan

Was that the

spoiler

Nere/save the gnomes quest in Grymforge?

I got a warning before I rested (right when I went to camp) that I was going to fail that one (psychic call for help, that they were about to die), I did rest specifically in that area of the underdark though, the scene might not trigger elsewhere? IDK.

If that's the bug I'm thining of, it can be fixed by entering and exiting conversation. Seems to be something weird with the game thinking you're talking to someone when you're not.

(The other one I have no idea.)

/shurg Can't say I've found it this way, but I'm pretty used both to DnD mechanics generally, and Larian's approach to encounter design in specific. (I've so far had exactly one combat game over, because I was dumb and let Ragzlin get into the rafters and chuck javelins at me for like 20 damage a pop.)

Positioning matters, your environment is something to be used to your advantage, abilities that boost your accuracy are very powerful, and different enemies have different strengths and weaknesses. /shurg Hard to give much specific advice, because different encounters and party compositions demand different tactics and threat assessment.

Some specific quests have time limits (long rest based ones) but those that do are pretty explicit about it and make a point of warning you before you can unintentionally progress them.

I've been rolling a Bladelock/Devotion Pally in my initial solo playthrough (exact split tbd, currently 5/3) and having quite a bit of fun with it. Love the unique magic weapons that give bonuses when bound by an EK or Bladelock, and smites recharging on short rest lets you spam away pretty freely.

Multi into Trickster Cleric, so you can Invoke Duplicity for shadow clones. :P

Rural download speeds interfered with the planned multiplayer run, so I've started a human (basically just for shield prof) GOOlock gish* playthrough (party not nailed down, but probably primarily Gale/Shadowheart/Karlach) so I can scratch the itch without spoiling too much content for myself.

*Devil's Sight works and Pact of the Blade is in, let's go. :P Might multi into Rogue, Fighter or Pally (or maybe Sorc, although w/o weapon cantrips that's less synergistic now) to maximize the memes, but I haven't decided.

Sweet. Been really enjoying things so far, but I've gotten a couple crashes on both DX11 and Vulkan, and the occasional weird/stuttery cutscene. Hopefully things run a little smoother afterwards.

I told myself I wouldn't read unrelated papers at work, but here we are. :P Yeah, as expected, the actual paper is way more informative about the structural properties, and about the limitations. (Difficulty fabricating larger samples without voids, said voids resulting in much lower strengths and much less plasticity, uncertain tensile strength, etc.) Fascinatingly though, (at least to me, not having known the details about DNA based metamaterials :P) the details of the properties should be tunable by way of changing the DNA lattice structure. Which makes it a two-part engineering problem, figuring out how to manufacture it at scale, and determining optimal lattice structures for different applications. Definitely exciting, and will be big once we figure these things out.

But that's not really what I was talking about. While I get that this is an article geared to laymen/the general public, I do think we should be holding science communication to a higher standard. What was discovered is exciting, but we don't know how it can be used yet, or if it will ever be practical to do so. Overview is fine, I'd just like some more qualifiers and less speculation. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like some more care would do a lot to improve overall scientific literacy and trust in the scientific community. /shurg

Always a little annoyed at articles like this; "strength" doesn't tell me anything. If this is 5x more resistant than steel to deformation, but then shatters catastrophically, that limits its use cases substantially. Likewise, compressive, tensile and shear strength are all different properties, only one of which is referenced at all. Still very cool, and I look forward to seeing how it develops and learning more details about its capabilities (when I have more time I'll read the paper), but vague terminology like this has a bad habit of making stuff sound way more revolutionary than it actually is. /shurg

The only competition is in terms of time and money you want to put into it, and... IDK man buy whichever one you're more excited about first, buy the other when you have money and time to play it. /shurg Hell, wait long enough and you might even get it on sale.

TBH, I think at least part of it is the tendency for companies to exploit human nature for profit; it's not necessarily a gaming community thing as it is a "tribalism is a convenient way to establish and maintain a consumer base, and it's been ingrained to the point it crops up even when the publishers/companies in question aren't actively cultivating it," thing.

I'm hopeful that both will exist, but who knows. Use the 'poles too much, get weird dreams and certain, pre-set powers. But you could have so much more if you were willing to speed the process along...