I’ve been doing an honor mode run in Baldur’s Gate 3. So far so good but have been close to the end a few times. The Linux native version is amazing and runs much better than the windows version under proton ever did.
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Just bought a new laptop. Although I am incredibly busy, it still means I have the bandwidth for heavier computing. From 14 and 10 year old entry laptops with 4 and 8 GB RAM, ThinkPad P14s Gen 6 (AMD) with 64 GB RAM here I go. It may be nothing to you all, but it is quite the leap for me. Thanks to a last minute Black Friday find. (The laptop that I had been following actually increased in price since summer.)
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oh dang, those are nice, I am sure you’re excited.
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I was gifted this last year, and having played both Divinity Original Sin 1 and 2, I thought it would quickly become one of my favourite ever games, especially after the praise it got. But I ended up abandoning it after about 15 hours and I’ve never gone back to it.
I’m not really sure why it didn’t fully grab me. I think it was just the combat and overall gameplay not quite jiving with me. I love the writing, character building, world, etc. but I just wasn’t finding the combat very fun. I’m not a diehard D&D guy, and although I like some turn-based games, I think my patience is more limited with them.
I’ll probably try again soon and maybe try a different class to see if the combat is any more fun. There’s also the option of just playing it on Story mode to experience that side of things, although I’ve never done that before and not sure I’d enjoy essentially watching a video game.
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Sounds awesome, wish you so much fun with your new gadget 
Most of act1 has very iffy and not very enjoyable combat due to all the hit misses you will do, but once you get to level 4 and 5 it starts changing dramatically since you get a lot more options, but it is indeed not for everybody.
A friend and photographer, Claude Schildknecht, passed away last week in his beloved Swiss mountains. No more walks, trips, chats. I’m deeply saddened.
Photographing subjects ranging from the mountains to Iceland, the Milky Way to dancers and Northern lights to the costumed performers of the Venice Carnival, Claude was a very active photographer and a kind soul.
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I’m not sure what level I had reached, but it was where I could choose a specialization. I just found myself a bit paralyzed with each fight, not knowing what to do. I know this is a (lack of) skill issue as much as anything, but it was an unfamiliar feeling for me because I usually knew how to approach fights in D:OS 1 and 2.
I should also note that I played D:OS 2 twice but didn’t finish either time. If I have one complaint about Larian, it’s that they still could improve the pacing of their games. Maybe it’s more to do with me than the game, but I start to run out of steam well before the end of the game. Things start to get quite repetitive in their worlds, although I realize that there is a lot of room for freedom and creative gameplay.
The last game that I loved right through to the end was Cyberpunk. CD Projekt Red games in general have always kept me engaged.
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I played BG3 about as far as you did, and then left it at that. I’m just not interested in reading all the various spells and items and skills and figuring out the worthwhile combinations.
However, I did love the story and characters. These I continued vicariously in the podcasts “Mages and Murderdads” (free), and “Real Lich Hours” (payed). Both of these are hosted by huge D&D nerds, who enrich their recounting of their play with a lot of backstory and lore. Highly recommended.
Indeed, Mages and Murderdads also has fantastic seasons on Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2. It sounds daft to listen to a podcast about the happenings in a video game. But a good story is a good story, especially when delivered by a good storyteller.
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Thank you for sharing @kofa.
I had a friend who was not close, but when he passed, I realized he was closer than I had thought. Not a photographer, but a decent human being with a unique lens of the world around him. His only gift to me was a Funko Pop of Sergeant Johnson, given shortly before his passing. He said it was for all the days I spent taking care of my terminally, complexly ill father for 16 years, for soldiering on despite the challenges and naysayers. In retrospect, he understood my suffering because it mirrored his journey through depression, which may have caused his premature death. He was much younger than me.
Death comes to all of us. Those ahead of us will be greatly missed.
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The estimated date of delivery is the last week of December. Is a month’s time typical of direct from manufacturer laptop purchases (not made to order)? Online, someone says that it is just their financial system providing an arbitrary date.
I got a fairly similar response from Dell a few weeks ago.
Now we are into Christmas season where some parts of the distributions systems are a bit overloaded.
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