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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • I bought these and started DAO again a couple days ago. I had them on console before, but it was cheap enough to add to my Steam account. I loaded up a ton of mods this time. So far I’m having fun, but it crashes a lot, so I’m quick saving constantly. I’m not sure if the crashing is the game, my laptop, or the mods. I’m assuming its the mods and so far don’t care enough to figure out which one(s). The good news is, I can go from desktop to loaded game in about 30 seconds, which is a nice change from modern games that take forever to load.

    For those commenting on EA, if you buy on Steam you’ll get a launcher, but you don’t need the EA app to play (at least for DAO, I haven’t gotten to the others yet). However, if you just don’t want to give your $7 to EA (after Steam’s cut), that’s totally understandable.




  • From A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain (1890):

    But when I saw them put the noose around his neck, then everything let go in me and I made a spring to the rescue—and as I made it I shot one more glance abroad—by George! here they came, a-tilting!—five hundred mailed and belted knights on bicycles!

    The grandest sight that ever was seen. Lord, how the plumes streamed, how the sun flamed and flashed from the endless procession of webby wheels!

    I waved my right arm as Launcelot swept in—he recognized my rag —I tore away noose and bandage, and shouted:

    “On your knees, every rascal of you, and salute the king! Who fails shall sup in hell to-night!”





  • Depends on your hairstyle, but I used to have my hair cut about once a month for $20-25. I bought a set of electric hair clippers for about $30 more than 15 years ago and learned to cut it myself and have saved thousands of dollars. Its a simple men’s cut, so it works for me.

    An electric razor or a quality safety razor are also possibilities. I used to use the disposable gillette razor cartridges at about $4 per head, which lasted 3-4 weeks (I used them until they hurt to save money). Now I have both a safety razor and an electric razor (I don’t need both, the electric was a gift). The safety razor was $45 and and blades are about $0.10. Blades last about a week instead of a month, but it paid for itself in about a year. I experimented with various shaving creams as well, but eventually went back to canned shaving cream because the time spent creating a good lather in alternative forms was annoying and not worth the savings.

    The electric razor may or may not pay for itself depending on how much it cost and how often you have to change the head and the cost of cleaning solutions, but I do enjoy having it for a quick shave. It definitely is not as good of a shave though.




  • I haven’t tried it yet, but A Little to the Left looks like a fun organizing game. It was just added to Game Pass if you have that. I also see my daughter playing Power Washer Simulator sometimes, which I haven’t tried, but it looks like it could be satisfying to play.

    I’m a big fan of Don’t Nod games (Life is Strange, Tell Me Why) for atmospheric storytelling. Life is Strange: True Colors is from Deck Nine games, but falls in the same category. Detroit: Become Human is also kind of similar, but it occasionally throws in sections where you have to quickly react with button pushing that I don’t enjoy. One thing I find interesting about all of these is that you can play them more than once with different choices to get different paths, but so far I haven’t replayed any of them because I felt like the path I took was meaningful and I don’t want to change my story yet.

    An MMO could be a good way to go. My wife isn’t really into gaming, but we played WoW together on and off for years. I haven’t played them much, but if I were to recommend one to start with now I’d probably check out Final Fantasy 14 or Elder Scrolls Online.




  • This is essentially the same way that my employer sets pay ranges.

    They send a list of job titles and descriptions to an outside company along with the number of employees and how much each of those employees are paid. Lots of other employers send their info and the outside company tries to match up all the job descriptions and then sends back to all of the employers what the “market range” is for every job.

    My employer then decides where in that range they think is “competitive” (hint: its near the bottom). That’s the amount HR and Finance are willing to approve when hiring someone into a role, regardless of experience. The wages are only “competitive” if every other employer goes along with the scheme and offers the same amount.



  • I also go back to Skyrim constantly; it is probably my most played game. I have a hard time making a definite suggestion because I sit here many nights and wonder which game I want to play and frequently find that I don’t want to play any of them (so I scroll Lemmy instead). That said, below are a few that might be possibilities and I’m looking forward to reading everyone else’s suggestions so I can find my next game too!

    You could check out the Dungeon Siege or Torchlight series. They’re both Diablo-style gameplay, but in a super generic RPG setting. They’re both older, cheaper, and okay game series.

    The Overlord series is fun, its kind of a reverse RPG where you are the bad guy terrorizing the locals with your minions. The gameplay mainly revolves around directing your minions more than direct combat. It is a bit simplistic, but I really enjoyed it.

    I’m not a fan of the Witcher series, but lots of people love it and it seems to check most of the boxes you’re looking for.

    I agree with the Oblivion suggestion. I’m always conflicted on this one because I think it is a better game than Skyrim in terms of quests and interactions, but the gameplay is a bit dated and there were some questionable design decisions that resulted in some major overhaul mods being built to completely redesign the leveling system. I would love to have Oblivion, but with Skyrim graphics and mechanics (mostly).

    Kingdoms of Amalur definitely seems like it hits everything on your list. I struggled to stay interested in it long enough to finish it (I think I finished it), but I’m not sure why since it has all the elements I enjoy from other games.

    Similar to KoA, Dragon’s Dogma seems to have all the typical things I like in a game, but I’ve played it twice and not made it out of the starting region either time. I’m not sure what it is that causes me to lose interest so fast. There’s nothing I can point to and say I dislike.

    Greedfall is super weird (to me) and not quite a fantasy RPG, more like medieval fantasy RPG. It is generally an open world game, but not as open as Skyrim (fewer side-quests, semi-linear main quest line). I thought it was an okay game, the main thing that frustrated me is that there were some areas of the game where you could make decisions with major story impacts and other areas where you were not given any choice in the narrative. As a result, I sometimes felt like my character was taking actions that were not in alignment with the narrative I had created for him. I appreciated that the game seemed unique and not just copying something else that was successful and I think I played it on GamePass at the time, so it was kind of like playing it for free. :)