Bjorn

Went to trivia last night and took second place (the best our trivia team has done), now we've got a $50 gift certificate that will cover next weeks drinks for our team. Pretty jazzed about that.

Fun basketball origin fact, James Naismith (the inventor of basketball) was hired by the Univ. of Kansas to bring the game here and be the first head coach of the team. He was our worst coach ever in terms of success, and the only head coach in the history of the program to leave the job with a losing record.

It is always situational to me based on my squad and the enemy types. If I'm facing all unarmored soldiers and I don't want to try and get a Skullmine off for some free intel, then I'll overwatch a majority of the squad and lead with either a sniper or grenade. If there's armor involved, then I want to hold back someone who can take out the armor, and another person to finish the enemy off. If I want intel, then I want to make sure that my skullminer is in a position to likely reach the enemy to mine, and that there's still another unit left to watch that person's back (and I don't want to overwatch too many in the squad as I don't want to accidently kill everyone). I usually try to get my skullmine off as early as possible in a mission just so I don't forget. It can also depend on if I want to hack a robot enemy or dominate with a Psychonaut. Those can also affect how I break concealment. On city maps, I also always try to find one of the lookout towers to learn what its bonus is, as sometimes that can affect how I want to break overwatch (there are tower hack bonuses that let you re-enter concealment or get your AP back).

Are you me? I literally did that this week. I helped a friend move last week and she gave me a super rad hand carved hand giving the middle finger.

I try about once a year, and usually flame out within the first 30 minutes. I'm not even really sure why. I think I've heard enough to know it's possible to really screw up a playthrough even at character creation, but I'm loathe to use a guide because it seems like the kind of game I should truck through as blindly as possible.

It looks like the other free bundles they are going to offer may be predicated on playing or owning some of the other games that they have on sale.

This is the best wrong thread post ever, because it's conceivable this could be in Cookie Clicker.

Sega has a bundle of free games on Steam right now, including Golden Axe and Jet Set Radio.

I assume that they are separate powers so that you can't burn your skulljack getting intel from a random soldier on a mission when you need to advance the story. It still feels weird that it is always present and makes it feel like you should be able to use both powers. 2 is doing such a better job of making me really think about what I want the makeup of my squad to be than EU ever did. Now that I've got Colonels of every class and a really nice Psychonaut, there's no "perfect" loadout like I felt I had in EU. I found a loadout that worked for me in EU and never felt like there was a situation that I needed to reconsider unless I just wanted to for the fun of it. I sacrificed taking in my medic last night in favor of my combat oriented Specialist, since the preview showed me at least two different types of robots. The Ranger is probably the least required class to have with you, but I just like my Colonel Icepick so much she has to come along with every mission. I do use my Ranger as my sacrificial lamb though because she doesn't feel mandatory like the rest, if someone has to get shot, I usually try to make sure it is her. I do have some ideas on interesting class mixups (I'd love to get 6 Psychonauts trained up and try to take them all out), but those will probably have to wait until later playthroughs to try.

Yes, opened spoiler, not disappointed.

The original PS1 era Xenogears? I remember it being one of those games I Ioved until it lasted so long that I ended up hating it. It's easily twice as long as it needs to be.

Oh, warning for Ironman players, I did get a corrupted save last night. Thankfully I wasn't in Ironman, I'm still on my non-Iron learning run. But I had both a quicksave and the previous Autosave get corrupted and crash upon load. The third save back was fine. One thing that the two corrupted saves had in common was that I had mind controlled a Faceless One. But it could have been anything (the third save back happened to be like one turn before I mind controlled the faceless one, so that's the only reason it stuck out to me). I was messing around with the Faceless One breaking cover and shit and then reloaded to make a real turn with him and the save just wouldn't load.

That may well be, in my memory it wasn't but I didn't double check, just made an assumption. Also, another thing I was wrong about (this seems to be a running theme!). I had a Specialist miss a Skullmine on an enemy at sprinting distance, and that specialist also got to take a shot afterwords. Maybe this is intended to reduce the risk some of attempting a skullmine, since you're often already running yourself forward into a less safe position, and if you miss the skullmine and couldn't go ahead and shoot the target, you might never take the risk.

I did exactly that same thing. I didn't know this existed! I'm going to have check it out at some point.

I've always wanted a decent Scooby Doo game, so this is completely acceptable. (seriously, a Telltale scooby doo mystery game would be dreamy)

I'll be installing that mod next time I play! A few things I learned tonight: 1) Wet Works (+25 XP from kills) is retroactive. I had three soldiers rank up to Major after taking it. I had delayed taking it as I assumed it would be most valuable for squaddies and I hadn't been ranking up lower level soldiers (I'm pretty sure it was not retroactive in EU) 2) I was just flat out wrong earlier, anyone can Skullmine from full sprint distance (they cannot skulljack, in fact, I haven't had the skulljack option come up at all tonight, I'm not sure what the requirment is, or if you have to start your turn in melee range, or what). This makes slapping some movement mods on a Specialist really valuable if you're trying to pick up some Intel. 3) Bizarrely, Rangers have a very strange interaction with Skullmining though. This is weird enough that I'd assume it has to be a bug. If you skullmine an enemy with a Ranger and MISS the attack, you can still move or attack once, even if you had to sprint to reach the enemy. I am assuming this might be related to the skill Implacable that lets you move one more time after a kill, but that skill does not allow for another shot. If you successfully hit and kill the enemy with the skullmine, then Implacable works as expected and you can just move. It's only on a miss that you get a free attack.

I think you're taking Zeus in the worst possible light here, the context of his post in specifically about dealing with religion that teaches kids that if they, and everyone else, don't live and believe in specific ways, they will burn in fire for eternity. That's not a condemnation of a Buddhist who volunteers at a homeless shelter, it's a condemnation of people who teach little kids about burning in hell. Buddhists, as far as I know, don't do that.

I don't have a problem with describing certain kinds of religious upbringings as child abuse, particularly those which include heavy doses of things like going to hell. I know too many people damaged by those things to think of a more appropriate word for it. I've also had people get very angry at me for daring to say that, but that's not something that particularly bothers me.

It's not so much that it bothers me, but more that I'm curious if there is an in game explanation that I missed. I actually went and found a lets play of the end of the game to review the notes in Ned's place. Your theory Jenna was pretty close, but I don't think he was explicitly hiding the keys, he was hiding supplies that happened to have the keys. There's a list of things Ned has and needs before winter comes, and it includes notes about him hiding supplies around the forest in case he loses access to his bunker for any reason. Then, in his radio log, he notes: 7/17/89 2F Found Supplies (HOW?) KEYS GONE CANT LET 2F FIND B So that was one of his hidden backup supply caches, that conveniently also had the cave keys. Likely alarmed so he would know if it had ever been found and couldn't be caught going back for it.

Have we misunderstood each other? The elk tracker is on the ground directly beneath the rope. Ned placed it on the ground under the rope to make sure you would find it, climb the rope and find the bunker. I'd say that's the conclusion you're intended to make, but given that this is a piece of science equipment calibrated to track the Elk collars, it's a stretch. Possible, sure, but a stretch. Unless the alarm came from science people and had some connection there, but I don't think there's a lot to suggest that.

Actually there is, there's an Elk tracking belt sitting on the ground. The alarm is, afaik, the only time the tracker finds something that isn't one of the Elk tracking belts. Edited to add: The tracker leads you to: 1. The tracker in the tent that gives you more info 2. A dead elk carcass that is a clue that not all is as it appears (and may lead you to one the easter egg tape, that I missed) 3. Leads you to the alarm (no tracker) 4. Leads you to Ned's base, where he placed a tracker on the ground to get your attention.

I barely had enough Trooper corpses to build the first tier of armor as I had sold them off as well. That likely could have been a run killer for me.

I think Delilah wants to believe Ned did it because if it was an accident (avoidable or not by Ned), then she ends up feeling responsible for 1) never having reported them as she should have and 2) never following up on why they disappeared, which means that Brian never got a proper burial or acknowledgment. It's the first time (that we as players know of), where her avoidance of responsibility has been shown to have dire consequences. The whole keys/bag/alarm thing is probably the most inexplicable element to me. That the bag and alarm had been there as a way to hide them don't fit. If Ned wanted them hidden there are about 10 million better ways to hide them in that forest, even for someone who isn't totally with it. I'd have to double check, but I thought in some notes in his hideout he references losing the keys? But maybe I misunderstood something. Because that would imply that some other party set up the alarm and bag. And there's no existing character for which that would make sense. The only thing that makes sense is that Ned had finally decided someone needed to find Brian. He would have already known that there was another way out of the cave. Locking the door behind Henry wasn't about locking him in, but forcing him to go forward to find Brian (that Henry didn't have climbing gear is something Ned might not have been aware of since Henry had done so much rapelling around the park). Oh wow, I totally hadn't made the connection between Ned and the antagonist from WDS1. It's definitely using the same structure.

I'd raise hell about it (well, first I'd have calm conversations, then I'd raise hell), both with the school and with the other kid's parents. Your kid isn't the only one who will have that shit said to them by that kid, and your belief structure is as valid as anyone elses and should be given the same amount of respect. What would you think if that kid was telling a Jewish kid that his people murdered Jesus and are going to hell for it. Or a Muslim kid that his people are all evil because they're all terrorists and so they're all going to hell. It's a form of verbal bullying and should be treated as such (and if a Christian kid was being mocked and belittled for their belief by a little asshole atheist I'd say the same thing).

My take on them, which may not be completely accurate, is that they were basically just another example of a relationship that wasn't as deep as one side thought. Dave at one point reaches out to Ron, asking for a should to cry on or something along those lines (something bad happened), and Ron's reply was, "Yeah,we're work buddies, this isn't that kind of friendship." Which ultimately has parallels to Henry/Delilah. If there's more to it, I missed it and would also like to know.