Hot Heart

Where are you getting this leaked thing from? If it's what I'm thinking of, it's a coincidence of a guess/joke he made in an interview. One where he said the father/son thing would happen in RotJ not TESB and mentioned Luke and Vader being together in a film after RotJ.

Just the small matter of him never being paid for Return of the Jedi.

Not entirely sold by this, but I like McDonagh's previous stuff.

I've got to say, as much as I loved the battle, predictable and all, I think my favourite bit came from Tyrion. Just the way he stands up to Daenerys at the beginning; sort of frightened but still assured (and right, of course).

Does this go here or in games? Inspired by Critical Role and my friend running Pathfinder, as well as looking for more avenues in practising my writing, I decided I'm going to try and build a campaign for my friends. I'll build a small part of the world and they can design whichever characters they wish, then I'll do some one-on-one sessions online to tie their stories into a larger plot so they come together as a party organically. Will probably have to spend a good few weeks prepping everything though, but it's been fun so far just coming up with names, places and story hooks.

I used Perfect Viewer for some cbz files, which I'm not sure is on iOS. I hear Comics Plus is supposed to be a pretty good/better alternative. I know Comixology is what most people use but I don't think you can import things not bought through it.

I only just heard the original recently and, wow, this is a million times better. And what a voice.

And as for common "sense": https://twitter.com/JoelLewin/status/741394269517271044 https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3742/The-Perils-of-Perception-and-the-EU.aspx

Random musing involving "book spoilers"

The Nice Guys So good. I knew I'd like it if it was anything like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and it did not disappoint. It's funny, quick and there are lots of neat, little details. The only thing that kinda spoiled it for me is Russell Crowe. Gosling's giving it everything while he's just kinda "there" doing his usual thing of... being there in the film, saying lines and looking tough. Even worse, though, was Kim Basinger who just seemed like she was very pissed off about having to be there at all. Speaking of performances though, the kid was good; especially compared to that fucking annoying one in Iron Man 3.

While I'm sharing my captures, here are some Witcher ones: The time I turned a "the sheep is bait" mission into a "THE SHEEP MUST SURVIVE AT ALL COSTS" mission. And then it continued to follow me even when I hadn't mind controlled it. "Why do they call you 'Madman'?"

TMNT: Mutants in Manhattahn. It took a while to beat, simply because I was playing exclusively online and that was somewhat at the whims of the room owner when it wasn't me and goddamn connection problems other times (it would lock up right at the end of the boss rush level...). The online is actually very stable in general, however. There have been a lot of bad reviews and I understand why. Playing this single-player (especially just to crank out a review) is goddamn awful. You have to manage all the turtles' equipment and powers and constantly switch between them to overcome the harder challenges, and the objectives you have to complete during a level fall flat when you're just with the AI. Although, to their benefit, they work rather well and you can issue commands in order to accomplish certain things. Honestly, I'm somewhat addicted to the game. Now, don't get me wrong, I think it'd probably be a hard sell to anyone who doesn't love TMNT, but taking it online and cranking up the difficulty is super-fun. Once you've played a bit and got a grasp of how to counter or dodge attacks along with upgrading your ninjutsu and equipping some powerful charms, it all comes together rather well. I mentioned before that it reminds me of a sort of beat-em-up version of an EDF game and that's because it's a somewhat low-budget, grindy game where it's all about replaying levels over and over to get better stuff then attempt a higher difficulty to get more stuff, etc. I really need to experiment with the ninjutsu powers for different levels/bosses and upgrade my charms to give me sweet perks. So, right now, I've cleared the game on hard and once I either find a regular group or some close friends grab copies after the price drops, I'll be attempting very hard. In the meantime, it's fun to just jump on, find a group and work your way through whichever level someone fancies. This encounter with Karai, complete with secret boss Shredder, was a really tense, fun fight where I kind of kept him busy while the others focused on Karai. I thought we were screwed when we nearly wiped before Shredder showed up.

Warlock melee is OP

So I grabbed TMNT: Mutants in Manhattan since I found it cheap on eBay after cancelling my pre-order. It's definitely not something that should be played solo, which I think is where all the reviews about it being "disappointing" come from. It feels like it's been pitched as an action version of a grindy MMO, or maybe a beat-em-up version of EDF (by comparison, it definitely should've been priced even lower than it is). I played a few levels on normal and it's okay but something feels "off" the whole time (I'm not sure if it being 60fps would help here) and I can see how it gets dull and repetitive. However, jump online (which seems quite active currently) and bump up the difficulty and it becomes a whole other beast. The bosses are definitely the highlight, but the objectives also change on each playthrough of a level and some will really emphasise that teamwork aspect, like having two of you defusing bombs while two hold off enemies. On top of that, you've got a set of special abilities which help each other like a healing circle, slow-mo and combo moves. I've got a video of my first online game (skip to 4:00 if you want to see the boss) I'm pretty crap here (especially, since I keep wanting to use the Witcher 3 controls for locking on and dodging/blocking) but I'm still contributing to the team with my abilities, plus the little thing on the left ranks you in terms of performance... except when you go and spend it on items. Anyway, I was usually second throughout... The other grindy element is that as you play you'll unlock Charms which then give you improved abilities. For example, I had one that gave me a 10% chance of freezing enemies every time I hit them (I kinda wanted to play Mikey, since he's quicker-hitting, but I let someone else take that) and after finishing that level I got some cool ones, like one that regens health and gives me a chance to poison enemies. I actually got the freeze one as some sort of RNG thing from dismantling 3 useless/identical ones as well. The Michelangelo player had a waaaay higher player score (I was at 6, he was about 49) which comes from playing a bunch, so I imagine he's both upgraded his abilities to increase their power and reduce cooldowns while getting some neat charms too. I'm a sucker for TMNT anyway, but it really is fun online and I'm itching to play more and improve. Plus, as a fan of the new comics, it looks really pretty and I really dig how the turtles move. I mean, come on, you can make Leonardo breakdance!

I started playing again and got the new update, which does a lot of nice things. However, it did introduce some bugs which I was worried would fuck me over at one point. I did what is probably the worst section in the game Anyway, I'm still loving it and it's actually surprisingly easy to dip back into (once you remember the controls). I also decided to capture a video of me going overkill on some crappy drowners.

I'd like that to be true, and it's some good observations but then... It must be interesting for book-readers since whatever the show decides is "vital" must then influence their own theorising, which also might "spoil" other resolutions for other situations/characters in the books that are actually slightly different. If that makes sense...

Good episode overall. Even though it sometimes feels like not a lot is happening, it is, and you can see more pieces move into place.

I finished Agent Carter. Kinda sad that it was cancelled, but S2 was a serious step down. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the Peggy/Jarvis interplay, but the actual episode-to-episode stuff became quite boring. It started well as a show where she had to hide both her true job, plus embark on a mission she needed to keep secret from the rest of the agency, all the while fighting the institutionalised sexism and yet having a jolly good time. Then it became some weird thing with some lame "zero matter" nonsense and a disappointingly typical romance subplot. Still, Jarvis was brilliant.

Another four-player session. First up, we played Agricola This was the predecessor to Caverna which we played waaaaay back sometime. It should be in this thread, many pages back. Anyway, I liked that game and I like this one. Where Caverna expands on the farm element by adding the cave stuff, expeditions and many more point modifier things, Agricola is a leaner, tighter thing based around the farm stuff. It's essentially a worker placement game where you put your "family" on spaces to get things, with a sort of twist where certain unused spaces accumulate more and more stuff if no one goes there for a few rounds. Which means it gains a sort of timing element where you have to half pay attention to where others might go in order to get the most efficient/optimal use of your workers. For example, going to the "3 Wood" space could be handy right now, but if you could just hold off, it could have 6 Wood next round! DAMNIT SOMEONE ELSE WENT THERE. We played the sort of kiddie version of the game without the occupations, renovations and minor improvement elements but I don't think the game suffers for it. It still feels open enough to kind of take things at your own pace but incredibly tightly-balanced so that the scores usually wind up very close. How close? Well, at the end, three of us were on 25/25/24 ... except, as with the dog situation in Caverna, where I forgot something which actually gave me the win after someone else thought they had, I might have done that again. (I know he secretly reads these, so I'll break it down and check my maths). Here is an image from before the final harvest phase (you can tell because people still had stuff to place and I hadn't collected the second grain from my field). I've left it full-size in case stuff is legible to you guys. Firstly, it is worth pointing out that they let me change something during end-game scoring, but this is likely because I was still just tied for victory. Anyway, I needed 7 food to feed my four-person family at game's end (3 family members at 2 food each, plus 1 for the newborn). With my Cooking Hearth, I can turn boar into 3 food and sheep into 2 food. I'd preemptively turned a boar into 3 food while the others were still deciding on moves when I could actually do it at any time, such as during harvest (but before animal breeding occurs), but figured I'd save a miniscule amount of time. After that, I'd checked the end-game scoring breakdown and realised I could've turned a sheep into 2 food and still had enough while not costing myself 1 point because of how scoring tiers work in regards to number of animals (1-3 sheep is 1 point, whereas I stood to go up to 5 boar which was 1 point extra). So, after harvest, at the end of the game I would've had 1 sheep and 5 boar. So, going through the score breakdown: 2 fields = 1 point 6 pastures = 4 points 3 grain = 1 point 0 vegetables = -1 point 1 sheep = 1 point 5 boar = 3 points 1 cattle = 1 point 4 unused spaces = -4 points 1 fenced stable and 3 clay rooms = 4 points 4 family members = 12 points Pottery and Cooking Hearth I owned = 3 points ...then an extra bonus point from having 3 Clay at the end, thanks to the Pottery. I think I was an idiot and told my friend I had no bonuses while he was going through the end-game stuff. So, adding that all together, I think I had 26 points. Whoops! I was willing to accept the tied victory anyway, and I enjoyed it. Good game. Then we had a go at the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Mouser Mayhem HeroClix A friend who watches the streams on Geek & Sundry is quite keen on playing HeroClix, whereas I just liked having the groups of models as "decoration". However, I had heard the TMNT HeroClix was a good introduction to how it works. So, I figured, if he wants to convince the others to play then start simple. However, simple can also mean boring and easy. Rather than a 2v2 (which under the basic rules here would've just been hitting each other until someone fell down), I decided on the sort of co-op defence game mode it contains, where mousers controlled by AI are attacking the turtles' lair, trying to get to Splinter. As a bonus, it shouldn't take too long. The scenario design was actually kind of crap and it was easy to lock down the mousers' movement, while they were easy to kill anyway (plus, it turns out Donatello was well-placed in the middle with some cool AoE attack). They couldn't even hurt us, so we never even got to click our bases! Still, I guess it introduced the very basics... as if it were for kids, even though the product says it's for ages 12+. Also, as a sidenote, I think the way information is presented is dumb. The way you have altering stats and powers as your health changes is a neat idea, but the text is so small and the colour-coding can be tricky and unless you know it inside and out, you'll constantly have to look up which power does what. And while it should save space on a tabletop, the map it used was fricking huge, like it needs more space than Firefly with all the expansions. That said, I think doing it properly as a versus game could be fun because there you have free-form teams with point values and more tactical options (who to activate with limited action points, or to lose 1 health to give an extra action, etc.). Plus, it means you can have Gandalf duking it out with Superman, Ken Masters taking on Master Chief, Wolverine versus Ezio, etc. And then we finished up with Burgle Bros. the co-op game where you're burglars. We'd played this before as a two-level building, so now we went for the "full" three-floor setup. Things started... okay, then we pulled it back somewhat... and then it all went to shit. Too many times we got screwed by some of the guard patrol card pulls but also whenever we took a risk, it went wrong and whenever we should've taken a risk, we suffered. The building layout was also kind of a pain as well, since we could barely move on the top floor. Lots of minor things against us gradually wore us down. Still, I think it's a fun game with some slight flaws and yet it makes for exciting moments when some things actually pay off. As a bonus, it seems like it should suffer from the "alpha player/quarterback" problem but because the guard movement happens on whichever floor a player finishes, everyone is still engaged and pointing out the ramifications when it's not their turn.

Yeah, that was in the news not that long ago with regards to Nixon http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/