Tali'Thread vas Clan Zorah nar BSN 6.0

Well, 2020 has been a dumpster fire of a year, but I hope you all manage to squeeze out a fun and safe holiday season to end it on to the best you are able given the circumstances. Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, joyous Festivus, or whatever your Yuletide seasonal pleasure!

Postby **Vol** » December 24th, 2020, 12:49 am

Ah, Christmas Eve morning. Time for bed!

Worked out the rough numbers in my head, but by first estimate, this year has cost me a bit over half my yearly income. Which isn't terrible given how little work we had, but was largely buoyed by a few large jobs and then a cluster in the last few months. Still, $600, or even the $2k they're shooting for now, isn't quite the same as having all the money I could've made. C'est la vie.

Any of you lads traveling to family this year?

Postby **Mobius_118** » December 24th, 2020, 12:52 am

Well, during my downtime I had a couple projects. I finished up my shotgun for the most part, a Maverick 88 with a Mossberg 500 20 inch barrel and a 7 round magazine tube. Now it just needs a heatshield, new sights, and maybe a folding stock. My .45 is getting new grips pretty soon, and I'm still looking for new tritium sights.

Up next I may pick up a new rifle, however the panic buyers are...shall we say, stripping all the available firearms from the stores.

Vol wrote:
Any of you lads traveling to family this year?

It wouldn't be the first christmas I've missed.

Postby **SciFlyBoy** » December 24th, 2020, 2:30 am

Hopefully this loads better.

thumbnail_20201220_173613.jpg

Postby **TTTX** » December 24th, 2020, 4:38 am

Vol wrote:Any of you lads traveling to family this year?

Nope, already living at home with my family and we won't have our usual family visitors because of something that simple became to much to ignore anymore.

2020 has most certainly been a shitshow in more ways then one.

Postby **TTTX** » December 24th, 2020, 4:43 am

Well since we Danes celebrate Christmas today, I wish you all a merry Christmas and post this danish song for all of you to hear should you choose too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKqIBDHnqHE&

Postby **Deano** » December 24th, 2020, 4:48 am

Vol wrote:Any of you lads traveling to family this year?

I'm travelling 5 minutes!

Yourself?

Postby **Mazder** » December 24th, 2020, 5:47 am

Vol wrote:Any of you lads traveling to family this year?

Fuck no.
No way in case any one of us is an asymptomatic carrier.
Apart from Dad, which I live with, and my Aunt who has already had it and I helped her do her shopping yesterday, I am seeing no-one.
Mum and sister's got underlying conditions and I am asthmatic so, yeah, not a good mix even if I wanted too.

Maybe next year.

Postby **Someone With Mass** » December 24th, 2020, 6:35 am

Vol wrote:Any of you lads traveling to family this year?

Since half of the direct family managed to get a fever and a cold? Not really. It's okay, though. Gathering the entire family under one roof has been increasingly difficult over the years. I think we're over 20 now, spread out here and there over the southern part of the country, so...yeah.

Postby **Alienmorph** » December 24th, 2020, 6:47 pm

Well we made it to anothe birth of Jeebus day... feels like an actual accomplishement this year, doesn't it? xP

Merry Christmas everyone!

Postby **Mazder** » December 24th, 2020, 7:24 pm

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Pleasant December Everyone!
It's officially the 25th here so, yay!

Postby **SciFlyBoy** » December 25th, 2020, 12:54 am

Merry Christmas and Happiest of Holidays to everyone! 2 hours left 'til Xmas day over here. I'm going to read a book under the tree. Hope you all have an excellent day.

Postby **TheodoricFriede** » December 25th, 2020, 1:02 am

Christmas's come again by-golly,
'Tis the season to be jolly,
Deck the halls with hunks of holly,
Fill the cup and don't say when...

Postby **Vol** » December 25th, 2020, 1:23 am

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night! Have a great one, CZ!

Postby **TTTX** » December 25th, 2020, 5:13 am

Merry Christmas to you all.

Postby **Someone With Mass** » December 25th, 2020, 1:27 pm

Merry Xmas!

Postby **magnuskn** » December 25th, 2020, 1:34 pm

Merry christmas from Germany as well!

Postby **Vol** » December 25th, 2020, 4:24 pm

Re: Visiting family: So "No" or "nearby." Well, given the dumpster fire of this year, can't fault you guys. Still, having 1 day a year of peace and family and good will is rather important, I'd say.

Any good hauls? Got a nice jacket from my dad, new house slippers from my grandma, brother went huge and got me a Yeti mug and a case of Bawls, which blew my mind. Love that stuff, but it's way too expensive to buy myself normally. Then my mother sent some money I used to get a little rice cooker, a new drip brew coffee maker, and a little cheap night stand to go next to my desk. Because there's never enough table space, ever, anywhere.

Postby **SciFlyBoy** » December 25th, 2020, 4:39 pm

Got a nice Nakiri chef's knife, silky smooth bed sheets, spices, nuts and other nibbles. All very nice.

Postby **TTTX** » December 25th, 2020, 4:51 pm

Vol wrote:Re: Visiting family: So "No" or "nearby." Well, given the dumpster fire of this year, can't fault you guys. Still, having 1 day a year of peace and family and good will is rather important, I'd say.

Any good hauls? Got a nice jacket from my dad, new house slippers from my grandma, brother went huge and got me a Yeti mug and a case of Bawls, which blew my mind. Love that stuff, but it's way too expensive to buy myself normally. Then my mother sent some money I used to get a little rice cooker, a new drip brew coffee maker, and a little cheap night stand to go next to my desk. Because there's never enough table space, ever, anywhere.

got some underwear, socks and money, that was the only good things I got.

that only bad stuff I got was some deodorant (which is always given by the same idiots) that I will never use, so I gave that away to someone else as I couldn't return it.

Postby **Deano** » December 25th, 2020, 5:27 pm

Happy Christmas all.

For me it was mainly clothes, some nice new adidas' and stuff for my new place. I got slightly excited for the fancy reed diffuser and plug in air freshener, I think I can officially say I'm getting old.

The Christmas dinner was so so good, my mom and stepdad seriously know what they're doing!

SciFlyBoy wrote:Got a nice Nakiri chef's knife, silky smooth bed sheets, spices, nuts and other nibbles. All very nice.

I think if you own one of those knives you automatically turn into Gordon Ramsey.

Postby **Mazder** » December 25th, 2020, 5:42 pm

As far as present went I got;
7 shirts of varying imagery, 2 Rum tasters, a drinking horn, some scratchcards (didn't win, but hey, free chance), some dvd's, some of the usual deodorant sets, shaving balms and cleansing goods, some sweets, some beers a new christmas drinking mug, some cash and a Star Wars Saga print (first 6 movies).
Pretty nice and useful stuff.

Deano wrote:I think if you own one of those knives you automatically turn into Gordon Ramsey.

You fucking Donkey!
Where's the Lamb sauce?!
It looks like Ghandi's flip flop!
Etcetera.

Postby **Mobius_118** » December 25th, 2020, 5:51 pm

Had to hold back on the family gathering. Work schedules and whatnot don't mesh when the entire family works in different counties.

Postby **magnuskn** » December 26th, 2020, 5:26 am

About 200 Euros in money, two books and some bathing utensils. Pretty utilitarian, but I was happy nonetheless.

Postby **TheodoricFriede** » December 26th, 2020, 5:32 am

Honey for mead making, ramen bowls, an ice cream maker, a cookbook, some pajamas, and a very generous gift from my mother to upgrade my phone.

Postby **magnuskn** » December 26th, 2020, 11:05 am

Alright, I finished Cyberpunk 2077. I got complex feelings about the game.

First off, is the game as good as The Witcher 3? No. Nope. But that game was a once-in-a-decade masterpiece, where everything fell into place perfectly for me. Characters, story, graphics, music, gameplay. Everything. Cyberpunk 2077 is still a very good game, nonetheless, but not as complete as The Witcher 3. Total playtime was about 88 hours, if I deduct the aborted first playthrough. I think I'll go through the different aspects one by one, to keep this somewhat organized. Non-spoiler stuff, first.

Graphics:
I got a leg up on the vast majority of people, since I got (aside from the CPU, which is "only" an i7) the best rig you could possibly have to play the game, with an RTX 3090 and 32 GB RAM. So, the game looked fantastic for me, with breathtaking visuals all around. The raytraced lighting makes everything just the extra bit realistic to pull you into the game. I felt fully immersed for a long stretch of the time I played. There were more than a few bugs, though, which kept cropping up throughout the game. Some items not being interacteable, cars exploding for no reasons, some T-posing, dialogues not triggering and the like. More if it than in The Witcher 3 at launch, if I remember back then correctly. So, yeah, the game definitely launched in an unfinished state in some aspects.

Gameplay:
I went with the sneaky hacker build, which makes the game quite easy, even on Hard difficulty. It also makes it pretty easy to be mostly non-lethal, which makes quite a few of the fixers more happy with you and also means you don't kill a thousand people or more during your game. I will be doing a second playthrough in a few months, where I'll go with a guns-a-blazing build, which I look forward to see the difference. Depending on what DLC comes out, I might continue my V's career, although the ending was quite definite, IMO. The customizability of your character is very high, however at higher levels I couldn't care less that I had only 7 dexterity and no points in the pistol tree, since I still began to two-shot opponents with no problem. The game unbalances itself the more capable you become. All in all, balance was better in The Witcher 3, where you really could challenge yourself still. As for the rest, movement was good (parcour!) and it really felt fun zipping around Night City and the outskirts in my different cars and on the motorbikes, especially at night during rain.

An aspect I was never that much in love with was the first person view. It did feel very immersive in many moments, but when there was a short cutscene in the game showing your character fully animated from a third person view, I realized how much more I would have liked such a version of the game and how much I missed those moments from The Witcher 3. Yep, I am pretty much going to mention that game every time I can. :mrgreen:

Alright, going full into spoilers territory now, where I am not holding back anything. Proceed at your own peril. Of course I'll put it under tags.

Story and characters:

► Show Spoiler

Overall, the story was very good, at least in regards to the main story and some of the side content. My problem was, that I didn't connect to many of the characters as much as I did in The Witcher 3. The characters I really liked were V, as the main protagonist, Johnny, Jackie, Takemura, Judy, Panam, Mitch and, for the short time you could spend with them, Misty and Mama Welles. I really did not feel very connected to the other characters at all. Not that they were all unappealing, but they simply made not that deep an impact on me. And since Jackie and Takemura both die (apparently you can save Takemura, which I don't know how that could be an option, but whatever) long before the story concludes and Judy disappears at the end of her storyline as well, that left only a few characters I really could feel a connection to. Compared to The Witcher 3, where you have a vast range of characters you can gather to help you with the final missions of the game and which accompany you on many occasions in the game and who also felt much more natural as persons (I especially point to Yennefer, who was introduced in The Witcher 3 and still managed to leave a lasting impression on me to this day through her strong personality), it made the personal stuff feel not involved enough, IMO. The romances also feel a bit more shallow than in The Witcher 3. Let's just say that Panam didn't make as good an impression as Yen did.

I really liked the voice-acting, which was fantastic throughout. Keanu Reeves did an excellent job, but so did all the other VA's. Especially Jackie's, IMO.

The little side stories (i.e. gigs) were not as fully fleshed out as Geralts side quests, however. No matter if I needed to steal something, plant a bug, kidnap some bad guy or whatever, I just zapped everyone with quick hacks and waltzed in to rob everything lying around. All very same-y. No witcher investigations, following trails and putting together clues. No finding clues then making diplomacy between warring vinyards. These small stories did mostly not leave the emotional impact much of the smaller stuff had in The Witcher 3. I think only one gig really shook me, where I had to decide the fate of a father/son duo, which were editors for kiddy snuff BD's. I reloaded that two times, just to kill everyone as painfully as I could. And I played V as non-lethal as possible otherwise. But as for the rest? Pfffft. "Hey, V, some goomba needs to be taken out". "Okay" <zap, zap, zap> "Cool, V, here are your eddies!". Mostly it was like that, which felt quite a bit boring.

As for the ending(s), I got the, IMO, best one, where I end up with Panam and leave with the Aldecaldos, having joined a new family and left the cesspool of Night City behind us, while Johnny went off with Alt Cunningham into cyberspace. Basically, the Fast and Furious ending. :lol:

In the ending I got, the game leaves you with the cliffhanger that you still are dying slowly, but at least gives you hope that it can be avoided. Which I hope the expansions will be about. I've looked at the other endings (the secret ending included) and I must conclude that I did as good as I could.

All in all, I come away happy from the experience, but also a bit drained. It wasn't as good an experience as The Witcher 3 was, but that at least still makes that game the best game of my life. Wheeee! :lol:

Now that CD Projekt Red has to recover some goodwill with gamers overall, I'm pretty sure that, after they finished all the content they want to bring out for Cyberpunk 2077, they'll return to the Witcherverse and give us a new story there. Looking forward to that!

Now, I got eight more days of free time, much more than I anticipated. I guess it's more WoW: Shadowlands for me, together with maybe some Crusader Kings 3 and lots of other, non-computer-gamey stuff as well.

Postby **SciFlyBoy** » December 26th, 2020, 12:11 pm

Deano wrote:
I think if you own one of those knives you automatically turn into Gordon Ramsey.

Ha! I wish. Then maybe my Christmas goose would come out right. But my favorite knife was shattered earlier this year, so I'm thrilled to get a new one.

Postby **magnuskn** » December 26th, 2020, 3:34 pm

Oh, forgot to add that the music was fantastic in the game. Not every song, mind you, but there is so much good music in the game that is really stands out overall.

Postby **Mobius_118** » December 26th, 2020, 7:30 pm

I got some shotglasses, a coffee mug with my long-passed dog and my current one on it, and some lotion from my niece that smells like sweetgrass.

It's just how this year rolled. At least we had a holiday. Family togetherness is more important than material goods anyway.

Postby **Vol** » December 27th, 2020, 1:35 am

So the take away here is that we're all steadily becoming old men. Inevitable, I suppose. But hey, gifts are gifts, and I sure hope our generation(s?) can keep it up going forward. Whole lot less of us, after all. Though my oldest cousin's about to have his first kid within a month, and his brother has 2, we're a far ways off from where our parents were now. Economic realities are rough, but Christmas endures, dammit.

Anyway.

@magnus: What was your average FPS with that beast?

Postby **magnuskn** » December 27th, 2020, 3:26 am

Vol wrote:@magnus: What was your average FPS with that beast?

No idea, I had no tool running to measure them. But the game was running smooth at all times. Whenever I get back to it (presumably in a few months), I'll try to get some data that time.

Postby **magnuskn** » December 27th, 2020, 4:58 pm

Oh, yeah, another thing. Hair physics are really, really, really, really good in this game.

Postby **Deano** » December 27th, 2020, 5:27 pm

magnuskn wrote:Oh, yeah, another thing. Hair physics are really, really, really, really good in this game.

Judy's hair is awesome.

I think I got that 3rd person scene you were talking about

► Show Spoiler

Postby **magnuskn** » December 27th, 2020, 5:52 pm

Deano wrote:
magnuskn wrote:Oh, yeah, another thing. Hair physics are really, really, really, really good in this game.

Judy's hair is awesome.

I think I got that 3rd person scene you were talking about
► Show Spoiler
The raunchy one? Dayyym CDPR.

► Show Spoiler

Postby **Deano** » December 27th, 2020, 8:30 pm

magnuskn wrote:
► Show Spoiler
Actually the good ending with Panam and the nomads. Sitting on a hovertank with your girl beside you, wearing the good looking Aldecaldo outfit. Looked fantastic, felt fantastic. I want those type of scenes back, as plentiful as they were in The Witcher 3. While I understand that CD Projekt Red wanted full immersion, I think those cut scenes made for better storytelling.

► Show Spoiler

Postby **Vol** » December 28th, 2020, 1:05 am

Phenibut is lovely stuff. It's nice to spend a day without my head being full of poison. A shame it can't be a daily thing, for the rest of my life, but so it goes. It's so odd to be in the late of night and not have a heavy existential fist gripping my heart. But pleasant, brief moments above the waterline.

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