jamesbondsmith

What do people think of the announced God of War: Laufey?

I'm keen to play as Laufey but I feel like the whole 'afterlife for gods' thing kind of cheapens both Norse games.

Started Outer Worlds 2, and there's already a few changes from the first game I'm not a fan of.

Companions can't boost skill checks, which is making the level up process a pain as I agonise over which skills to prioritise. The one chance to respec is also way too early to tell if a build isn't viable, in my opinion.

I get this is probably to encourage replaying with different playstyles, but I don't have time to replay games of this size. 

Anyone have recommendations for RPGs which encourage locking into a playstyle and then replaying with a different one but are also relatively short (say under 10 hours for a decent chunk of the content)?

What, if anything, do I need to do differently when cooking Impossible Meat? I was going to try a small bolognese and maybe a stirfry, I'm presuming I can't cook it for hours like a normal bolognese would be.

So I went ahead and got Clair Obscur and I'm really liking it. The story is definitely what I'm enjoying the best (partway through Act 2, and I see why Jennifer English got all those awards), and I'm slowly getting the hang of the combat.

It feels like a very 'busy' game, with (what I consider to be) Souls-ish combat, a plot that could probably just be a CGI-animated miniseries all on its own, a relationship meter, pretty iffy platforming and some ridiculous minigames that I read were put in as an homage to the Final Fantasy minigames that people hated.

I'm getting really tired of there being no map inside 'dungeons', or a quest log beyond the next main story objective. I'm maybe 35 hours in and a good chunk of that time has been running around lost trying to find an item or just where to go to advance the plot.

Also the platforming is pretty average, especially when a jump from most heights will automatically roll. I'm also identifying with the 'this is an RPG, what role am I playing, the victim?' streamer.

Is Clair Obscur Expedition 33 good? I've heard great things about, but it also looks like it's a very dodge/parry heavy game and I suck at those. I've watched some gameplay but I can't tell whether it would be too steep a learning curve as I feel most people who stream games have kind of the survivorship bias of the gaming world

Is he still doing the Mistborn screenplay? I'm halfway through Way of Kings in my re-read in preparation to read Wind and Truth and I'm getting really annoyed with his dialogue.

It's like the old tale of Harrison Ford telling George Lucas 'you can type this stuff but you can't say it'. I think a lot of novelists forget that people write and speak very differently. So many could do with a table read to actually figure out what sounds natural.

Hi,

I've posted in the Writing excuses forum a couple of times about a book set in a world which basically takes a culinary view of vampire hunting (garlic galore).

I've been slowly working on that between other projects and my day job, and I was thinking of adding werewolves to it but I was wondering if it might get too busy.

I can't think of many ingredients that are traditional werewolf weaknesses (unless I just take things that ordinary dogs can't eat like chocolate) so I was thinking of taking the 'silver' part of silverware literally and focusing on more of an etiquette standpoint in terms of weaknesses. I thought it could also tie into the Vampire Rich/Werewolves Poor tropes.

I trained in both an offshoot of Kyokushin karate and freestyle martial arts (so mixes of BJJ, Muay Thai, karate, kali) and my biggest advice is LISTEN TO YOUR BODY. 

I trained from age 7-25 and now I can tell when the weather is going to change in my reconstructed knee and it hurts/gets stiff if I have my elbows on the table for too long. Sport and exercise in general has a 'push through the pain' mentality, and martial arts even more so. It's OK to step back, and there's not much point learning to defend yourself if it leaves you too broken to actually do it.

I do a bit of writing, and I plan to examine the 'loss of martial capability through injury' journey.

21 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Did you use a yogurt marinade for the lamb? I've found it helps a lot with my Afghan curry (and other dishes). 

The recipes I found (and in the linked video) didn't have a marinade, so I didn't use one. Just seared the chops off, took them out, and then put them back in once the veggies had softened a bit. I'm not sure how well a yoghurt marinade would go in what is basically a one pot rice dish.

Last week I tried making Uzbeki Plov. It ended up quite nice, although I'm not sure I added enough salt. I used lamb chops and it would probably work better with boneless cuts of meat.

I've read everything in Arcanum unbounded except for Emperor's soul I think (I got it before reading Elantris).

As the title suggests, what do I need to read before KOWT? Without spoilers would be nice (I'm aware I'm on the spoiler thread). I'd hoped to reread the whole Stormlight Archive before it came out, but I'm currently working through Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrell and 4000-ish pages after that in a month or two feels like a task.

I've read all the cosmere except for the following: 

Emperor's Soul

White Sand

Secret Projects (roughly halfway through Tress, haven't started the rest).

I also haven't been keeping up to date with the preview chapters as I wanted to read it in one piece (I did read the prologue yonks ago though).

On 8/31/2024 at 4:27 AM, Silk said:

Welcome back @jamesbondsmith! Sorry I didn't get to this in time for the competition, but I hope this is helpful if you decide to do anything further with the story. I read the slightly updated version you provided me over email. 

P2 “Didn’t mean he wouldn’t spray his hands right after though.” Wasn’t sure what was meant here—spray his hands with what? Why?

P3 “the deadly words of employment” also not sure what this means. Is this the thing where you’re just resisting the urge to tell your boss to eff off?

P4 “…his long-winded spiel about his latest achievement.” Heh. This is a great, efficient illustration of who this side character is in not many words.

P5 “incinerating one of the vampires in a flash” – this was much more effective than I would have suspected!

P6 “…as the vampire’s own speed and strength forced the wooden stake…” Two questions: I thought she was holding a statue? And, did this vampire just throw himself on her weapon?

The word “m*rons” is a slur (something I learned only a couple years ago myself!). Doesn’t mean you can’t use it, of course, but FYI.

P7 “…the smoking liquid” did someone set the pickling brine on fire somehow? If so I missed that.

“He grabbed his sandwich…” he grabs his sandwich twice in this paragraph.

I love the tongue-in-cheek of the last line.

There are a few lines read with a similar sardonic humour, but definitely not the whole thing. Depending on the tone you’re going for, this could potentially be leaned into a little more (or less!)

Overall: I enjoyed the piece, it read well for the most part. I do think there may be room for a little trimming here and there, particularly in the first couple pages—the details about how the restaurant works were vivid and good scene setting, but went on just long enough that my attention started to wander a bit.

My major curiosity in the early bit was trying to figure out what “the apprentice” actually does, as he isn’t given a specific place in the restaurant at any point, though he apparently could have been a head cook? I figured it out before the ending of the piece where it’s clarified, so I think this mostly works, but a few more hints at what he does in the first few pages might be helpful and serve to keep readers engaged.

The other thing I wondered about was whether the common vampire repellants—garlic, crucifixes, etc, actually work? The piece seems to hint that they don’t, since the vampires we see don’t seem to have much of a problem with either. If they don’t work, is that something the apprentice knows about?

As far as I know this wouldn't cause any copyright issues (though I'm not an expert) but if I were a reader and encountered the same line in two stories by the same author it would definitely catch my attention as odd. Maybe change the line so that it reads as clearly a reference but not an exact copy? 

I hope I don't come off as being defensive, but here's some replies to your issues, please let me know if they make sense with the explanation or if they could use elaboration.

'Spraying hands' was a reference to the high-pressure hoses kitchens use (not sure if they all had it, the ones I've worked in do) that staff use to remove the worst of the stains.

'Deadly words' is something along those lines, I was thinking 'that's not my job/but I'm on break'.

The statues were meant to evoke the vampires and wooden stakes association, with the stakes being repurposed into statues that still have points to be used if needed.

The 'smoking liquid' was meant to evoke a violent, acidic sort of reaction.

I feel like the main thrust of the worldbuilding is that all alliums (including garlic) are a very useful deterrent, sounds like I'll have to rework it to make that clearer. I'm still working on the worldbuilding for the longer version I plan to write, but currently I don't plan on crucifixes having much effect, as the purely magical elements don't feel like they fit all that well (although then the mirrors and the salt may not work either).

I was trying to convey an apprentice who just gets put on the odd jobs, and the part about the potential head chef was meant to refer to the coworker. I'll have to clear that up.

In terms of tone, I kind of wanted it to lean towards a 'dramedy' type thing, as I wanted a vampire story but the premise does seem to lend itself to a more comedic tone.

Just finished Bookshops and Bonedust, a prequel to Legends and Lattes (which I haven't gotten round to reading). I liked it, was slow going at points but the best parts really resonated with how I've felt about life currently or in the past.

Will jump onto Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrel next, because that's the next library loan to expire

Are there any spots for this week? I'd like to submit an entry for a comp I'm hoping to enter.

Also, is there a time cutoff for submissions/which time zone is it in?

Any kind of chips except for Red Rock Deli (which I think might only be Australian) I only go for plain salt.

On 3/10/2024 at 8:32 AM, Treamayne said:

"Last Kiss" J Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers (1964)

I think the Pearl Jam version is better. It actually sounds sad, and I thought the original sounded too happy.

On 6/26/2024 at 9:00 AM, strmblsd said:

Ok so mine is how to save a life by the fray

Ok so this song when I was in my worst has done miracles it makes me cry and If you read the comments you will cry so hard...

If I want to feel sad, I watch a youtube video of this song with 

There's this mashup which almost makes it worse Who Knew How to Save a Life - The Fray vs. P!nk (Mashup) (youtube.com) (as one comment said 'at least I can make a mashup of tears and a tissue').

This one is much sadder with the video I feel: CLSTR AU Lower Engage Video GENAI AIClaim LearnMore 15s 16x9 (youtube.com)

I want this song played at my funeral: 

This one may also top lists: Saving Amy (youtube.com)

I just thought about how you get fewer Pringles for the same size can, and that seems to sum up life nowadays.

Maybe life is just a can of Pringles, filled with increasingly more air.

Hi!

Does anyone else set their works in the 'real world? I.e. not a constructed world like Middle Earth or a fictional city on earth like Gotham or Metropolis in DC comics.

I've been trying to do that with one of the things I'm writing but I've been working on it for a long time, and lots of locations I've written about are changing to the point where it's almost a 2010s period piece. Should I perhaps drop the idea of setting it in 'reality' or maybe lean into the whole idea of an alternate history/universe?

Hi,

Due to the housing crisis most countries are dealing with, I thought I might try to do some short stories (most likely slice of life fantasy/scif) and publish them on some platform like Patreon or resurrecting my old blog and posting them there in order to make a little extra cash. It might also help me out of the writers block slump I'm in if I have to regularly complete something.

Does anyone have any recommendations for platforms or whether this is just a poor idea in general? I was thinking of those kinds of platforms as I hoped to approximate a passive income (as opposed to actively searching out comps or anthologies). My work schedule is currently quite erratic and I regularly get called in with a few hours' notice so days where I can just sit down and do things always have an 'allegedly' attached to them.

22 hours ago, The cheeseman said:

Hullo!

Being as vague as possible for the sake of privacy.

There is a person in my life who often needs distractions from their own mind, and they almost always come to me for that. I don't mind, that's not the issue.

The issue is that I don't know how to distract people. I've lived my whole life trying to make sure I'm not bothering people, and that is impacting my relationship with this person because I don't know how to just keep talking. It's also almost always over text that I need to do this, and I'm even worse at 'just talking' over text than I am in person.

My friend got dumped over the phone several years ago, and the next day I went over and we played games (I think it might have been Injustice 2).

So basically find some interest you have in common that doesn't involve talking and use that. Or at very least something that you can talk about while you're doing it, if you're worried about being able to talk about random stuff.

Are you doing things via text because it's not possible to meet up physically? To follow the games example you could log onto a co-op game, and I know people who set up a phone call or some discord call type thing while they binge tv shows.

Random question to necro the thread, but people without an oven, how do you cope?

I've been looking at places to rent and I looked at this one place that is 5 minutes walk from the same train line I work on (I don't drive, and even if I did it means I can avoid traffic/parking issues/vehicle costs). It's about 10 minutes walk from one of the popular entertainment precincts and a couple of train stops from the CBD and other useful places. It's about as cheap as I can manage in the current rental climate without having to resort to possibly psycho housemates on Craigslist or whatever. 

Thing is, it lacks an oven, toaster or kettle (it has a microwave, a two-burner stove and a fridge/freezer. I cook a lot (I'm waiting for my pot of chashu that I did in my oven to cool down as I write this), and I'm trying to figure out if this is something I can work around.

Anyone have tips for adapting recipes? I could just buy the things I need, but anything that means I don't have to fork over more of my wages (which are already averaging twice the rent rather than the recommended triple) would be good.

On 5/16/2024 at 12:58 AM, Treamayne said:

Of note, in case you have not read the Annotations (Please see below), Brandon actually discusses this in the Annotations to Elantris (Ch 6):

  Hide contents

Annotations are free on the website, designed to be read after the story, but with spoiler tags for certain things in case somebody wants to read them side-by-side with the story (in fact Warbreaker is free on the website, and lets you bounce back and forth easily - Ch 1, Annotations to Ch 1, Ch 2, etc. 

He used to write them while doing the copy edit as a way of addressing things that could not make it into the story directly, or just providing insight into why he wrote what he wrote. Anyway, here's part of the Annotations to Elantris Ch 6:

 

 

Thanks for the link. I think part of the reason that I thought he was anti-religion is because the use of religion to justify practices ranging from dumb to evil is one of the main reasons why I'm not religious, so it resonated with me. That, and I kind of feel that a being with the power to create an entire universe has more important issues to deal with than whatever I want out of life. 

On 5/19/2024 at 5:24 AM, Forts Board said:

Does anyone else feel like the name of this topic is the name of a smoothie somewhere?

All I can think of for that flavour is communion wine chucked in a blender with those wafers I've heard about (I'm not religious in the slightest, no idea what either of those taste like) and it sounds kind of gross.

Taking a break from Baldurs Gate and other open world rpgs (I'm currently at the pointy end of BG3 and I've been spoiled enough to know I have to make some depressing choices). I've been going through my PS Plus free games.

Steelrising was fun, until I reached the first boss and I realised I've never played a Soulslike game and I'm really not ready for the learning curve.

Weird West is fun, but little to no voice acting so far (which BG3 kind of set high bars for). Kinda nitpicky, but the camera angles and general zoomed-out nature got a little annoying.

Slay the Spire is great fun, as there's no narrative consequences to break my heart and I can kind of build my deck differently every time. I pretty much log on every day just to play the daily challenge and maybe a normal run or two. I remember accidentally making an absolutely OP deck in the daily challenge (I had a card which does damage based on my deck size in a challenge when I'm given a deck about 3 times the size of a normal starter deck).

I started Immortals of Aveum and its quite fun. It's pretty much a magic FPS. I saw a comment on the trailer which said 'best plot twists since Bioshock' and I immediately downloaded it as I love Bioshock. I have an idea what the twist is, although I might be just too paranoid because I know there is one. I saw it described as inspired by God of War, and I can definitely see that, down to some of the puzzles for loot. Still kind of annoyed that they want me to believe 30 year olds are playing teenagers, though.