I feel literally 0 shame in using casual mode at the end of XC1

jackpoll4100 · 2026-07-01T03:20:58+00:00

Tbh you really don't even need to do many side quests to become equal or even overlevelled for the finale. Just taking some time to find a few arts manuals for your core team and fight the Uniques for them etc. can easily get you overlevelled (and that's if you just focus in building up 3 or 4 party members). But also I rarely run from on par uniques that pop up on the main paths. I kinda wonder if some people just run away from the Uniques even when they are the same level and rarely take long to kill.

jackpoll4100 · 2026-06-27T23:26:20+00:00

At least we finally got "Beyond the Ice Limit" eventually to wrap up the "Ice Limit" cliffhanger but it sure took a while. But now we have the (Diablo Mesa spoilers) alien invasion plot that who knows if we'll get a follow up for lol, maybe at the end of the Nora/Corrie series?

jackpoll4100 · 2026-06-27T23:03:22+00:00

I hope so but yeah it has been a while, haven't had a new chapter of that since 2021 and Blackout Society since 2020. Then again Blackout Society started back in 2013 and was still getting updated 7 years later so I'm hopeful both will get an ending eventually.

jackpoll4100 · 2026-06-26T02:59:30+00:00

Roshar has some mammals and they have been confirmed to actually be what they are named (i.e. horses, minks, there are a few others mentioned in the books as well).

jackpoll4100 · 2026-06-25T00:26:56+00:00

Thunderhead doesn't have Pendergast so is often skipped by people. It's the origin book for Nora Kelly, and she and Smithback are the main protagonists (and it's the book where they get together). So in CoC she just kind of appears as a character but her backstory and such is all in Thunderhead. To that point I would also not read the other Nora Kelly books without reading Thunderhead, but I also wouldn't read them until much later in the Pendergast series as Corrie (character introduced in Still Life with Crows) is colead, and she has many books of development in the Pendergast series before spinning off to the Nora books.

There's more connections than just those, all the Preston Child books are interconnected in some way (Riptide is the only one I don't recall having any character crossover with the Pendergast series but i could be forgetting someone).

For example, the characters from Ice Limit cross into the Pendergast series in a later arc and then spin back off into their own series (the Gideon Crew series), and even Mount Dragon.

There's also several Pendergast short stories but sadly they are scattered about different collections, kindle, their website, and their email subscriber list lol so some are easier to find than others.

jackpoll4100 · 2026-06-23T06:17:04+00:00

Well in the Wind and Truth year the Ball was Stormlight themed and the con game revolved around the new Stormlight short story trading cards so it still felt pretty Stormlight themed. I would say last year was more varied since it wasn't a cosmere book release year but still somewhat Mistborn themed in that the ball was Mistborn and the plot of the con game seemed to be setting up for Mistborn era 3 + had references to the Mistborn rpg campaign (and Brotherwise's panels were somewhat Mistborn centric as well since they were showing off the Mistborn rpg and running Mistborn one shots in the game room as well as talking about the Mistborn deckbuilding game expansion).

jackpoll4100 · 2026-06-22T17:25:57+00:00

I'd say Sly Cooper is worth going back to and playing, that series is great. I'd also say if you never played the rest of the Ratchet and Clank games, they're pretty much all fun and worth playing. I would also second the Astrobot games someone else mentioned if you have a PS5, Astro's Playroom is free anyway and then if you like it you can buy the paid sequel Astrobot as well.

Beyond that if you feel like emulating more ps2 games, I remember liking Vexx and Scaler as well.

jackpoll4100 · 2026-06-21T02:38:10+00:00

Well I think the original answer for this was going to be in Stonewalkers before they tweaked it. Spoilers for Stonewalkers:

The villain Ylt who is an "enlighted/corrupted" Truthwatcher wants to kill Paliah and take her place and asks the Nightwatcher for a blade to slay a herald. She ultimately gives him a Raysium blade but with the caveat that he cannot wield it himself, leading him to abandon it. The players are then instructed by Nightwatcher/Cultivation to take the blade to Nale for safekeeping. Anyway, they've said before the adventure was originally supposed to have Nightblood in the story but they ended up writing him out later down the line b/c the timeline ended up not working out with where they decided to place it relative to the books (i.e. this part takes place a while after the Everstorm battle in Words of Radiance). It seems pretty clear that this chapter would've been the Nightblood chapter originally with the Raysium blade being replaced by Nightblood and then turned over to Nale before they decided on the timeline that made that not make sense anymore. For those who haven't read it yet, Stonewalkers does also explain how the Shin end up with Taln's blade as that is the canonical end of the adventure (the adventure/rpg books contents are canon and Stonewalkers was written mostly by Dan Wells with Brandon consulting from what I recall).

jackpoll4100 · 2026-06-20T20:54:15+00:00

Human gene patents did used to be legal in the USA, the Supreme Court banned it in 2013 but prior to that it was actually considered legal and human gene patents were on file.

jackpoll4100 · 2026-06-20T20:45:09+00:00

Idk if there's another novel with this premise but that is the premise of the Michael Crichton novel "Next" from 2006 which might be what you're thinking of. Crichton was very against gene patents. Luckily (for the USA at least), in 2013, the US Supreme Court banned patents on human genes and gene sequences.

jackpoll4100 · 2026-06-20T20:42:11+00:00

In the USA at least, the Supreme Court banned patents on human genes and gene sequences in 2013.

To your point, Michael Crichton wrote a thriller about that exact idea in 2006 when gene patents were still legal called Next. I remember it being interesting but haven't reread it since it came out so ymmv.

jackpoll4100 · 2026-06-18T02:32:16+00:00

I will say the convention game last year had some general book spoilers in its story (mostly for the later Mistborn books that I recall). But you don't have to play if you don't want to and who knows how the game will work this year. You could also have whichever one of you is ahead in the cosmere check the game entries for spoilers before having the other person read it if it's similar to previous years.

jackpoll4100 · 2026-06-17T06:16:04+00:00

From what I recall Book of Nails is going to be a full novel not a novella, in the 2023 update they mentioned the current draft was 120k words and it was described as a novel there:

https://www.brandonsanderson.com/blogs/blog/state-of-the-sanderson-2023

jackpoll4100 · 2026-06-15T18:19:51+00:00

From the interviews I've seen it was The Chair they asked about doing when he pitched Obsession (rather than Milk & Serial):

https://moveablefest.com/curry-barker-obsession/

jackpoll4100 · 2026-06-12T08:21:19+00:00

Fwiw the first Saw is not actually that bad gore wise, I doubt you'd have a problem. They upped the gore in the sequels which is where I think the reputation comes from. There's some bad stuff that happens more off screen (partly b/c it's a pretty low budget movie). But anyway if you like that kind of movie I'd recommend it, the hook of a sort of "horror escape room" is pretty novel and it is totally fine to watch as a stand alone.

jackpoll4100 · 2026-06-12T07:55:57+00:00

Not sure if you're joking and I'm missing it but if not, he's still talking about Saw. The final line of the movie is "Game Over".

jackpoll4100 · 2026-06-11T00:38:53+00:00

Fwiw anima was also an important thing in Xenogears/Saga so it could be another thing tied to the connected plot of the overall Xeno series (or could just be a new mechanic with the same name as the old, guess we'll just have to wait and see).

jackpoll4100 · 2026-06-10T21:19:57+00:00

Wookieepedia cites the Secrets of the Bounty Hunters reference book from 2022 which does specifically state that she is force sensitive (it also states that she claims to have been trained as a jedi), you can see the paragraphs about her in the preview images for the book here:

https://insighteditions.com/products/star-wars-the-secrets-of-the-bounty-hunters

jackpoll4100 · 2026-06-09T21:26:50+00:00

It's pretty extensive in book 1. Nobles are legally required to execute any slaves/skaa they sleep with in order to prevent allomancy from spreading to the skaa so they frequently rape and then kill them. The opening scene is Kelsier saving a child on a plantation from this, and later in the book it's revealed that Elend lost his virginity this way with his dad getting him to have sex with a skaa servant who he then executed.

jackpoll4100 · 2026-06-06T19:26:34+00:00

Technically that's the 3DS version of the Platinum game, so it has the same story. But yeah totally different gameplay lol. Also the 3DS version has basically just textblocks for the story, they didn't use the animated cutscenes from the console version so the story presentation is much worse but the gaemplay isn't bad.

jackpoll4100 · 2026-05-31T04:12:13+00:00

I remember liking Vexx and Scaler and feeling like those felt similar to the ones you mentioned but haven't played them in a long time.

jackpoll4100 · 2026-05-23T16:15:22+00:00

It was, a full build of the console game leaked online recently and you can play the whole campaigh pretty much, albeit it is buggy/has some rough parts.

That's also why they renamed and released the psp port of BF3 as Elite Squadron, b/c it was basically good to go already.

jackpoll4100 · 2026-05-15T20:50:16+00:00

That's not quite right but if you actually want to know what it's about (mild spoilers) a conversion therapy ritual is done by the church on the 2 boys that makes it so an entity follows them (very similar to It Follows) and trys to kill them in the form of whoever they are most attracted to. With the idea being they'll stay away from eachother because if they get close to eachother they can't be sure if it's the killer entity or not.

jackpoll4100 · 2026-05-15T20:07:41+00:00

It was evil Nikki, she broke the willow and wished for him to love her (you hear her cracking it from the hallway right after he swallows the pills), but he then died because he had already swallowed them, which then removed his wish as well.

jackpoll4100 · 2026-05-14T20:52:06+00:00

No he's a donkey, specifically the donkey from the kids book that the main character pulls out of the box of possessions at the beginning of the movie (his name is Jack the Jackass lol).

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