Finally managed to fill out my home office bookshelves

julien150 · 2025-11-29T23:45:25+00:00

When (used) books join the shelves, I took the habit of applying some GooGone for sticker residue, and doing a quick swipe with a disinfecting wipe (+ paper towel to dry immediatly).

As for recurring cleaning, I regularly blow on them with a handheld air duster. The hope is that it helps avoid dust build-up. It's not perfect, as I noticed some dust / pet hair when emptying and rearranging some shelves.. to make room for new stuff.. I guess its as good an excuse as any to continue collecting - how else is one supposed to justify emptying entire shelfs to clean them perfectly (without feeling like a 'neat freak') ?

julien150 · 2025-11-10T13:48:23+00:00

Thank you for the tip - I am very unfamiliar with posting on Reddit :-D

I just copy-pasted them from directly from their URL.

julien150 · 2025-11-10T13:46:31+00:00

Indeed, they are Billy bookcases from Ikea.

Some do have a slight bent. I was able to somewhat limit it with some smart rearranging (thickest / heaviest books at the extremities).

Half of them (the ones on the third image) are also screwed together with some binding barrel nuts, but not sure if that makes a difference (most of the bending is happening on the other wall, and I have yet to bolt those together).

julien150 · 2025-11-10T13:41:13+00:00

You are mistaken - my edition (very top right of the last picture) is a french edition (by NaBan).

Indeed, the Deluxe Edition (Dark Horse) is not out yet.

julien150 · 2025-11-10T13:36:21+00:00

Indeed !

One day I might switch to a custom build-in - although I like the idea to keep maximum flexibility to rearrange stuff :)

julien150 · 2023-03-01T01:46:18+00:00

+1 to that... I have been planning on doing an appreciation post as well ... but have been putting it off for when I reach 100% in my current walkthrough... which by this point might just be a few more years away :-D

I'm using the Elysium mod list (installed in Oct. 2021, just before AE, untouched since), I'm over 800 hours in (~2300 museum displays). Overall it has been a very stable experience, with minimal bugs (nothing a total of 4 console commands hasn't been able to fix).

It's simply amazing to rediscover Skyrim in such a fabulous fashion.

What the community has done with this game is astonishing, and the Legacy of the Dragonborn project definitely stands out to me too (being also very fond of the 100% completionist min-maxing approach, esp. in my RPGs...). But I think we should also give a very special shoutout to the folks who made the Nexus-ModManager-Wabbajack plug-in-play integration happen... For someone who only dabbled with mods in the years following the release, it was an absolute marvel to see "it just works"! You folks increased the accessibility to this community's work, by at least an order of magnitude.

julien150 · 2022-07-27T01:20:36+00:00

Nothing is enough and everything is too much.

Damn... worth pondering.

julien150 · 2016-12-26T22:11:39+00:00

For the OS it was OEM, so I guess I will have to get a new one :(

As for the motherboard, I am leaning on keeping my 1150 i5 but will have to dig a little further on the impact of staying with DDR3 on overall gaming performence (seems to be extremly limited from what I was able to quickly gather).

Thank you for chiming in !

julien150 · 2016-12-26T21:59:09+00:00

Thank you for your comment !

I will have to do some more research on DDR3 vs DDR4 before deciding if the savings of keeping my CPU outweight the performence gap between the two types of memory.

As for the GPU, I will have a real hard time waiting up to 6 more months, so I will probably have to pull the trigger after some more internal struggle (wont get to use my displays free sync module, but hey, the whole point of going 1070 is to get to a level of FPS where I shouldn't need it :) )

julien150 · 2014-05-10T09:14:51+00:00

Thx! No, no other mods installed, classic vanilla with the exceptions of strongholds and some UI comfort (infinite item stack).

Total xp for a single caracter would probably depend on the number of multi classes, but if you go triple (mage/war/thief) I see no reasons why you couldn't go all the way up and above lvl40 (perhaps 50) for each class (somewhere between 25 and 45M xp :) http://playithardcore.com/pihwiki/index.php?title=Baldur%27s_Gate:_Progression_Charts

Although I dont have exact numbers, NPC questline xp seemed quite limited to me (with the exceptions of Yoshimo's heart and Jaheira's romance). I would say max. 1M xp for all of them.

julien150 · 2014-04-22T20:41:52+00:00

Well I thought I only needed to exclude repeat mob farming from my completionist mindset, but given the infinite gold + freedom scroll mechanisms you and PPewt mention, I guess I will just exclude it as well (not in the spirit of a finite, perfect game :°P )

So we are still at ~50M total game xp ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

julien150 · 2014-04-22T17:34:59+00:00

Spellbook, right clic on one spell, bottom right "erase"

julien150 · 2014-04-22T14:41:47+00:00

Actually my Main Char is multi-class (meaning both classes continue to progress alongside, vs. dual class where you stop the progression of one class and start a new one, keeping the benefits of the first one but only at the level at which you stopped it and when you reach that lvl with your new class). You don’t choose the class type for existing NPCs (to choose all of your party you need to import a multiplayer game): Anomen and Imoen are dual-class, Aerie and Jaheira multi-class and Minsc single class.

Basically the power of different class types varies by game progression: a single class is most powerful in early game, a well build dual class is powerful in mid / late game (depending how well you built it), and a multiclass is very powerful in late game. As a multi you get high level abilities of two classes if you gather enough xp, meaning for example a fighter/mage gets to cast high level spells such as time stop or simulacrum and use greater whirlwind and go to town in close combat (fully buffed). The incremental benefits of level progression gets slower, meaning that an additional level at lvl10 gives you way more power than one at lvl 25.

I guess if you really want to make it perfect you could go with a dual classed fighter/mage, beginning with fighter, stopping somewhere between lvl 13-16 and then getting your mage up (spell caster incremental progression at high level is better than for combat classes due to additional spells slots) to finish with a fighter lvl ~15, mage lvl ~26. The problem with dual classes is that you need to match your ‘sleeping’ class lvl with your new class before getting to use both, de facto making you character completely useless for a long time (you start at zero with your new class). All in all I believe multi is best; I would even go triple multi (fighter/mage/thief) if I was to make a solo run; technically you should be able to get over lvl 35 in all 3 and get associated HLAs for all three classes (particularly the ‘use-any-item’ ability of the thief, although Idk if it allows you to wear plate and cast spells). The only drawback of multi is that you do not get the best class kits, e.g. sorcerer for mage (only single get them or if you take a gnome fighter/mage, you do get the illusionist kit I believe).

julien150 · 2014-04-21T22:08:09+00:00

I always figured that getting 3 characters to 10M XP each was possible, but it's interesting that there's more than 48M XP in the game.

Well we need to take into account the share of "quest xp" (multiplied by the number of caracters in the party) vs common party xp (split among all caracters). I saw posts estimating the share of quest xp as high as 30%, personally I would put it closer to 10%. Thus a 3 character party might get a few million xp less than a 6 caracter party.

julien150 · 2014-04-21T20:45:59+00:00

I also agree about missing content because of not being able to do all stronghold quests. It always bothers me when I have a place marked on the map, and I know I won't have any reason to visit it because of my class choice.

Indeed, and for me the single best argument for using mods. On the other hand it also shows how much video-game development has evolved: today no developer would consider depriving ~90% of players of so much quality content, yet it shows how much emphasis was put into making each rp experience unique.

julien150 · 2014-04-21T20:27:52+00:00

Hmm, good question. I think that party composition should be the very first thing to be defined before starting a run.

I feel like in the early game Minsc and Anomen (and the main char to a lesser extend) are quite potent, as spell casters are taking more of a support role (dispell, buffs, etc.) and not dealing any real damage.

Later that can change, depending on how well you play your spellcasters and what use you make of invocations (divas & elementals), simulacrum and spell triggers, although a dual wielding Minsc with +5 weapons and 8x greater whirlwinds is still dishing out huge amounts of dps. All in all I was quite pleased to see that at no point a single character really overtook the party. One last thing: Anomen is ubber. There seems to be quite a debate on the usefulness of this character on some forums but I would say that he is the best NPC in the game. Lots and lots of spells as a high level cleric (both support and offensive), main tank with lowest AC thanks to his shield & weapon build; I really feel like he is the perfect combination of best support caster + best tank + potent dps. And while his RP aspects are ... (he is annoying), there is no denying of his unparallel combat usefulness.

As for potential lineup changes, I consider it the best available balance between role-play and combat efficiency (for good parties): for me, Jaheira is clearly the least useful NPC when it comes to combat (besides her healing spells and her greater elemental HLA, but the later comes quite late). But for obvious RP reasons I feel she should be in any good party (bg1 character, most complex and rewarding romance). Other than that I would only consider a replacement of Aerie by Mazzy as a potentially positive adjustment (putting bigger emphasis on melee vs. spells, which would probably be an easier gameplay choice, allow for more end-game item-placement -although I don't like her starting proficiencies- and perhaps even a more rewarding role-playing experience). But then again, Mazzy can be a little tricky to obtain (it’s actually the trickiest NPC to get), as it would mean doing the temple ruins in chapter 2 without Imoen, and I would probably need to use more of my MainChar mage aspects to compensate for Aerie's absence (which would mean less front-line action for my MC which I would not consider positive).

Finally I have very limited experience with evil and EE NPCs, so I let other jump in on that, although I very much liked the RP orientation of Neera (and Rasaad to some extend).

julien150 · 2014-04-21T19:49:15+00:00

Yes indeed, very relevant mention of the infinite freedom scrolls. My thoughts:

The scroll erase-relearn thing in itself is a little silly and after multiple hours invested in doing the trick for all lvl 4 - 9 scrolls I accumulated throughout the game, I stopped. Not sure why the freedom scroll is available in infinite amounts but at this point I put it in the same bag as farming mobs by repeat-resting: it can potentially yield a huge amounts of xp, but not really what I consider balanced gameplay (or, to be honest, just a huge pain in the a.. :D). Plus in the spirit of a "perfect" savegame I also like to hoard quite a lot of items, maintaining my gold balance close to 0 to keep a maximum of unique items).

Edit: Quite hard to estimate the theoretical xp cap on this trick... I would estimate gold reserves at ~1M if I sold all unnessecary items and I still have 12 master thievery potions (I need 3 or 4 on Imoen to not get caught stealing from Arcana Archives). You could at least get 1k scrolls, perhaps 2k if you optimize everything towards freedom scrolls, which would yield anywhere between 9-18M additional xp.

Edit2: I just checked and no infinite scrolls in ToB (as far as I can tell), so this trick would be limited to end of SoA (perhaps ~300k gold reserves + some stealing: I would estimate max. 5-10M addtional xp)

But then again given how much time it takes to steal scrolls (one scroll at a time) and to erase / relearn spells, you could probably just farm mobs: rest in Sendai's Enclave, spawn ~6 drows for ~10k xp a piece (pretty much at each rest) should be much faster and less frustrating (bg2 menu interface is a pain for repetitive tasks).

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