James Williams.me

James is a standard issue nerd, practically to a fault. He was learning BASIC while his peers were learning to throw and catch. He enjoys walking around a well-lit 3D-rendered landscape but would prefer to stay indoors. He won't dance (don't ask him) but he will /dance and /manderville all night long. If you're interested in an in-depth analysis between the command techniques of various Starfleet captains, you are going to have a great time with James at parties (this is a lie: James doesn't go to parties).

Professionally, James is a seasoned developer with nearly two decades of experience. He enjoys all sorts of different programming languages, platforms, and programming methodologies. His own personal style is a spicy mix of functional and object-oriented: he even nearly understands monads!

When he's not working, he's probably poking at his personal programming projects. Beyond that: you might find him playing a turn-based RPG (or watching a Let's Play of a more action-oriented RPG), editing pictures in Photoshop, reading a novel with a spaceship on the cover, and always always always drinking far more tea than can possibly be wise.

(The lemur's name is Gary.)

James' Resume

My Recent Activity

Finished Act II. Received some astounding revelations. Failed an important WIS check and now my entire character concept is in question.

Lots of food for thought for future playthroughs now that I have some future knowledge. Looking forward to riding it out to the end.

After I finished Act II, I got an achievement for making it this far into the game. According to Steam, only 36% of players have this achievement.

I thought I was taking the slow path, but only a third of players have finished the first two thirds of the game. So maybe I'm not doing that badly. (I know that some amount of that are people who didn't enjoy it and stopped playing altogether; but still.)

I failed to save the Tieflings. I'm not even sure what I did wrong. The quest just failed.

I honestly feel pretty bad about it. But I don't know how old of a save I'd need to load to fix it.

So...they're just gone in this playthrough, I guess.

My next playthrough was going to be a dark urge playthrough; but now I think it might be a Save The Tieflings run.

Added Halsin to the party.

Spent some time leveling him up from 1 to 8.

Spent more time getting him some gear from my camp chest.

Went to hit F5 to save.

Hit F8 to load instead.

I'm...going to go do something else now.

I thought I might both start and finish Act II over this long weekend; but I spent just a little too much time dodging traps in the Gauntlet of Shar and now I'm just overly annoyed with the game.

I think I need a break.

Possibly until next weekend; possibly longer.

This game is a stunning and towering achievement. But the trap mechanic is just hateful.

I don't like traps in real D&D. I don't like traps in this, either.

Traps are just the game designer's way of shoving your finger into the Random Punishment Box over and over and that is not what I am here for.

There's a fight in Act II where you have to save someone and, as far as I can tell, it is just completely impossible.

To add insult to injury, there's a loooooong cut scene that plays between when you can save before the fight and the actual fight.

I might have to go respec all of my characters (or, certainly, my main since I can't swap her out of the party) to build a party just for this fight.

I shouldn't have spent all my gold on shiny swords, I guess.

Maybe I need a Paladin in this fight. Hmmm...

Better go talk to Withers.

That's a wrap on Act I.

I still think there's so much I've been missing, though.

I'm going to have to do another playthrough with a guide, aren't I?

Did finally make it to Shadowbringers...

...and just tore through it to the first dungeon.

People say that the story "gets good" in Heavensward but the pacing doesn't get good until Shadowbringers.

I think they've finally figured out how to use their engine and general setup to draw you in.

I'm excited to see where it goes from here.

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