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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1499 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for July 10, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Video Game Thread

What are you playing? Did you pick up anything great in the Steam summer sale?

I'm working my way through Half-Life (1998) and its expansions. It's pretty great even beyond the nostalgia, and I like the general feel of the engine and how you move around in it. Even the much-criticized Blue Shift is kinda fun. The engine was always one of the main strengths of HL and played a large part in its many mods' successes too, IMO. I'm playing with the 'original models' because I prefer how those weapons look and sound. I tried Black Mesa again briefly but I don't really like many of the changes they made. It's not a faithful remake.

Playing the new-ish Rogue Trader Trazyn DLC. Owlcat does make a nice CRPG. I'm trying to go for a balanced alignment run where I don't exceed rank 2 in any alignment. They show a mirror universe character with that affliction but I'm not sure its possible with all the colony buildings.

I loved the Owlcat Pathfinders and Rogue Trader, but with RT, it felt like I could see the rails on the universe much more clearly than with the others. It felt smaller. Not sure if it actually is, but it feels that way. Maybe it's that a lot of the tedious mechanics (e.g. wealth, inventory) are handwaved because you're a Rogue Trader who doesn't need to deal with such trivial inconveniences, and those are actually load-bearing on the immersion. Maybe it's the reduced narrative complexity and choice branches. I don't think I could bring myself to start another RT playthrough today, whereas there are still things I'd like to try in WotR or KM.

The only real complaint I have with Rogue Trader is that if you have any idea of how the universe functions, you're basically going to be so goddamn hardline in worshipping the Emperor, purging the mutant and killing the heretic you will give your Inquisitor conniptions fits because you're more hardline than he is and it drives him nuts.

...which, admittedly, I take great delight in, so maybe I'm a little bit biased. Xeno artifact whispering in my head? Into the energy reactor it goes. Demon-infestes super computer? Arengta, be a dear and please bathe this foul artifice with plasma. Chaos-corrupted nobles on my planet? Fire. All the fire.

I will never forgive Games Workshop for denying us a romance route with the Sisters of Battle, though.

you have any idea of how the universe functions

The fun part is you can role play as not knowing. Dogmatic is often the smart way to play but playing as a heretic is enjoyable, and trying to thread the needle on iconoclast between stupid and non-zealot is fun.

I will never forgive Games Workshop for denying us a romance route with the Sisters of Battle

I just want to romance my cog boys. Argenta is whatever.

Coming into it with barely any knowledge of the setting, dogmatic seemed lawful-stupid, or even pointlessly cruel. Look, I can get behind "for the Greater Good", or even "My Country Right or Wrong", but the choices were like:

  • [dogmatic] execute this poor commoner for having a reasonable complaint
  • [heretic] execute this poor commoner for the lulz, cackling maniacally
  • [iconoclast] don't execute the poor commoner

and like, it didn't do a great job of selling the appeal. I was interested in heretic initially because the evil artifact that will obviously obviously corrupt you seemed like a solid roleplay arc, but then the early heretic choices were chaotic-evil right off the bat. I was hoping they'd start off being written as neutral-evil power seeking and then by late game, you'd have frog boiled yourself into a servant of chaos.

Then, iconoclast was completely normal western liberal morality, and the game doesn't punish you for picking those options, so why not pick them?

Exception: idira - this was done well, and it's a rare thing in RPGs that the player gets the option to summarily execute a companion early on, and can reasonably decide it's the right choice.

Then, iconoclast was completely normal western liberal morality, and the game doesn't punish you for picking those options, so why not pick them?

The Void Shadows DLC takes advantage of the iconoclast naiveté very well. It absolutely punishes you for it, in very hilarious ways. The in-game lore optimal route is probably a mix of dogmatic and iconoclast. I agree that heretic is chaotic evil straight off of the bat, it would have been nicer to have different flavors of evil as well, or a slow build up. I don't think Owlcat's writing is particularly good, but I do appreciate that it doesn't morally railroad you in quite the same way as something like BG3.

I think with the DLCs increasing the number of alignment points that are available, you don't need to go hard down one path to be able to reach the end trees, allowing you to kinda set the pace in your own story a bit more.

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