Weird. I haven’t heard of that one yet.

I’m approaching that, but I have to admit I take my time and revisit towns a lot.

I’ve only gone to a dozen dungeons so far that were hand-crafted. There were literally hundreds of them in Skyrim. I’d love to get real numbers.

So far, I am enjoying the hell out of the game, if my lack of twitch reflexes is hurting that a lot. I keep having to juggle between ship upgrades (my Mantis keeps dying to small fleets more than 10 levels lower than me) and face-to-face. Usually by now in other Bethesda games, dying is rare. I’m too stubborn to drop the difficulty, though, so I suppose that’s on me.

There’s a pirate fleet in orbit around the planet I want to build my first output. Last 5 times I tried to go there, fleet keeps showing up and killing me. That’s somewhat annoying.

Some folks say there’s only about 25 hours of handcrafted stuff. I’m not late enough in to know for sure.

I had agoraphobia growing up. I know exactly what it is. And I had moments of it exploring the planets. I found myself hugging to keep buildings in range and not wanting to stray out into the great wide open. For some odd reason, I got more of that in Starfield than in NMS.

I’m also still fairly early into the game, so perhaps I’ll spend more time indoors than I have so far.

EDIT, also, it kinda is the opposite of claustrophobia in some ways. There are some overlaps and nuances (both fears sometimes include fear of crowds). I had a grandparent with really bad claustrophobia who never used an elevator in her life. Ironically, we could relate on a lot. But they were still opposite issues.

While I agree, I’ve been saying that about NMS for years. Not that we want to be comparing Starfield to NMS, of course.

So far, Starfield is exactly like Skyrim in space to me. There’s as many carefully crafted cities, and quite a few carefully crafted locales. There’s just a lot more space in Starfield (estimated about 500x more. Skyrim is 15sq miles, and those 1000 planets are each a couple square miles ingame). Sounds like there may be less hand-crafted content in Starfield than Skyrim, but that’s hard to tell.

I’m definitely not finding Starfield to be claustrophic. On the contrary, a bit agoraphobic.

I agree re: coop. They seem to be the way of the future. Some people I game with get really frustrated being less competitive than the rest in games like Dominion, where taking your time and planning out your turns has huge return but makes everyone have to sit and wait (and don’t talk to me, I’m figuring out whether I’m going to play my Laboratory or my Sentry first!)

For some reason, though, Pandemic goes over like a dead weight to most people. So much so, I’ve never bought Pandemic Legacy as good as it looks. Arkham horror is too crunchy for some, but just right for others. Spirit Island, surprisingly, has been a sweet spot for some recently. It’s a little hard to get good at, but the sliding difficulty scale is really granular.

Comparison with Kingdom Death? Interesting. I made a point of watching a few let’s plays of Pathfinder the Adventure Card game, and it seems to me as similar as Catan and Pandemic (which is, not at all)

The comparison I see is Townfolk Tussle, which I intend to someday buy for a faster/easier campaign.

Kingdom Death: Monster plays incredibly well solo, possibly better than any multiplayer variant except 4-player. It’s one of the reasons I bought it.

Eldrich Horror is on my to-buy list. My wife got really burned out on board games so I’ve leaned into my ultra-crunchy solo-friendly stuff, but she enjoyed Arkham horror for quite a while.

But yeah. Last time I played Catan I wanted it to stop by round 2. I have horrible dice-luck, so a game’s gotta be fun when I roll worst-case 5-10 rounds in a row. In Catan, it means I get all nerdy placing my towns on strategically sound intersections, and then watch everyone else play and I pass as numbers like 6 and 8 never roll for an entire game. My record is like the first half of the game getting no resources. Then getting one or two. Something about seeing the 3rd or 4th 2 roll give someone resources before you’ve gotten anything just makes you want to flip the table.

Interesting. Because you were doing too well? The only way KD:M gets a little boring to me is if I’m trying to min-max and only fighting the most appropriate monster for maximum return at each twist or turn. All those underleveled lions for 15 rounds, then all those antelopes, avoiding phoenix and any unique monsters, etc. I did a playthrough where I suicided extra population against most bosses instead of risking my better ones. Ok, that can get boring.

But throw all those in? Nothing quite like going for the overpowered unique phoenix and trying to land his death bonus on my character with Immortal disorder. Also nothing quite like that character making it, then constantly being targeted with “instead of damage, roll on critical injury table” and having to blow my party’s rerolls to save her. (For the record, no she didn’t make it to LY30)

But honestly, to each their own. I really enjoy it. And adding a few more hunt or showdown monsters (when you really “know” your base prey) is enough to keep an entire campaign fresh. And if not, PotSun and PotStars is a blast (said in Tabletop Simulator because I can’t afford all that)

I couldn’t agree more.

KD:M may have its imperfections, but I don’t think I’ve ever played another game quite so beautiful (if you’re into that existential dread type of beauty).

It’s incredible, and a blast. A full campaign (assuming you don’t lose halfway through) runs about 60 hours. So I get it :)

The digital version might be more accessible. I really wish they’d sell it without the minis. I just don’t have the time to paint minis, which means I don’t get the value worth in minis.

A lot of board game geeks hate Catan. I also hate Catan, but my reasons probably aren’t their reasons. So there’s that.

But I don’t entirely disagree. It’s complicated. I bought multiple games to find ones I’d love more. I find most people with board game obsession still have a favorite.

Like me, I’ve spent more time playing KD:M and Spirit Island than the next 5 combined.

For me, it’s board games. I figured a few good board games could last a while. I’m sure you are (incorrectly) guessing the next step, that I just bought too many.

No, I bought Kingdom Death: Monster. And now I want the expansion packs, which combine to nearly $3000.

I’ve never heard of them. Looks like the nearest one is 4 hours away from me, and there are zero in my home state or any state I like to visit.

Actually, a quick google seems to suggest Smoothie King primarily uses frozen fruit for their smoothies. They offer “nutritional add ins” that are protein powders. This is like Tropical Smoothie.

Maybe I wasn’t clear about Herbalife. The ENTIRE smoothie is protein powder. Here is a typical herbalife smoothie. The entire smoothie. Others are the same with artificial flavors. Then one freeze-dried strawberry dropped in lets them say there’s real fruit in it.

Here is a (genuinely random) sample from Smoothie King. A little protein added at the end, but primarily frozen fruit. This is reinforced by the fact that they sell fruit “smoothie bowls” for a comparable price. Herbalife has no fruit on hand to sell.

I’ve never in my life been to a smoothie place or shake that primarily used powders.

It’s always:

1. ice cream, ice, flavoring sauces, some real like chocolate/coffee (pretty much every local diner)
2. fresh fruit, yogurt/banana (smoothie places like Tropical Smoothie)
3. Packaged liquid flavors plus frozen fruit (a couple smaller restaurants)

Last I saw, Tropical Smoothie Cafe (national chain) does fresh or frozen fruit exclusively for $5-6, and Herbalife does cheap flavored soy powders for $11

There is a massive quality difference. They don’t even advertise readily that there’s soy in in them; I had to look it up. Thankfully I’m not allergic. And that’s the thing. They sell fake shit and intentionally hide that fact.

Their Schtick is that people start Herbalife “franchises” under another name, but then serve Herbalife. I believe they are generally not supposed to use the word “Herbalife” anywhere on their merchandising.

Except, isn’t Herbalife something that’s never branded? My cup had some smallbiz-seeming name on it. Definitely not Herbalife.

I subbed to an anti-MLM subreddit in the past, and that’s the exact shifty behavior they removeded about Herbalife having. I just hadn’t seen it.