Karohemd's World

Time to revive this for posts that don't fit into twitter/mastodon/bsky:

Updated after five days in #Starfield:
It has been described as "No Man's Skyrim" and "Fallout in Space" and that's exactly it. There's nothing new or revolutionary about it but it looks pretty solid in terms of playability and bugs, which is pretty impressive for Bethesda at launch. There's a lot less flying in space than what various promos suggested, you just jump from system to system and inside a system you click the planet you want to go to and the ship flies there on its own. Landing and docking is automatic, too (which, frankly, I'm OK with, the days of Elite are over).

The cities (I've only seen one which seems to be your base of operations, at least at the beginning) are pretty but not spectacular. What I'm really disappointed with is the character models of the NPCs. They lack in detail and the facial animations aren't any better than those from The Outer Worlds, which was released over five years ago. Pretty shocking for a late '23 AAA title. Baldur's Gate 3 has more expressive and emotional character models.
Dialogues are fully voice acted and pretty decent but again quite average. As in BG3, your lines aren't spoken in game, only the NPCs'.

It's early days but the main plot of collecting mysterious artifacts isn't gripping me yet (come on, think of something new!). The side/faction missions sound a lot more interesting.
UPDATE: The side content is definitely more interesting. I will be doing everything I can before continuing the main one. There are so many actual interesting stories. Obviously, there are some basic fetch quests, too.

For my character background, I went for Chef which might not be the best one but I'm always the roleplayer, not min maxer. I love that you get a free skill point in Duelling (melee weapons). Characters only have skills (a huge tree), no attributes/stats. You also have three Traits (various background options, allegiances to factions, and certain game mechanic things like bonuses/penalties to certain skills in certain situations).

UPDATE: I really like that - similar to BG3 - you can resolve various quests using the "Persuade" skill, which can be augmented by items. There are a number of social skills you can use in combat (make enemies run away, stop attacking, etc.) which I haven't explored yet because you only get one skill point per level up and I've invested mostly in health and combat.

Inventory management is a mess and it needs a "Mark as Junk" option and traders need a "Sell all Junk" option. Loot is probably the best way to make credits in the beginning.

What I really hope gets patched soon is the audio. Quite often, sounds and even dialogue lines just either cut out or are replaced by static. Quitting to main menu and reloading seems to fix this most of the time, at least. The other issue is that sometimes environmental chatter isn't muted during conversations, or you're on your ship talking to another ship/station and suddenly a crew member starts a conversation, too. The same can happen when playing recordings.

UPDATE: Mentioning patches, the game has been out since the 31st of August (there was no update/day one patch on the general release date on the 6th) and there still hasn't been a patch. During the time, Larian had already released two hotfixes for BG3. Sounds like they're going to let the modders do all the hard work again.

I haven't even looked at setting up outposts and building ships yet, that seem like entire games in their own right from various bits I've seen online.

Overall, I like the experience but it doesn't compare to BG3 in terms of scope of story, characters and world building, at least not so far. Exploring planets (so far) is just ticking boxes (gather all resources, scan all flora/fauna etc.). Some random buildings have enemies at/in them but unless you happen across a side quest, they're just XP fodder.

So, as a preliminary point, it's OK, some parts are fun. I'm definitely far less immersed than in BG3 and I'm glad I didn't have to pay any money for it (other than the monthly Game Pass fee which gives me loads more games on top)

Performance: On my 3 years old PC (i7, RTX 2080 Super, 32GB RAM), I'm getting just over 30fps on Ultra and just under 60 on High. There isn't much picture quality between the two so High is good enough for me.

As a German native, the portrayal in English-speaking films, TV series etc. often bugs me. This has improved much recently from the “Schweinhund” Nazi types of classic Hollywood WWII films but there are still some tropes that remain that grate because they are unrealistic.

I was prompted to write this short guide by a tweet by Chris Ing (who runs the fantastic Star Wars actual play podcast, Silhouette Zero) and is mainly meant for RPGs, although most of it would also apply to characters who are meant to be fluent in English (because of their education or because they've been living in an English-speaking country for a while) in fiction, TV and film.

Note: This is just a random collection of ideas off the top of my head, comments and suggestions/questions are welcome.

Name
Traditional names like Fritz, Hans, Dietrich etc. for male and Marie/Maria, Greta/Grete (never Gretchen, the Faust character is basically the only one with that given name in the German speaking world), Anna/Anneliese, Elisabeth for female are just that and would look very odd in a modern setting. It's easy to find the most popular names for a year on the internet (especially more recent ones might surprise you).
Also, pick one you can pronounce like a native speaker would, otherwise it does not work at all, because the one thing someone can pronounce perfectly is their name. If in doubt, consult a native speaker. :)

Language
Never use und, ich, du, ja, nein, numbers and other simple words because they are literally the first ones anyone learns and would not get wrong, either. Similarly, don't have them address English/American people with Herr/Frau. Basically, avoid replacing English words with any German words you might know or have picked up somewhere in an otherwise perfect English sentence.
What someone who isn't bilingual struggles with are complicated, archaic and technical terms and especially idioms. For example, you might hear a German person say they are holding their thumbs instead of crossing their fingers.
Obviously, these sort of replacements are tricky if your knowledge of German is limited so I suggest leaving them out entirely and concentrate on the accent.

Accent
Again, I suggest not to overdo it. The major thing Germans tend to struggle with is not the th (although that's still a bit of a hurdle) but the difference between voiced and unvoiced consonants as there are basically no voiced consonants in German and general intonation/diction.
Examples:
in German f, ph and v are pronounced the same, e.g Vater could as well be spelled Fater. Speaking from my own experience, it is very hard to get rid of this.
Many Germans wouldn't voice the th in “there” and “thing” differently

Sentence structure
After accent, this is the second most obvious indicator of a German native speaker using English. Unfortunately, it's also the one that is hardest to reproduce unless you actually know German (or are friends with English speaking Germans and hear them speak regularly. It's also not easy to describe or at least it would completely go beyond my intentions for this short guide

A good tip
Listen to native German actors in English media. Not Arnold Schwarzenegger because he has a strong regional Austrian accent and it's very obvious. A few suggestions: Franka Potente, Christoph Waltz, Daniel Brühl, Til Schweiger (who recently impressed me in Atomic Blonde), Thomas Kretschmann as Baron Strucker in Age of Ultron, Udo Kier, Armin Müller-Stahl etc.

I'm resurrecting this blog for a post that wouldn't fit into my wp one.
Last week a friend tweeted a link to This Northern Boy, an artist who mainly does line art SciFi illustrations. He had a sketch for sale I really liked and I ordered it. It arrived today.

There was no context, no name, or any indication who or what the ship was so I had a bit of a brainstorm and came up with a tiny story. First time I've done this, really, so any comments and constructive criticism are appreciated.

The small spacecraft dropped out of hyperspace a few clicks from a massive asteroid field. As it approached slowly on thruster power, its compact shape extended to reveal a cockpit with a large, lens-shaped window. A solar array and various sensors and aerials deployed and clicked into place as it drifted into the field and began a search pattern.
Inside the cockpit, the sole pilot worked the controls, multiple legs prodding and adjusting dials, multi-faceted eyes checking visual readouts, feelers searching for vibration patterns, antennae sensing the olfactory outputs. Every now and then, a small transmitter was jettisoned from a chute at the bottom of the craft and buried itself in one of the asteroids.
Its search pattern complete and its supply of transmitters exhausted, the surveyor retracted its sensors and returned to its travel configuration. When it had cleared the asteroid field, space folded around it and it was gone.
Just another day working for the Krktk mining corporation.

I have been lax in posting my own cooking to my blog recently which was mainly due to not having cooked anything new, exciting or worthwhile to post but here are two:



I had picked up a mackerel from the wet fish counter at Sea Tree in Mill Road and wanted to make something very simple and quick. I filleted the mackerel (which is very easy compared to other fish), rubbed the skin side with rapeseed oil, seasoned the flesh side with sea salt and pepper and fried the fillets skin side down in a hot pan for about a minute, took the pan off the heat and flipped over the fillets to cook the other side.
To serve I arranged the fillets on simply dressed leaves with orange segments. The bitterness of the leaves with the tart orange worked well together. Blood oranges would have been even better but those weren't in season.



My friends Heidi and Carri had told me of a van that sells fresh wet fish from Lowestoft next to the Portland Arms pub on Mitcham's Corner on Wednesdays (from 8:30 to 15:00, I think) and yesterday I finally got up half an hour earlier and took a detour on the way to work. Yesterday, they had cod, haddock, salmon, plaice, Dover sole, herring, sprats, whole squid, prawns, rainbow trout and a few other bits and pieces. Everything looked excellent and fresh. As I knew I wouldn't have much time in the kitchen, I picked a Dover sole with the plan of poaching it. They even had a few that were already skinned which saved me some time.
Home after work, the fish was still in excellent condition, ever after 9 hours in the office fridge. I made a poaching liquor from white wine, water, a fish stock pot and a couple of slices of ginger and garlic, brought it to the boil, switched the heat off and let it cool down for a while, taking out the ginger and garlic at the end. On a Saturday I would have made my own stock from the bones but I was quite hungry and didn't want to wait that long. I filleted the sole (you get four fillets from a flat fish) and poached the fillets in the liquor for about five minutes. Then I took them out, seasoned them with salt and pepper and served them on dressed leaves and boiled new potatoes. Next time, i'm going to let the liquor cool even further so they don't cook quite that much. They were firm but still moist. The flavour was subtle and clean, just what I wanted.

Last weekend I joined a number of old friends (you might be able to spot fractalgeek, queenortart, undyingking, pengshui_master, sesquipedality and others) in The King's Musketeers, set during the reign of King Louis XIII of France, with characters both from real history as well as literature (e.g. Alexandre Dumas' novels). As often during these weekend events, costuming was at a very high level, many self-made and a number of players even were wearing several different costumes. If you'd like to know more about freeform games, the UK Freeforms website is a good place to start. Here's a selection of photos, with many more being on flickr. The great and sometimes daunting thing about these freeforms is that the plots are written into the characters who then go and try to resolve them (find lost characters or items, resolve old rivalries, make profit/politics/war, toppel those in power, empower the people and so on) mostly by social interaction. Character sheets can be five or more pages long (background, character description, goals, people you know) and there are additional materials to read, too, so preparation for a game like this takes a while.
This was my first weekend freeform for a while (since Queen Vic's Jubilee) but I got into it quite quickly and, unlike some previous games, it went really well for me and I kept thinking something had to go horribly wrong any minute but I not only survived but also resolved most of my goals. My only disappointment was that the mob didn't get to overrun Paris. ;o)

Here's a selection of photos, with many more being on flickr.



Next year's game is going to be Café Casablanca, with characters from Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon and other Film Noir films. It's almost completely booked already and registration is currently on hold while the organisers are figuring if they can fit in any more players. You can always register your interest as there are sometimes dropouts which will need to be filled.

Kavey Eats has a monthly ice cream challenge called "Bloggers Scream for Ice Cream" in which I have taken part twice so far. This month's challenge is any theme from the last year so I thought I'd try my hand at a sorbet.



My Riverford box contained blood oranges which were ideal. I zested the oranges then instead of juicing them I peeled them and blitzed them with my stick blender. In a saucepan I combined the juice, zest, half an inch of grated ginger, half a vanilla pod, two short cinnamon sticks, one star anise, five or so bruised cardamom pods and quite a bit of demerara sugar (don't ask me how much, I did this by eye but enough to make the mix taste really sweet), heated the mix until the sugar was dissolved, pulled the pan off the heat, put a lid on and let it cool off and infuse with the spices. After the mix was cool, I strained it into a tupperware container to remove the spices and put it in the freezer.

I don't have an ice cream machine so I took the container from the freezer every hour or so and stirred it through with a fork to break up any ice chunks that were forming. In my low rated freezer compartment it took almost 24 hours until it resembled sorbet or, to be honest, more like a slushie as it melts quite quickly. It tastes nice, though, fruity, tangy and spicy so I'm really happy with it.

On Friday I needed a quick dinner before my next engagement and as The Sea Tree on The Broadway section of Mill Road had been recommended to me by various people I decided to try it. The Sea Tree is part traditional fish&chip shop, part fishmonger (one of the very few independent places selling wet fish in Cambridge) and part eaterie with a handful of small to medium sized tables where you can order both from the fish&chip shop menu and their "alternatives" menu with pan-fried or grilled fillets of or whole sea bass, gilthead bream with a choice of sauces and sides as well as a specials board.
I picked the "whole baked Whitby crab thermidor" which was served with a mixed salad (leaves, peppers, red onions) and chips. The picked and mixed crab meat was served in the shell of the body and was carefully seasoned so the flavour of the crab still came through and it was cooked on the dot, lovely and moist. There was a nice crust on top, too. The chips were crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside and not soggy at all.
If they can cook something as tricky as crab so well, I'm convinced their other offerings will be just as good. It's a bit out of the way for me but I will definitely be back, most likely for one of their lobster nights. It's not a place to linger because the shop is unsurprisingly rather busy but if you want a quick quality bite before a night out, this is definitely the place to go. They even have an alcohol license and serve beer and wine but I only had orange juice and water because I had a night of cake and cocktails ahead of me.
The bill came to around 13 pounds without service.

On Monday, I went to the Arts Theatre for The Woman in Black which is currently touring the UK. While not really terrifying as the blurb makes it out to be, it was very well done, atmospheric and a very good adaptation of the source material with the proper ending (not the stupid one from the film). The stage design was very simplistic and the same set of chairs and wicker trunk served as various locations. The curtain in the back was solid when lit from the front and translucent when lit from the back which was used to create different rooms (staircase, nursery). I wasn't frightened but thoroughly entertained and slightly annoyed at the woman in front of me jumping and screaming all the time.

Last night I finally saw Django Unchained, the new Tarantino film starring Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz as well as a host of other great actors incl. Samuel L. Jackson playing a slave owner's faithful old servant. Watch out for the original Django (Franco Nero) turning up in one scene (he comes to the bar after the wrestling match). Tom Wopat (Luke Duke), Tom Savini (Sex Machine in From Dusk Till Dawn) and Southern villain staple Walton Goggins (Boyd in Justified) are all part of the cast, too. As often with Tarantino, the music is excellent. It's a very long film (2:45) and it's currently shown at inhumane times (8:30 in the evening at both Vue and Cineworld) but it's worth it. It's also really funny in places. Oh, and for once, the German is correct. :o)