Hartastic

For context, lately we mostly cruise Royal and have picked Oasis class ships more often than not, but have cruised other classes/lines/etc. though this was our first Icon class ship. We caught a good last minute deal (probably a lot of kids back in school by now) and decided to go for it. I thought some of the things we were surprised by might be interesting to other folks who haven't been on an Icon.

The ship design was interesting. I was expecting, basically, a slightly bigger Oasis. This thing has a Central Park! Surfside from photos looked pretty close to a Boardwalk. Etc. What I got was a lot more like a really huge Quantum. I think overall the ship design might owe about as mu

Anyone else surprised there isn't an event queue / character creation up yet? Did the GGG dev who was supposed to set this up sleep in, or am I just missing it?

This is inspired by the age gap topic, which includes a large number of young characters romantically involved with characters thousands of years old.

A lot of those characters we are told are thousands of years old, in my experience, still feel like basically normal people and not ancient entities that have experience sprawling across dozens or thousands of human lifetimes. What are your favorite examples of this kind of character done right? Anyone can say a character is a hundred thousand years old but not every author has a gift for making you feel that weight.

Thought this was interesting and y'all would probably have opinions.

There was a stretch of leagues where one of the builds I'd play at some point was either Arakaali (usually Aegis variant, with Squire it always felt too squishy to me for anything resembling mapping) or some variant of SRS (poison, lightning, etc.). How are those looking at this point? Have they just been pretty much left behind by better options (I don't love the way Holy Relic plays)?

I'm interested in hearing what people have had good experiences with going from Houston Hobby airport (HOU) to Galveston.

I know better than to fly in day-of and got a hotel in Galveston the night before to minimize what can go wrong, but my assumption is that also rules out Royal's transfers. The last time I did this was with a group of almost 20 people, and while the transportation company we used for that was fantastic and at a good price for that number of people they're pretty prohibitive for 4.

Push comes to shove we can just UberXL it but maybe there's a better option?

(Inspired by some of the conversation in another thread about Katabasis.)

Sometimes there's an idea, bit of worldbuilding, concept or character you just love in a book that you don't love, or by an author you don't care for. Maybe it's a really original or clever idea you just wish someone else had written or that you thought was wasted in the book it's in.

For example, I bag on The Wise Man's Fear a fair bit but I'll still readily admit I think the idea of the Cthaeh is just brilliant. Long story short, this is a super malicious fae creature that can see all possible futures with perfect clarity and will choose to selectively reveal information in such a way to cause the worst possibl

This is a completely serious question. It's pretty obvious, of course, that GGG isn't interested in people calling them names or accusing them of bad motives or the like, but what is the best way (or, GGG's preferred way) to provide feedback on changes/mechanics/etc. and have it heard and taken seriously?

Reddit thread? Official forums? Twitter? Something else?

Is it enough to identify a problem or something that feels bad? Does GGG appreciate when solutions are offered or would they rather just hear the problems and solution themselves?

What kinds of context, if any, are helpful when providing feedback?

I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting.

So, here's a slightly different topic.

The whole thing with metamod costs swapping Ex for Div, Div recipe removed, Div-like rerolls removed from other mechanics.

I... don't actually think this is better, having played with it for a while. Does anyone disagree? Other thoughts?

It's interesting how in some cases playing a game well after release gives you a different play experience than people who played it earlier had, whether in small or large ways, because of bugs being fixed or balance changes patched in.

For example, I played Witcher 2 years after release, and I could remember everyone at the time complaining at the time that the Quen sign was super overpowered and solved all the combats easily. I didn't have that experience trying it out. Check the patch notes and, sure enough, it had been nerfed substantially in a patch, along with other bug fixes and balance changes.

Right now I'm playing Sekiro. Almost without exception, if I'm having a hard time fig

I have a suite guarantee booked for a sailing about two months out -- at the time I booked that happened to be cheaper than the cheapest balcony cabin available (which I would have otherwise booked for this cruise) and I thought, why not, all the junior suites on this ship are in acceptable places to me, the worst thing I can get is fine.

I also RoyalUp bid on a few of the suite upgrade options.

Looking at the same sailing today it appears (?) that junior suites are now sold out for this sailing. Does this mean I'm basically guaranteed to get something higher than a junior already and should cancel my bid?