I downloaded HS yesterday as I got the itch to play some card games and it seems like a good place to start. I've been following newbie guides I found on /r/hearthstone and have just unlocked all heros and played one play now (and won very surprisingly)

Just curious if people have some advice about starting out/playing or what 'path' to take. I tend to stick to as much solo content as possible in card games before I jump into the PVP side and have a sort of policy of not spending money on games like this before I put in a significant amount of hours and don't get burnt out.

All of this because I've been watching a ton of Magic: Arena on twitch lately as my favorite streamer has gotten addicted (richard_hammer btw)... and figured magic might be a bit overwhelming.

I'm primarily a PC gamer with a library slowly approaching 1,000 games on Steam. While I have sometimes bought games through the other storefronts like Blizzard, GOG, Uplay, and EA Origins, I never really invested significant time in them to the point where I don't keep track of what is in those libraries. Suffice to say, I thought that I was so entrenched in Steam that I couldn't possibly play in another storefront for any meaningful amount of time.

This has changed for the past year. I hopped on one of those deals that gave me access to Game Pass since Microsoft added all the Bethesda games and partnered with EA Play. And I gotta say, I'm invested now. Invested so much that I bought a Series X despite having zero interest when the new generation of systems was announced. Game Pass on Xbox is an even better deal than Game Pass on PC. The library is larger and for the games that are Play Anywhere, I can continue my save file on my PC when my living room TV is unavailable.

I really think that Microsoft has a winning strategy with Game Pass this generation and it really surprised me how my attitude to the Xbox ecosystem changed this year. While I think both Sony and Nintendo have great exclusives, the value proposition for me of convenience and a rotating slate of quality games will likely keep me invested and subscribed, moreso than Xbox Gold or PS+ have in the past.

Since it's the peak of tropical storm season again, this thread is open for all to share stories and thoughts about weather experiences. Not necessarily concerns about climate change, but the incidents you've had personally, and whatever you've learned about preparation, resilience, and recovery.

I'm no longer a Florida resident, but my contacts are blowing up with concern over Hurricane Dorian.

I've been watching the storm on this nifty site, which has great tools and visualisations to satisfy the most avid weather geeks.

Dorian is likely to be another devastating, small-region, high-intensity buzzsaw, like last year's Hurricane Michael, which practically erased towns in the Florida panhandle, or the 1935 Labor Day hurricane. [I'm not really a good person - I'm having more than a little schadenfreude that Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort is near the center of the storm's predicted path. But I'm not the only person who thought of that.]

According to the Insurance Information Institute, Florida has nearly $600 billion dollars of single family housing at risk from a Category 5 hurricane, leaving aside loss of life and injury.

I've been out of the game for years. I left midway through Legion, early into BfA, and then finally SLs burnt out any lingering love I had for the world and its lore. Apparently DF is better, but it's not a world that interests me anymore. Alternatively, Classic was neat, but it's a solved game and mostly a time capsule.

So I'm surprised how much I look forward to playing classic hardcore when my daughter goes to sleep and I have a bit of time to myself. I'm never bored; even boring walks might have stealthed panthers or stuff, so I have to pay my full attention. Whenever a bag drops, or I get an upgrade, it's the best feeling in the world. Leaving a kobold cave alive is such a rush. Watching your hearthstone finish casting in the middle of an enemy camp and letting out that breath that you're holding is incredible.

It absolutely sucks when you die, but then it also makes me more likely to try out classes and races that I usually steered away from, because why not?

Is anyone else on the same boat, or looking forward to the official servers?

We're at week 14, friends. Here we've got this week's user-voted record: Public Strain by Women!

Taken from @Cleb's pitch:

Noisy post-punk that sounds exactly like the image the cover depicts: Marching your way through a cold wasteland in the middle of a blizzard. It builds a wonderfully hopeless atmosphere and comes together so well.

Here's the place to discuss your thoughts on the record, your history with it or the artist, and basically talk about whatever you want to that goes along with Public Strain. Remember that this is intended to be a slow moving thing, feel free to take your time and comment at any point in the week!

If you'd like to stream or buy the album, it can be found on most platforms here.

https://careers.blizzard.com/en-us/openings/oNiH7fwD archive.is mirror

We're working on a new, unannounced Diablo project. Are you a skilled Dungeon Artist? Come work with us, and together we will build something exceptional.

• Work directly with level design to build atmospheric dungeons with a focus on composition, detail and mood, while ensuring that the gameplay space is readable.
• Work with Lead Environment Artist and the Art Director to ensure all environments are meeting the high-quality bar Blizzard is known for.
• Experience working with a lead artist or art director in developing a unique and cohesive modeling and texturing style for environment assets

Definitely looks like a whole new game in the pipeline. Any other dungeon crawler fans on ~tildes so far? I think I've got 300+ hours in Diablo 3 alone, let alone 1 and 2.

What do you want in a new Diablo, what do you definitely not want?

Today's problem description: https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/24

Please post your solutions in your own top-level comment. Here's a template you can copy-paste into your comment to format it nicely, with the code collapsed by default inside an expandable section with syntax highlighting (you can replace python with any of the "short names" listed in this page of supported languages):

<details>
<summary>Part 1</summary>

```python
Your code here.
```

</details>