Keyrock

Still playing Grim Dawn and loving it. I've played for about 9 hours and I think I'm pretty close to the end. If this alpha is truly 1/3 of the entire game, then it should be about 30 hours for a single playthrough for an exploration junkie like me for the whole game, not too shabby. Then, of course there's playing through again with different builds, and on the higher difficulty settings. Like Titan Quest, I'll likely put hundreds of hours into the game before it's all said and done. One of the things I really like is how much more open this game is than Titan Quest. TQ did have some semi-large-ish areas, but they would quickly funnel into a choke point. Grim Dawn still follows this formula to an extent, but the choke points are fewer and further between, the open areas are larger and more open, and there are often multiple paths to get through the choke points. Another cool thing is all the destructables. There are the standard destructables that highlight when you mouse over them, like barrels and crates, but there are also other destructables that don't highlight when you mouse over them, like furniture and walls. Some destructable walls simply produce alternate paths to areas you could get to anyway, other destructable walls lead to super duper secret areas. There are other secrets too. I found a secret dungeon behind a super secret door that required finding something and talking to someone to get access to. Inside was a bunch of cool stuff and baddies much stronger than the scaling curve. I died twice in there because there was a really mean hero beastie in there, but it was worth it to romp through a cool secret area of extra buff baddies.

I'm going to take a wild guess and say that this isn't a day spa. I dig the mood lighting, but the furniture could use a bit of work. Hmm, do they have a Cairn Extreme Makeover Home Edition? Lookie what I found! Unfortunately I can't use it yet... yet.

Who knows, Skyforge may wind up being a cool MMO, but that art style is an absolute abhorrent. It's as if a six year old designed it. It's like Gobots - Fantasy Edition, or something.

Keyrockette at level 17: That bolt action rifle was my first green drop (rare) and it's really badass. I also got an even better (blue - unique) drop, but it's a melee weapon. That's what the shared stash is for. Here are my Demolitionist skills. The skill near the top left (11/16) is Fire Strike, it replaces my standard attack, does extra damage plus burn damage. The skill next to it with the bullet (3/12) is Explosive Strike, and upgrade to Fire Strike that adds some (small area) AoE damage. The skill below that with the bottle (11/12) is Blackwater <synonym for rooster>tail, your standard molotov. The reason that it's blue is because my spiffy rifle is giving a +2 to that skill. It's my bread and butter, absolutely awesome if I have a choke point to work with. The skill next to it is Intense Heat, an upgrade that adds more fire damage and armor reduction to any sap passing through the fire. Here are my Occultist skills. The only one I have is the raven familiar summon. Obviously, I'm heavily skewed toward Demolitionist with this build.

They really aren't particularly useful, but the worg mount is so freakin' cool looking.

Upskirt: The MMORPG

The gameplay wasn't great, I probably didn't dislike it as much as you did, but I agree it could have been much better, but I enjoyed the setting and just the idea behind it. Why on Earth have there not been more martial arts aRPGs? If there's one type of fighting that just screams to be made into an aRPG it's martial arts. Part of the reason I loved Sleeping Dogs so much, is that it gave me a chance to play a martial artist. It doesn't have to be BioWare, and it doesn't have to be Jade Empire 2, I just want more martial arts aRPGs. I'm so sick of pseudo medieval europe fantasy settings. If sick of ****ing elves and ****ing dwarves and ****ing halfling, but not orcs, because orcs will always be cool. I want games in other settings. Sci-fi space opera hasn't been totally played out... yet, but it's getting there. Cyberpunk hasn't been totally played out... yet, but it will get there in the near future. Steampunk is nowhere near played out... yet. Standard fantasy is ridiculously played out. Alpha Protocol was awesome partly because it was modern real world espionage. We need more games like that. Modern espionage. Far east martial arts, whether legendary or modern. Native American centric whether legendary or modern. Anything but more standard pseudo medieval europe fantasy. Note: Sorry for rant and for derailing the thread. Most roleplayers are kit-hounds. They want weapons and armour the way 30 year old women want dresses and shoes. Martial arts can never give them that. *shrugs and makes 'sorry' face* You can still have cool weapons with matrial arts: swords, naginatas, staves, that rope thing with a hook on the end, that triple giant nunchuck thing, etc. Armor, likely not as much, but you can maybe get different gis or outfits that have mystical properties and allow you to channel your chi better or whatever.

The only things I might be willing to pay real money for is a worg mount and the noble finery casual clothes. I can probably just take enought surveys and stuff to get enough for the clothing, I don't remember how much Zen (or if it even was Zen) I need for a worg mount.

The gameplay wasn't great, I probably didn't dislike it as much as you did, but I agree it could have been much better, but I enjoyed the setting and just the idea behind it. Why on Earth have there not been more martial arts aRPGs? If there's one type of fighting that just screams to be made into an aRPG it's martial arts. Part of the reason I loved Sleeping Dogs so much, is that it gave me a chance to play a martial artist. It doesn't have to be BioWare, and it doesn't have to be Jade Empire 2, I just want more martial arts aRPGs. I'm so sick of pseudo medieval europe fantasy settings. If sick of ****ing elves and ****ing dwarves and ****ing halfling, but not orcs, because orcs will always be cool. I want games in other settings. Sci-fi space opera hasn't been totally played out... yet, but it's getting there. Cyberpunk hasn't been totally played out... yet, but it will get there in the near future. Steampunk is nowhere near played out... yet. Standard fantasy is ridiculously played out. Alpha Protocol was awesome partly because it was modern real world espionage. We need more games like that. Modern espionage. Far east martial arts, whether legendary or modern. Native American centric whether legendary or modern. Anything but more standard pseudo medieval europe fantasy. Note: Sorry for rant and for derailing the thread.

Wait... Is Rising the real MGS game or the hack em up brawler? It's the brawler, isn't it? Interest level zero. Don't get me wrong, it's probably a good game, it's just not my bag. I play MGS for stealth... and to be interrupted by conversations every 2 minutes... and for the ridiculously convoluted storylines. (I actually do sort of enjoy, in a twisted way, watching Kojima paint himself into a corner, then seeing how much more ridiculously convoluted the story, which was alreay ridiculously convoluted to begin with, becomes in an attempt to get out of said corner)

Ha ha ha, oh wow. Telling people about three recent epic fails is a way to go I wouldn't call all those epic fails. I thoroughly enjoyed the Mass Effect trilogy, right up until the last 10 or 15% of ME3 (i.e. the slog through Earth and the 3 different color explosions endings). I thought Dragon Age: Origins was fairly good, DA2 on the other hand, yeah epic fail. No comment on SWToR, haven't played it. On a somewhat loosely related note, where's mah damn Jade Empire 2, Bioware!?

You mess with the Pyromancer, you get the fire:

If you had a dragon familiar you'd be Daenerys Targaryen The major difference is that if my character, Keyrockette, spots a dragon, she won't just immediately strip nekkid.

Moar Grim Dawn. Man, the game is freakin' great, these folks really know how to make a loot em' up. I originally planned to go Demolitionist/Soldier, but I changed my mind and went Demolitionist/Occultist (because of the summons), which makes me a Pyromancer. Now I have a raven familiar and I'm a maniac setting fire to everything and everyone, then shooting them just to spite them. Good times.

What's the appropriate gesture for such an occasion? I'm not sure pouring out a 40 applies here. Edit: @Malcador - Everything that involved driving I enjoyed in GTA IV. Everything on foot sucked horrendously.

Man, this one is going to go down to the wire. I hope they get the push they need to make the goal in this last week. The shout out from Obsidian Entertainment definitely helped a bit, they could use some more love like that. If only a site that gets tons of eyeballs would run an article on them. I dropped IGN an email about this a while back, but I'm sure they're much to busy doing articles about Call of Duty 27: Modern Warfare 16: Ghost Squad: Elite Soldier: Hidden Ops 6: Black Edition: Space Zombie Nazi DLC and whatever crappy TV show was on last night to give Full Control some love.

I saw your other post as well and wanted to ask just how much content was released with the alpha or if you've come to the end of it yet? I've only gotten to play it for about 2 1/2 hours and I doubt I'm anywhere near the end of it. Arthur Bruno wrote on the GD forums that it's the 1st 1/3 of the game. I can't tell you how many hours that will be yet, but supposedly it's supposed to be in the 6-8 hour range, if I remember correctly.

Here are my settings: I dialed a few things back a bit (no AA, 4x anisotropic, disabled detailed objects) because I was getting minor screen stutter when moving around. I don't expect the game to be particularly optimized at this point, so hopefully I can turn more of the pretty back on when it's released. And even if I can't, the game looks plenty pretty enough for me to enjoy myself. The combat and loot balance is the all important key in a game like this. Edit: Here's what the game looks like with all the above settings, but Detail Objects turned on and 4XAA, aka the settings I hope to play at once released: With these settings I get a bit of screen stutter when moving around in heavily populated areas, which is why I dialed it back a bit. Again, hopefully some optimization helps that out a bit, but if not, no big deal. The one thing I cannot convey in these screenshots is how awesome the soundtrack is. That's one area of games all too often overlooked. A good musical score can do wonders for the enjoyment of a game. Edit 2: Detail Objects and a bit of AA does definitely prettify the game a little bit when running (that screenie may not do it justice), and it runs fine on those settings in some areas, but I don't have time to test it any more or post any more screenies right now, it's time to head to work.

It plays great. Unsurprisingly, while the setting is completely different, the game plays a lot like Titan Quest. While I'm sure the balance of the beasties, gear, and abilities will be tweaked, retweaked, reretweaked, and tweaked yet again before this launches many months from now, it's already found a pretty good sweet spot for creature difficulty, swarm size, loot drops, etc. I'm up to level 9 and playing a demolitionist. I shoot stuff in the face and toss molotov <synonym for rooster>tails. I can't comment on balance between the 3 currently existing masteries (soldier, demolitionist, occultist) yet as I'm just starting. I plan on going demolitionist/soldier most likely once I hit the level where I get to choose my second mastery. It's been surprisingly stable, considering it's an alpha build. Not one crash or even major glitch so far in almost 2 hours of playing. Here are some more screenies: Character and inventory screen: Skill screen (notice the similarity to Titan Quest): Arbalest Style: They see me rollin'. They hatin':

Grim Dawn (alpha build)

I'm playing Grim Dawn alpha. So far I'm having a super duper blast. No crashes or graphical glitches either, for the time being, not too shabby for an alpha build.

LadyCrimson, you should join Team Rodent. You know you want to. Sleepy Rat compels you to join Team Rodent. Heck, you already have an appropriate avatar.

Note to self: Step 1: Make cat-centric game laden with crazy amounts of micro-transactions Step 2: "Accidentally" mention game to LadyCrimson Step 3: ??? Step 4: Profit

Sell the items made, get experience, goods, and astral diamonds (leadership), raise to a certain level to unlock extra slots.

I've had no trouble dodging (provided I have stamina left), I use my GFW's shift+movement sprint to get out of the way. Any delay is small enough for me to work with, and I'm able to figure it in to my timing. The best thing to do in my experiences is to go right through the character to get behind them, rather than trying to backpedal or go to either side.