melkathi

We have various threads about various online distribution platforms, but a lot of them have gone and dropped far into the forum depth. So as not to practice forbidden dark arts of Threadomancy: Green Man Gaming has a Battle Trhough the Ages deal going. Mentioning it because it has all the Crusader Kings II stuff going 50% off. That is steam keys. Personally I did not really like the game, but a lot of forum regulars here absolutley love it. My own taste in the sale goes more towards the King Arthur games by Neocore: Total War like combat with heroic leaders who advance levels, unlock abilities and become terribly overpowered Add to that chose your own adventure type quests and a very good moral system, that unlocks rewards and options based on a character's position on a two axis chart: morality (rightful - tyrant) and religion (christianity - old gods). Though I usually end up a rightful pagan. Also at a 50% discount are Blackguard (which I am tempted to get) and some other stuff like Fallen Enchantress. On Steam itself Bloodline is going really cheap as the deal of the day. I just don't know how easily that is installed?

Tried Wildstar in a beta weekend a couple of weeks ago. Found the game so underwhelmingly dull that I uninstalled it right away.

Final Island? Monster Island never was the final zone. Lemuria was the high level zone. Then after launch they added Vibora Bay - a lot more fun than Lagmuria. I find the writing on Monster Island even worse than the rest of the launch content, so I refuse to quest there. Always skip it. For melee characters might has become quite fun. I think it had gotten a revamp after launch. A lot of powersets have. I enjoy palying might every now and then to send enemies flying with punches.

Hmm, "Insecure, weak-willed, whiny, or chronically depressed personality types are right out." So that means no Carth, Kaidan or Alistair?

The default gear makes for a very nightmareish first session

Let us know how it went!

It's a regional thing with Steam. My Steam turns to dutch as well. It seems to be the default language for eastern Europe.

Don't trust the skull.

Tried being clever in Dominion 4. Made a Carrion Lord my Prophet. Forgot the Carrion Lord was undead and as a result mute. Now I have a prophet who can't preach to the unbelievers...

Age of Wonders 2 was the low point of that non-hallmarknss though I enjoy the goblin descriptions quite a lot.

Setup a new game of Dominion 4. Very large map with 27 AIs. Playing as Asphodel - dryads, centaurs etc gone mad and turned to necromancy. Went silly with my Pretender God. Chose the Mother of Monsters base body, so she'll give random birth to monsters. That is once she breaks free from wherever the previous pantocrator God had imprisoned her. Domain of death, misfortune and drain is currently wreaking havoc with my economy, but if I manage to spread it to my neighbours they will be worse of that I, since in my provinces the unrest, murder on the streets and countless accidents just increase the bodycount that gets returned as undead carrion. Will be interesting to see how far I can get with this game. Just need to remember not to overextend.

Alpha Centauri was one of a kind. The original Age of Wonders had a remarkably good campaign with multiple endings. At the time it really stood out. And the writing worked enough to let fans of that game put up with the writing in the sequels The problem with the writing in Age of Wonders 3 is that it is trying to tie together 3-4 games. Something they didn't do a good job with between the orginal and Age of Wonders 2: the Wizards Throne. I sometimes play some Endless Space. But as you say, the story doesn't draw me in the same way Alpha Centauri did. And I can't really play Civ games anymore.

For the lore to be interesting you'd have to start with the first game. If you didn't play that back then, the story is meh.

If you need company/help/whatever give me a shout and I'll log in.

I hear the Adirondacks are beautiful this time of the year.

It always amazes me how 1) people on this forum let themselves get baited into arguments with the selfish-idiots-brigade, and 2) there are intelligent, smart posters who do not have certain people on their ignore list.

And the interview makes it look as if the three factions will be a clearcut choice of where gameplay will take you, instead of social engineering and fine-tuning. Some of the things sound like... a "dumbed down for console" equivalent of the 4X genre.

Guardedly looking forward to it. but the trailer shows that it will not be AC2. AC was not just a Civ on another planet. It was good science fiction. It was well written and it was not affraid to be political (the thing that sets quality science fiction apart from simple scifi (or scyfy *shudder*)). Will definitly try it, but don't think I'll love it like Alpha Centauri.

For those who care about such thngs: The Wolf Among Us episode 3. Episode 1 was great. It really worked well with the way Telltale structure their "games" and tell their stories. Even the QTEs made sense. As far as choices go, they even seemed to have important outcomes. Episode 2 was then a complete and utter letdown. Things were resolved too quickly. The story just leaped ahead, robbing it of all the build up from the previous episode. Worse, it was linear, without any real "choice", instead having a silly fanservice appearance of Jack. Episode 3 redeems it. There are choices once more. "Consequences" from the first episode... of course none from the second (but how could there, it was a waste of time filler episode). It has interesting characters. The small guest appearances of eisting Fables characters work. The only thing that is rather ridiculous are the QTEs. QTEs that are scripted for you to fail. I understand what they are trying to do. I have no clue how else they could do it with the way they have set up "gameplay" , but the QTEs are really the low point of the episode. Still, great to see them pull together after episode 2 and bring out something worth people's time.

The more I play the game, the less I like it :/ The new "rangd attacks always hit" mechanic has seriously damaged balance of ranged vs infantry and made sieges ridiculous, what with archers shooting through stone walls. I used to enjoy sieges in this series. Sure sometimes you got unlucky and sometimes you got stupidly lucky (and shot down a dragon just with frostling snowscrapers). But now all you need is enough ranged units to shoot through the walls and gates (or moveandfireignorecovercompletlyandalway****-trebuchets) and you are done.

Because for some reason it has set font colour to: #cccccc and background to: #353e44 in the BBCode Most likely it is the forum trying to express the weirdness you expressed you were feeling.

For me it was just that as a compeltionist I tried to explore every tiniest corner of the map and do every side quest. And for that the game is just too huge.

I was out of town for a few days so am still wrapping up mission 4 of the elven campaign :/ Oh well, no rush Not finishing any map without having cleared every dungeon. And Elven 4 has loads of those. Also have tried a bit of random map and scenarios, just so I can create my own characters. With the original Age of Wonders, being a do-gooder, I'd feel the urge to play halfling->dwarf->elf, but all the other endings were so much more interesting.

No, I didn't mean the dialogue. As you said, there is nothing really wrong with that. I did mean exactly what you are describing. That episode 1 example shows perfectly what put me off the game. Personally, with writing I usually refer to the whole narrative experience and not just the words the audience gets to read/hear.

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