melkathi

I see us having another committee meeting over the name.

It is succinct.

We'll form the People Who Do Not Play Cyberpunk 2077 Alliance (PWDNPCA for short)

I keep meaning to play Heroine's Quest. To be honest though, with Epic giving away so many games, I am not even sure anymore what is and what isn't F2P.

GOGkey for Seven: Enhanced Edition free on Humble

That game looks more disturbing than Saints Row

Phoenix Point writing: "The Pure are planning to attack a Synedrion research facility! We have to stop the attack!" "OK, we are here. What's the plan to defend this place?" "Kill all the attacking Pure. And to be sure they can't attack Synedrion in the future, also kill all Synedrion defenders. Can't attack someone if they are already dead." "God, Boss! Your logic is infallible as always!"

The Courier was the best thing about FO:NV. They are that stranger in the wrong place at the wrong time, which kinda makes them fit any one protagonist of any wild west story when a stranger shows up. And waking up in your grave is "cool" and better than the usual Elder Scrolls "You were a prisoner of the Imperium" (and who may even have been about to chop your head off), which also gives you a lot of freedom, but kinda, thematically predisposes you against one faction.

Thank God we don't have to fear a game from CCP though. I'll take DLC-Paradox any time over those people.

It is a bit like Cyberpunk and Star Citizen in this, isn't it?

I have faith in them.

Maybe they are turning it into a MOBA because someone thought online games are the future and will make them rich.

I thought it was an EU thing.

They changed the roundabout thing over here in Greece as well. In theory it simplifies things because this way the car coming from the right always has priority, a rule roundabouts were the exception of until then. Edit: In Germany any roundabout that has roundabout priority rules has to be marked as such when you enter it. If there is no sign saying the roundabout has priority, then it doesn't function as a roundabout but a normal crossroad in regards to priority.

Start a game. <Enter player name> Oh, **** you with all these choices right from the start. I'll go back to playing freecell.

Probably. Can't but be an improvement as the old system was so broken, it can't be worse.

I think they tweaked the new build to have more direct attack quests. It used to be that the first level of diplomacy mostly had "Defend a haven" quests and the direct attacks came to increase past the first stage of diplomacy. Now I always get attack quests from day 1.

A few more thoughts on Phoenix Point: The crux of it is, what was promised? A game in the XCOM/UFO genre by the creator of that genre, pushing the boundaries. What is the genre? Squad based, turn based, tactical combat to defend humanity from an alien threat. They changed the aliens to virus based mutations. Cool, it differentiates them from other XCOM clones. They tried to use the theme to build some innovative AI evolution. It didn't work out, but at least they tried. Because they failed at creating the core system that would make the game interesting, they had to push other conflicts into the foreground. Read: the conflict between the human factions. Human factions are nothing new to the genre. Being unable to make everyone happy or to defend all of humanity is nothing new. What is new is the game forcing you within the first hour not just to abandon parts of humanity (because you don't have the means (radar range, enough interceptors, etc)) but to actively work against them. Since Pandorans are not interesting enough to shoulder the conflict (there are... 7 different aliens who may or may not carry different weapons (arm mutations are just a fancy way to say different loadout)), the player is forced to fight humans for variety. Just protecting havens in terror-mission equivalents isn't enough to make factions like them. You have to complete diplomacy missions. Which means attacking other factions. ("I saved 50.000 of your people from mutant attacks!" "Sure, sure, but that is irrelevant. You didn't blow up the granary of those other humans we don't really like." "Why don't you like them?" "Well you know how this virus is spreading and killing people and we are forced to execute anyone who gets infected because we have no doctors and no cure?" "Yes?" "Well, those other humans are doctors and are actively working on finding a cure. We need you to starve them out so we can swoop in and shoot the ******s" "I think I see why you have no doctors." "We don't need doctors as long as we have guns.") Couldn't you just ignore them? No. Because research is extremely limited. Phoenix Point did away with classic research and now most research you get from the factions in one of two ways: allying with them so they gift you their tech tree. Or fighting them and reverse engineering their equipment. You just choose which 2/3s of humanity you want to actively attack. And you are pushed into it right from the start. And the DLC is even more pushy. "Hi, I am the DLC quest giver. I will give you the ability to use cybernetics, just as you could in the XCOM games." "Cool!" "I need you to attack faction A to proceed with this DLC content." "But I was planning on allying with them..." "Wrong answer, no DLC for you." (to be honest: I do not know if later on you get a different way to unlock the tech, because it always annoys me and I have quit three playthroughs at this point) What I see is a game that could be a decent XCOM clone, which wasted resources on an innovative system that didn't work and to still have a game pushed and blew up an aspect that makes it contradict its theme. The response of course of the community ... person was: We always said there would be faction conflict. Yes. And the factions were mostly purposefully overdone caricatures. At least Synedrion and the Disciples of Anu. New Jericho sadly is very real. But from faction conflict being part of the game, the game's story became this: "The virus spreads in areas covered by the funky mist. What are your solution to this?" Disciples: "Let's breath in the mist and become one with the mist!" Jericho: "Let's shoot the mist!" Synedrion: "Well, we have developed this aerosol which can disperse the mist if it isn't too thick. It isn't strong enough to clear areas already covered in it, but if we build a network of towers around areas of mist, we can stop it from spreading, effectively containing the virus to those areas. As we will only need armed forces to patrol the boundaries of the mist and not expect mutant attacks elsewhere, we'll not only reduce the risk of infection for our soldiers, we'll be able to divert funds from our military budget to our healthcare and research budgets and start working on a way to eradicate the mist and the virus completely." Disciples: "Why? Why fight the virus when you could be one with the virus? You have to take a deep breath of the virus and realize you are one with the virus on this adventure. Now take a deep breath of the virus and realize this is me breathing." Jericho: "Shoot the doctors! They want to take away your guns!" Phoenix Project: "You all make valid points. I think I'll need to do three playthroughs to explore all your equally valid positions." I should have started a blog called: "Gamer offended by stupid writing" (edit: mind you, the writing on its own wouldn't be bad. It is the tie in with the game mechanics that makes it bad. And even the viewpoints sadly have been proven not unrealistic.)

They don't adapt. That never worked. And it never could. Adapting meant the enemies had to figure out what tech works best against the player. But with body parts taking damage and getting disabled, everything works well against the player if the AI gets to use it. So players are forced to take out enemies as soon as they see them - or at least their weapons. I see a crabman, I shoot out his arm, especially if that arm was a grenade launcher - grenade launchers don't work against me as they never get to fire. If they did fire, they could wipe my squad on turn 1. So the only thing that the AI saw that worked was increased armour. As a result, all it smart-evolved into was bullet sponges, while randomly swapping load outs in and out. Also, it made for boring fights, as the AI was "testing" the new evolutions and scrapping the old ones and would then swarm you with just one unit type. You'd attack the nest/lair it spawned from - do a dungeon map with just that unit and wipe it's spawners. Then the AI would rush you with the next evolution. With the latest update they scrapped the myth of "evolution". The Pandorans now simply have a tech tree and conduct their own research.

Let it be stated for the record that I tried to give Phoenix Point yet another chance. That I acknowledge that they removed the dumbest most brain dead terrible tutorial in gaming history and replaced it with a decent narrative tutorial that doesn't force you to make stupid moves a la XCOM to get half your squad killed. But: I got out of the tutorial missions and opened up my roster to spend skill points. Each soldier has a list of class skills and three random skills you may buy to give them a unique personality. The first soldier the game gave me, your standard assault rifle grunt got: Reckless: -accuracy + damage, Cautious: +accuracy, - damage, and weapon proficiency with assault rifles. The second soldier, again the standard grunt with assault rifle got: Extra 'nade range (nice), Extra perception, and weapon proficiency with assault rifles... My heavy got: Weapon proficiency with heavy weapons, extra melee damage, weapon proficiency with handguns and shotguns. My sniper (sniper rifles and hand guns) Guess what... Out of 5 soldiers only 1 didn't get the option to spend points to train a skill to become proficient in the weapon they are proficient in. OK, it's not that bad, those skills give a buff to those weapons, so if those stack, you may actually want them on those soldiers. Seriously though, how hard is it for devs to flag skills/traits/whatever as opposite and not give a soldier both reckless and cautious? Same with the Necromunda devs. Is it so much to ask for a modicum of competence in this industry? I don't want to change much in gaming. I just want devs and publishers to be forced to play their own games. Also, to read a dictionary. edit: P.S. /end rant

I'll never be a pro I even use soap

I just came here to post that. I knew I shouldn't have wasted time shaving...

A game the goal of which is to take screenshots? Count me in.

@Keyrock since you are our Wuxia expert, let me know what Amazing Cultivation Simulator is like once you get around to play it?

I finished 1 twice... + expansion. God what did I do with my youth