marelooke

For those we have lost. For those we can yet save. (Shadowbringers ending spoilers)

Tried to play Metro Exocus, tried, because it was barely playable at the graphical settings I wanted. Not entirely sure which part is the bottleneck, CPU or GPU though given that the base platform is still an i7 930 the answer is probably just "Yes". Oddly enough I played through the first region before on this PC and somehow managed...

Metro: Exodus, on Gog, because it's finally available there and was 50% off.

Well, haven't posted in a while, didn't stop me from taking screenshots, so there might be a few FF XIV dumps coming up, since last post covered Heavensward and I've since kinda finished the main storyline Some random atmospheric screenshots: Potential Heavensward spoilers: Come at us, bro! (spoiler: they did, in fact, come at us )

It's odd that they'd cut you off around lvl30, that's a lull in the story iirc. But as been mentioned before, ARR (aka "the base game") is a bit "meh" in the storytelling department, there's loads of set up for later though. As to who the bad guys are...well, I'm still wondering that after having finished the game (well, up to the current patch, I mean, MMOs and all). Things aren't as black and white as they are presented, which is a nice change of pace, honestly. It is one of the things I rather like about the game, many events that appear random, have consequences down the road, and not just within the same expansion, sometimes things show up again many expansions later. To me this signifies they *know* where the story is going and they work their way there. Which is entirely unlike most other MMOs out there (excepting possibly LotRO) Another thing I enjoy is how you just start as some random adventurer, sure you're "touched" by Hydaelyn, but even that is not exactly uncommon, so while it makes you somewhat special it doesn't exactly elevate your character to the level of "teh chosen one!1!1!" since there's dozens with the same gift. This of course shows in the early game, which is somewhat slow and makes you do rookie adventurer stuff, learn about the world, its politics, and you train in your chosen profession (class) and all that rot. That said, there's enough tropes there as well and the storytelling in the base game is, as mentioned...questionable at times (as is all the backtracking, it gets better, I promise, though it never goes away entirely), but once you scratch past the surface the story can be surprisingly good (even some things that made me roll my eyes so hard I think I saw my brain turned out well when seen through to their conclusion). As to the Garlean Empire, I thought that was recapped, but if not then watching a recap video of the FF XIV 1.0 events might be in order (I'm *sure* it gets recapped later though as there's a dungeon devoted to it where you get to visit the Agrius and Midgardsormr's corpse) But the game really picks up steam with Heavensward (as mentioned by Oner), though the post-ARR and pre-HW quest patches can be...really tedious, depending on your inclination. I'm glad I played through them, but I can see why many choose to skip them (missing out on all the HW setup that happens in them, which is unfortunate) Also, as far as I'm aware SE is reworking the base game (delayed due to human malware), cutting down on some of the backtracking and removing some of the filler fluff. However, they will also make the entire Crystal Tower raid mandatory (since it's a really important story arc for Shadowbringers, did I already mention how they set things up multiple expansions in advance? ) Guild Wars 2's story went down the drain after the last expansion (which I thought was pretty bad in general), and due to the negative reception of HoT they never really finished the entire Mordremoth storyline (which was pretty good imho). The fact that their entire writing team (and most, if not all, of the senior devs) has quit multiple time since then didn't exaclty help matters if you ask me. Anyway, personally still playing FF XIV (all but in name quit GW2 at this point), my Dragoon made it to lvl80 and I'm rather close with my Astrologian (healer) too. I said I'd do a write up once I got to 80 but you'll have to wait a little longer on my ramblings

Ah yes, I should get back to Mordheim too. The drawback of already WFH fulltime prior to this pandemic is that it didn't get me any extra free time Hmm, I think you stopped playing around the time the Warmaker's dungeon was released, so off the top of my head: Warmaker's Sanctum The brewery dungeon (haven't done that one myself yet) Thrall rework (they level up now, old thralls are stuck though) Combat rework (worse for single player, imho, but ymmv) Mounts & mounted combat were added New pets (like Yetis etc) bunch of new legendary weapons and crafting tools and new bosses A lot of the major enemy bases were also overhauled, the two that come to mind are the two big pirate bases (the ship and the coastal one) Various bugfixes and stuff and a few DLC (but that's mostly armor and building pieces). They also added some references to YouTubers (eg. Neebs gaming)

This thread's missing a little something, something... The sandstorm stays impressive... Been mostly just hammering away at the pyramid, of and on. Now that thralls level up I should probably start training some and take on that new dungeon...

I was nowhere near the end though... unfortunately.

If the port is of the same level of quality as Nier: Automata I think I'll pass. Yes, I'm still bitter about it deciding my savegame was not worthy enough to be kept around.

Still, barring the tombs, I found Rise to be the better of the series, certainly when it came to portraying Lara, and just storytelling in general. Reboot and Shadow appear to have been written by the same people, Rise feels like a (and, imho, better) different team. Let the Rise people do the writing and the other folks do the tomb designing and I'll be a happy camper. (still gotta finish Shadow, the story was so cringe, even compared to reboot, that I just parked it)

The gang, assembled (well, missing Alphinaud) Mom always causing some heartache... Heavensward spoilers (including the post-release patches) Downtime for the hero, shocking!

Mostly Final Fantasy XIV Online. Still leveling, story took a pretty dark turn between "vanilla" and "Heavensward" though it appears they're squandering the potential of that plot direction. Oh well, can't say I'm entirely surprised. Voice actors changed with the first expansion as well, gotta say that for most I'm afraid I don't consider it an improvement (or at least jarring enough that it irks me still even though I'm in the "post Heavensward expansion patches" stage), exception being Alphinaud, whose new voice actor (or direction, at least) is a pretty big improvement. Here's to hoping they don't switch voice actors each expansion, though... I should note I did enjoy the main story of the expansion with the Dragonsong war. I'll probably do a more comprehensive writeup on my opinions on the game once I complete the story.

So it's a Headcrab simulator? Cool!

Dark Souls and Nier Automata

Could be interesting, assuming the port doesn't suck. Since I can't name more than a single port I've played from recent years that didn't it's a wait-and-see for sure.

Warhammer sale on Gog, this means you heathens who still haven't played Mordheim: City of the Damned can now make up for your sins for cheap!

Conan Exiles is getting an expansion, sounds like there might be a new map, so that's exciting news since, well, I kinda know the current one by now Maybe we'll get some technical improvements too (server software is not particularly high quality, it leaks memory as if it were a sieve) https://twinfinite.net/2020/03/conan-exiles-expansion-dune/ Oh yes, also Conan Exiles-style Dune survival game, but we already knew that one was in the works.

No, the complaints are that it is called Baldur's Gate 3. Unless they continue the saga (which I would doubt, and honestly, if anybody does it's almost bound to end badly) it's capitalising on nostalgia and the reputation of those who went before instead of earning their own place (and while Larian has made some decent games they have not made it anywhere near "old Bioware" level). Had they called it "Baldur's Gate: Whatever" people would be (slightly) less annoyed (I know I would be). While there are plenty of series that have a very loose connection between different "numbered releases" (so to speak) Baldur's Gate wasn't one of them. It was very explicitly the story of the Bhaalspawn. Hell, the titular city didn't even feature in the second game, and their only real connection was the PC... Neverwinter Nights would have been a better pick (and given the clunkiness of both NWN1 and 2, a better fit for Larian too, at least at this point in time), since the only real connection between the two games was the location and they already played differently enough from each other (and much closer to what BG3 looks like) that it wouldn't have been as much of a stretch, either. Alas, Neverwinter Nights doesn't exactly have the cult status the BG-series has so it's much less profitable to make a "NWN3" than a "BG3" from WotC perspective.

Looks like an upgraded Neverwinter Nights based on the other screenshots (especially the one with the elevation difference with the archer). This might, or might not, be bad in itself, but it definitely would be bad for a game that calls itself Baldur's Gate 3. Should've just called it NWN3, honestly, and I doubt anybody would've cared. In other words just capitalising on the cult status of Baldur's Gate, kind of expected from WotC, but disappointing from Larian. We'll see how it turns out, I'm betting on severely disappointing for Baldur's Gate fans, but since we're a minority nowadays it will just end up like Fallout 3 where the media and masses will just eat it up anyway.

Looks like my firewall managed to corrupt its own configuration (great feature for a firewall) should all be fixed now

I half expected the start of the game to be a Skyrim meme... First encounter with a Chokobo... Just another day on the job. She's so corny, but I still like her, for some reason (cue Imperial March) March of the bad guys (and girl) See, angering dragons is never a good thing,... Not even Ctulhu is safe! Protecting the weak and annoying... Cute flying vegetables! Cat people looking cute... Meh, who needs visibility when you can look cool instead?

Eastern European RPGs would like a word The rest of the West is too busy not trying to step on any toes to be able to even go within a galaxy of "sensitive" subjects. It's a disease (and a sign of an unhealthy society, but I digress)

Still mostly FF XIV (the M MO, for those unaware ;)), gotta hand it to them, while the story is a heap of clichés it's pretty well told. They actually do take the time for you to "bond" with characters before killing them off, quite unlike the "trend" of telling you you should care about $CHARACTER right off the bat ("Hey, you, PC, go find your dad/son you don't really know! But you should care about them, because family! Hey, where are you going?") Game swings heavily between derp and dark too, going from a raped girl right back to brewing booze for goblins back to burying people (as in, tossing corpses on a cart, not the usual MMO fare of turning people into corpses). It's almost surreal at times.

There's a flattering comparison if I ever heard one!

Got suckered into FF XIV. Game's weird to be sure, and indeed much better than the beta of the original I participated in, way back when. Story is surprisingly decent, too. I mean, for a MMO. I also enjoy that there's some actual RPG options still there, the level scaling also makes it so lower level areas still feel alive.