marelooke

The parts about Activision influence near the end are really depressing though. Based on my prior experience of being part of companies that got assimilated I'd say it might very well be the beginning of the end for the Blizzard we've known so far.

They said the plan was to add private servers and instances (as well as modding support) ~one year after launch. So they released a shell of a game and are going to add in the features everyone wanted at launch a year later. I call this the No Man's Sky method. Except that I doubt they'll add in NPCs and something resembling a story after the fact. Given the pace at which the modding community created the tools (and figures out the systems) for modding Fallout 4 I expect "major" mods to start appearing 2 to 3 years after releasing the modding tools (assuming said tools are anywhere near usable) Assuming they won't impose severe limits on what modders can do. I mean, the entire idea of the game was to jump on the "games as a service" micro-transaction train, after all... Buuuut, we have another 2 years to see how this pans out, if they manage to turn the game around somehow (I think the core premise is broken, so I don't have high hopes) we'll at least be able to pick it up for a more reasonable price. That tactic worked fine for Fallout 4 after all. I mean that game's still a broken mess, but modding support turned it into quite the fun sandbox, many of the big issues (that aren't engine related) got worked out and I got it pretty darn cheap too.

Fallout 76 looks like it's shaping up to be the trainwreck everyone who's ever played a Bethesda Game Studios game expected it to be anyway. Now the question is whether the game will survive until modding support gets added (one year down the line) and in how far modders will be able to fix Bethesda's disaster this time around with the always online and stuff...

So do the raids and other MP stuff require organized groups? Or is it like Warframe where you just get tossed in a mission with a bunch of randoms and you just make it work. I rather dislike multiplayer modes/games where things revolve around a so-called "meta", that's just a recipe for toxicity (reason I've not killed many Eidolons in Warframe, kinda requires an organized group for the harder ones).

That should have been "full on intelligence", clearly I didn't invest in INT enough Anyway, mostly playing Warframe's Fortuna update. It's actually really stable for a DE release. I've personally not had any crashes or glitches with major gameplay impact. The hoverboard tricks seem a bit wonky still but that's kind of expected with new systems.

Because you can level up your SPECIAL stats with perk points (and thus can end the game with all 10's), I would go with a crafter for ultimate cheese. You get XP every time you craft something. Luck and Int are most important for a crafter build. I usually go the stealthy VATS-enhanced rifleman/sniper with a focus on crafting/settlement building. This site has a good breakdown of the perks you might want for a sniper build: https://www.carls-fallout-4-guide.com/builds/sniper.php I personally don't invest heavily into Intelligence early on as Idiot Savant more than compensates the XP loss of not min-maxing there. Initially I tend to go for the Rifleman stuff and then level up Weaponsmith, Armorsmith and Science when I'm able. In between those I take perks that help out with the Settlement system (Local Leader being the most important, but a single rank of Medic is required to build the Infirmary) My SPECIAL stats coming out of the Vault are usually (I'm not very creative once I find a build that works for me...): Strength 3 - Armorsmith Perception 4 - Rifleman and Lockpicking Endurance 1 - Initially: just don't get hit by scary stuff. Charisma 6 - Local Leader and Cap Collector Intelligence 5 - Scrapper (need resources to be able to build), Hacker, Gun Nut Agility 4 - Sneak, Mr Sandman, Action Girl Luck 5 - Idiot Savant (2 points) You can get one extra point once you revisit your house after the Vault btw, I usually get Science with that. Few extra ones that I tend to grab once I'm "settled": Sniper (AGI) and Penetrator (AGI), one point in Aquagirl (END) and Ghoulish (END) and Grim Reaper's Sprint (LCK) then there's the obvious damage increasing ones (like Better Criticals and Bloody Mess) and all the other weapon skills, of course. If you dislike VATS that frees up quite a few points, criticals are also pointless without VATS as that's the only place you can even have criticals. Not using VATS also makes heavily investing in Luck a bit less interesting so you might be better off going full on agility then.

On this episode of how to burn off all of your goodwill with fans in two weeks...Hah. Saying our "best developers" definitely is some sales department BS. Living that life now.I would have said marketing, but I'm curious to hear what department you belong to. I'm design BTW. I guess our sales is marketing, but have heard the pitches given where our best devs will do X when it will just be who is free at the time. Also screws us with over commitment, but eh. I do L3 support. Well ok technically L1,L2 and L3 and dev. I'd be impressed if the sales/marketing department in most companies even knows the devs, and in the event they do I'd be even more impressed they'd be able to tell a bad one from a good one.

Oh god, I shouldn't have done bull**** bingo on that video. See you when I'm out of hospital.

Playing Warframe's Fortuna update which is finally out. And boy, is the intro song still epic.

Bummer, I had been eyeballing that one, sound like it's a miss unless it suddenly picks up... Is the mission/quest/plot/whatever design improved from GTA V? I mean, is it a linear "go from objective to objective, shoot men and god forbit you stray 2 meters from the path" again once you start a story mission or did the missions themselves get a bit more open-ended?There ain't a single developer out there that could challenge Rockstar Games talent in storytelling. The plot/characters these fellas at R* create are better than most movies I've seen in recent years. For that reason alone, I am willing to forgive R* for having used the GTA3 engine for the 5th time in past 18 years. Edit: the whole 'we have employees at R* that work so hard they have to sleep under their desks' thing is also a very well fabricated publicity stunt, nothing more. How about CDPR? Oh yes, been mostly playing Warframe, finishing up some stuff I had on the backburner before Fortuna launches somewhere this week.

Battle for Azeroth is up there with Warlords of Draenor as far as I can tell. I enjoyed playing through Legion (afterwards, didn't play *during* Legion), but BfA is just, meh, feels like playing through WoD again. I gave it a month and just cancelled my sub again.

Not really sure the Fallout 4 fetch quests are, in fact, proper fetch quests. The fact that, aside from murdering everyone around, you also get to pick something up and bring it back, barely differentiates them from the ones where you just go murder everyone without picking something up as you need to go back to the quest giver either way...

I think it was a bit over 40GB for me (just under 80GB installed)

Destiny 2 (base game) is free for a limited time. Was able to claim it by launching the Blizzard launcher.

So this is just a reskin from another chinese trash mobile game. https://clips.twitch.tv/AttractiveSpotlessStingrayTinyFace Gotta love how they got boo'd out by what one would imagine, are their most hardcore fans... You done ****ed up, Blizzard.

Just pointing out: "reimagined". Don't set yourself up for disappointment...

Apparently the PC port (Wait, what?) of Fallout 76 is garbage. Note that this video is mostly about the game's underpinnings (though the second half touches on the gameplay) So a typical Bethesda game without the ability to fix it through modding for at least a year after release. Kinda shocking to see SkillUp go off on a game like this tbh, he's usually "neutral" to a fault. Which kinda tells me everything I needed to know, honestly. So yeah, guess all those Youtubers that got wined and dined by Bethesda forgot their credibility at Bethesda's place it would appear.

Most of the (story) bossfights range from annoying to extremely obnoxious. They've fixed the last HoT boss a long time ago though, most of the stuff you Google is probably just way out of date (you can just go stand in the shield bubble with the NPCs nowadays, which makes him trivial). Caudecus also was nerfed a few times but if you are there on the wrong class (or build) you'll have a bad time. I got lucky there from what I hear by bringing a Daredevil. Now the Path of Fire final bosses, those are just extremely obnoxious, I absolutely hated those fights (chances of running through PoF story with another character are, for me, close to zero) As for Chronomancer (which is the class I play most of the time) I find it perfectly highlights the weaknesses of the game. It's a class that requires you to blindly follow a "rotation" for optimal result in group play because the UI doesn't give you the information you need for a more reactive play style. And all of that in the name of "avoiding players having to play the UI" bollocks, I mean, like how you don't have to play the UI during the Soulless Horror encounter, tanking at a boss while staring at a little debuff icon (that moves around) isn't playing the UI, according to Anet They've now made it even worse and you have even less flexibility in the traits and abilities you can use if you want optimal result on top of making running two Chronomancers in raids pretty much mandatory (the flexibility was what attracted me to the class in the first place...) In this case, the Caudecus fight went like this twice in a row... I whittle him down to 30%... remembering to use my counter magic ability, throwing rocks at his shield etc.... then he summons a veteran jade armour and it's pretty much game over. The jade guy jumps over to me and kills me in one blow (I'm a warrior with close to 25k hp). My companions get perma-dazed and can't rez me, they are just standing there, swaying on their feet. Ok, respawn inside instance, walk up to the mesmer portal leading to the fight, hit 'F' and... I'm insta-dead. As in not just downed, dead. I tried to create a sequence of 'F','Direction','Direction' to roll out of harms way the moment I go through the portal, but I never get to do the evade, goes from max health to dead (and as mentioned, really dead). Rinse and repeat 20 times with the same outcome and I gave up. Tried it two days in a row with the same result, once Jade guy shows up, I do not last 1 second and can't join the fight from a respawn. Hmm, I never had one of those Jade Bows spawn. Apparently you can avoid them if you kill him fast enough, depending on how close you were trying to squeeze out a bit more damage might help.

Most of the (story) bossfights range from annoying to extremely obnoxious. They've fixed the last HoT boss a long time ago though, most of the stuff you Google is probably just way out of date (you can just go stand in the shield bubble with the NPCs nowadays, which makes him trivial). Caudecus also was nerfed a few times but if you are there on the wrong class (or build) you'll have a bad time. I got lucky there from what I hear by bringing a Daredevil. Now the Path of Fire final bosses, those are just extremely obnoxious, I absolutely hated those fights (chances of running through PoF story with another character are, for me, close to zero) As for Chronomancer (which is the class I play most of the time) I find it perfectly highlights the weaknesses of the game. It's a class that requires you to blindly follow a "rotation" for optimal result in group play because the UI doesn't give you the information you need for a more reactive play style. And all of that in the name of "avoiding players having to play the UI" bollocks, I mean, like how you don't have to play the UI during the Soulless Horror encounter, tanking at a boss while staring at a little debuff icon (that moves around) isn't playing the UI, according to Anet They've now made it even worse and you have even less flexibility in the traits and abilities you can use if you want optimal result on top of making running two Chronomancers in raids pretty much mandatory (the flexibility was what attracted me to the class in the first place...) Uh, outside of open world events I soloed pretty much everything. Is not last 'event' in story basically highest level dungeon with full party? That used to be the case and was one of the reasons I dropped the game early on. They've since created a solo version of it. It's a very long instance though and with the wrong class/gear it can still be a pain, but at least there's no need for a group any more (though with at least one extra player it becomes absolutely trivial).

Watched a few of Citizencon panels and the vibe I'm getting of the economy is: first person EVE online. Judging by what I've heard about the crime and punishment system they want to create areas similar to EVEs high and low-sec (null-sec is player owned systems in EVE, haven't heard any real plans around that so far for Star Citizen). The vibe I'm getting is that they want to create a bounty system that heavily discourages criminality in "high sec" without having to resort to the likes of Concord (basically in EVE crimes in hi-sec have your ship blasted to bits by Concord security within 30seconds and evading Concord is a bannable offense) As for the insurance, only the earliest of adopters have life time insurance. They did away with it by now. Not sure if it will stay around for those early adopters though, would be plenty unfair to other people if some can just go crazy with little repercussions... Insurance is tied to ships though and I don't think any of the stupid-expensive ships were available then, meaning they'd have to be insured the "regular way". Anyway, keeping an eye on this game mostly because I find the tech really interesting. I am generally just bad at these types of space games so I'm kinda worried about how punishing the insurance thing is going to be as I expect to be flying into quite a few more things that are sturdier than my ship...

Getting paid for overtime assumes said overtime gets logged. That's not always the case, especially in IT.

Nope, never bothered with the contraptions (if you mean the conveyors and stuff), built some of those cages though, not sure if that was part of that same DLC. I probably should mess with them some, if only to get the achievements... Biggest problems with both big DLC is that they're separate maps and as far as I'm concerned and once you're "done" with them there's really not many reasons to go back there (especially true for Nuka World)

Is there any footage from inside areas of FO76, other than the titular Vault? I've heard it said that there isn't any (yet, anyway) and that there just not might be any real dungeons the way we're used to from Bethesda's Fallouts and Elder Scrolls games. Would explain the bigger map too as I doubt they'd put the amount of work in to basically build a Fallout 5 as a multiplayer experiment when most of that team is likely working on TES VI...

Leashed me a new pet

Wise choice, though it should be playable solo. But the game's current Alpha (3.2) has pretty horrible performance and requires the patience of a saint to deal with all its issues. I was intrigued and got one of the basic packs last year or so, figured I'd see what's what now. So far in the current 3.2 alpha: I've been ganked shortly after undocking (5min wait to get a new ship to hopefully not get ganked straight away again) I managed to fly into a planet because I couldn't gauge the distance correctly (aka user error) The game froze while I was making my way to the docking terminal, right after I spawned. Only way out of that one was a hard reset of my PC. I couldn't get through the airlock to my ship (no ability to open it, there's supposedly a workaround for that one I found out later) my ship spawned without doors and most of its interior so I could not board it (workaround is to put in an insurance claim which will give you a new ship that hopefully isn't handicapped, this takes 5 real time minutes each time) So yeah, you'd basically need more than one ship so you hopefully have at least one that spawns with all its parts so you can actually fly it... I'll give it another go once 3.3 goes live but currently the "alpha" label is quite well earned