marelooke

With the release of the new Warband I've put XCOM2 on the backburner for more Mordheim...

I hardly ever get out of missions without any wounds and since I slacked on building that facility that reduces recovery time I ended up with this gem... This roster was the result of a VIP extraction mission with a rather green squad (three snipers, two rangers and a specialist. Only 2 snipers and a ranger were advanced ranks)...and it was a VIP extraction to boot featuring my first Archons and Codex...I *just* made it to extraction in literally the last turn (had to take some stupid risks in those last two turns...) So I ended up with this gem: "Chief" thinks that mech needs some extra air holes! (she actually missed that shot, but I had another sniper, "Tombstone", to the left of her. I had set up a double killzone over a patrol, then I triggered them by lobbing a grenade in their midst -> one very dead patrol)

I can't help but wonder if those "older" areas are a result of feeling like they needed to compete with the marketing buzz around DA:I... Anyway, got a landed UFO to take care off

Feels like I won the lottery drawing these two as my first ones (but maybe they ain't so bad compared to the others, time will tell...). The first one triggered in the end, and it wasn't too bad at this stage in the game, got a lot of promotions out of it, might be more of a pain later in though: Hey look Jane found some Meld! But there was no timer...Now I'm confused... Jane, you tryhard... (seriously, Rangers seem pretty awesome once they get past the stage where they spend most of their time in med bay) From front left to front right the team that finished my first Alien Facility: - Martha 'Tombstone' Müller (Sniper) - Maria 'Jammer' Golubeva (Specialist) - Elisabetta 'Highttower' Petacchi (Grenadier) - Jane 'Snake Eyes' Kelly (Ranger) Also on the mission Else 'Swamp Thing' Hagen (aka 'Miranda', Grenadier) and Malin 'Chief' Andersen (Sniper, because two snipers is better than one, and also because all my other Rangers were in the med bay... ) Writing this down I noticed that was an all female squad, I'm sure Bruce would be proud

I felt the same way to be honest, but once you push past those initial missions it seems things become more reasonable, assuming you don't keep on being stuck with rookies because they always die, but I'm not playing ironman so... (and you don't accidentally activate that DLC and end up fighting overpowered cheating snakes with rookie gear) That said I don't particularly enjoy the amount of timers. Especially that Avatar timer (which is rather badly explained in the game, like most mechanics, really. Like, I still have no clue how they could possibly know how long I have nor do I have a clue as to what I can do about it. For all I know I already waited too long and my game's already over but I just don't know it)

That was actually the second time I encountered him, the first time Mr Bradford practically carried the team... And when I said I only had rookie gear I really meant it My "toughest" unit at the time got killed by two "strangles" by the king and I didn't even have magnetic weapons research done... By restarting the mission (I actually got another mission this time, he still showed up though), preparing better and then savescumming until enough of my troops actually hit him before he could kill anyone I managed to get out relatively unscathed (most of that squad was out for a few weeks after though). But I didn't manage to kill him that time... I mean, he was "doable" in that situation, assuming perfect rolls on everything... The last time he showed up (and when I killed him) was when I had to defend the ship during one of those Dark Events, the situation was theoretically worse but I had finished the magnetic weapons research now and it made such a huuuuuge difference which is why I feel that this mission shouldn't really be started before completing that research, unless you're a masochist, I guess But an advance warning of what one's getting into would've certainly been nice...

Started XCOM2 and am already just about ready to ragequit. Seems I accidentally activated a DLC I shouldn't have (the Alien Hunters one, it seems) and now I'm just stuck as I with the starter gear I have I can barely make a dent in this "Viper King" (and the "special" weapons make zero difference since my team can't hit the broad side of a barn with them). It was a seriously awesome idea to put these overpowered guys in and make them appear so early in the campaign without proper warning, at least in XCOM:EU the DLC appeared at a level you could reasonably tackle them. So yeah, guess it's my fault for not doing research before starting play with all DLC enabled and not checking whether Firaxis decided to do something dumb. Ugh. Sorry, needed to vent. Now to find me some cheats to get past this guy. EDIT: savescummed my way past, not my idea of fun though, hope I can postpone the next few encounters with these guys until I can actually handle them without having to resort to savescumming.

I can't speak for Odysseus, but I'm having tons of fun with it. I'm also quite enjoying it. So far the game hasn't tried to force me into grouping with others, I just hope that it stays that way and that they don't pull a GW2 on me by making the last quest in the "main storyline" a "group quest". That was a really nasty thing to do of the GW2 devs, seriously. I thought the game just got better after the Main Quest. Granted, I'm kind of invested at this point (I've cleared a lot, almost max crafting skills). I've also soloed 99% of the content thus far. Waiting with PvP and grouped content until much, much later. What faction/alliance/character are you playing? (I'm Daggerfall Covenant, Redguard Templar, that I've built into a jack-of-all trades type character) @Division: I ignored the fast travel option almost completely (once or twice) for the single player content. And I played completionist (collected everything, did all side-missions). I loved it, and such a beautiful game. Lots of wasted hours (yet meaningful, in an immersing and personal sense) that I spent running the streets of Manhattan The only thing I didn't appreciate was the bullet sponging. Now, if it had been a bit more Dark Souls hardcore, that would've certainly been something and would've made exploring much more challenging and much more appreciated when overcoming obstacles. Speaking of appreciation, I think that exploration and viewing things is up to you. If you are distracted by the compass or the next objective you're not stopping and looking around or immersing yourself. Of course, some games just aren't good at it (a lot of open world games, lots of the GTA games are "Go to X point") and Dragon Age: Inquisition certainly felt that way too. In ESO I found a note on a small isle, "Isle of Contemplation", and it made me think, stop, and look around at my surroundings. The trees, the leaves, the water, the bench, and just think about life for a moment before I continued on on my journey in the game. It was one of those memorable moments you get once in a while in great video game experiences. Nothing fancy, just something small and insignificant really, but in some personal way meaningful. Then again, I've done that a couple of times in ESO, just appreciating the landscapes and the surroundings from time to time (the outdoors, the dungeons are kind of generic and streamlined). ​I guess I'm trying to say "game experiences are subjective", you give your own meaning to your own actions. And in my opinion, a positive meaning in the playground makes it more fun to play in it. If I think it's boring to build sand castles maybe I should look for another thing to build in the sandbox, or perhaps I should start or try to develop a different mindset about sand castles ;P ​EDIT: Speaking of Division, and staying on topic. Looking forward to the Survival add-on as well as the Underground one. Especially the Survival DLC, as that's something I'm curious about in the Division world space (what will vandals, spoiled food etc. gives a sense of urgency that the Division world building has been lacking. How do people survive, wouldn't they starve in the quarantined zone? Eventually? That DLC seems to cut off the agents in some, thus far, unknown zone). Dominion Altmer Sorcerer, I'm only level 19 so far and going through the Wood Elf area (Grahtwood). For me the best example was in Dragon's Dogma - I spent hours just wandering the wilderness and finding what was there in the day, then at night and even once I knew, sometimes I'd just go wander again because I enjoyed the combat and the locations. Maybe I simply see games in "other ways". Because when I wander around in such an open world and see - for example - two NPCs chatting, then I don't see two NPCs chatting, but a tiny scripted event that always will be the same. Or when I see a group of bandits in a cave, then I see mere mobs placed there trying to entertain me with loot and combat. I can really feel walking into a simple trigger as soon as something happens around me. It's the same to me for every open world game, even in Witcher 3, which I otherwise find to be a great game. My dad has the same thing with films, he understands the mechanics they use to build atmosphere and as a result they don't generally have the intended effect. I think there's only so much that can be done to avoid this, certainly with current technology. Maybe at some point we will have "true" emergent gameplay, including dialogues, but I doubt that will be anytime soon.

I can't speak for Odysseus, but I'm having tons of fun with it. I'm also quite enjoying it. So far the game hasn't tried to force me into grouping with others, I just hope that it stays that way and that they don't pull a GW2 on me by making the last quest in the "main storyline" a "group quest". That was a really nasty thing to do of the GW2 devs, seriously. That's usually how I play Skyrim, pick a direction and walk, see what I find. But what you say is, imho, the big shortcoming of most (imho failed) attempts at open world games, go off the beaten path and there's nothing to see, aside from nice landscapes. To counter this they just add idiotic minigames (hurr durr tower climbing, shard collecting, yadda yadda *sigh*). The first company that makes a game with an interesting world *and* good quests will have struck gold, if that game is moddable to boot then they will have *really* struck gold. If Dragon Age: Inquisition is anything to go by I doubt that ME: Andromeda will be that game, we can almost certainly forget the modding due to the engine they'll be using and that alone already greatly diminishes any interest I might have had. Frankly: have Bethesda build the world and Obsidian handle the story and you're most of the way there, then add some company that manages to build stuff without there being 20 bugs per line of code and you have a hit!

Played through most of Hard Reset (the regular version, not Redux), only noticed I finished the base game when the loading screens were no longer animated comics. Heh. Story is only there as an excuse to shoot things as far as I can tell (for this game that works for me) which is probably why they didn't even bother putting something resembling an ending in place (which was...weird). With only a few missions to go in the DLC I don't think much of anything that happened will be explained. Fun game all in all and I'm guessing that it'll clock in somewhere between 8 and 10 hours (playing on "Normal" difficulty). Can be frustrating when the game cheats though, eg. by spawning new enemies right on top of you (happened a few times, but not often enough to be a major nuisance) and an extra savepoint between some of the tougher waves wouldn't have hurt...

It was just bound to happen: Gwent, the game EDIT: fix forum software breaking the link

Finished the main quest of the first non-tutorial area for the Dominion in Elder Scrolls Online, unfortunately it was as predictable as I feared... Even a generic plot twist would've helped. Oh well... One of the things I liked was that generally when you complete some part of a quest enemies in the area became non-hostile, or disappeared completely. Eg. if you removed a curse that kept souls bound then they'd actually disappear (or at least become non-hostile). In this new area that seems to be less the case so far which is a shame.

While its kinda true, I must say that I ejoyed these few years I was involved. If you can overcome constant overtimes and bad management decision its pretty cool Well, that's actually, why I completely left programming 10 years ago, and don't plan come back ever. I loved to code, but the money were in the end not worth the time, which I spent at work and completely neglected my social life :-/ Sadly, I was not in programming, I was part of QA and later tech design which was pretty cool, but I am too lazy to learn proper coding :/ So are most programmers, doesn't stop them though. (only half joking, actually. The fact that programming is more of an art[1] than a science and that managers seem to think all you need is juniors isn't exactly helping of course) [1] http://www.chrisaitchison.com/2011/05/03/you-are-not-a-software-engineer/ - the general idea is pretty accurate.

Gave in and bought Elder Scrolls Online during the Steam deal. Some might recall that my impressions during the beta weren't exactly stellar, but I kept hearing good things so I took the plunge after all. I started off (as in the beta) as an Altmer Sorcerer. So far I'm enjoying it, they seem to have done away with some of the "run all over the starting area" quests that I seem to remember from the beta, so that's good. The fact that areas aren't so over-saturated quite clearly also makes a difference and I often feel like I'm strolling through a single player game (which for my purposes is a good thing, my hardcore raiding days are a ways behind me), well, until someone with a rather weird name hops past anyway. The one annoying issue I have is inventory space, crafting components fill up your bags in a blink and the only real solution to that problem seems to be subscribing to get the endless space crafting bag, which is a bit of a downer.

Maybe it already added them? After clicking the next button, they just got moved to my library without much in the way of on-screen feedback. If they're in "unavailable games" with an "owned" tag you should be good.

Clans are generally fairly loose things and a lot of them are based around the fact that some gear is "clan research". Personally I participate in events (though usually not in clan groups) but other than that I tend to just go my own way (being in a mostly US clan also "helps" in this regard I guess). Also people generally don't care about microphones (some clans might, but pick-up groups made through the group finder don't as a rule), most people just type (in the three years I've been playing I've only encountered like 2 people that babbled into their microphone and that only started happening in the last year, the result is that I turned voice chat off entirely now ). Mag's power comes from Shield Polarize (her second ability, off the top of my head), since it's a percentage based on enemy shields (and thus scales indefinitely), the problem here is that there's nothing with shields on Mercury... Once you get to Venus (and start facing the Corpus) you'll notice "some" improvement in her effectiveness. That's the thing with Warframe, stuff is only at peak efficiency against the correct enemies and Mag and Grineer is not really a great combination (on Mercury it's perfectly workable, though Shield Polarize will be rather ineffective due to not having any shields to drain as you noticed). Of course, Grineer used to also employ shields on some of their soldiers, but that changed with "Damage 2.0" but then DE forgot to update the starter frames or at least their descriptions (Volt has similar problems, due to being electric, but none of his powers feed off of the enemy so he gets away with it better). Power also becomes less of an issue once you get the appropriate mods, there are those that increase the size of your power pool and those the reduce the draw your powers have on said pool and even some that regenerate your power. (also those damaged mods are relatively rare as they're only available in the tutorial and some of them are supposedly useful for very specialized builds, they can't be traded though). I'm currently playing Homeworld Remastered, made it to mission 4, didn't manage to make the mothership explode fast enough though, so retry it is... I probably need to capture more of those Ion beam ships they sent against me instead of just shooting most of them...

So yeah, Warframe got old really fast. Still using the exact same starter stuff after 10 hours playing (I'd like to try a sniper rifle with a better secondary weapon) and not even getting to try anything new for quite a while more (unless I want to drop a lot of cash) all while still fighting basically the same enemies is a bit dull. So I broke down and bought The Witcher 3, which is currently installing. Things speed up tremendously once you have some experience and gear (mods, especially) under your belt, but the early game is pretty dire I'll agree (I created a new account a while back just to see how the early game was and it was, pardon my French, ****). After the tutorial you're just tossed in without a word of explanation and there's *a lot* the tutorial didn't cover last I played it. One thing I only found out after a while and that I wish I'd known is that playing in group earns you *massively* more XP (and loot), playing solo is cool for challenges or when you don't want others around (eg. when you want to try stealth) but for levelling up stuff or getting resources to build things with you're much better off with a group. On top of that "endless" missions (defense, survival, interception, excavation) tend to earn much better rewards (XP, resources AND credits) than non-endless ones and this increases the longer you keep going, so if you can tag along with a high rank player in a survival mission you can earn some insane XP (and cash, and loot), just stick close so they can revive you when you go down (and just tell them when you can't chip the enemies anymore, generally people in WF are rather nice as long as you communicate, eg. instead of just running to extraction, ask the team to extract, if they disagree they will generally give you a reason, eg. Void Key at 15min in survival). Enemies also get more interesting later on (some that negate Warframe powers, for example), though you're generally fighting just the three main factions (Grineer, Corpus and Infested) in some form (the Corrupted are just reskins basically, but there's the Sentient, some hostile wildlife and the Stalker, of course). The game also starts off fairly difficult but then falls off rather quickly (or rather, you get more control over the difficulty by being able to adjust your loadouts to whatever you're facing rather than having to make do with whatever you find). I'd also like to point out that "starter gear" is rather deceptive. The *weapons* are MK1 (aka starter) variants of "real" weapons (but the MK1 Braton is, or at least, used to be, a fine gun in its own right with rather different stats from the regular version), but the "starter" frames are all but, all of them are seriously powerful (to such a degree that two of them, Mag and Volt, are due for a rework, or a "nerf" as is likely to be the case for Mag). Personally I'd avoid bows and sniper rifles until you get a better grasp on game mechanics, given that you're generally trying to kill lots of enemies slow firing weapons with low ammo pools might not be an ideal choice for the novice... (that said, some people do make use of them to great effect though I'm personally not a big fan of the sniper rifles and use bows situationally) But Warframe, at its core, is about the mods, the mods modify your gear (you'd never have guessed, I'm sure ), finding (and upgrading) the ones that make your chosen gear shine is what much of the game is about. I'll bet that I could finish some rather hard missions with "starter gear" (as in, the Lato and MK1 Braton and Excalibro). That said, being stuck with the same weapons in the beginning was rather annoying, I think my first new weapon was the Cronus (the blueprint for which drops from Captain Vor, who also drops the rather nice "Seer" pistol parts), the regular Braton is also a pretty good all round gun for the early game as is the Boltor (though its innate damage type makes it better fit for fighting Grineer as long as you lack the mods to pull of elemental combinations). This becomes less of an issue later as you have more toys to play with, so waiting for a new gun is not that big of a deal anymore (and the truly impatient can always open their wallets... ) In the F2P arena Warframe takes the stance that you pay for time (and/or cosmetics). Generally crafting new weapons takes 12hours (real time), Waframes take three days (with each component taking 12hours, so realistically they take 3 days and 12 hours since you can craft the components concurrently). You can shorten these times by spending real moulah though. The only thing that I'd consider mandatory and is only available through Platinum (premium currency, also obtainable through player trading) are extra inventory slots (but I'm a packrat, so take that for what it is). Anyway, and assuming you haven't entirely discounted the game yet, if you want a hand in the game or just some info feel free to add me* (assuming you're playing on PC) or drop me a message. *don't forget to mention your forum nick if your ingame one is different

Mine are Diablo 3 for some reason I never got very far in Torchlight. Like when I started playing I could keep going but never felt the urge for fire the game back up later...so there were rather large gaps in between play sessions

And now for something completely different... Sound like a plan... Full party! (yeah, think my pets do most of the work usually as sometimes they murder a group of elites while I'm chasing a treasure goblin...)

Completed the first four chapters of the Season Journey in Diablo III on my Monk, broke through the 100 paragon level barrier (now at 120) and I'm cruising through Torment IV like it was easy mode...tried bumping it up to Torment VII but while I can kill stuff at that level it takes too long to be viable (eg. doubt I could finish a Greater Rift in time) and I do run a real risk of dying if I'm not careful. That said, I expect bumping it up further will require some real effort/grinding as now I'm carried in big part by the set bonus of the "free" Inara's set. My Seasonal character now has my "normal" main character (wizard) beat at most points and that in like 5 days or so. That's pretty insane tbh.

I dearly hope this does not mean they're making Mass Effect: Inquisition - revenge of the checklist Oh yay, Frostbite... It's going to be ME: Revenge of the...loading...loading...loading...times, and then disappointment about what you get after the loading's done (I mean graphically). Not that the game looked bad, obviously, but when drawing comparisons with another game made by a rather small firm in Poland... (at least compared to Bio...) No more DLC for Beyond Earth then I guess? Pity. Which reminds me that a gameRPG set in the Dying Earth universe by Mr. Vance would be really cool. Obsidian? *hint*

Gotta take the Malthael thing back, I found a necklace (Talisman of Aranoch) that makes me immune to cold damage, which neutralizes quite a few of his more devastating attacks... Just a bummer that it's a lvl69 version and not the lvl70 one ...

Tried to play some Civilzation: BE, got annoyed and went on a Diablo 3 binge instead. First time I bothered with the Season stuff, decided it was a good time to level a monk so that's what I've been doing, got her to lvl70 in like 2 days, completed 2 of the 4 "Season chapters" so far (only Urzael left to complete part 3). I just hope Chapter 4 won't require me to kill Malthael on Torment or I'm gonna cry. I really dislike that bossfight (think I killed about everything else on Torment 1 already, but I've avoided him like the plague). I also noticed there's a bunch of other additions that happened since I last played (like the Kenai's Kube) so got some stuff to explore, also seem to be much easier to acquire blueprints for...stuff...now. Still missing some conversation achievements because there's a bunch that require you to talk to people at really illogical times in the campaign, which is annoying (like the one for the Enchanter to talk about Belial that requires you talk to talk to her between saving the refugees and killing Belial...).

I think calling EVE a MMOSS (Massively Multiplayer Online Space Sim) wouldn't be inaccurate...though you don't get to fly your ship the way you generally do in space sims, but the economy/political/fleet aspects... Lovely game, alas, I don't have (or want to spend) the time the game requires to truly enjoy it.

Some more Mordheim for me. I finally decided to take on The Library in my Sisters campaign, so that wrapped up Act I for me (well, for the Sisters at least). Given that they removed respawns, I was massively overleveled and was lucky to not encounter any bugs (or they were fixed, either way works ) it was a bit of a cakewalk (not to say that some of these dimons didn't put out some pain...), the biggest challenge were the coloured portals ... My Sisters Warband also hit Rank 10 now, I swear the game suddenly went up in difficulty, I've had a few OOAs (even on some of my veterans) while I had been going for ages without any...or I've just had a run of bad luck (or bad tactics, hehehe )