marelooke

So, finished the main storyline of Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen (read "beat up Grigori"). Only took me like 80hours (steam says 87 but I left the game running while not playing a couple of times so...) damn my completionist urges. So now I'm in "post game" and suddenly stuff is a challenge again (gotta say that first trip from Cassardis to Gran Soren in post game was...painful). Wish they'd upped the difficulty a bit before so the shock would've been slightly less severe. Ironically enough I only beat my first Drake in "post game". Story is kinda interesting if you ignore some of the plot holes you could fly a Super Star Destroyer through ;-) Really liking the Pawn system though, having to rotate out a good Pawn always hurts, I feel it gives them more of an identity compared to the party members you create in say, Icewind Dale. For those not familiar with the game: you travel in a party of maximum four characters (one humand and three Pawns), your player character and your "main pawn" you create yourself. You can only directly control your own character though you can influence your main pawn directly in a variety of ways (eg. you can equip them, pick their "class" and skills and their AI changes based on how act in combat), the other two are Pawns you need to hire, these are basically *other* players' main pawns. Similarly your own main pawn can be hired by others to join their party and while they're "away" they learn stuff (eg. gain knowledge about quests you haven't done yet, learn how to better fight certain enemy types etc). It's a pretty deep and interesting system and I can't say I've seen anything quite like it anywhere else. Of note is that Pawns you hire do *not* level up while they're in your party, as such you regularly need to replace them by higher level ones (how stuff works at max level, beats me, probably pick pawns based on their skillset rather than their level then).

I wonder if the length of the video is an accident... Also I get kinda sad each time I hear the Update Song Haven' t really been keeping up with D:OS2 tbh, still gotta finish the first one. I hope they can do away with the randomly generated loot, or at least to some extent. Anyway, liking what I see so far

An empty room with a mission waypoint in it, looks safe enough to me! Let's have a look, kitty! Oh for the love of the Lotus... But don't worry, Valkyr is here! *dramatic entrée"

I see you avoiding my posts in the future - I am a bad influence lol, or a good one Me too, I bought Destiny at launch and had fun with it until I reached the point where I stumbled upon the games only raid that needed co-op but didn't offer any match-making(unlike the strikes and the multiplayer. Seriously, Bungie...wtf?!). The updates also made my hard-earned weapons feel useless so I just gave up.If I ever jump into an MMO(or an MMO hybrid game like Destiny) again it will be either The Secret World or nothing at all. WildStar also briefly caught my attention but apparently the game becomes boring after a while. With MMOs, I have sworn off loot treadmill games entirely. I don't enjoy raiding, and every other game type (PvP) either requires raid gear or has its own treadmill. If something with player built economies shows up (where players/crafters build the gear) then I will give it a go. EG - Something akin to UO or SWG with a facelift. Also, instanced PvP should never be the only PvP. Admittedly, I'm an old school "red is dead" UO player. So, I have different desires than the MMO masses. EVE Online? At least for the economy part (and the "no instanced PvP", I guess) Anyway, besides Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen I've mostly been on a Warframe binge (with some ESO on the side). It's one of the things I really like about the game, while it's a grindy game in it's very nature you never "get behind" when you just don't feel like playing for a while. (and since they tend to send out emails when events occur that's usually a good moment to jump back into it for me). Usually when I get "back" after doing other stuff for a while I got a load of new content to play with, which is cool. A few more months and I'll hit the three year mark, barring WoW I don't think any online game has ever managed to keep my attention that long. But hey, murdering hordes of enemies hardly ever gets old... I also checked out Ghost of a Tale, looking good, hope they do something about the camera for non-controller users (the camera has "pull", for lack of a better way to describe it), not gonna spoil too much before the final release though

Still playing mostly Dragon Dogma Dark Arisen. I've recently hit lvl50 and maxed out 3 vocations so far (all the figher ones, working on Sorceror now) Noticed The Division on sale but from what I hear it doesn't compare favorably to Warframe, which if F2P. Unless you really want an open world I guess. It'd need some killer features to convince me to spend cash on it and I'm not seeing it so far. Also thanks melkathi for reminding me of Ghost of a Tale, I totally forgot I had a key sitting in my mailbox...whoops... EDIT: typos...

Listening to the UT99 soundtrack. Brings back so many memories. Think I need to get me some frags while the new Warframe update downloads. And yeah, I keep an UT99 install around "just in case"... Just bummed that my backup CD that had all the mods I ran aged to death way back...

Will escort Goths for XP

Same. Picked it up along with Dark Souls II at the end of the Steam sale. I wouldn't mind the hiking if the outside walking speed was the same as it is in towns, and if there were less freaking wolves. I feel like I'm too high level or something, though. I'm like level 14 or 15 and I'm getting prompts saying when I hit level 10 I can change vocations (which I already did when I was level 10...) Made it to level 27 and got a bunch of prompts about quest basics... (that I'd seen before to boot), I think the tutorial stuff is kinda buggy I only changed vocation once I maxed out my initial one (which was Fighter) quite a few skills seem to carry over to the Mystic Knight one, which is cool. As to the endless amounts of wolves: during one night when I was headed to the Witchwood I must've killed a pack of 40 of the things. They just kept spawning to the point where it was getting truly and utterly ridiculous and I ended up just making a beeline to the Witchwood because I'm sure I would've been kililng wolves until dawn otherwise... Some of the escort quests are cool (they're also a chore since they tend to be *long*...) in the sense that they often send you into areas you hadn't been before, often with quite a bit tougher enemies than you're used to (or just annoying ones, ilke Phantoms), pull you out of your comfort zone, so to speak. Got ambushed by a Chimera on the way back of one, my first one since the intro, didn't quite expect to have been able to deal with it at that point. Tough but satisfying fight.

Yeah, it's kinda...unclear. You actually don't need a missing piece, you need to draw lines to connect the circuit (think of the minigame in Bioshock where you need to make water flow to the other end). Playing Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen now and quite enjoying it so far, though I guess all the hiking back and forth will get old before long...

I just backed it with 25€, thanks to you. Tossed them 15euros as well just now

So far I got: Civilization Beyond Earth - Rising Tide DLC Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor GOTY Pulse Shadowrun Chronicles Styx: Master of Shadows Decided not to bother with Fallout 4. If I need a post apocalyptic open world fix I'll start another Fallout New Vegas campaign and for my Elder Scrolls fix there's ESO.

Painkiller Black Edition I'll wager. Been wondering if a 50% discount is enough to grab Fallout 4 and how well integrated the DLC are, if they' re not very I might just grab the base game, if they are then I" ll hold off until a sale on the "GOTY edition" probably...

Yeah, that was kinda what I was getting at, but using a lot more words...

Eh, tactical mode is pretty useless in the majority of fights anyway. I only bothered with it during the Dragon battles iirc (maybe some of the other tougher battles too, I don't remember) She actually is. At least I failed to find any redeeming qualities. Companion quality is a bit hit and miss but she was, as far as I'm concerned, the low point. The rest ranges from OK-ish to pretty great (my favourites being Solas and the Grey Warden, Varric wasn't really at his best in this game, imho, though I still liked him). Games with a focused story and open world don't really mesh well. If you provide a story with some sort of time pressure (even if only implied like, say, find your lost (step)kid, like in Witcher 3/FO4) then it just doesn't make sense to put that off to do "other stuff". I mean, you can make it sort of work (like having to collect x amount of gold before being able to rush off after Irenicus in BG2), but once you reach that goal it just doesn't make much real sense to postpone it. DA:I just forces you to go all over the world to make progress towards your goal, side quests are generally more accidental things that happen on the way rather than a conscious divergence away from the actual goal you want to reach and that actually seems to work better. I mean, how many people would postpone looking for their missing kid because...woooooo shiny! (in Cespenar's voice )

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