marelooke

OK, trying to get all the documents in the Baba Yaga DLC of Rise of the Tomb Raider. This one "puzzle" (solution is simple, execution is horrible) just nearly made me break my keyboard: a series of extremely tricky jumps with an extremely short timer. Annoying as all hell and absolutely not fun in my book. I need a break of this thing before I *actually* break my keyboard.

Oh, so you bought it. Good, don't have to shill for it then :-P Seriously tho, I've read that the challenge tombs were entirely created by the same team which worked on multiplayer for the last game and it shows (that they had a dedicated team behind them I mean). They're huge, they often have mechanics not seen anywhere else in the game, the puzzles in them are a lot of fun - they're no longer just a small room with a simple puzzle. And then there are actual tombs to raid strewn around the landscape, there are the big, open locations like the soviet base which offers a lot of opportunities for exploration which is incredibly satisfying, stuff like that. Weirdest thing is that I'm enjoying doing the challenge tombs and side missions a lot more than progressing trough the main story, but that's not a bad thing per se - it's just a shame that when someone's not a completionist he's risking not really seeing the most fun parts of the game. I also love that stealth is a lot more viable this time around, and generally, if you explore a lot, you'll be doing a lot less shooting and a lot more tomb raiding, which is awesome. Generally speaking I'd say the game has improved in just about every aspect upon the 2013, except for the main storyline buut I'm a sucker for mysterious islands. Oh and then there are challenges. God, it's that kind of thing which gets decided during a board meeting by a bunch of managers who then walk up to the development team and say "Guys, add some challenges. Like cut 7 soviet flags. People like challenges, right?" "But... It doesn't work with the theme at all." "CHALLENGES, MAN! THINK POSITIVE! ONLY LOSERS THINK NEGATIVE! CHALLENGES!" "I... *sigh* Whatever." Yeah, the challenges seem kinda...meh (Shoot red laptops. Really?) Tombs are definitely better (and equally importantly: bigger) and some of the more enjoyable parts of the game, now if they can take over the rest of the map for the third instalment we'll have a party Though, so far, none of the "Challenge Tombs" has been that much of a challenge (did 4 or 5 or so now I think. Also Lara starts to give you hints if you take too long, noticed this when I managed to miss a climbable surface in the Baba Yaga challenge tomb). Then again, I've been stuck for *hours* in TR 1996 and that wasn't much fun either, kinda hard to find the balance I guess ... That said, making them harder might mean they'd increase the difficulty of the parcours instead of the difficulty of figuring out the solution, which would not be much to my liking... (Cistern was really cool) But I wish they'd leave the James Bond stuff out already, it just doesn't fit. I mean the part with the chopper... if I hadn't been so busy repeating "seriously?" in disbelief I probably would've facepalmed hard enough to end up with a headache. Anyway, really enjoying the game so far, few niggles I have so far would be: - the annoying QTE based opening sequence (getting killed over and over because it's not obvious where you gotta go is annoying, especially in a tutorial) - the James Bond/ Mad Max-style chopper sequence - challenges - environments often designed to be cool but make zero sense (eg. start of Baba Yaga is a "well worn path" in Lara's words, that then ends up with a bunch of jumping around cliffs to get to the destination. Suuuuuure...) The good (so far) - the overarching story - challenge tombs tend to be bigger - more exploring (outside of the tombs, eg. caves and various historical sites) - less fighting (bit of an overdose in the last game, feels more balanced so far in this instalment) - first part of Baba Yaga was pretty cool, though the "plot twist" seems obvious (but won't be able to tell for sure until I've finished it, of course ) - the annoying "deathrides" from the previous game have been gone, so far - side missions (while the objectives don't always make the most sense the added NPCs and their reactions make the world seem more alive) - the environmental stories told by the recorders/texts/objects you find (also there in the previous game, still worth mentioning imho) All in all a solid game and not regretting my purchase one bit so far.

Did you like the original? I mean, the original reboot. Gah. Kinda, it was a good action adventure, bit light on the puzzling compared to the originals. Then again, the puzzles in Tomb Raider 1996 (as opposed to Tomb Raider 2003 ) were often extremely finicky, though I kind of miss the grand scala of the puzzles (spanning entire levels, like Palace Midas). That said, Tomb Raider 1996 is the only of the old ones that I spent much time with even though I never actually finished it (gave 2 a shot, but never got very far). As for the story, I liked the story of the Island, and I'm kind of liking the overarching story in the new one so far as well. However "new Lara" doesn't quite do it for me (although she has her moments), I preferred when she was a grown seemingly confident woman compared to the insecure teen we have now. But maybe she'll undergo some character development that puts her back to where she was at in Tomb Raider 1996 in that respect... Currently I'm in the abandoned Soviet Base, kinda itching to get back into some tomb raiding, those are still the best parts of the games (imho). You know, I'd kill (figuratively speaking, of course ) for a remake of Tomb Raider 1996 in the new engine. Though given how different the gameplay in both games is that seems rather unlikely (or unlikely to be satisfactory, if it should happen), but some of those locations in the new engine...

There's an event going on in Warframe so I'm playing mostly that right now. Seems they finally found a way to keep people playing during these events without making the final reward depend on insane grind, which is good. I've been tempted by Rise of the Tomb Raider, would those of you who've played it say it's worth getting at full price? (well, minus the 10% it's currently off on Steam I guess)

In fairness, that quote was made at a time when most video game stories consisted of "Robot Ninjas Kidnapped the President" and not much more. Gaming has evolved since then. I agree not all games need a deep, well written story. Games come in all shapes, sizes, and varieties. There are story-driven games and there are gameplay-driven games. Story-driven games obviously need a good story with well thought out characters or they will fall flat on their face (/glances disapprovingly in David Cage's direction) since story is the core pillar of the game. Gameplay-driven games don't necessarily need much story at all, though they can still benefit from one. As far as I remember Carmack was the technical genius behind the graphical engines that were always pushing the limits of what was possible at the time (would explain why he now works at Oculus) but that doesn't necessarily make him an authority on videogame storytelling since really, which of the games ID Software made had any real storytelling going on? I guess Rage would be the closest to "story driven" they ever got... Now if that quote would have been from MCA...

I've kind of been waiting for more patches before I carry on much further with Mordheim. Shame about the insane loading times or it'd be a great game to fire up for a quick match now and again... Wonder if lowering the resolution would help with the loading times, though I'd assume not since it's apparently due to how they randomly generate the maps. Meh. Which brings me to the game I tend to fire up for a quick match: Warframe Attained Mastery Rank 19, running out of new gear to level (not surprising given how long I've been playing the game) which means I'll have to go into the Void more often if I want to obtain new toys to play with. The reason I dislike the Void is because I can't just let the matchmaker create a group and go. On top of that it requires keys, so I'd feel bad about sucking in some high level missions (which is stupid, since I play at similar levels on the Star Chart, but hey, a little insanity has never hurt anyone, or something...). When I have slightly more time to play I fire up SWToR, made it into the Shadow of Revant content now, finally starting to get gear that's an actual improvement over the stuff I had.

So figured I'd check the status of my ticket before heading to bed. Now I'm forced to wait for the launcher to be done "Reorganizing data..." or I will "Have to download the entire game again". Giving a heads up before starting such an obnoxiously long process is too 1900s I guess. EDIT: apparently got luck and after 20min the update finished (someone in the forums claimed his took over 2 hours!) As for the ticket I made about the missing Cargo Bays, it has been closed and made into a bug report. Should interpret this as: "We don't care, we tossed it on the pile and nothing is ever going to happen with it, go away" or can I expect the issue to actually get resolved at some point before the heath death of the universe (made that ticket like 20 days ago now...)?

Finally started seriously playing Witcher 3. Gotta say combat is a *big* improvement over Witcher 2 (especially the release version). Kinda really enjoying the game though running into a lvl33 quest 5minutes into Velen was a pretty big "WTF?" moment. Also bit of a bummer that Velen is just more of White Orchard, visually. Anyway, going have to be careful with this game as I was just gonna kill that Royal Wyvern and then head to bed but before I knew it I was trudging through elven ruins with a certain "witch" and the clock struck 4(am)... Ouch. Also playing a bit of Mordheim here and there, closing in on Warband Rank 10, should really return to the story missions and get some more of those over with.

I quit after my initial month at release because I got fed up with the amount of generic MMO quests I was forced to do to level. Granted, I had a max level character within the first week and was leveling a bunch of alts. I tried to come back when it went F2P, but then I saw they were trying to sell basic UI elements (I can't recall if it was the 3rd or 4th hotbar) that I'd needed when I played previously, so that was pretty much an instant nope. I initially quit because my guild fell apart due to the endgame (heroics/raids) being a buggy mess until a *very* long time after launch. Nowadays I don't have the time to raid anymore and I don't care for PvP. Got a good deal on the expansion in the end of year sales so now I'm "subbed" meaning the horrible F2P (or "preferred status", lol) restrictions don't currently bother me. Going to make the most out of the two months or so of subscription I have and try to ignore the wasted potential as much as possible. More on topic: finally acquired HK-51 after they reset the quest progress (without refunding anything, of course) somewhere in the past few years. Thankfully all those operations can be soloed nowadays.

Been playing quite a bit of SWToR lately. Game's pretty depressing to be honest. Lots of potential but all thrown away by choice of a seemingly horrible engine (judging by the amount of bugs and time/effort it seems to take to release anything) and the "streamlining" and nickel and diming that appears to have been going on since the game went F2P. Customer support also seem to be pretty horrible (ticket's been open for 8 days now, missing storage space is kind of a big deal...) The good news is that it probably won't be very hard to put the game down once I've seen all the class stories. Just, you know, the things that could have been... *sigh* I really should make a list of games I want to play and then stick to it, instead of starting a bunch and then moving on and restarting and never getting much of anywhere Witcher 3 seems like a good candidate to start with.

Apparently the HK quest got reset at some point so I get to start over...which is pretty darn annoying since I think I only needed one of the operations before I was done (I also get to re-buy some expensive component, not to mention all the fun scanning I get to do once more). I've also still not received any response to the support ticket I made nearly a weak ago, so making a support request for this seems largely pointless. Still haven' t received any better gear from quets so far either (level 59 now and I was running Colunmi level gear) though I seem to have lost an artifact (seems to be the one from the Datacrons, is that gone?)

Kind of the same deal here here. The leveling system also seems to have changed and I had to re-choose my specialization. Seems my "rotation" as Inquisitor has remained mostly unchanged though and at least one of the annoyances hasn't been fixed (still a very long cooldown on the interrupt and it has a very short range compared to other abilities, which is just annoying for PvE) Had to rename most of my "alts", which sort of annoyed me, not sure what the threshold was to not be forced to rename but I tend to be "rather" attached to my characters' names. Then again very few games (EVE being the exception I'm aware of) grasp the concept that there are many people with the same name. I mean, the fact that a name needs to be unique annoys the hell out of me, it makes zero sense, how hard is it to allow the option of a last name and be done with it? Sure it creates some inconvenience when you want to send people a tell or whatever, but there's enough ways to work around that problem that that really shouldn't be a blocker. (autocomplete on names, suggest people in party, raid, friends list, guild first, in that order) On top of that I recreated an existing character and the name generator (because I was out of ideas for somewhat sane names...) suggested something that apparently was already taken, that was a bit of a facepalm moment... In good news, I'm enjoying the Makeb storyline with my Inquisitor (started that, then stopped playing, so still have most of it left). I also started a new Sith Warrior, it seems Korriban was streamlined a bit, in a good way I think, at least all the quests I remembered were still present. I also seem to receive excessive amounts of XP, but that is likely partly due to the double XP period going on (I'm level 13 and I only just met Darth Baras...). Not really sure which specialization is best suited to levelling, I'd guess Marauder but maybe the new companions are super good at murdering stuff. Input welcome

I just started playing again and you want to nerf my favourite class (Sorc) already, warm welcome back indeed ;) Quite a lot of the gear that got dumped into my inventory were orange appearance sets that I had started collecting, those were in cargo bays of their own, them no longer being there makes it quite obvious that I lost at least two bays. Judging from the amount it would seem I might have lost some gear as well, but I can live with that if I get the storage space back, so I can dump everything in there and sort it out once I've figured out what all has changed in those years since I last played. Collections seemed like a neat addition but it appears none of the armors I have qualifies (not even the full Columni set, ugh...), so that's a bummer at least...

Seems I have the same problem, inventory flooded with items, lots of mails with "item recovery" and I would have sworn I had more than 3 cargo bays (hence all the items suddnely flooding my inventory). On top of that companion gearing seems to have been overhauled (so lots of companion gear in that inbox too) I'll try making a ticket for the cargo bays, but seemingly support takes forever so yeah...

Eh, not really, when it's just "in-engine" there's likely little else eating resources (like network stuff, AI, other players...) how negligible this is depends highly on the complexity and optimization of said systems. I seem to remember EVE has a camera mode to allow players to make these kinds of fancy vids, of course the hardware/logistics required to make something like the EVE trailers are pretty big reasons why it's not often done I'd imagine (even on beefy systems people tend to tune down most graphics settings to pretty damn low, turns out having to calculate trajectories on thousands of rockets/bullets/lazors/ships is kinda intensive on the CPU/GPU and that on top of all the other stuff that's going on in large battles...).

Bummer, I was kinda feeling like catching up on everything I missed after I quit somewhere before the first expansion (which I later got and thought was boring, so I quit again). The game focusing more in the SP is good news to me personally as my guild mostly fell apart due to the extremely unpolished end-game PvE content on release. That all storylines seem to be converging otoh seems rather bad news. Guess I'll sub for 90days or so and see what's what, unfortunately it seems Origin is having some major issues and I can't get anywhere with the subscription pages (neither via the website nor through Origin). Guess that explains the declining revenue, if it's impossible for people to send you money then yeah ...

Noticed I still had State of Decay installed, decided to give it another go. While doing some mission I suddenly got a message that the priest committed suicide (even though afaik all my "home's" parameters were far in the green, there also wasn't the usual "Person is angry/scared, go play therapist" message/quest. It was kinda out of the blue). A bit later my starting character got killed by some hulking monstrosity close the the home base and when I then got "dropped" in the body of one of my other survivors the priest was suddenly back, say what!? Game feels kinda like Dead Island, probably fun once you get to the later bits in the game, but a serious (and unpolished) slog to get there.

Achieved a couple of major milestones in Mordheim: - had a Hero reach rank 10 (Clara 'You shall not pass' Quintus aka 'peg-leg') - had a Henchman reach rank 10 (Grisela 'Phew, dodged that' Aufwieg and she managed it without permantent injuries to boot and only 2 light wounds) - had my Impressive reach rank 10 (Gusinde Oberst, also without permanent injuries and only 2 light wounds) - for the first time ever I managed to snatch *all* the Wyrdstone on a map (gotten very close a few times, but nailed it this time in a Hard mission)

Do the shipment sizes ever cap out? Or does it keep going up until there is no realistic way to complete them anymore? My Sisters went and beat up some Mercenaries in a Brutal walk in the fog, since their Ogre got stuck somewhere *again* it turned out the Brutal mission was mostly a cakewalk. Ended up with two units with Light Wounds though but that was really it and easily managed to complete the Weirdstone rush bonus objective. After reading through the forums a bit it seems I probably should have switched the roles of Sisters/Novices, I just kept them with their starting gear, which has been working fairly well for the sword+board ones (in heavy armor) at least though I'm considering trying to swap their roles for my newest member. I also find that training is a bit of a pain, not in the sense that the expense is much of a problem anymore, but more that I hate having to miss some of my Warband members for 5 days... Well, that and indecision about which skills to pick... Since I don't intend to fire anyone unless they get a really crippling injury and I'm not planning on purposefully sending anyone to their deaths I would have to live with bad decisions for quite a while... I've also been putting off doing any further storyline missions due to the next one being the Library, which is notoriously buggy, so until they fix that it's regular expeditions for me (or I could do the "save the savegame"-trick, just in case, I guess...)

Hmm, it certainly has a distinct style that has grown on me over time, certainly some frames are an acquired taste, I've come to like most of them over time, much like the ships in EVE Online grew on me (I flew mostly Gallente ships, the flying potato is kinda notorious for its looks ). I feel they all have a distinct personality for lack of a better description. I certainly think it looks and plays better than Firefall, which I thought looked pretty generic/ugly. Seems kinda unlikely to me that someone could find *all* of the frames ugly though, then again, there's no accounting for taste The shooting mechanics are great though, as is the complement of weapons (great variety, going from wonky to pretty straightforward). DE was involved in the creation of Unreal Tournament after all, so I'd expect nothing less, really. Last I tried starting a new account the newbie experience was pretty crap though. Game starts out pretty difficult and then the difficulty falls off pretty steeply once you get access to some basic gear and knowledge (well, that is, until you dial it up to 11 again in endless missions).

Prety massive lore spoilers for The Second Dream quest in Warframe (tho if you visited the Warframe forums in the past week I doubt you'll learn anything new, might ruin the moment though)

Completed the second storyline mission of Act I of the Sisters campaign in Mordheim. Took me about 2 hours and ended with "losing" a warrior due to a Skull Fracture (makes them basically useless so she got fired), it seems helmets don' t quite protect against those, alas. The way she got it was really annoying too: respawns. For those who aren't melkathi : in story missions the devs thought it would be great to add respawns after a certain point so as to avoid the drag where all you are doing is waiting for the turn to end while you slowly make your way to your objectives once all the baddies have been crushed. At least I assume that's the reasoning. The actual result is that now you need to spend turns on combat and can't as easily split up your warband (since there will be hostiles) so things take even longer... Anyway, back to the Skull Fracture, what had happened is that one of my sisters took some pretty nasty damage, so I moved her to a safe spot (together with some other units to protect her) while the rest of the warband handled the swatting of respawns and the finding of mission objectives. So then the game decided to spawn a ranged unit on the building next to said heavily wounded sister, who got to take his turn before her... So yeah, that sucked Thankfully she was only rank 2 so not that big of a deal, just a pretty annoying way to have it happen. Still having great fun with the game (obviously, or I wouldn't be sinking this much time in it, even with the loading times ). Not quite sure how I feel about storyline missions though. On the one hand they break the normal flow a bit and they generally seem to use special maps too (change of scenery is always nice) but the respawns and the collecting of objectives seems to often turn them into a bit of a drag once the initial enemies have been defeated. Then again, I've only played two of them so far (not sure how many there even are per Act) so I'm reserving judgement until at least the end of Act I.

For most units yes, if I get multiple of the same type of Hero/Leader I give them different colours (did it the other way around for the Sister-Superior since she was my first but I changed her colours but she is the exception). Since I'm colourblind (red/green) I don't generally have the inclination to change default colours unless they're truly horrendous, I'm kinda liable to make it much much worse

I predict a headache for this Mercenary...in the best case... Ding-dong A good haul (but maybe I have low standards...?)