marelooke
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Posts posted by marelooke
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What else is comming out in the 3d iseometric RPG genre. There was Blackguards, but that was a turn based hex-tile think of thing. Anything from the kicktstarter spree done soon ?. - Wasteland ?
Divinity: Original Sin (scheduled for 30 June now)?
Wondering what the "other things that will become clear soon" reason for the delays is, Gog's new service?
Finished Faery - Legends of Avalon.
Yes, I can understand the people who are furious about the abandoned plans for the rest of the trilogy. The game is great. I enjoyed it a lot. But just cutting the story off at the major decission and even prompting players to save their choices for the next game... argh.
I spend 9 hours on it, though that includes getting lost...
That confirms what I heard, alas. Thanks for confirming it (and hopefully a second part does get made at some point)
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Disclaimer: watched the video without sound (so if something useful was said I missed it)
Combat doesn't look very impressive to me (more of the same DA2 crap). I do dig how the dragon appeared to fly off instead of fighting to the death, finally a dragon with an IQ that doesn't place it in the "special needs" category.
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I'm holding out for the pubic war simulator...Punic War Simulator 202 BC.
I think you stumbled into the wrong thread
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Heh, that stuff works. Had to disable DoF because it was horrible, but other than that I didn't noticed a worse performance.
I don't really know, as I haven't played the game nor have any interest to, but it doesn't paints a pretty picture of the gaming industry if the PC versions are being gimped.
But they apparently still use the superior capability of the PC to create the pretty sales screenshots and videos, oh the delicious irony...
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I also bought the elf fairy romance game but have yet to play it. Can't wait to dig into it tomorrow as I've become a bit of a fan of Spiders
It looked interesting but apparently the publisher decided it wasn't successful enough to warrant a successor. Which wouldn't be such a big deal if it weren't half a story ending in a (or so I've been told by pretty much everybody who's finished it) major cliffhanger with a big fat "to be continued sign" sitting on it.
Will developers never learn to not do the major cliffhanger thing. You'd think they'd have learned after HL2Ep2...
Needless to say I passed it up, maybe I'll get it once it's really dirt cheap in a sale or possibly when/if they ever decide to finish the story.
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Not really unexpected and well... there should be enough RPGs released to tide me over until TToN's release (unless they all get pushed to next year, of course...)
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Warframe is awful, I couldn't stand playing the same missions over and over to grind xp and currency for more than 2 days.
I can certainly see you point and even though they make improvements that should reduce the repetitiveness (eg. each planet is supposed to have its own distinct tileset; also the enemy pool differs between planets and, as one would expect, is more diverse in the later planets where the hard hitting enemies are also let loose) Warframe is and will remain a glorified grindfest, much like Torchlight and Diablo. So yeah, if you're not into that sort of thing then this game probably isn't your cup of tea.
One important thing about XP in Warframe though is that if you're after XP then doing it solo is a really really bad idea, you'll get a lot more XP when in a group (assuming people stay somewhat together) and missions like (mobile) defense and survival give a lot more XP than regular missions and even more so the longer you keep going (not to mention that these mission are, imho, a lot more fun)
That said, I always enjoyed Onslaught in UT2004 so having that back in the form of Survival missions is a big plus for me. I also avoid most of the grind for money/resources by regularly doing the alert missions, many of those provide pretty big payoffs and they are usually quick to do (unless they're defense/mobile defense).
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Warframe. ****ing game is amazing and is still in beta.
Yups, Warframe is pretty awesome, it's my go-to game when I want to play a quick session of *something*. It does have some annoying flaws (a lot of the weapons in the game are merely affinity food as they're not practically useful except as a gimmick for low level missions) and some of the ways the devs are using to push people toward the cash store are rather obnoxious (the new Vay Hek grindfest or the expiry timer on Argon, ugh. I also rather despise how Prime parts can be traded, kinda kills their status as hard-to-get stuff imho).
I'm getting close to Rank 13 now and I still have loads of gear to rank up, I think I can probably make it to Rank 14 still with the stuff that's currently available in the game. I've also just finished the one but last non-rank related Steam achievement for the game (Brawler Mastery), so now I only have the 1000 hacks one left (which I'll get in due time as I only have like 270 to go)
Now that I've got the Helios sentinel I started completing the solar map and getting scans from the various bosses. Guess after that my next project will be acquiring more prime gear, something I hadn't really bothered with too much so far (even though I've been playing for a while...). Having to get a group together instead of just jumping into random matches is a bit of a hurdle for me.
Aside from Warframe I've picked up my Demonicon playthrough (I'm intent on finishing this thing
). I got an immediate reminder about the awesomeness (not) of the voice acting in the game I also started Avernum: Escape from the Pit. Looks like a game I'll play a bit every now and again. So far I've killed the nuisance in the sewers (he kinda wiped the floor with me, I had to go outside and heal up before I managed to take him down). Currently I'm being sent to "The Castle".
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Apparently IGN did see tactical combat, also companion scripts are back in from DA:O.
http://au.ign.com/videos/2014/06/11/dragon-age-inquisition-hands-on-impressions-e3-2014
So that's probably a no to bioware lying and not implementing tactical combat. Whether or not it's good, is another question.
That's good at least, though I'm wondering how they'll make it useful and still work properly on consoles (which as I recall, was the problem with DA:O, they couldn't make it work so they just stripped it). Still, untill I've seen it I'm remaining cynical, though I've changed from pessimistically cynical to optimistically cynical
btw. I never understood why people complained about the camera in DA2, but then I realized I had only played the game with a 2h warrior. The limitations were a lot more obvious with a mage.
As whenever I play party-based cRPGs my first toon is almost always a mage, the lack of the zoom out camera was among the very first things I noticed.
That was probably one of the main reasons I stopped playing a mage in DA2 (the other being the extremly limited spell selection and *pew* *pew* mage staff swinging), I often ended up at such a range that the enemies were outside my screen, so I constantly had to move closer to be able to actually do anything.
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so, no tactical view for da:i, or are they inexplicably keeping it hidden in all these gameplay videos and trailers?
HA! Good Fun!
Safest bet imho is to assume that whatever they haven't shown simply doesn't exist. They promised a tactical overhead view for DA2 as well, remember?
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Was there any monster in TW2 (didn't finished TW1) that actually needed the steel sword? It always annoyed me a bit that everyone assumed the steel was against humans and silver against monsters. But I think the games never did anything against this talk, no?
TW1 certainly made it known that silver was not always the way to go against monsters. Aside from the often pretty clear difference in effectiveness it was also listed in the book you could buy that described the monster which sword and stances were most effective.
Dunno about TW2 though since I didn't manage to finish that one (which I need to fix before TW3 is released, so I still have time
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Looking good, my chances of a pre-order just went up again.
Just noticed the pre-combat quaffing of potions is still in. I guess that's okay as long as you don't end up dead whenever you run into something you didn't anticipate, though while I can understand it from a realism perspective (see the trailer of Witcher 1) I still find it a questionable gameplay mechanic. But I'm hopeful it will be better implemented than in W2 (couldn't really judge becuase I had to watch the video without sound).
The rest looked like net improvements though (barring the remarks already made about the Griffon fight). Excitement++
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Remember InSomnia, the Fallout-esque MMO that failed to get funded?
The developer is trying their hand at another launch, but have clarified that the game is actually Diablo-style single/co-op rather than MMO.
I like the sound of the setting, beyond that I'm not so sure. I mean, the amount of reactivity they want to pull off sounds a bit over ambitious. I also generally don't like these things having PvP elements, I feel that generally balancing things around PvP tends to ruin diversity.
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The whole CCP affair smells fishy. Letting go of the leftovers from White Wolf would make sense in a way, but there was a "who is who" devblog about CCP Xhagen just last month (oddly enough, by CCP Eterne, one of the other ones that got kicked onto the street). It seems really really weird to do something like that less than a month before firing someone.
Then again, based on what the Guardian article says about management shifting blame to others and CCP Xhagen's job description maybe I shouldn't be so surprised he got sacked. It does, however, bode very very ill for the company's health if that actually was the reason.
On that note, another interesting article about the CCP layoffs.
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CCP (you know, the guys of EVE Online and the cancelled World of Darkness MMO), lay off 49 employees.
Some of them pretty key employees (CCP Eterne and CCP Xhagen were apparently among the victims)
Guardian Article dealing with the layoffs and the gross mismanagement of White Wolf and the WoD project (note that the employee they interview, known as CCP DropBear, voluntarily left the company quite a long time ago, so he doesn't qualify for "bitter just laid off employee"-syndrome)
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All aboard!
Meh, looks good, but so did the previous game. Until I see some actual info on how it will *play* I'm not getting excited, after all, I still need to finish part 2, which I put aside shortly after launch due to the terrible controls and UI.
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I am about to play Legends of Grimrock, I have even bought a graph map book so I can make my own maps of each level, like I use to do when I use to DM in AD&D.
Cool, be sure to keep us posted! I just went with the automap (and the default party) as knowing my drawing skills I'd have gotten lost 4 steps out of the starting room
Oh wait, I didn't realize there was an automap. I only bought the graph book because I was under the impression there was no proper map. How is the automap, do you think if I use my own map it will be advantageous or rather use the automap ( I am also lacking in drawing skills
)Well, there's an oldschool mode that doesn't have the automap so I figured you were going for that
The automap was more than adequate for me, the only thing I'd have liked was a way to put different types of markers on the map so it would be easier to see at a glance what was where without having to always read the notes. Especially when marking where teleporters go that might have been helpful (though frankly, the maps never get so complex that it became a major annoyance_
On thing I wish I'd done was writing down how many secrets I found from each level, so I'd have been able to figure out where I missed the two I missed.
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I finished up Legend of Grimrock, took me 31 hours according to Steam (though I occasionally left the game running while not playing, so it's probably less). I ended up missing two secrets (found all the treasures and armor sets though). All in all it was an enjoyable trip, something I frankly hadn't expected when I set my first steps in the game world.
The final boss was...interesting, but also a rather frustrating affair, I might at one point replay the game to grab a few of the achievements I've missed out on (and get those two last secrets, I already went through most of the levels twice, argh) though I can imagine not bothering beating the final boss twice, I'm also not confident I'd make it past some of the more frustrating timed puzzles a second time around (they're optional, but if my goal is to grab all secrets...).
In other news, in Warframe I finally managed to grab an Alert Mission for the last bit of the Vauban Warframe I needed. Yay!
As for my status in that game in general I'm Mastery Rank 12 currently and I've obtained all but two Steam achievements that aren't tied to mastery rank (only missing the 1000 hacks and 3 fist weapons to rank 30 ones currently)
I am about to play Legends of Grimrock, I have even bought a graph map book so I can make my own maps of each level, like I use to do when I use to DM in AD&D.
Cool, be sure to keep us posted! I just went with the automap (and the default party) as knowing my drawing skills I'd have gotten lost 4 steps out of the starting room
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I finished up Legend of Grimrock, took me 31 hours according to Steam (though I occasionally left the game running while not playing, so it's probably less). I ended up missing two secrets (found all the treasures and armor sets though). All in all it was an enjoyable trip, something I frankly hadn't expected when I set my first steps in the game world.
The final boss was...interesting, but also a rather frustrating affair, I might at one point replay the game to grab a few of the achievements I've missed out on (and get those two last secrets, I already went through most of the levels twice, argh) though I can imagine not bothering beating the final boss twice, I'm also not confident I'd make it past some of the more frustrating timed puzzles a second time around (they're optional, but if my goal is to grab all secrets...).
In other news, in Warframe I finally managed to grab an Alert Mission for the last bit of the Vauban Warframe I needed. Yay!
As for my status in that game in general I'm Mastery Rank 12 currently and I've obtained all but two Steam achievements that aren't tied to mastery rank (only missing the 1000 hacks and 3 fist weapons to rank 30 ones currently)
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When you say "push people hard enough they'll take matters in their own hands" what do you mean?
Most likely dangling something attractive in front of their noses and having the audacity to charge money for it.
I'm pretty sure that we both know very well how the music industry (as a very obvious example) has been treating both consumers as well as artists, in that light I can't help but feel that your interpretation of my words is rather disingenuous.
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Picked up Avernum: Escape from the Pit at 80% off.
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...snipped for brevity...
When you say "push people hard enough they'll take matters in their own hands" what do you mean?
Who is pushing people and in what way are people being pushed and how are people taking matters into there own hands?
Both artists as well as customers were being squeezed for every penny, before the advent of CD writers the channels you could get stuff from were extremely limited so they got away with it. As I see it piracy (or at least, the widespread kind in the early days of this millennium) was a consumer reaction against that abuse.
On the other end you had the artists that were often being squeezed just as hard by the record companies as the consumers (I had the chance to talk to some members of a band that quit after a long time because of the abuse they received from their record company and their story wasn't exactly unique). Digital distribution made it possible for artists to keep the rights to their work and self-distribute.
Indeed, this is not a new thing and typical for most industries, with cycle shaped from supply and demand to various competition laws.This is just typical for any industry really, sooner or later they find a business model that works and when they do they'll want to stick with it at all costs because change = risk and risk is the antithesis of big business. So they'll defend their business model tooth and nail until someone else demonstrates a working way to make money with a new business model, which they'll then gleefully copy (the Netflix/Spotify/Steam idea, though I'm unsure if either of them was the first to do what they do).
The major difference with the internet is the lack of physical product and anonymity which and thus poor enforcement which lends into what I said before "if they can break the law and get away with it, they are far more likely to break it". (ETA: the best "real" world equivalent I can think atm is the looting that happens during blackouts )
The anti piracy campaign was just typicalgood ol' stick and carrot, discouraging illegal use while at the same time making legal alternatives much more attractive.The crime here was keeping an outdated business model alive in spite of the consumers. If you push people hard enough they'll take matters in their own hands, which is what lead to such widespread piracy.
As far as I'm concerned there was no successful anti-piracy campaign but a successful piracy campaign that forced a stale industry to get its act together by hitting it where it hurts: their profits.
Ah, but the legal alternatives didn't come from the established business, they came from outsiders. As such I still maintain there was no successful anti-piracy campaign. There were various businesses that understood the trend that resulted in the widespread piracy and built a business around it. This then got picked up by the "old farts" because they saw it worked and drove piracy down (due to reasonable prices and more convenient distribution, the stuff that was lacking and drove people to piracy in the first place)
You should make a distinction between understanding why something happening and condoning it. Not every pirate is a potential consumer, many pirates are just kids who can't buy their own lunch, want everything NOW, and or going through the rage against the machine phase; and with your attitude such behavior might persist since "outdated" and "fair" are very subjective terms... So when you would make something and charge for 60$, they might just decide its crap and you are pushing it..
I'm not quite sure where I said I condoned piracy.
Anyway what was happening in your example though was that my agent got $40, the gallery got $15 and I got $5 (totally made up numbers). Oh, and if you, the customer, wanted a similar product, tough luck because there is nowhere to get one. And if, as artist, I wanted a bigger cut: tough luck, there's no reasonable way to get one (other agents demand the same cuts and they're the only way to get exposure).
I would say that if piracy occurs on the scale it occurred at the start of the millennium it's a clear indication that something is broken. If you have very little faith in humanity you could argue that half the population has a totally broken moral compass (and not even *I* have that little faith in humanity). Personally if I see something on such a scale I'd first wonder whether it actually isn't the system that's broken.
Now, current day piracy is an entirely different matter, while I won't claim everything is perfect right now (and the powers that be are still actively trying to mess with us, see all the trade agreements the EU has rejected recently, and they keep coming...) the power has clearly shifted back in the direction of the customer (where it belongs) and if you try to sell me something for $60 I have plenty of options to get it somewhere else for less or just buy a similar product at a more reasonable price. And right now, as artist, it is perfectly viable for me to just cut out the middle man and sell you that product for $10 (since I'm no longer forced into a possibly abuse contract giving up all the rights to my product to a 2nd party) which makes both of us happy as I get paid double and you only pay 1/6 of the original price.
That said, the type of piracy I was talking about and the kind that's still "rampant" (I really don't think it's all that bad anymore, but it's kinda hard to get numbers on something that's not officially happening
) today are rather different, the first was a result of a bad situation the second is just disrespect for creators or various personal reasons people have, far be it from me to judge people's motivations.I'd also say that the original question is one of the hard nuts to crack in the debate on copyright reform. Sure it might be tempting to keep a copy of the book and it's easy to state that you "copy" it by keeping a copy (and indeed, that's how it's likely currently defined in law), but what are the chances of reading the same book twice? For most books I'd say they are fairly slim. So does this rule still make much sense? For books maybe not, but then where do you draw the line between what is reasonable and what isn't? And for music, games and the like I'd say it is even more complicated.
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From my personal perspective though, it seems it's more a matter of the right kind of distribution. Steam and Netflix seems to have done a lot about piracy in my circle of friends - before piracy was widespread, but now they simply wait for a game/film to go on sale or become available. It's become a lot more convenient for them to use the service and compensate the author, than not..
Those are good examples of why anti-piracy campaigns works. Some people think its about stopping it, but there is no wining with crime, it is always about marginalizing the undesired activity. In these case it requires to understand that most are selfish pigs, who care mostly about their convenience/cost and if they can break the law and get away with it, they are far more likely to break it.
The crime here was keeping an outdated business model alive in spite of the consumers. If you push people hard enough they'll take matters in their own hands, which is what lead to such widespread piracy.
As far as I'm concerned there was no successful anti-piracy campaign but a successful piracy campaign that forced a stale industry to get its act together by hitting it where it hurts: their profits.
The results seem a pretty obvious win for the consumer: fairer prices and more convenient access to the product.
This is just typical for any industry really, sooner or later they find a business model that works and when they do they'll want to stick with it at all costs because change = risk and risk is the antithesis of big business. So they'll defend their business model tooth and nail until someone else demonstrates a working way to make money with a new business model, which they'll then gleefully copy (the Netflix/Spotify/Steam idea, though I'm unsure if either of them was the first to do what they do). I'm hoping that the Internet will be able to keep forcing businesses to reinvent themselves on a regular basis so we won't end up with some outdated business model hardcoded into the law again (after we finally get rid of this stuff that was added for book publishing before telecommunication was invented).
After that I'd just like to point out that I'm a firm believer in providing fair reward for effort done as such I've never been much of a pirate, but being a software developer I am of course interested in the entire software patent debacle, an interest in the copyright system was a natural result (which isn't to say that I'm an expert, far from it, ianal etc).
EDIT: typos
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Making headway in Legend of Grimrock, I made it down to level 9 and suddenly I find myself fighting blue dinosaurs
As I suspected the timed puzzles can get really annoying at times (I especially recall the trapdoor one with the timed switches and the beams of light on level
and combat has gotten pretty old already (ends up as either a square dance or a RNG based "whoever rolls better wins"-affair). I've also found I'm pretty much ignoring my wizard once combat has actually started as having to tap in rune combinations for every spell just tends to take too much time.-
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). I got an immediate reminder about the awesomeness (not) of the voice acting in the game 
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and combat has gotten pretty old already (ends up as either a square dance or a RNG based "whoever rolls better wins"-affair). I've also found I'm pretty much ignoring my wizard once combat has actually started as having to tap in rune combinations for every spell just tends to take too much time.
What are you playing now
in Computer and Console
Posted
No I'm not, from the latest KS update:
Emphasis mine
Or am I the only one who thinks it's odd that D:OS hasn't been announced on Gog yet?