What are you Playing Now: Living the Game Life

[Bartimaeus]

Pontiff Sulyvahn was probably the most annoying boss I played on my SL1 run of DS3...though admittedly, I didn't do all of the DLC bosses because I kinda was running out of patience by the end of it because that game is too gosh-danged long, .

[Wormerine]

1 hour ago, BruceVC said:

Wormie are you Irish by birth or you did you immigrate their, I just wanted to ask you  something  about Irish food but only if you are comfortable discussing it ?

I am polish, have been working in Northern Ireland for three years now. I also cook my own food, and live rather solitary livestyle, so I am afraid my knowledge of Irish food (and all other Irish things) ends on Guinness.

[Wormerine]

Ha!

DS is a cycle of "thats bull****!" and "eh, that wasn't so bad". 

I still can't parry though. I really really would like some visual feedback parrying timing. I never know if I am too early, or too late, or it the attack is not parryable. 

[Malcador]

I thought Stellaris did it well by having the game run so slowly they'd defeat you that way.

Still doing the tutorial for Planetfall, can't find time conveniently, so far seems like it'll be a Civ 5 like experience at least.  Hopefully will get to experience a proper game tonight and lose.

 

[melkathi]

If you got all dlc, the only thing worth knowing is that your character from the Oathbound campaign missions carries over to empire mode.

[Katphood]

Playing No Man's Sky on the PS5. I am enjoying it I guess. Playing it on 'normal'. 

[BruceVC]

17 hours ago, Wormerine said:

I am polish, have been working in Northern Ireland for three years now. I also cook my own food, and live rather solitary livestyle, so I am afraid my knowledge of Irish food (and all other Irish things) ends on Guinness.

Good to know you Polish, I have found East Europeans and  countries like  Russia to be loyal and committed gamers to the many games I enjoy like RPG and other fantasy genres like action games. You guys respect the art and science of gaming and I always appreciate engaging with other gamers who support gaming like I do. 

I was thinking about it, take this thread. Most of the regular contributors are from East European countries, I haven't done any actual polling but just from the members who I know what country they come from? Members like  Keyrock are  American Polish but we can we say he is Polish in the interest of making my point 

And it would be remiss of me to ignore the important contribution the US members make so American gamers are also committed gamers 

And on a personal level I have direct ties to the SA Polish community when I lived in JHB for 22 years so for example I had Polish girlfriends and friends whose families had immigrated to SA mostly during the Cold War. So apart from my direct ancestral ties to the UK and my ties to Austria and Germany through skiing holidays Poland is the next EU country I have the most personal interaction with around meeting and socializing with Polish citizens 

Because most white people, like me, were born in SA and we dont  necessarily know much about the EU or have any known  ancestral connections anymore. But  my family still do because we have English family born in the UK who are our cousins from about 120 years ago when my direct family came to SA with the British army to fight the Boers in the Second Boer War 1899-1902. So for me I had  5 great grandfathers who were brothers who came to SA with the British army and after the war 2 stayed and became SA citizens and 3 went back to the UK. And that is how a large part of my family split and became different citizens between SA and the UK

[Wormerine]

@BruceVChaha I don’t know about it. What I found is that at least in 90s & 00s consoles weren’t common sights, and personal computers and pirated copies of games were a norm. The result seems to be a generation who grew up on PC classics (often even older ones if you dad bought a dated PC) rather then consoles like PS2 or Nintendo. Genuinely the only Nintendo game I have seen before I moved to US to study was the original Mario on our Comodore64. 

[rjshae]

I picked up Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear on sale, and I've played a character through Baldur's Gate so I can run him through SoD. I'm still early in the game but it's not bad thus far. Basically more of the same sort of thing, with a few twists here and there. The one issue I've had is that my original party is unavailable, so I've had to recruit several companions who join as first level characters. (Minsc and Dynaheir, for example, who I didn't recruit in the first game just for a change of pace.) The combat has been fairly challenging, and seems to be balanced for a full strength party at the PC's level. Fortunately there are ways to grind through the early battles using items acquired during the first game.

[Gorth]

I think I'm getting close to the end of Dungeon of Naheulbeuk (sp?). It's been a fun dungeon romp. I'm not sure about replayability, but it's plenty enough content to make a single play through feel worth the effort. Even if not feeling like any immediate replay, I might pick it up again at a later date or hope for a second game in a similar style.

 

Not 100% what to pick up next, but probably starting a game of Mechanicus and I also had an old Mordheim party that fell by the wayside a few years ago.

[Keyrock]

I finished The Forgotten City, all 4 endings. If you are into time loop mystery/puzzle games then this is a very easy recommendation. It took me 12 hours to complete and 6 or 7 loops, I think. It can certainly be finished faster than that. I'm pretty certain you can't get the true ending in 1 go, but maybe in 2 loops, almost certainly 3. Anyway, it's not the longest game in the world, but I found the asking price to be very fair given the quality of the content; it's a super easy recommendation on sale. 

This is a very narrative-heavy game, there is barely any combat. Luckily, the writing is quite good and everything is voice acted, and voice acted relatively well. Kind of ironic that this started as a Skyrim mod, since the writing in this game blows the vast majority of Bethesda's own writing out of the water. Also, this game game has the distinction of achieving the sadly somewhat rare feat of having a really satisfying (true) ending.

Anyway, for a small team making their first full game this is a grand slam home run. I am very much looking forward to what Modern Storyteller makes in the future.

[ComradeYellow]

Finally figured out how to port Biohazard (Resident Evil) 1, 2, and 3 to PC!  Better textures and no "Door" loading screens to boot.  Me = Happy.

I'm not a Japan STAN, but Biohazard is by far the best thing that has come out of the mischievous little Asian Islet, and Silent Hill isn't half bad either.

[Katphood]

No Man's Sky:

First off, why is my older character not there? I still have my save files from my previous playthrough. Not a big deal but still weird. Also, why do they have to insert a base building tutorial into the main quest right at the start of the game? Glad that's over with, now I can actually play the game!

Edited August 27, 2021 by Katphood

[Theonlygarby]

Played about an hour of black geyser...  was hard to get through that character creation.  The elf looks like they literally just stretched the human model to make it longer and thinner... or I guess "taller".  The beards are pretty funny.

 

Then the attribute stats don't really tell you anything... it says like "focus helps your aim" but doesn't tell me what the difference between 6 and 10 really means.

 

The writing is a mixed bag so far.  the dialog is alright mostly, and I love the idea of the world being cursed by greed.  I just don't know how much I trust them to flesh it out.  Nothing really makes sense so far.  Feels rushed.  For me pillars 1 is a perfect intro, you are travelling somewhere for whatever reason you choose, circumstances send you on a journey.  This game you are a servant or ward, working for a rich guy.  Something happens, no longer in that role.  On your own, and the world is cursed by greed.  It's hard to be a druid that has been raised in a duke(or whatever)s mansion.  Similar to baldurs gate 1 I suppose... just doesn't really have me invested at all...  which actually was the case with BG.

 

They have been working on this game a long time... it really doesn't seem finished(I know it's early access... but still)  I mean I'm not picky about graphics... but the characters don't even hold the sword... it just kind of sticks to their hand oddly.

 

It's pretty cheap though... take it with a grain of salt because I don't really like baldurs gate.  So I might not know what I'm talking about

[213374U]

8 hours ago, rjshae said:

 The one issue I've had is that my original party is unavailable, so I've had to recruit several companions who join as first level characters. (Minsc and Dynaheir, for example, who I didn't recruit in the first game just for a change of pace.) The combat has been fairly challenging, and seems to be balanced for a full strength party at the PC's level. Fortunately there are ways to grind through the early battles using items acquired during the first game.

I'm pretty sure that's a bug. Upon joining your party, NPCs should be given a bunch of XP up to the 161k normal cap of BG1 -- much the same as it worked in ToB if you summoned someone to your pocket plane. You're not supposed to run around with level 1-2 NPCs in the expansion. @Bartimaeus perhaps can tell you more, but I think it has to do with encountering an NPC early and it thus being "set" vs never meeting them in the first place and the game pulling the proper level .cre file.

I'd just set the correct XP through console, if you're not on an Ironman game or something.

Edited August 27, 2021 by 213374U

[Mamoulian War]

I got my first Destroyer Class ship in Rebel Galaxy, it cost me over 2 million credits. I had to save more than 7 millions to be able to get good enough weapons to complete missions which give you enough money as a reward, else I would still be grinding. I really like how they made the game balanced, if you are willing to spent a lot of money on ridiculously expensive weapons. These upgrades are powerful enough, to be able to take much harder missions. I got from 800k to 2.5m ship faster, than I got from 150k to 250k ship.

[Bartimaeus]

3 hours ago, 213374U said:

I'm pretty sure that's a bug. Upon joining your party, NPCs should be given a bunch of XP up to the 161k normal cap of BG1 -- much the same as it worked in ToB if you summoned someone to your pocket plane. You're not supposed to run around with level 1-2 NPCs in the expansion. @Bartimaeus perhaps can tell you more, but I think it has to do with encountering an NPC early and it thus being "set" vs never meeting them in the first place and the game pulling the proper level .cre file.

I'd just set the correct XP through console, if you're not on an Ironman game or something.

My knowledge of Siege of Dragonspear is unfortunately borderline nil - Beamdog's fanfic being tacked onto BG1/BG2 is bad enough, but an entire game of it...is not really my cup of tea. However, I would agree with your explanation: most likely, Siege of Dragonspear (or Enhanced Edition Trilogy if that's what you're using, @rjshae) took the specific creatures that were in your original BG1 campaign and simply "teleported" them over for them to join your party without doing any experience/level evaluation...and since these are all characters that were not originally in your party and thus are whatever they were when you initially met them in BG1, yeah, they're all very low-leveled. It's not how I would've done it (I would've checked that they're currently IN your party at the end of BG1...), but I don't really see any other explanation as to why you would get such inexplicably low-leveled party members. I would simply open up the console and use...

Quote

C:SetCurrentXP(x)

...where "x" equals whatever your main character's XP is while selecting all of them.

Edited August 27, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Hurlshort]

8 hours ago, Theonlygarby said:

Played about an hour of black geyser...  was hard to get through that character creation.  The elf looks like they literally just stretched the human model to make it longer and thinner... or I guess "taller".  The beards are pretty funny.

 

Then the attribute stats don't really tell you anything... it says like "focus helps your aim" but doesn't tell me what the difference between 6 and 10 really means.

 

The writing is a mixed bag so far.  the dialog is alright mostly, and I love the idea of the world being cursed by greed.  I just don't know how much I trust them to flesh it out.  Nothing really makes sense so far.  Feels rushed.  For me pillars 1 is a perfect intro, you are travelling somewhere for whatever reason you choose, circumstances send you on a journey.  This game you are a servant or ward, working for a rich guy.  Something happens, no longer in that role.  On your own, and the world is cursed by greed.  It's hard to be a druid that has been raised in a duke(or whatever)s mansion.  Similar to baldurs gate 1 I suppose... just doesn't really have me invested at all...  which actually was the case with BG.

 

They have been working on this game a long time... it really doesn't seem finished(I know it's early access... but still)  I mean I'm not picky about graphics... but the characters don't even hold the sword... it just kind of sticks to their hand oddly.

 

It's pretty cheap though... take it with a grain of salt because I don't really like baldurs gate.  So I might not know what I'm talking about

Yeah, I think I'm done with early access titles. I'll check it out once they finish it, which could be a couple more years.

[kanisatha]

1 hour ago, Hurlsnot said:

Yeah, I think I'm done with early access titles. I'll check it out once they finish it, which could be a couple more years.

Release date for now is Q1 next year.

But I agree about EA games.

[LadyCrimson]

Patron:   mods/Workshop patched in. Auto-dock trading patched in.  Increased warehouse/storage capacities. Other things.  Only mod I tried (ppl are not making a lot of them) is one that increased storage and dock-trading capacity to ... absurd .... levels, so I could have just two docks instead of, oh, say, 10.

All those small changes make the game more long-term fun to mess around with, but then I quickly ran into the issue where you start to see mild FPS drops (10 or so loss) after 500-600 total population.  I expected such but not at that lowish point.  I think by 2000-2500 it might fall into single digit fps and game would crawl long before you fill out the whole map (well, at least if you're buying a lot of resources vs. producing them yourself...)

It's definitely CPU bound in this way.  Changing resolution or graphic settings does not improve much or at all.  Game is largely single-core bound (one always at 70%-99% with all others and threads being only lightly hit or occasionally very brief spikes on them, but all the heavy work is single-core.

They should reduce some of the non-essential children/teen/adult walkers.  There's a ton of them mindlessly walking the same paths around houses like ants on a highway, increasing with population hikes. Just show the ones traveling to/for an actual job.

[Wormerine]

23 hours ago, rjshae said:

I picked up Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear on sale,

I beat it on my tablet in the couple months when I was PC-less. 

I thought it was ok, nothing that offended me as a Baldur's Gate fan, but not something I would add to my full BG1&2 playthrough. Frankly, I think I liked it more then Throne of Bhaal, which I feel about similarly as I do about Return of the Jedi - it's pretty disposable, outside finalazing otherwise great saga.

Where I had most issues with SoD, is that IMO it failed it doing what it was supposed to do - bridge BG1 and BG2. It's not something I ever felt the games needed in the first place. Minor things (like Imoen studying magic) are cute, but not something I ever needed, and the actual transition into BG2 I found to be rushed and awkward. The only thing that I liked is seeing Jaheira and Khalid interact. With companions being rather basic in BG1 it's nice to see those two chat, before... you know.

I also thought Beamdog was very heavy handed with pushing players through the narrative. BGs were great in delivering tied, directed narrative without constricting player too much. SoD felt like DM sitting me down and saying what's the story, my character motivations and objectives. Not terribly engaging, nor sparking imagination. 

[Wormerine]

Things on my menu:

Dark Souls3 as posted before - loving it. I got to the point where game started to push back - the first half was rather smooth after DS1&2, but I died quite a bit in recent sessions. Last two bosses (Pontiff Sulyvahn and Boreal Dancer) did take quite a few tries. 

Horizon: Zero Dawn - it took a while, but I warmed up to this one. I mean it is still an unremarkable, pretty time waster but probably a better one from AssCreed likes. Combat grew enjoyable once more advanced enemies started to appear and I got more interesting tools, but I wish there was more to it - better movement mechanics, more involved quests or story. It's very much like Witcher3, except it's mostly filler content, not even one quests as interesting as a minor W3 adventure. At this point I am ready for it to end. 

Wasteland3 - it's ok. I enjoy my time with it but I don't particularly long to jump back in. That said, I aparently sunk 17 hours into it, I could awear it was max 5. So it is a good thing I suppose? I will beat it 100%, but I am more the happy to delay my playthrough while waiting for DLC2 to drop in October.

EDIT: Oh I also gave a brief go to Diablo2 remaster during the free weekend on GOG. Superb job. I would kill for BG1&2 to be remastered like that. Looks fantastic and plays just as D2. I also tried playing with pad for a while, which worked very well (I always though hack&slash would make more sense with a pad - I never liked the clicking). That said it's Diablo so I had enough after an hour or two. Not gonna be coming back for more. 

Edited August 27, 2021 by Wormerine

[213374U]

19 minutes ago, Wormerine said:

EDIT: Oh I also gave a brief go to Diablo2 remaster during the free weekend on GOG. Superb job.

wat

[Wormerine]

5 minutes ago, 213374U said:

wat

https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/diablo-2-resurrected-beta-is-free-to-play-for-all-this-weekend

[rjshae]

4 hours ago, Wormerine said:

Where I had most issues with SoD, is that IMO it failed it doing what it was supposed to do - bridge BG1 and BG2. It's not something I ever felt the games needed in the first place. Minor things (like Imoen studying magic) are cute, but not something I ever needed, and the actual transition into BG2 I found to be rushed and awkward. The only thing that I liked is seeing Jaheira and Khalid interact. With companions being rather basic in BG1 it's nice to see those two chat, before... you know.

I could swear that they managed to make Khalid sound even more wimpy and whiny during the Prelude. Perhaps as an attempt at humor?

They did include interactions and cut scenes with an NPC from BG2 pretty early on, so that is obviously an attempt to tie the two together.