What are you Playing Now: Living the Game Life

[melkathi]

Wartales is quite promising. I enjoyed the demo. You get to play 7 battles, then it ends. I guess it is Battlebrothers meets Expeditions (Conquistador (I disliked Vikings)).

I posted a while back the comment by the devs how they took the battlebrother formula and implemented advanced leg mechanics.

 

 

If you are looking at indy demos, you could also look at the demo for Gamedec. It's a cyberpunk rpg thingie.

Edited July 16, 2021 by melkathi

[melkathi]

My scathing Shadows of New York review:

 

As the game continues the story of Coteries of New York, it is hard to review it without comparing it to that game.

Coteries gave players the choice of three interchangeable characters with little to no personality. The choice in Shadows to focus on one character and flesh her out, allowing players to actually care about her, was a step in the right direction then.
Coteries only had one ending, which made sense, considering the utter lack of power a fledgling vampire had, but it left players disatisfied seeing none of their choices matter in the least, tiniest bit. Shadows has two endings, not counting the way early on to die and not play the game. Again, a step in the right direction.

Yet somehow, the improvements hold the game back.
Where Coteries had choices that changed events during the game but ultimately didn't affect the ending, Shadows has very few choices, which add to a hidden counter for which ending is achieved, but do not alter anything during the journey there.
Where Coteries had a number of side stories you could advance over the course of the game, and to make each of the three playthroughs give you new events to explore and new choices to make, Shadows has nothing to explore. Each night you choose to read two out of three possible encounters, but none of them have any meaning, any progression. They are one off events that simply allow the writer to showcase some character they came up with.
Coteries had a bland protagonist but a very interesting supporting cast. Characters with personality that explored the unlife of vampires and different ways different clans deal with it. The cast of characters in Shadows is the same. Yet those same characters that were so interesting in the first game have lost all personality in the second, being just soulless vessels to give plot information. If even that.
As a result, the second "playthrough" comes down to clicking the next button for ten minutes, to skip to the choices, choose the opposite approach in morality, read the one line that differs, then read the changed ending.
Should that ending be the "good" ending, it will be grand standing posturing - a fitting end to the self absorbed navel gazing that precedes it.

Had this been a novelette, without any illusion of choice or two endings, I would have mostly enjoyed reading through it. Though I would still have rolled my eyes at the ending. It is well written and tries to explore the main character's inner struggle. The different format would not have made the other characters any less flat and lifeless, but it would have felt less like the writer's cry: This is my amazing writing!
I did not buy the game for the amazing writing, but for the tale it tells. A story needs both.
And Shadows of New York focused so hard on getting the words right, it forgot to have these words mean anything.

[Keyrock]

Still playing Assassin's Creed Rogue. Much like in Black Flag, the ship you sail is a brig. You can upgrade it and make it a really powerful brig, but there are limits to how many canons you can fit on a ship of that size. However, there is a short section of the game where they put you in command of a man o' war and it's GLORIOUS. Sailing through choppy waters while mortar fire rains down around you, another ship is coming around to ram you, smoke is everywhere so you can hardly see, and you desperately aim your cannons through the chaos and open up a broadside volley on the charging ship. The only thing missing:

Seriously, Ubisoft, how do you not splurge for a Manowar track for that section, you cheapskates?

[BruceVC]

 Still busy Sunless Sea and still having great fun. My latest conquests and developments are 

• I sired a child from my important and appreciated romantic interludes at London Port and the little rug rat and his mother  wanted a better life from me. Sadly at the time I had limited resources and lived in a room above the pub. So I gave up any responsibilities and lost my child. I felt bad because now I own a villa but without financial support I couldnt do much for my offspring
• I have finally upgraded my ship and the hull has 200 damage points and I can load a Torpedo weapon. That means I can now battle most high level monsters and enemy ships and sometimes win
• I have been trying to complete my officers quests which is very entertaining and exciting

Great game overall 

[Malcador]

Going to finish Act of War, never did get around to it.  This game is Modern Warfare : The RTS.

[uuuhhii]

finished deadfire again

redicover the struggle of companion leaving before final battle in later patch

noticed the effort put in some of the aedyr and vaillian accent in the voice acting again

and learned to hate ridiculous high ar on potd again

Edited July 19, 2021 by uuuhhii

[melkathi]

I think I am done with Skyrim.

The usual Bethesda flaws are becoming too many to allow the game to be fun. I have now resigned myself to just open the console and type kill whenever yet another dragon attacks because of fast traveling. Which means I also do that to most tedious boss fights.

Loot is irrelevant and only exists to burden the player in the excessively restrictive encumbrance system, to force you to run back and forth (without fast traveling so as not to spawn a lot of dragons who's bones weigh too much as well). In the end the only loot worth anything is the ridiculous amount of iron ingots you need for house construction, which you get by traveling from vendor to vendor to purchase as they restock (without fast traveling to avoid dragons? ). That is not a gameplay loop. It is simply wasting players' time hoping they don't realise they aren't playing a game. So console it is and player.additem.

If I didn't have the kids, I would have uninstalled already, but as is, I have a responsibility as a parent, so I need to finish purchasing all the houses and building all the houses. Then finish this silly dragon main story, take care of the vampire attacks, and put an end to the war. Because what kind of mum would I be if I left Skyrim like this.

[BruceVC]

37 minutes ago, melkathi said:

I think I am done with Skyrim.

The usual Bethesda flaws are becoming too many to allow the game to be fun. I have now resigned myself to just open the console and type kill whenever yet another dragon attacks because of fast traveling. Which means I also do that to most tedious boss fights.

Loot is irrelevant and only exists to burden the player in the excessively restrictive encumbrance system, to force you to run back and forth (without fast traveling so as not to spawn a lot of dragons who's bones weigh too much as well). In the end the only loot worth anything is the ridiculous amount of iron ingots you need for house construction, which you get by traveling from vendor to vendor to purchase as they restock (without fast traveling to avoid dragons? ). That is not a gameplay loop. It is simply wasting players' time hoping they don't realise they aren't playing a game. So console it is and player.additem.

If I didn't have the kids, I would have uninstalled already, but as is, I have a responsibility as a parent, so I need to finish purchasing all the houses and building all the houses. Then finish this silly dragon main story, take care of the vampire attacks, and put an

 end to the war. Because what kind of mum would I be if I left Skyrim like this.

Absolutely, you are clearly at that " Bethesda fatigue "  moment that is inevitable for their games like with Ubisoft games 

I loved my recent sojourn with Morrowind but I definitely started feeling I was ready to complete the main quest after 130 hours and move on. Thats also why  I never played the expansions despite your suggestions (and I have played them the first time around )

Thats the secret to enjoying Elder Scroll games....dont spend too much time playing them 

[kanisatha]

2 hours ago, melkathi said:

I think I am done with Skyrim.

The usual Bethesda flaws are becoming too many to allow the game to be fun. I have now resigned myself to just open the console and type kill whenever yet another dragon attacks because of fast traveling. Which means I also do that to most tedious boss fights.

Loot is irrelevant and only exists to burden the player in the excessively restrictive encumbrance system, to force you to run back and forth (without fast traveling so as not to spawn a lot of dragons who's bones weigh too much as well). In the end the only loot worth anything is the ridiculous amount of iron ingots you need for house construction, which you get by traveling from vendor to vendor to purchase as they restock (without fast traveling to avoid dragons? ). That is not a gameplay loop. It is simply wasting players' time hoping they don't realise they aren't playing a game. So console it is and player.additem.

If I didn't have the kids, I would have uninstalled already, but as is, I have a responsibility as a parent, so I need to finish purchasing all the houses and building all the houses. Then finish this silly dragon main story, take care of the vampire attacks, and put an end to the war. Because what kind of mum would I be if I left Skyrim like this.

Sounds very similar to how I felt the first and only time I've played it. I also got through buying/building all the houses, but quit ahead of ending any of the major threats. The tedium was just too overwhelming.

[Humanoid]

4 hours ago, melkathi said:

Because what kind of mum would I be if I left Skyrim like this.

A mum like me.

 

To be fair I played Skyrim before buying all the DLC*. I reckon I sunk maybe 100 hours into it, I'd estimate I got halfway through the main plot, and never resolved the civil war. Just one day I decided I couldn't be bothered launching the game anymore and that was that. 100 hours though means it's my most played Bethesda game by some distance so I'm content with that. And yes I did enable the infinite carry weight console command within the first few hours, after I decided that RPing in this environment was pointless (as compared to say, New Vegas where I'm a stickler for staying within the extremely low carrying capacity of Josh's mod).

* Frustratingly I initially passed up on Dawnguard when Amazon had it for $2.50 way back when, and picked up Dragonborn for the same price and Hearthfire for $1.25. I still have no interest in the actual content of Dawnguard but boy was I full of regret when it turned out key roleplaying mods like Frostfall and Live Another Life depended on owning all DLC. Ugh.

______________

Anyway, I've had enough of my latest XCOM Long War campaign. I used it to learn a bit about modding and how to remove mechanics I didn't like, got the campaign to a state where I could trivially embark on the last mission should I want to do it, and I just stopped playing. Yeah that's just what I do - I've done it before and I wouldn't feel any better for ticking off that check box a second time, so I just leave it.

And as of tonight, I've also just finished a pseudo co-op playthrough of Fire and Ice, a puzzle game I'd never heard of but which had been added to the NES Classic subscription service on the Switch. By co-op I mean trading off control every few levels with my sister, while the spectator provides suggestions, reminders and general mockery. It's a great little puzzle game, though I admit using save states to reduce the time sink of repeat attempts at each level. I would say as a game it's very comparable to the excellent Adventures of Lolo games and I'd love to see more of this style of game.

P.S. Looked it up afterwards and apparently it's a prequel to Solomon's Key, a game I played before but didn't like at all. Firing it up again afterwards and my opinion hasn't changed - time limits on puzzle games are stupid.

[Tale]

Ark hit a stopping point for me. About time since I put over 200 hours in the stupid thing. I'm on the third map, Aberration, and fighting the boss. Only the boss does an attack that glitches me ever so slightly through the floor into an instant death zone. I lose 4 Spinos, 13 Megalosauruses, 1 shinehorn (which is like a baby deer whose anters glow), and a Reaper (which is a knockoff of an Alien Queen from Alien). The Megas and Spinos were expendable, bred for death. The other 2 will be missed. And a rock drake screwed up and didn't go to the boss arena, so it's probably still alive down at the terminal.  I also lost all of my best gear, including my armor, and three sets of hazard suits.

It's close to having to start over. I'm not looking forward to making more Megas. So I'm just playing other games.

 

Picked up Dishonored after many years of thinking I hated it. One of Arkane's titles, their big one after Dark Messiah. Played it a few years ago on PS3 and found it frustrating. But thought I might change my tune for it on PC like I did Doom 2016. After a couple of levels, I might just like it more this way.

 

Touched The Letter again. It's a great little horror VN about a haunted mansion. With one itsy bitsy problem. It has god awful pacing. Like the story starts picking up and getting to the horror when it decides to drop everything back to the beginning of the story from a different perspective. There's a reason that neither novels nor movies do this. Why do VNs insist on it? Instead of a climax and building to a crescendo it's just a really awkward sin wave. And I'm sick of getting to the good part and ending up back at the boring one.

 

 

[BruceVC]

2 hours ago, Tale said:

 

 

 

 

Picked up Dishonored after many years of thinking I hated it. One of Arkane's titles, their big one after Dark Messiah. Played it a few years ago on PS3 and found it frustrating. But thought I might change my tune for it on PC like I did Doom 2016. After a couple of levels, I might just like it more this way.

 

 

The Dishonored series is great, I love the lore and game world. And using the combat and movement mechanics is very entertaining, especially the Blink  ability and killing enemies quickly 

[melkathi]

Dark Brotherhood abducted me in the night to initiate me.

I gave it some thorough thought. 

Would joining the Dark Brotherhood benefit my children? Offer them extra protection in their lives?

Speaking of children, did the Dark Brotherhood break into the house where my children were sleeping?

So I killed the leader of the Dark Brotherhood. Nobody threatens my kids.

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, melkathi said:

Dark Brotherhood abducted me in the night to initiate me.

I gave it some thorough thought. 

Would joining the Dark Brotherhood benefit my children? Offer them extra protection in their lives?

Speaking of children, did the Dark Brotherhood break into the house where my children were sleeping?

So I killed the leader of the Dark Brotherhood. Nobody threatens my kids.

Nice, you like me when you play RPG. You really think about things and their consequence....thats real RP 

[melkathi]

Dark Brotherhood broke into one of my houses?

I broke into one of their Sanctuaries.

No-one witnessed their break in.

I left no witnesses to mine.

I think we are square.

[Malcador]

9 hours ago, melkathi said:

Dark Brotherhood abducted me in the night to initiate me.

I gave it some thorough thought. 

Would joining the Dark Brotherhood benefit my children? Offer them extra protection in their lives?

Speaking of children, did the Dark Brotherhood break into the house where my children were sleeping?

So I killed the leader of the Dark Brotherhood. Nobody threatens my kids.

You didn't inquire about their childcare and health benefits ?

[melkathi]

They were very cagey about the details.

Usually businesses advertise their great daycare options, maternity leave etc. Dark Brotherhood? Nothing.

[the_dog_days]

9 hours ago, Malcador said:

You didn't inquire about their childcare and health benefits ?

The children get the benefit of a healthy beating daily, I hear.

[Malcador]

Act of War is good, although would be better if the FMV cutscenes didn't take it so seriously.  On the bright side, the commandos are all running around with TAR-21s, don't see those a lot.  Game itself is ok though, feels a lot like Generals.

[melkathi]

Skyrim Dawnguard is the storngly story driven part of the game it seems. It doesn't take itself too seriously. Or it gives the impression it doesn't as one of the main NPCs is voiced by Laura Bailey (female boss voice in Saints Row).

"Empire? What... what empire?"

The Cyrodiil Empire? Duuuh?

"Cyrodiil is the seat of an empire? I must have been gone longer than I thought."

 

And of course one liners like

"I always wondered what the dwarves actually looked like. I hear they're like elves, but with beards."

 

[the_dog_days]

Evertime I  hear Laura Bailey's voice I think of, "wolves hunt in packs."

 

[melkathi]

Most amazing thing happened today in Skyrim.

Lucia helped with chores around the house without having to be told.

[Hurlshort]

19 hours ago, melkathi said:

Most amazing thing happened today in Skyrim.

Lucia helped with chores around the house without having to be told.

How unrealistic.

[marelooke]

On 7/5/2021 at 10:12 PM, Theonlygarby said:

I'm playing legendary edition as well...  I forgot how much the paragon renegade choices annoy me.  it's extremely annoying having to be always good or always bad.  If you mix and match you just get crappy outcomes.  I'm fine with the tedium... I'm half enjoying the mako in ME1 for some reason

As far as I remember about how the "alignment" system worked this wasn't as much of a problem in ME1, but the way it was designed in ME2/3 meant you basically had to pick a "side" and stick with it. Even a single deviation could throw things off massively. It was a horribly broken mechanic.

On 7/6/2021 at 11:48 PM, mkreku said:

I bought Horizon Zero Dawn in the Steam summer sale and started it up yesterday. I am shocked by how good it's been so far. It's gorgeous, runs great on my machine, has a compelling story and it's surprisingly well-written with (some) characters that I actually care about. Also, it just opened up the world for me and that did not make it less awesome!

Unless something happens after the lengthy intro, I am going to enjoy this game immensely.

Still playing HZD myself, must be getting close to the end of the main quest. I'd rate it a solid 7 or 8/10 so far. But I'll try and just do a more detailed write-up once I complete it.

I'll say I absolutely loathe the Hunting Grounds side content though. The fact that you basically have to do all of them to get anything out of it made me just not bother once I came across the timed stealth section one. I noped the hell out right there and then.

 

On 7/14/2021 at 4:43 AM, Gorth said:

Mostly playing Guild Wars 2 these days... the release of the legendary armory resulted in a mass reshuffling of gear and the revisit of living world season 3 started tonight too. I'm sort of up to speed with that.

 

Short explanation: Legendary armory is a new feature where your legendary gear gets stored and instead of deciding which alt gets what legendary gear, they can now *all* use the same gear, as they all have access to a an "instance" or copy of the gear. I.e. if you have a legendary sword, all your toons can now use that one sword and each one select their owns stats and appearance independent of each other. Legendary prices are expected to become... legendary

The revisit part is Arenanet throwing carrots at people while waiting for the next major expansion (the third expansion), which got delayed from end of 2021 to somewhere 2022 (officially blaming covid for slowing down the process). They created a new set of achievements, which is basically replaying all the existing "Living World" story content, grind your butt off, do impossible jumping puzzles and do triple backwards flips with your left hand tied to your right foot... or something. Anyway, the reward for doing it all is a legendary item (amulet iirc) once all of it is done. And people are on a stampede throughout the story, crowding my personal space on the current map(s) a lot

Despite GW2 being one of my favourite MMOs of the past decade I'm fairly confident I'm done with it, or, more accurately, I'm done supporting ArenaNet in any way, shape, or form. The last expansion (and the next one) are just fan service, pulling on hyped up content from the previous game to try and lure people in (isn't it just weird how you can hype up people with stuff they never experienced themselves? See also Baldur's Gate 3). Besides I thought Path of Fire was pretty terrible, and I'm rather unimpressed they absolutely 100% dropped some major unfinished business from HoT (the whole Pale Tree debacle...)

But much more importantly than whatever passes for a story is that ArenaNet has proven to have a broken moral compass, especially when it comes to lootboxes (aka gambling) in their game, for which they promised a solution years ago and they have done exactly squat past making the content inaccessible in a few countries (a list that hasn't been updated since to boot, meaning they're actively violating gambling laws in multiple countries at the moment), which was supposed to be a temporary measure pending a more structural solution.

There's a few more egregious problems, like everything "desirable" basically boiling down to a massive gold grind, which can be conveniently shortened by just buying said gold with real world money.

It's a bummer, because aside from FF XIV I can't think of any other actually good MMO out there right now but each time I've tried to get into it and catch up with the Living World stuff I just meh'd out.

Edited July 24, 2021 by marelooke
typos

[Mamoulian War]

4 hours ago, Hurlsnot said:

How unrealistic.

Well, it is called Fantasy setting for a reason