What are you Playing Now? Games = Life

[Amentep]

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On 9/7/2021 at 10:24 PM, Keyrock said:

I'm barely off the transport in The Dome for 10 minutes, just doing the new employee initiation and getting my standard issue equipment, and this sleazebag starts hitting on me. I mean, I know I'm attractive, but some professionalism, please. Oh well, I'm a silver so heaven knows I understand how to file a sexual harassment report and how to get it through proper channels to the top.

First impressions with Encased are quite positive. This game feels like a lot of Fallout 1 & 2 with a pinch of Shadowrun and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. There's a ton of dialogue and narration, so if you are the type of gamer that skips dialogue to get to the action then this is not the game for you. I'm impressed that almost everything has been voice acted so far, I didn't expect that from a budget title. I also appreciate that people have very distinct personalities, even if that personality is sleazebag. I imagine that that guy wouldn't hit on me if I was a male character, but I wonder if my charisma is at play too. The test character I made has a fairly high charisma stat; were I to make a female with lower charisma, would he not hit on me? Is this game that smart? I may just put that theory to test.

Anyway, I'm going to **** around some more before making my real character, but I'm considering making a character that's dumb as a box of rocks yet has powerful psionic abilities. That sounds dangerous and hilarious!

 

On 9/8/2021 at 4:20 AM, BruceVC said:

Im 12 hours into AC Odyssey and I am definitely deep into that inexorable " Ubisoft Honeymoon period " ...the game is great and I am loving it 

I have just left the starting isle and I thoroughly appreciate how that whole part of the game is your learning curve. I am comfortable with combat and  loved the normal parts of the game like killing bandits, crafting and completing side quests 

Im sure the inevitable " Ubisoft fatigue " will settle in and I will move to complete the main quest but right now I am just enjoying exploring and completing side quests 

 

18 hours ago, Hurlsnot said:

I picked up Encased as well. It seems to have some pretty great options for characters. I spent about an hour creating mine before I had to go to bed.

 

14 hours ago, Wormerine said:

Binged Psychonauts2 story. Just some collectibles remaining. It's the best sequel one could hope for, I think. There is of course part of me that screams that it's not as good as the original, and sure - sequels for story driven games aren't as straightforward to do as mechanical ones. Still, can't imagine it really being better then that. 

  

12 hours ago, Hawke64 said:

Completed Solasta: Crown of the Magister. Solasta is a party-based RPG with four protagonists, closer to a dungeon-crawler or a tactical RPG, than other cRPGs. There are several NPCs who can temporarily (for one or two battles) join the party in combat. There are several classes, weapons, backgrounds and manners of speech. Backgrounds provide unique quests (1 per background) during the game. Most of the time the party uses auto-dialogue according to their personality tags, but there are dialogue options as well, which may affect the story. The main story is mostly linear (there are few choices), with new objectives appearing after completing the previous ones. There are several side quests. Combat is usually unavoidable (the game cannot be completed without it), but it is not possible to attack neutral or friendly NPCs without announcing your intention first (there is one exception, where the boss turned hostile after the party looted the room). In the situations when it is possible to use diplomacy, the XP reward is roughly equal to the one gained by killing the boss. The combat is turn-based with adjustable difficulty, from damage dealt to spell requirements to random encounters. There are also separate settings for AI. Maps are fully 3D and vertical movement is meaningful. The reputation system affects only the items available for purchase, but not the story. The crafting system is easy to understand and crafted equipment and consumables provide advantage without being balance-breaking. The graphics and sound are adequate, they fit the setting and do not distract from combat. The style is consistent and animations are expressive. GUI is comfortable to use, but relies mostly on the mouse and there are too few hotkeys. The controls are responsive and rebindable, 5-button mice are supported. Tutorials are easy to understand and helpful, but some important features are not mentioned, such as Identifying magical items. The number of save files is limited to 50 and they are located in AppData (why would a hidden folder) and names for custom characters cannot be repeated. I have encountered several small graphical glitches (animations not playing when speeded up; wrong portrait shown after combat), several small audio bugs (VA and subtitles did not match) and one softlock (during a late-game main quest, “The Mind of the Master”). Optimisation is lacking - frames per second dropped in areas with water, GPU temperature was high during gameplay.

Completed Boyfriend Dungeon. Boyfriend Dungeon is a rogue-lite/dating-sim. There are 2 dungeons, 4 bosses, several equipment pieces. The MC's name and appearance are customizable, level progression is completely automatic and linear (higher level = more HP and higher damage). Difficulty depends on the PC's level, because nothing scales and it is easy to out-level everything. There are no penalties for defeat in dungeons, XP and loot acquired are kept.
The controls are responsive and rebindable, 5-button mice are supported. The game uses 1 auto-save.
There are 7 weapons that are unlocked as the story progresses. It is impossible to alienate or antagonise them, they love the MC no matter what and always available to use after acquiring them.
Dialogue choices are rather limited, but often reflected in following dialogues. The main story itself relies heavily on the MC's passivity and lack of attention, while the main antagonist is extremely obvious and ridiculously incompetent.
There is no in-game journal or log. In general, clearing 1 floor of a dungeon is enough to trigger next event.
I have not encountered any significant bugs.
Recommended on sale, because the game technically achieves what it states on the store page - there are weapons who are possible to date, randomly-generated dungeons offer action-based combat, despite both aspects being shallow.

Replayed Mass Effect. Mass Effect is an action-RPG/cover-based third-person shooter. There are several classes, companions and weapon types. The game supports auto-/manual and quick saves. The character is customizable (class, equipment, appearance, background, first name). It runs on Windows 10. 2 DLC are available for free from the publisher's site*. The controls are rebindable, 4-button mice supported (the fifth button is not recognised).
Some in-game bonuses (i.e. +10% to shields or weapon proficiencies) are locked behind in-game achievements (not Steam achievements). The dialogue system is lacking - the answer shown can be very different from the spoken line; sometimes the player can choose only the tone, but not the meaning. The vehicle, the Mako, has very unusual physics and controls.

Replayed Dark Souls: Remastered. Still feels reasonably challenging and engaging. Also, unlike the Prepare to Die Edition, it is very comfortable to play with keyboard and mouse.

 

Not sure, if I should repost my reviews here, but why not.

Currently playing Black Legend. It is a tactical game with RPG elements. Good controls, combat, graphics, story, optimisation.

 

7 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Thanks for the details around numerous games , nice one 

 

[marelooke]

Aaand it seems I lost a rather long reply because locking a thread just makes the forum software eat it.

Anyway.

RE: Horizon Zero Dawn. I thought the "main" plot point being predictable was intentional (anyone on this forum would figure it out within 30min of starting the game, I'm sure), where the game eventually ends up going was not something I was able to predict until at least a few major story missions in.

I don't mind the walking simulator missions quite as much, though some were overlong exposition dumps and should probably have been spread out over more missions. Certainly prefer it over that very long one where they shoehorned some enemies in that shouldn't have been able to be there at all (that was kinda jarring).

To me HZD's world feels more akin to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. rather than a "modern" open world game, and I think I personally prefer that approach over the "crammed with stuff"-design we tend to get nowadays.

As to what I'm playing, still mostly, Final Fantasy XIV trying to get all jobs to max level before the expansion hits.

I've also been back to building in Conan Exiles, it seems the server software has become a bit more stable, not sure if that's related to the big patches recently or the improvements brought by the Debian upgrade and potentially a newer Wine version but I had a server running for over a week without it going Out of Memory. (bets on how long it'll take before I have to eat those words are open )

Still haven't made it back to my Siptah-game, keep getting distracted by...ooooooh, good building spot!

Edited September 9, 2021 by marelooke

[Amentep]

Sorry about that.  I thought no one was in the thread or I would have waited.  Must not have refreshed the currently viewing piece on your profile when I started (or you started writing after I started closing the thread.

ObTopic: Soul Nomad and the World Eaters.  I've restarted after sort of getting the feel for the systems; unlike Phantom Brave (the other game on this retro collection), I never played this one when it came out.  So far its interesting and system wise fairly different from a number of other NIS games.

[BruceVC]

48 minutes ago, Amentep said:

Sorry about that.  I thought no one was in the thread or I would have waited.  Must not have refreshed the currently viewing piece on your profile when I started (or you started writing after I started closing the thread.

ObTopic: Soul Nomad and the World Eaters.  I've restarted after sort of getting the feel for the systems; unlike Phantom Brave (the other game on this retro collection), I never played this one when it came out.  So far its interesting and system wise fairly different from a number of other NIS games.

You nearly did the same thing to me, you closed a thread when  I was posting now but it did still make the post in the old, closed thread. I then copied and pasted my post directed to Mamie in the new thread 

But I dont see how you would know when a   thread has someone actively posting so I cant imagine how this can be prevented ?

I love exploiting and playing with the AI in Ubisoft games which is what I am doing in AC Odyssey now  ...I love letting NPCs and enemies  resort to different strategies to defeat me and how I can fool them 

Its very entertaining 

[Amentep]

If you go to the bottom, you can click on every member online and see what thread they're theoretically in.  There's a certain amount of lag time, I think, in how it updates.

I've never played any of the Assassin's Creed games.   There have been games where I've had fun with the AI though.

[melkathi]

Yeah, you could theoretically go to Who's Online, click Full List and filter it by Members. Then for example you'd get Bruce reading the Food thread 6 minutes ago (as I see while I am posting). So if anyone has been looking at a thread you are about to lock in the last couple of minutes they could theoretically be posting. But with a long reply that could be longer, so there isn't too much point checking. How many minutes would a moderator have to then wait to have given people a reasonable time to post? Because this tiny post took 7 minutes.

On the other hand, since the "locking this" post comes first, and whoever is typing at the time should get a notification that a new post has appeared in the discussion they are posting in, they could be given a small window (30 seconds? Dunno, someone else do the haggling) to see that post and copy whatever they have been typing.

Eh, hasn't happened to me in ages, and when it does it gives me something to tease the moderators with.

Edited September 9, 2021 by melkathi

[marelooke]

10 hours ago, Amentep said:

Sorry about that.  I thought no one was in the thread or I would have waited.  Must not have refreshed the currently viewing piece on your profile when I started (or you started writing after I started closing the thread.

ObTopic: Soul Nomad and the World Eaters.  I've restarted after sort of getting the feel for the systems; unlike Phantom Brave (the other game on this retro collection), I never played this one when it came out.  So far its interesting and system wise fairly different from a number of other NIS games.

Probably because I had to AFK a bit due to a phonecall. Not sure how long you're marked as active once you start writing a post, but I guess the answer was that I was gone too long Going to chalk it up to just an unfortunate series of events. Bit of a bummer it doesn't at least let you save it somehow, but oh well, merely slightly annoying not exactly the end of the world

(On a forum that supports BBCode I'd write the post in a text editor first though... *cough* )

Edited September 9, 2021 by marelooke

[uuuhhii]

pc are having problem again and cannot right click any desktop icon

hope running game will not be a problem

[BruceVC]

6 hours ago, uuuhhii said:

pc are having problem again and cannot right click any desktop icon

hope running game will not be a problem

I sincerely hope you can play games.....what is the point to  gaming as a great hobby if you cant play any games due to a PC problem....hopefully your issue is not hardware related as it sounds more like a type of corruption within the user profile  that is more software related but  not "  BSOD  "( blue screen of death ) 

So it should be able to be fixed, keep us updated 

Edited September 10, 2021 by BruceVC

[melkathi]

My two big issues with Skyrim now are:

1) who to marry, since I'd like the children to have two parents and not be left so much time with housecarl nannies.

2) how to split my holdings between them fairly.

The house in Solitude is probably the most important property, being as it is in Solitude, near the Blue Palace and next door to the emperor's cousin.

Windhelm has symbolic value and is also a port and the link to Solstheim and the manor there.

Whiterun is strategically placed.

Riften is a port.

Markarth has the mines.

Then there are the three homesteads which should grow into villages by the time the girls inherit them...

 

Doh client showed up. Have to interrupt the important musings for work.

Edited September 10, 2021 by melkathi

[Mamoulian War]

I planned to play Tales of Arise today, but my Hootle Edition was apparently not even shipped... I am so disappointed, because I am now staying sick at home

[melkathi]

You could always play Majesty or Mordheim or Troubleshooter until you are better

[Mamoulian War]

Majesty would probably knock me out

Edited September 10, 2021 by Mamoulian War

[Gfted1]

13 hours ago, uuuhhii said:

pc are having problem again and cannot right click any desktop icon

I had a similar problem where my left mouse button would occasionally double click when I only single clicked. So I unplugged the mouse and jiggled the left mouse button a bunch of times and now everything is clicking as intended.

[Malcador]

Trying again to finish Caesar 3's last peaceful mission but my way, not using these forced walkers and stuff! Failing utterly at it.  But this will kill time until I get Gamedec and tackle that.

[213374U]

I just finished the standalone SF3 Fallen God campaign with my friend. I got the supposed good ending, but it was more bittersweet... if not downright cruel. They really did a great job on the narrative front, developing characters, even secondary ones, and giving them fleshed out personalities. The game does still have a hefty amount of ME WILL SMASH YOUR FACE, but motivations and subplots are more involved and I enjoyed the focus on the tribal and mystical aspects of troll society.

This one is more of a role-playing game than the other SF3 titles, being the only one where your choices determine which ending you get. This is to the detriment of the RTS facet, with less RTS missions overall and those not being very interesting. Generally you can just crush everything with your hero party if they are correctly specced and don't really need an army to do so. I'm assuming the experience would drastically change in higher difficulty levels.

Visuals, voice acting and the score are great like in the other two. Such an underrated franchise.

[Theonlygarby]

Started playing Civ 6.  It's alright but I hate that world congress starts at like 100 AD regardless of how many other civilizations you've met... kind of dumb you have to vote, and they tend to happen way too often.   Wonder if there is a way of disabling them, or at least do it when all civs have met.

[uuuhhii]

8 hours ago, Gfted1 said:

I had a similar problem where my left mouse button would occasionally double click when I only single clicked. So I unplugged the mouse and jiggled the left mouse button a bunch of times and now everything is clicking as intended.

appreciate the response

tried replug mouse restart pc and a few other google answer

so far nothing worked

might need to find some expert to fix this

15 hours ago, BruceVC said:

I sincerely hope you can play games.....what is the point to  gaming as a great hobby if you cant play any games due to a PC problem....hopefully your issue is not hardware related as it sounds more like a type of corruption within the user profile  that is more software related but  not "  BSOD  "( blue screen of death ) 

So it should be able to be fixed, keep us updated 

cannot run command prompt as administrator too

this will surely be a problem in the future

[Humanoid]

1 hour ago, Theonlygarby said:

Started playing Civ 6.  It's alright but I hate that world congress starts at like 100 AD regardless of how many other civilizations you've met... kind of dumb you have to vote, and they tend to happen way too often.   Wonder if there is a way of disabling them, or at least do it when all civs have met.

I had the same complaint less than a week ago. Fortunately there is a rather prosaically named mod "No World Congress" which I promptly installed. I imagine this disables Diplomatic Victory as a side effect, which I consider a feature as it's the most idiotically implemented victory condition in the history of the series.

And yeah, "it's alright" is my reaction to it too. I suspect that it won't last beyond this month and that I'll return to Civ 4 in due time.

Edited September 10, 2021 by Humanoid

[LadyCrimson]

Haven't been playing anything other than tablet-slots for days now. My PC and large TV aren't portable and lately I want to sit in the garage and outside.  But Patron has had a lot of updates - they added a map editor, which I think at the moment is limited to being able to edit a map you're actually playing, like add trees/change terrain? Not create new maps. Haven't really looked into it/unsure.  They plan on a lot of changes from feedback, most sound like good things. I like the game but it definitely needs some QoL and some late-game/high population balance changes still.

16 hours ago, Malcador said:

Trying again to finish Caesar 3's last peaceful mission [ ... ] Failing utterly at it. 

I'm beginning to wish I could sit in a chair and watch while you play.  

[BruceVC]

18 hours ago, uuuhhii said:

appreciate the response

tried replug mouse restart pc and a few other google answer

so far nothing worked

might need to find some expert to fix this

cannot run command prompt as administrator too

this will surely be a problem in the future

I have spent many years dealing with issues similar to what you seeing, I dont work in PC\IT desktop support  or OS support as my job is about financial software consultancy. But all software requires an OS and we use client software that installs on desktops and integrates into numerous financial desktop products like   Bloomberg Client

Which means every project and customer I have ever worked at has a  Pilot phase where a subset of users are designated to test and confirm functionality of the product we install and these pilots projects can range from 50 people in a 800 user  stock broker to 500 people in a 60000 user bank

But the point being my work involves working with and sometimes  troubleshooting windows desktops because if the  financial client software doesn't work the problem is generally desktop. So I want to  share somethings that may help you with your problem, in summary

1. You have a real problem that needs to be addressed but  the good news is you can follow a relatively simple sequence that I  follow to troubleshoot in most cases where I have seen similar issues 
2. Firstly what OS are you running? But   reboot your PC and go into Safe Mode before windows loads, once in Safe Mode if your issues have gone away then its a DLL or driver that is causing the corruption and you can be selective about what not to load if you have the patience 
3. If the issue is still their in safe mode then logon with a new windows profile to see if the problem is a corruption in the profile. This can happen and causes different symptoms 

Also a virus can definitely cause this but I dont thinks its hardware related which is  a good thing

Finally I dont know how confident you feel in doing what I suggested, it may be foreign to you in which case keep it simple and just install the OS again ....it wont break anything if you select update or similar choices. Failing that I would take it to a PC repair shop. Because their are many things that can cause the problems you experiencing and sometime rarely you need a proper analysis done by people trained to troubleshoot OS and desktop issues

On 9/10/2021 at 2:27 PM, Gfted1 said:

I had a similar problem where my left mouse button would occasionally double click when I only single clicked. So I unplugged the mouse and jiggled the left mouse button a bunch of times and now everything is clicking as intended.

You and I are more or less the same age which means we will have similar memories of  historical events we lived through but as is normal we have different journeys through life which would influence some of our views and beliefs. This is a good thing of course and one reason we learn from each other ....so this post of yours made me laugh but only  because it represents something that is considered anathema and " not effective troubleshooting " when you have to produce real reports at customers about issues with the systems we sell and integrate. And  the reality is a trading system in any financial company  that is not performing properly after we implemented our eDiscovery systems  needs to be investigated properly and the RCA (root cause analysis  ) performed and the findings have to be based on actual causes and proven  problems....so basically the art  and learned experience  of troubleshooting with these types of systems  can never  be based or formulated on guesses, unscientific analysis or any kind of metric that cant be proven

So your post really made me laugh because it reminds of what they explain you must never say when you at a customer and their has been a problem that was created after we did some work and now  important people in the customer want answers which they entitled to especially if it was the fault of our consultants who have been their for 6 months or so

And what made me laugh is your explanation about the mouse issue is exactly what any normal person would say who is not necessarily trained in analysis of this type of product .....it just doesn't make any sense to people who need to fix the issue but yet it fixed the issue so you being absolutely honest 

I know this may not seem funny but it is if you appreciate the stereotype. And what makes it more interesting is you are someone with a deep understanding of DIY and how these things work.....and this is something I know nothing about 

And yet if I had to explain some of my minor DIY issues in my flat at the moment you may  be shocked how I  havent been able to fix them because for you they would be simple tasks

I really made this long post to highlight how our combined knowledge of things grants us general knowledge of many things.....nice to live in a world where we can benefit from each other 

 

[Sarex]

Started a new game plus of Dad of War. Wonder why...

[uuuhhii]

4 hours ago, BruceVC said:

I have spent many years dealing with issues similar to what you seeing, I dont work in PC\IT desktop support  or OS support as my job is about financial software consultancy. But all software requires an OS and we use client software that installs on desktops and integrates into numerous financial desktop products like   Bloomberg Client

Which means every project and customer I have ever worked at has a  Pilot phase where a subset of users are designated to test and confirm functionality of the product we install and these pilots projects can range from 50 people in a 800 user  stock broker to 500 people in a 60000 user bank

But the point being my work involves working with and sometimes  troubleshooting windows desktops because if the  financial client software doesn't work the problem is generally desktop. So I want to  share somethings that may help you with your problem, in summary

1. You have a real problem that needs to be addressed but  the good news is you can follow a relatively simple sequence that I  follow to troubleshoot in most cases where I have seen similar issues 
2. Firstly what OS are you running? But   reboot your PC and go into Safe Mode before windows loads, once in Safe Mode if your issues have gone away then its a DLL or driver that is causing the corruption and you can be selective about what not to load if you have the patience 
3. If the issue is still their in safe mode then logon with a new windows profile to see if the problem is a corruption in the profile. This can happen and causes different symptoms 

Also a virus can definitely cause this but I dont thinks its hardware related which is  a good thing

Finally I dont know how confident you feel in doing what I suggested, it may be foreign to you in which case keep it simple and just install the OS again ....it wont break anything if you select update or similar choices. Failing that I would take it to a PC repair shop. Because their are many things that can cause the problems you experiencing and sometime rarely you need a proper analysis done by people trained to troubleshoot OS and desktop issues

You and I are more or less the same age which means we will have similar memories of  historical events we lived through but as is normal we have different journeys through life which would influence some of our views and beliefs. This is a good thing of course and one reason we learn from each other ....so this post of yours made me laugh but only  because it represents something that is considered anathema and " not effective troubleshooting " when you have to produce real reports at customers about issues with the systems we sell and integrate. And  the reality is a trading system in any financial company  that is not performing properly after we implemented our eDiscovery systems  needs to be investigated properly and the RCA (root cause analysis  ) performed and the findings have to be based on actual causes and proven  problems....so basically the art  and learned experience  of troubleshooting with these types of systems  can never  be based or formulated on guesses, unscientific analysis or any kind of metric that cant be proven

So your post really made me laugh because it reminds of what they explain you must never say when you at a customer and their has been a problem that was created after we did some work and now  important people in the customer want answers which they entitled to especially if it was the fault of our consultants who have been their for 6 months or so

And what made me laugh is your explanation about the mouse issue is exactly what any normal person would say who is not necessarily trained in analysis of this type of product .....it just doesn't make any sense to people who need to fix the issue but yet it fixed the issue so you being absolutely honest 

I know this may not seem funny but it is if you appreciate the stereotype. And what makes it more interesting is you are someone with a deep understanding of DIY and how these things work.....and this is something I know nothing about 

And yet if I had to explain some of my minor DIY issues in my flat at the moment you may  be shocked how I  havent been able to fix them because for you they would be simple tasks

I really made this long post to highlight how our combined knowledge of things grants us general knowledge of many things.....nice to live in a world where we can benefit from each other 

 

this is frighteningly professional

have no idea how to put this new os in safe mode

hope it works

[BruceVC]

3 minutes ago, uuuhhii said:

this is frighteningly professional

have no idea how to put this new os in safe mode

hope it works

Here is a link to discuss safe mode, I do realize safe mode is not something commonly used  

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-za/000124344/how-to-boot-to-safe-mode-in-windows-10

[uuuhhii]

19 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Here is a link to discuss safe mode, I do realize safe mode is not something commonly used  

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-za/000124344/how-to-boot-to-safe-mode-in-windows-10

the right click problem doesn't exist in safe mode

tried to run the DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Scanhealth

DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth fix in safe mode but didn't work due to lack of some document