What are you Playing Now? I name all the operations that go down in Taipei.

[Gorgon]

I spent half the day yesterday with my head in an oculus rift 2. I thought, well it's inexpensive enough for me not to worry about its service life and potential upgrades. This was my first delve into VR ever. 

It's alright. I mean, it's impressive for 5 minutes, and then you get used to it. I'm glad i didn't throw down serious money. I had fun in various shooters and demos  and feel like I've had my fill for a while. 

No motion sickness, although as i sit at work, my brain is making the monitor in front of me look at bit like it's rendered in VR. So, who knows, maybe I'm passed out drunk somewhere with a VR headset on.

 

 

[Gorgon]

The Zuckerverse is boring, in case anyone was wondering. 

[the_dog_days]

On 5/26/2022 at 10:30 PM, Zoraptor said:

Though I do find it somewhat amusing to think of someone using Tor to do their searches for hot mudcrab mods because they're worried Mike from the NSA may be having a chuckle about it.

I've been told the key is to have Tor downloaded onto a thumbdrive, run it through a proxy with a VPN.

[majestic]

True Heirs, do I win the thread now?

[Melusina]

my screenshot on other thread seems to broken the forum. ups.

[Mamoulian War]

After pretty long break from gaming, I have finished my first playthrough of Heroes of Might and Magic from GOG. At the beginning I have picked the Warlock hero and after 697 of in-game days, I defeated the Dragon City in the last scenario. The game despite being so old, has still a lot of charm and I've enjoyed it most of the time. Unfortunately the not so bright AI does put some stains on the experience, but few of the scenarios would be probably very difficult, if it was any smarter.

[Guard Dog]

Speaking on HOMM this looks promising. Songs of Conquest Turn Based Strategy

It has a "Heroes of Might and Magic" thing going on before it turned sh--ty. Basically starting with IV. 

I have taken a rare break from work for a little CK3. Playing an Irish petty king for the first time since the tutorial. I was having a pretty good go of it until a distant cousin with claims to all my titles through our great-great-grandparents got herself married off to some jerk who somehow ended up crowned the King of England. Well, as the English are want to do, they sent a bunch of guys with weapons in and took everything over and put me in jail. After a few years I went from being the King of over half of Ireland to an Earl of one miserable county.  And the last of my family line to make things worse. Time to find that guy a wife and IDGAF who it is as long as she is young and can have kids. It's not over yet but it ain't looking good. 

Edited June 6, 2022 by Guard Dog

[Sarex]

4 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

Basically starting with IV.

You take that back!

[BruceVC]

4 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

Speaking on HOMM this looks promising. Songs of Conquest Turn Based Strategy

It has a "Heroes of Might and Magic" thing going on before it turned sh--ty. Basically starting with IV. 

I have taken a rare break from work for a little CK3. Playing an Irish petty king for the first time since the tutorial. I was having a pretty good go of it until a distant cousin with claims to all my titles through our great-great-grandparents got herself married off to some jerk who somehow ended up crowned the King of England. Well, as the English are want to do, they sent a bunch of guys with weapons in and took everything over and put me in jail. After a few years I went from being the King of over half of Ireland to an Earl of one miserable county.  And the last of my family line to make things worse. Time to find that guy a wife and IDGAF who it is as long as she is young and can have kids. It's not over yet but it ain't looking good. 

That really sounds fun, I have only dabbled in RTS games like this. I played HoMM4 (?) and one of the Kings Bounty games and I enjoyed them ...I just hated the way the AI cheats and you cant win certain battles

I should consider a game like CK3 once Im done with Oblivion?

 

[uuuhhii]

1 hour ago, BruceVC said:

That really sounds fun, I have only dabbled in RTS games like this. I played HoMM4 (?) and one of the Kings Bounty games and I enjoyed them ...I just hated the way the AI cheats and you cant win certain battles

I should consider a game like CK3 once Im done with Oblivion?

 

which kings bounty

new one old one or the really old one

liked homm 5 the most but have no idea what the story actually are after finishing it

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, uuuhhii said:

which kings bounty

new one old one or the really old one

liked homm 5 the most but have no idea what the story actually are after finishing it

I think it was KB: The Legend (2008)

Edited June 6, 2022 by BruceVC

[uuuhhii]

36 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

I think it was KB: The Legend (2008)

that was decent

weird amount of child making

darkside was mechanically the best one of that series

warrior of the north are the most boring

[BruceVC]

2 minutes ago, uuuhhii said:

that was decent

weird amount of child making

darkside was mechanically the best one of that series

warrior of the north are the most boring

I was looking at Dark Side, it does look worthwhile  and that Snow White Vampiress looks like a nice Romance option if you can 

[kanisatha]

6 hours ago, BruceVC said:

I should consider a game like CK3 once Im done with Oblivion?

There's also the new game Old World, a combination of CK3 and 4X strategy games.

[kanisatha]

@melkathi, thanks for your review of Expeditions: Rome. It's a game I am seriously looking into right now. Any changes to your feedback about the game in the past few months? I see that they did a major revamp of the strategic battle system. The combat seems meh, but I would be playing it mainly for the roleplaying and especially the base-building, resource management, and companion development elements. So any further thoughts (including from others)?

[Mamoulian War]

I have tried to play King's Bounty (The Legend and WotN) as well few years back, but it took forever to play through, so never finished it. I kind of prefer the design of single missions connected to each other in a campaign like in HoMM or Disciples games.

[Humanoid]

If the question was whether to pay for it, then I'd say CK3 is still pretty undercooked, but given it's on Game Pass, give it a try. The DLC at this stage is not particularly impactful and can be safely ignored.

_________

Think I'm done with Football Manager for now. I won the Premier League once (by a solitary point) and with that done, it got to a point where I was well and truly sick of the match engine and just used auto-resolve for all matches thereafter. This approach did well enough, and getting through a few off-seasons worth of recruitment in rapid succession improved the squad so much that the league is an automatic win by ~20 points each season, and yielded a Champions League trophy too. Not the way the game was intended to be played, so I guess it's now Football Director of Football instead of Football Manager. The year is 2036 I believe, and the game is down to under 5% real players now, sold off my last one about a year ago.

So this raises an interesting philosophical question: is it considered more successful to, say, micromanage for a full season and win one championship, or to speed through four seasons in the same amount of real-world time and win three out of four championships? i.e. success rate per opportunity, or success rate per unit time?

[Guard Dog]

7 hours ago, Sarex said:

You take that back!

Never! HOMM III was the high water mark of that franchise! It's been a decline into uninteresting vanilla mush after that. 

[Guard Dog]

23 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

If the question was whether to pay for it, then I'd say CK3 is still pretty undercooked, but given it's on Game Pass, give it a try. The DLC at this stage is not particularly impactful and can be safely ignored.

 

I agree with your first point. CK3's biggest flaw is that playing the King of a high Medieval Christian kingdom or a tribal chieftain in the Gobi desert has a pretty similar feel. About 80% the exact same experience. But the DLCs are helping a little at a time. The Lords of the North and Fate of Iberia makes playing Scandinavian or Spanish/Catlan/Basque/Moor etc a more unique experience. I hope they keep going with that.

This was also my biggest complaint with Imperator Rome. Culturally all of these different civilizations were very different but in the vanilla game they were all "Roman". The DLCs started addressing that before they pulled the plug on it.

That's just how Paradox works. They sell you the auto frame and body when you buy the game. If you want the engine, drive train, wheels, and tires you need to buy the DLCs. IMO Stellaris is the bext 4X space game ever. Take away the DLCs and it just sucks.    

Edited June 6, 2022 by Guard Dog

[Malcador]

19 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

IMO Stellaris is the bext 4X space game ever.

Meh, SEIV still has it beat.   

Some small empire near to me has an amazing fleet and is just wrecking me.  Guess that's it for playing Purifiers.  Game sure runs like molasses near the end as well, guess that has not changed.

Switching to Hardspace, not a fan of the cabin, was less immersive to just have a boring menu but was easier to work around. 

[Gorth]

2 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

I have tried to play King's Bounty (The Legend and WotN) as well few years back, but it took forever to play through, so never finished it. I kind of prefer the design of single missions connected to each other in a campaign like in HoMM or Disciples games.

Disciples II Rise of the Elves

 

Now I suddenly feel like playing through all the D2 campaigns again 

[Guard Dog]

2 hours ago, Malcador said:

Meh, SEIV still has it beat.   

Some small empire near to me has an amazing fleet and is just wrecking me.  Guess that's it for playing Purifiers.  Game sure runs like molasses near the end as well, guess that has not changed.

Switching to Hardspace, not a fan of the cabin, was less immersive to just have a boring menu but was easier to work around. 

SE IV & V were pretty good. The AI not so much but it was a pretty decent experience. Master of Orion 2 was my favorite before Stellaris. The new MOO doesn't do it for me. 

[Malcador]

Thinking of the space 4X games I own, I recall I still have to try Star Ruler 2. I've had this game for 6-7 years, I keep saying i'll play it and then shelve it.  

Actually one game I'd like to try just to make me feel stupid would be Aurora 4X.

[uuuhhii]

endless series certainly have the best art

no matter how boring the game play staring at art are still enjoyable

and bronken lord are not actually that boring

[melkathi]

@kanisatha

Did you enjoy Dragon Age 2's time skips between acts?

A lot of people did not.

Expeditions Rome copies it but does it worse really. It does it worse, because your character comes out of Act 1 with a mission and very possibly political ambitions. So having your character not pursue their agenda in the downtime is very immersion breaking.

And the writing in general deteriorates as the game progresses. While I could replay acts one and two, the thought of revisiting act three repulses me - they may have revamped some gameplay, but unless they rewrote the third half of the game, I do not see me ever revisiting this, just as I'd never play dragon age 2 again.

I enjoy the companions well enough. They each have a short story arc. Nothing important really, but they work and add to the experience.

 

I do not find the upgrades to the camp meaningful enough to recommend the game based on them. You will try to conquer all regions in each act to get more upgrades, but in reality it is just something to draw out the length of the game.