What are you Playing Now? - What doesn't kill you, gives you XP

[marelooke]

I got wind that Port Olisar, Star Citizen's oldest space station and the original starting location before there were any planets or moons to land on, is getting removed with the next major update (3.20), so I dusted of my HOSAS to visit the OG one last time.

Spawning at PO in the "Habs", walking through the station to the airlock, hearing the sound deaden when the airlock cycles, stepping outside and walking to the open landing pad the ship sits on, with the absolutely massive gas giant that is Crusader looming overhead is a core gaming memory for me.

Port Olisar so far is the only place in a game that managed to inspire that sense of awe by actually driving home the ridiculous scale of the universe.

The station needed an overhaul, but it is a shame that the features that made it memorable, the spacewalk and open pads, are being lost in the process.

o7 Port Olisar, you will be missed.

Edited September 15, 2023 by marelooke

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, marelooke said:

I got wind that Port Olisar, Star Citizen's oldest space station and the original starting location before there were any planets or moons to land on, is getting removed with the next major update (3.20), so I dusted of my HOSAS to visit the OG one last time.

Spawning at PO in the "Habs", walking through the station to the airlock, hearing the sound deaden when the airlock cycles, stepping outside and walking to the open landing pad the ship sits on, with the absolutely massive gas giant that is Crusader looming overhead is a core gaming memory for me.

Port Olisar so far is the only place in a game that managed to inspire that sense of awe by actually driving home the ridiculous scale of the universe.

The station needed an overhaul, but it is a shame that the features that made it memorable, the spacewalk and open pads, are being lost in the process.

o7 Port Olisar, you will be missed.

The impermanency of what you've experienced is something that really bothers me about online-only games.

[marelooke]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

The impermanency of what you've experienced is something that really bothers me about online-only games.

I think that's why most MMOs stopped actually messing with the world state and generally use areas frozen in time. It was pretty bad for new, and old, player retention alike. (see WoW: Cataclysm and GW2 with their early living world seasons)

[LadyCrimson]

3 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

The impermanency of what you've experienced is something that really bothers me about online-only games.

These days, it bothers me with offline games too. Half the time feels like one has to wait 5 years after release before a game is truly "done" and you can play without some big skill, items, area/design, enemy, etc. suddenly occurring.

[melkathi]

I still have a character in Champions Online parked in an instance that doesn't exist anymore. If I load her up, the instance is spawned just for her out of some code graveyard.

[LadyCrimson]

^ In terms of online, I'd guess all my PoE characters have lost their names so if I logged in I'd have to pick new names. And be forced to respec their passive trees. Not that that is a big deal. I keep telling myself I'm going to open that game one day and clear house/start completely over maybe, but then I think about the billions of stuffed storage tabs and I go "nah.  Is there a "delete all" for storage tabs?

[MrBrown]

6 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

^ In terms of online, I'd guess all my PoE characters have lost their names so if I logged in I'd have to pick new names. And be forced to respec their passive trees. Not that that is a big deal. I keep telling myself I'm going to open that game one day and clear house/start completely over maybe, but then I think about the billions of stuffed storage tabs and I go "nah.  Is there a "delete all" for storage tabs?

Last time I checked, I still had a bunch of seasonal tabs that can't be deleted because they bugged out.

[uuuhhii]

14 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

The impermanency of what you've experienced is something that really bothers me about online-only games.

single player pc game are not that permanent

some of them just refuse to start on new hardware

there are less and less old hardware compatible with them every year

less popular one will never get a modern update

[Mamoulian War]

The biggest dissapointment in WoW was, that they removed the 40-man version of Naxxramas, and I was not abke to visit it anymore after WotLK.  

[Mamoulian War]

6 minutes ago, uuuhhii said:

single player pc game are not that permanent

some of them just refuse to start on new hardware

there are less and less old hardware compatible with them every year

less popular one will never get a modern update

That’s why you play these on PC Hardware emulators like PCem, which emulates the real hardware of old time, for which these games were made, including Sound and Graphics cards.

 

https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/emulate-old-pc-using-pcem

 

there is also one specifically tailored for games, but unfortunatelly, I have forgotten the name.

[Hawke64]

14 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

These days, it bothers me with offline games too. Half the time feels like one has to wait 5 years after release before a game is truly "done" and you can play without some big skill, items, area/design, enemy, etc. suddenly occurring.

GOG and a firewall solve it. You get to keep whatever version you are happy with and the developers/publishers can't do anything about it. (Stares disapprovingly at the PoEII "Ultimate" update).

Speaking of, do I remember correctly that in some version of Morrowind you could manually enter the dialogue topics?
Story-wise, reached the Ashlanders' village. Caius Cosades told me to try to pass as Nerevarine and seemed like a fine idea. OOC, I like that the PC is not actually the Chosen One, but the one selected by the emperor because he could play the role of the Chosen One.

---

Tried Unavowed, a point-and-click adventure game. It was possible to enter the PC's name manually, and the NPC asked me not to suggest him to fornicate with himself (given the situation, it was the only answer coming to mind). After several attempts the PC was named "Demon".

[melkathi]

Of course Azura has her fun with that, with that vision at the very start of the game. "Oh, so you think you can create a fake chosen one? Let's see how you like me turning them into an actual chosen one."  then *mutters* "Call me an Anticipation, did they?"

 

Or at least that  is how I imagine the Morrowind plot in a nutshell.

Edited September 16, 2023 by melkathi

[LadyCrimson]

13 hours ago, Hawke64 said:

GOG and a firewall solve it.

GoG is great for many things but they don't have all the games I'm periodically interested in.

You can, with SP, often (not 100%) avoid it on Steam by putting everything on "don't update until I launch", copy the entire install folder and anything in the appdata folders elsewhere, update, delete the install folder and copy the previous install folder back. But yeah, it's more of a PITA. Especially if you have to resort to that Steam depot stuff.

[BruceVC]

I am about 25 hours into Fallout 1 and  just had  an epic battle to free Tandi from the Khans and its an example of why I love this type of CRPG and combat mechanics . It was chaotic and frenetic and I needed to restore several times because I got killed about 5 times before defeating the Khans and freeing her. Also there are several strategies you can use but this was mine

• I was level 7 with Ian, Dogmeat and Katja in my party. You would assume having companions would always be a combat benefit but they dont always fight logically and sometimes draw aggro outside of my plans or what I instruct them to do. But they still good to use
• I defeated the Khans outside the tents first using my AK and very useful plasma pistol
• Then Ian decided to run into the main  building by himself while we were fighting outside, he was eventually killed but his sacrifice will he remembered because he seemed to distract most of the main mobs inside the building and they didnt come outside
• I then used grenades and my AK to defeat the main enemies inside with Dogmeat playing a huge part of the success

I found loads of loot and items to sell which is appreciated because I am constantly short of money. But then I had to be selective and leave lots of stuff behind. But the reality of inventory limitation is something I like because it adds to realism and immersion. Now I have finally upgraded my armour  

And I was down to 4 hp with no Stimpacks when the last Khan died, literally on my last legs of survival. But fun battle and very strategic

[Mamoulian War]

Sigh, I had my first night race at Snetterton circuit in Assetto Corsa Competizione... I have probably missed every single brake point during the whole race I hate that track even more now

[marelooke]

Just got to the point where you are forced into

Spoiler

piracy

in Starfield, I'm sure they give you absolutely no choice in the matter because of some story reason that the writers couldn't be bothered find a more creative way to deal with. Keeping my "called it" cared handy.

Ugh

[Hawke64]

TESIII: Morrowind. Became a clan-friend of an Ashlander clan, the chosen of Azura (sort of?), and most importantly found several pieces of Daedric armour that I could not wear effectively and a merchant with 10,000 gold per day, successfully solving any financial issues for some time. Also found an ebony short sword and several pieces (not a set) of glass armour and became the highest-ranked Blade agent in Morrowind. The only issues so far are occasionally falling through the floors in Vivec, the inability to do main quests out of order (was visiting the Hlaalu councillor several times without the ability to ask him to make me the Hortator), and that Caius Cosades did not tell me how to get to Tel Fyr and I could not ask anyone (so had to look up online). Also, I probably should have started as an Argonian. Though, I do like the story so far.

Edited September 18, 2023 by Hawke64

[Keyrock]

@Hawke64is making me want to play Morrowind again, which is something I kind of wanted to do anyway. It's been a really really long time since my last playthrough. I kind of want to join the Morag Tong. I don't remember if I need to be Dunmer to join them or if any race can do it. Does anyone know?

[Hawke64]

1 hour ago, Keyrock said:

@Hawke64is making me want to play Morrowind again, which is something I kind of wanted to do anyway. It's been a really really long time since my last playthrough. I kind of want to join the Morag Tong. I don't remember if I need to be Dunmer to join them or if any race can do it. Does anyone know?

There was an Argonian Morag Tong NPC and the wiki does not list being a Dunmer as a requirement, so should be fine.

Edit. Just in case, there are 2 technical issues - the settings were resetting (making Morrowind.ini read-only solved it) and the window outline appearing on start or focus change (switching resolutions helps).

Edited September 19, 2023 by Hawke64

[Keyrock]

6 minutes ago, Hawke64 said:

There was an Argonian Morag Tong NPC and the wiki does not list being a Dunmer as a requirement, so should be fine.

Edit. Just in case, there are 2 technical issues - the settings were resetting (making Morrowind.ini read-only solved it) and the window outline appearing on start or focus change (switching resolutions helps).

Those issues (hopefully) won't apply in my case since I won't be rawdogging it like you, rather I'll be playing via OpenMW 0.48.

[LadyCrimson]

No Man's Sky - "last played - two years ago" - "Playtime - 16 minutes."     Don't even recall if I had any reason for such a short trial phase.

---an hour of install and feature fiddling later---

Oh yeah, I remember now. It uses Vulkan I guess, which seemingly means many 3rd party screenshot programs don't work. At least mine doesn't. Steam Overlay ss feature supposedly does, but I don't use/refuse to use that. Although weirdly, I can record video of the game w/my program and grab pic frames that way but more PITA. I have no idea why video recording works but a screenshot does not. Different hooks?  And now I also remember that the start/tutorial stuff kinda bored/annoyed me with all the radiation and other survival hazards, starting menus/info navigation that felt a bit over-load-y. eg, I was too lazy to learn to play.  So that plus no screenshots, plus I'm never sure if I really like outer-space settings - and I probably just never turned it back on. I'll give it a fair shake this time.

 

 

[Theonlygarby]

I beat sea of stars.  It was good.  I feel like 10/10s are so freely given with games.  I'd give it a 7/10 maybe 8/10 if I was generous.

 

Combat is good.  A little easy though.  I kind of suck at RPGs and I only died 3 times.

 

Graphics and running around the environments was the best part.  One of the prettiest pixel art games I can think of.  The tools you unlock make traversing fun.  Bunch of simple puzzles.  only one I had to look up, because it had to do with colors and I'm colorblind... (at least I think it had to do with colors because I had no idea what to do... and the symbols had colors.)

 

Fairly short, for a JRPG style game.  Which is fine because the story was the worst part.  It wasn't bad, there were some moments that made me laugh(ol).  Just that the main narrative was a little bland.  Special main characters save the world from an unbeatable foe.  Not awful, just mostly forgettable.

[BruceVC]

7 hours ago, Keyrock said:

@Hawke64is making me want to play Morrowind again, which is something I kind of wanted to do anyway. It's been a really really long time since my last playthrough. I kind of want to join the Morag Tong. I don't remember if I need to be Dunmer to join them or if any race can do it. Does anyone know?

There are some recommended Morag Tong mods if you like that faction

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/42120?tab=description

https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/47041

[Hurlshort]

9 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

No Man's Sky - "last played - two years ago" - "Playtime - 16 minutes."     Don't even recall if I had any reason for such a short trial phase.

---an hour of install and feature fiddling later---

Oh yeah, I remember now. It uses Vulkan I guess, which seemingly means many 3rd party screenshot programs don't work. At least mine doesn't. Steam Overlay ss feature supposedly does, but I don't use/refuse to use that. Although weirdly, I can record video of the game w/my program and grab pic frames that way but more PITA. I have no idea why video recording works but a screenshot does not. Different hooks?  And now I also remember that the start/tutorial stuff kinda bored/annoyed me with all the radiation and other survival hazards, starting menus/info navigation that felt a bit over-load-y. eg, I was too lazy to learn to play.  So that plus no screenshots, plus I'm never sure if I really like outer-space settings - and I probably just never turned it back on. I'll give it a fair shake this time.

 

 

They simplified the tutorial a bit since you last played, so hopefully it is easier to get into.

[LadyCrimson]

No Man's Sky - well I'm up to 3.5 hours now.

I got the ship repaired - slowly, with a lot of exploring/messing around inbetween the brief mission prompts - and it's telling me to fly it, but I think I'm going to continue messing around on what I assume is the random starter planet. Gathering materials until I can't carry anymore, and I still have to ID a couple animals for the planet I think. That part I like a lot at least - the wandering/identifying/mining, occasionally finding lost container loot or buildings - it suits my chill vibe brain. But I know I have to get off the rock at some point to open gameplay up. Later, later, I'm busy.

I like that you can customize difficulty settings beyond the 3 presets - so I have a mixture of some easy and some Normal settings. I want a first-try that's casual and pretty low stress but not entirely devoid of surprises. Anyway, at least the planet exploration seems to suit me.

Edited September 19, 2023 by LadyCrimson