What are you Playing Now? - Video games are bad for you? That's what they said about rock-n-roll

[BruceVC]

9 hours ago, melkathi said:

The Skyrim Alternate Start - Live Another Life mod ( @BruceVC do you use it?) is nice because it adds a rumour about Helgen into the list of rumours you hear from innkeepers. So when you get to Helgen, you arrive just after the dragon attack and see it flying away. You can find the two faction npcs dying in the cave and have enough time to heal one with a potion (if you want). That way you again are the person who informs the jarl of what happened and can trigger the main quest if you want.

 

And the starts really are simple (unless you play something hooked into this mod from another mod like Death Alternative - Captured) so wouldn't really be all that hard for the devs to do. It actually could be less work than the one start they have.

Melkie I havent played Skyrim yet, I have been preparing to play it and I have been  researching the various mod collections 

 

I am going to use Wabbajack to automatically install the several thousand mods that will be part of the Wabbajack collection I finally decide to use 

 

And it seems  to be a choice between Wildlander and Lorerim  but I am definitely going to use Requiem as the foundation and all  these types of Mod collection do 

 

But I highly suggest using Wabbajack, it makes it much easier to see and browse the main Mod collections and all the collections have been tested and they have active Discord and other similar support forums for any issues 

 

 

[BruceVC]

I have some very exciting news

I  am about to finish  Underrail and after all this debate and discussion around W4 I have realized how much I miss the entire Witcher universe 

I have  decided to replay the whole Witcher series,  I only played these iconic games once and I didnt mod  them

This time I will use extensive mods 

I am looking forward to  revisiting the world of Geralt  

 

 

[melkathi]

If you really want to sell me on wabbajack, you know what you have to do.

Upload a soundfile of explaining it's merits to the tune of ABBA's Waterloo.

[Bartimaeus]

Mouthwashing.

Neat visuals and cool story, but literally half (or maybe even more) of the game is a dream sequence, and the other half is told out of order. 6/10, which is just barely a "pass" for me, coulda been a lot higher if not for all the nonsense.

I am once again asking that indie game developers, particularly horror ones, learn how to develop and tell stories, themes, and characters without the non-stop use of dream sequences. You can do it, I believe in you, even though you keep proving me wrong.

Edited Sunday at 01:50 PM by Bartimaeus

[LadyCrimson]

Since it does not seem to make my PC reboot itself - - I turned on Diablo1. Using a modded version that gives fast walk in town at least.
Put-put-putted around, killed stuff, sold stuff, spent any money I made on mana potions (sorcerer, I always play a sorcerer), poured all pts into Magic. Found lots of fireball and holy books. Cleared the Poisoned Well. Got to lvl 3, put-put-putted around, killed stuff, etc. Found gear with +10 STR, cool. Found gear with +4 VIT, cool. Full of confidence, I hit a barrel.

10/10, would get killed by exploding barrel, again.

[majestic]

Found myself with ample and somewhat unexpected free time in the past three weeks, so I figured I'd get this one done and over with too:

Funny how this was, purely in terms of getting all the achievements, the least hair pulling out of any of the FromSoftware game catalogue that I have so far 100%'ed (meaning the three Dark Souls entries, Sekiro and now Elden Ring) but it bordered on being the most miserable experience I have had playing their games yet. Not surprising, given that I generally detest open world games. At least it plays better than Dark Souls 2. Well, arguably, it plays better (in terms of how your character controls and how responsive the controls are) than all the other games except Sekiro. Cannot talk about Bloodborne as that is still somewhat out of reach.

Not sure what I can say about the game that hasn't been said yet. I find myself agreeing with Joseph Anderson's initial assessment. In some ways, Elden Ring contains the highest highs in the series (it might be worth the price of admission just for exploring Síofra River for the first time, assuming one does it the moment you find it) - but it also so utterly falls off a cliff at a certain point that one's experience ends up being worse than Dark Souls 1's latter half - and that is even before factoring in the amount of FromSoftware style bullsh*t that creeps up towards the end of the game. It makes the fandumb even dumber for defending it.

I have yet to complete Shadow of the Erdtree, but I'm not sure I want to do that just now. I'll get to it eventually.

[Mamoulian War]

Goal nr. 1/2025

January 6, 13:45 – First game finished in 2025 has become, to my surprise, Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate on PS4. I got new arcade stick  from a sale, so I have tried to complete all Tutorials, which are prerequisite for the two hardest trophies in the game, that I was still missing. The finger coordination with old man’s reflexes was even more challenging for me than in Souls games, but I have somehow managed to overcome all of them . Despite excellent new arcade stick, it took me 3 hours and 45 minutes to beat them all. The hardest of the challenges for me was to perform successfully Raiden’s 14-hit Combo, where I had to connect two punches with amplified special move, teleport and another two punches connected into his signature “flying dart” attack in 5 seconds, which took me 16 minutes to learn . Completion of all the tutorials also unlocked rare Scorpion and Sub-Zero equipment, Shao Kahn as a match announcer and Ultra Rare Elder God Platinum Trophy for the game, which is currently held only by 0.3% of the players of the game .

[Malcador]

Dawn of War 3 sure is tedious. Sitting around waiting for resources a lot.

 

[majestic]

Here's one of the funny moments that I had playing Elden Ring. Prerequisite knowledge: Elden Ring loot icons come in different colors (that used to be different sizes in the other games). White for regular items, purple for rare items, and gold for legendary items.

Imagine the following situation: you have just stepped onto a lift, and it is bringing you ever downwards. Down, down, down you go. Further. And further. There is seemingly no end to the ride on the platform. Finally, after what seems an eternity, you reach the ground, and you walk out, spotting ruins. Small parts of the area are faintly illuminated by fireflies casting their silvery light into the darkness of these underground ruins. You take note that they do not try to escape when you approach them, and decide to take a few of them with you for further examination. Not that you have any use for them now, but perhaps they will come in handy, their silver glow being similar to items you have found before.

Strange looking new enemies creep about. Carefully you approach one that is standing about alone, to test the mettle of your newly discovered foes. You attack. Your opponent is decidedly unimpressed by your attack, as your combat abilities and equipment are seemingly not up to the task of breaking the clay hide of these shambling people, or whatever they are or used to be. You are clearly not prepared to explore the area, but still, they are slow, and you are not. It takes a while to dispatch them, but they are not an insurmountable challenge. You decide to press on, and explore the ruins. In the distance, you can see a human figure atop a broken pillar, clearly clutching something intricate in his hands (out of character note: the corpse has a purple glowing loot icon).

Ever so slowly you make your way to your freshly discovered point of interest. It gets dicey for a while, as you notice that these new enemies can also cast spells. Luckily for you though, the projectiles of their spells are as slow as they are, and only the enemies equipped with bows are a slight problem, as they rain arrows down on you from elevated positions difficult to rush to. You persevere, and finally reach the pillar. You see that the humanoid figure you spotted is an old, desiccated corpse. Carefully you make note of your surroundings and find that there is no way to reach the top of this pillar from where you are, but you can see the crumbled walls surrounding the ruins could perhaps be used to reach the elevated platform above the broken column. It would be easy to jump down from there.

Tracing your path along the walls you reach the other end of the area you are in. Carefully you climb in top of the partly crumbled walls, going higher and higher. It is a long way down now, a stumble now would surely kill you. There is a broken walkway atop a series of columns, and after a series of carefully executed jumps and a lot of sweat and anxiety, you finally cross the entire area and reach the platform above the corpse. You drop down, and immediately pick up the item the corpse is clutching.

Carefully you inspect it. It is an intricate backpack. Slowly, with bated breath, you open it. You wonder what it is you have discovered. A lost incantation? A new sorcery? Some ancient secrets allowing you to concoct potions to ensnare the senses and befuddle your enemies? A new weapon, perhaps? Oh, isn't anticipation just the greatest of feelings?

You find three of the fireflies that are buzzing around everywhere and that respawn whenever you rest at the nearby bonfire site of grace. They're classified as rare crafting material, giving them a purple loot glow, and you've just wasted your precious time doing a FromSoftware jumping puzzle for nothing.

[Wormerine]

27 minutes ago, majestic said:

They're classified as rare crafting material, giving them a purple loot glow, and you've just wasted your precious time doing a FromSoftware jumping puzzle for nothing.

Hmmm, Elden Ring reward system in a nutshell. Play not for the reward as most of the time you will be left disappointed. 

[LadyCrimson]

I still occasionally consider buying Elden Ring when it's on sale. But you know me - I'd just use some trainer and romp around like an idiot and take screenshots. eg, admire the scenery/art but never care about any actual gameplay. Thus I've confined myself to watching long streams of dunkey playing it. Which were so hilarious I actually watched multiple hours of it without FFWing. I'd much rather watch someone else die repeatedly in a humorous fashion/narration then experience it myself.    Games like that always look like fun to me when you watch snippets of others playing, but I know I'd toss a monitor out a window if I tried.

Oh and if you've never seen those streams and have hours to kill, and like dunkey, it's this playlist.

And now that I've needlessly chattered on that, I shall go back to panic-run-turn-fire from mobs of demon dogs (all at that put-put pace) and being killed by exploding barrels and packs of 20 bow skeletons you can't see across the room. Diablo 1's dungeon music and sound is still the best.