What are you playing now

[melkathi]

So impressive as a matter of fact it borders on being expressive

[BruceVC]

So impressive as a matter of fact it borders on being expressive

 

clever post

[Nonek]

Banished, very relaxing, yet detailed and satisfying.

 

Edit: Thought i'd been playing for five minutes but an hour had passed, sign of a good game.

Edited February 18, 2014 by Nonek

[Keyrock]

So impressive as a matter of fact it borders on being expressive

[LadyCrimson]

Just bought Banished (GoG version). My brain said: "I don't need tutorials!" and I started a map. I expect to fail spectacularly many times! Looks great for what it is. Has a pretty decent level of outward zoom, but wish it would zoom in a smidge more than it does.  After fiddling with things a bit I had to then exit and put a frame-rate limiter on the game since it was running, for me, a gpu-blisterheat-inducing 250-300fps.

 

Medium sized map is pretty darn large, more than I was expecting at least. At 1920x1080, about 5 monitor-screens down and 3 across when fully zoomed out. The 3rd, biggest size map must be enormous! This is a good thing! Haven't actually played, still wrapping up some chores. But soon, my precious, oh yes, soon!

 

Aww, cute meat-on-legs deer, and baby deer! ...  RTS deer always take me back to AoE1 and the peasants "thwacktwacking" out deer steaks...

 

[Hassat Hunter]

Finished Arkham Asylum again recently... forgot just *how* much better it was than Arkham City. Will probably play City again too in the not-too-distant future, but this close after AA it can only be more dissapointing than my original run, which was a year or 2 after AA.

[Raithe]

Getting really stressed out with Splinter Cell Conviction.

 

Okay, so it encourages stealthy and thoughtful gameplay by making it so you die after being shot 2 or 3 times.

 

They then stick you in a full frontal assault with a time constraint to get past security doors, one basic channel to go through, and a non-skippable 15 second cut scene to start it. Oh, plus you don't get to sort out grenades or weapons before, but if you take time to try doing so when it starts you get shot to buggery by the guards.

 

So it's walk up to the desk, 15 seconds of cutscene. Jump over the desk, attempt to run forward - guard with shotgun shoots at you , possibly killing you before you get to the wall to find cover. So.. starts again. 

Walk up to desk, 15 second cutscene, jump over desk, run forward only getting shot once, cover at the wall, manage to shoot that guard.. by which time the security doors are locked and you start over.

Walk up to desk. 15 second cutscene, jump over desk, run forward managing not to get killed, try slipping past that guard to reach the door.. get shot in the back. Start again.

Walk up to desk. 15 second cutscene, jump over desk, run forward managing not to get killed, manage a quick headshot on that guard, slip past first security door before it closes, head towards the second as it starts to slide down.. two guards appear with shotguns and as you try to reach cover they kill you. Start again.

Walk up to desk. 15 second cutscene, jump over desk, run forward managing not to get killed, manage a quick headshot on that guard, slip past first security door before it closes, head towards the second as it starts to slide down.. Try using cover to get to that door.. two guards appear.. door closes before you can reach it.. Start again.

 

[melkathi]

Was going to go to bed. Instead I reached the Iron Age in 7 Grand Steps. Then I played three generations to reach the artisan's caste again and slowly work on regaining the family's legendary Bronze Age glory, when generations of family doctors saved the city from the plague, and even provided one of the kingdom's greatest generals.

Now we are tax collectors...

Death and Taxes, baby. Death and Taxes.

 

Damn this game is addictive.

[Malcador]

Banished,  not doing too too badly, 4th year and I at least have some food and a blacksmith (the first one died in childbirth though)

[LadyCrimson]

Things I learned from my first try in Banished:

 

--The people sure eat a lot

--Crops takes forever to process, I'm starting to think 3 Fishing might be best to get off the ground initially, then crops later.

--The people sure eat a lot

--Children into adults takes a while, meaning worker population stays low for some time, cramping expansion

--The people sure eat a lot

--I guess very slow and steady does it, as far as expansion and more than basic needs goes

--The people sure die a lot when they vacuum-inhale all the food and then have none.

 

But am I having fun, you ask? You bet.

[Malcador]

I started with a fishing post, then added 2 gatherers and now another fishing post.  Have about 2000 food in stock, so I think I'm set for food for now.  Problem I guess is the labor pool you need, I want to try to keep some slack as people die and so on. 

 

I've learned also that they procreate a lot once you give them their own home

[Humanoid]

Do you see a game lasting reasonably long enough for children to be a good thing? One of my biggest annoyances about King of Dragon Pass were that children were strictly a negative and that it was always, always in your best interests to keep them are rare as possible.

[LadyCrimson]

I started with a fishing post, then added 2 gatherers and now another fishing post.  Have about 2000 food in stock, so I think I'm set for food for now.  Problem I guess is the labor pool you need, I want to try to keep some slack as people die and so on. 

 

I've learned also that they procreate a lot once you give them their own home

I built a bunch of houses to see if that increased the rate of adults/workers but so far I haven't noticed anything. I only went for about an hour or so before I decided I better start over, however. I tried a hunter, but the deer kept wandering/staying outside of the circle so it was pointless.

 

 

Do you see a game lasting reasonably long enough for children to be a good thing? One of my biggest annoyances about King of Dragon Pass were that children were strictly a negative and that it was always, always in your best interests to keep them are rare as possible.

Children don't seem to impact anything except that they eventually turn into adults and join the workforce. You also have no real control over whether they show up, I think. Again, this is just based on early impression. And the game/each town you try to build can last as long as you want, provided all the people don't die. eg, if you're doing well you can keep expanding, and expanding ... plus the rate of the game (pace of expansion) is so slow that it'd take you a really long time to ever get to, say, 500 people (one of the in-game achievements is population 500 I think).

[Humanoid]

Well aside from hoovering up the food. A common balancing issue with children is that it's almost always better to import adult immigrants who are productive from day one, rather than spending 15 years of food and other resources on a what essentially are parasites before you get any return whatsoever on them. Realistic, maybe, but an irritating gameplay mechanic.

 

To an extent you can balance it out by giving large morale/productivity bonuses to parents, making them much more determined fighters when defending, etc, but it rarely works out that way.

[LadyCrimson]

You can't "import" people in Banished. If your town gets super-awesome enough I think immigrants are supposed to start showing up occasionally, but I have a feeling that won't happen very often. Plus, you have to make your town super-awesome first.

[Malcador]

Hm ok, looks like my colony is doomed -- too old couples that don't want too breed.  Bastards. 

[Lexx]

Finished the Dead State 7 days demo and I like it. Needs fixes and improvements of course, but it already feels very good to me right now. Wish I could continue playing now, to be honest. The 7 days are over really fast.

[Hurlshort]

Banished - Boy, LC is not kidding about the people eating. I was up to 24 adults and 8 kids, but then everyone started starving despite two fishing docks and two decent sized fields harvesting once a year.  The tough part was I started running out of resources, but didn't have enough people to get iron, stone, wood, blacksmith, teach, herbalist, and tailor it up.  I think I need to move a bit slower on my next try.

 

The kids seem to grow up pretty fast, as in a few in game years.  

 

I think my biggest problem was not getting the blacksmith going soon enough, and once tools started breaking, the food was taking too long to get.  Eh, I had a feeling I would need to start a few times to get the hang of it.  I haven't even tried disasters yet.

[Keyrock]

Woot!  I'm off to Egypt in The Secret World.  The best part about Egypt is that it's not New England.  I didn't do every single quest in New England, but I did most of them, the solo ones anyway.  I could go back there to finish those up, but, frankly, I live in New England in real life, I don't need to spend any more virtual time there.

 

As an aside, I only wear my Illuminati uniform when inside the Illuminati headquarters.  Once I'm in the field, I change into civilian clothes.  I do still like to wear Illuminati colors (I look good in dark blue anyway), but at least I'm not wearing a sign advertising that I'm Illuminati while trying to blend in with the locals.

Edited February 19, 2014 by Keyrock

[Sarex]

You can't "import" people in Banished. If your town gets super-awesome enough I think immigrants are supposed to start showing up occasionally, but I have a feeling that won't happen very often. Plus, you have to make your town super-awesome first.

 

Nomads come every few years, best to build a boarding house for them, because it will give you some breathing space until you build them permanent housing.

[LadyCrimson]

2nd try in Banished, have reached 30 adult population. I was doing great on food at first then it suddenly started to take a nose-dive. Realized the cherry tree field I had wasn't actually producing anything. The cherry trees were growing and workers were on the field, but the "yield" bar never filled, so nothing. I made a cabbage field, that worked fine. So...whatever, maybe a bug? 

 

After a while Gatherer's output seems to lessen - over harvesting within their circle? Shut down, build a new one somewhere else. But that might mean Gatherer's in long term aren't too efficient. Fishing wharf circles shouldn't overlap, seems to slow them down. Eventually, farms and fishing should be the bulk maybe?

 

Next problem: Apparently their tools break, so suddenly no one had tools and production crawled. Made tool-maker. Half the population is now running around in ragged clothes, but I don't have the workers for a tailor, let alone education buildings or all the other stuff. The forester building seems to take a few game years to really get going. And so on. But at least everyone's happy and almost all-stars healthy, anyway.

 

It's awesome.

[Humanoid]

Tried a bit of Spacebase DF-9. Couple hours in and already out of stuff to do - heck, most of the second hour was me reading the forums with the game running on the second screen, waiting for stuff to happen. Gameplay consists of "build one of each room type, then wait for the next feature release". So yeah, probably will give it another few months worth of releases before going back. It's called an alpha but I think that's being too generous, it's more of a prototype.

 

So yeah, scratching that, which means I'll probably pick up Banished in time for the weekend provided the next couple days throw more positive feedback for it.

[marelooke]

At the moment I find myself enraptured by Warframe. In the weeks I've played it I've managed to get to Mastery Rank Six, thereby unlocking the gamebreaking Soma.

 

Also, given that it is a free-to-play game, I'm pleasantly surprised it hasn't been invaded by Brazilians who can't speak English yet.

It's mostly Russians in Warframe. Usually when you find a host that's unplayably laggy its a Russian (at least if you play in EU TZ, US TZ seems to generally fare better) that is assuming you play on PC (but who in their right mind plays shooters on consoles *trololol*).

 

Fwiw, Warframe is a pretty fun grindfest. I made it to Mastery Rank 10 (ready for 11 but my laptop is too slow to do the test, or play Warframe in any "real" fashion, so it'll have to wait until I have access to my desktop). I'm still bummed they removed the Infested from planets as they made for pretty fun long solo survival/defense matches.

 

And the Soma has pretty much lost its king of the hill status, while it's definitely an "easy" (aka good allrounder) weapon there's many many more viable options since Damage 2.0 and I've stopped grabbing the cliché Rhino (or Trinity) + Soma combo for "hard" stuff (if I'm feeling lazy I often grab the Ignis nowadays...)

[catspwnme]

Despite a couple hours of attempts now and then, I still can't focus on gaming, in general. I guess I'm just saving myself up for Pillars of Eternity...

This! 

 

I have in the last 2 weeks tried to play Simcity ..again. Skyrim and back and forth from BF4 - which i hate now. It is not BF2 so I need to move on.

 

I really liked Elemental heroes/enchantress. That has probably been the hidden gem of this last year for me. 

 

Have been eyeing Planetary Annihilation. Any reports on that? 

 

Most of the games I want are "Early Access" 

 

 

I haven't touched a console since Tekken 2,FFT,FF7 and Twisted Metal 2 =p

Edited February 19, 2014 by catspwnme

[melkathi]

Hurlshot is playing Alpha Protocol.

I'm sitting in front of my laptop, looking at my steam contact list and seeing Hurlshot playing Alpha Protocol.