What are you playing now

[CoM_Solaufein]

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/65835-what-are-you-playing-now/ Old topic.

 

What are you playing now? I'm playing nothing. Too busy doing mod work on Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition.

[marelooke]

I'm currently playing Demonicon, mopped up the first two bosses. There seem to only be a few spots where you can make a choice that has any impact and other than those binary choices the game appears pretty railroaded which is rather annoying as the decisions made by the characters (PC icluded) are often rather nonsensical (putting it mildly)

 

Had to drop my new FEAR playthrough due to my laptop not being able to handle it (Intel graphics card... ), it will have to wait until I have more reliable access to my (ageing, but still with a much better graphics card than the laptop) desktop.

 

Tried to get my girlfriend into Jade Empire, but all the talking at the start ended up being way too much (and watching her play it made me realize how much bloody talking there is early on)

[Drowsy Emperor]

I got so angry I slammed my keyboard, which is something I never do. I got angry because the keycap on my 100$ Steelseries 6GV2 keyboard broke off. It broke of because the caps are made with imprecise tolerances and have a tendency to pop off due to the strong springs of the switches. The A key was so weak it popped off several times today during TF2. I replaced it properly each time and it finally popped off again and broke. I'm not abusive with my things (I hate people who vent their frustration on mice and keyboards), but I expect the damn things to work for the money I put into them.

 

My 7 year old generic MS keyboard still works well.

 

I recommend none of you ever buy anything Steelseries if you can help it.

 

I will keep you updated on what their customer service tells me.

[Amentep]

Last time my computer was working I was using a keyboard from the late 1980s. It is, in many ways, the tank of keyboards. I think it'd stop a bullet and still work.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Last time my computer was working I was using a keyboard from the late 1980s. It is, in many ways, the tank of keyboards. I think it'd stop a bullet and still work.

Here's a secret of mine: For work and pleasure, I only use old keyboards from like the 90s. I usually get them for free, from hospitals and other institutions. Thing is: They are indeed very durable and sturdy to type on, and I do type a lot. I've tried new keyboards and always given up on them within like two days. However, my old keyboards are like grey-beige, so they score high in the ugly department.

[Malcador]

No kidding, lots of keyboards here at work, most are PS/2s but I suppose I should get an adapter while they still are around.    Just be sure to clean keyboards obtained that way thoroughly.

[Sarex]

I have the logitech wave keyboard/mouse combo I got as a gift with my computer over 6 years ago and it still works great. Though I did have to put wd-40 in to the mouse left click sensor to get rid of the annoying double click(it seems that over the years it gums up and gets stuck and so it produces a double click when you only click once).

[Drowsy Emperor]

Last time my computer was working I was using a keyboard from the late 1980s. It is, in many ways, the tank of keyboards. I think it'd stop a bullet and still work.

 

That's why I bought a mechanical keyboard, except these are nowhere near the standards that IBM used to have.

[IndiraLightfoot]

I type on a Fujitsu-Siemens ("Made in Germany" Wow, didn't notice that before) now, and it's been serving me for three years by this computer, with no glitches whatsoever. 

[Sarex]

I type on a Fujitsu-Siemens ("Made in Germany" Wow, didn't notice that before) now, and it's been serving me for three years by this computer, with no glitches whatsoever. 

 

Well it is German.

[IndiraLightfoot]

I did a deep search. It seems I exaggerated the age of this hospital find I type on now. It was released in July 15 2005:

KBPC S2, prod nr: S26381-K297-V155                                                                                                         

Well, it looks as if it is from the 90s, though!

[Bartimaeus]

Trying to play Civilization 4 with some popular mod called Realism Invictus, after my bout with Civilization 5, (which was the first I played in the series). Certain control functions and conveniences in Civilization 5 are missing that made me nearly scream in frustration after about the first twenty minutes, (I actually uninstalled the game after I figured out that the game was freezing because I was trying to delay making certain decisions - for those who you haven't played 4, but 5: imagine that the game prompts you with choosing the first thing to produce in your city after settling it, but you want to do some other stuff first, so you exit out of the window...only to find that the game is now completely unresponsive besides for a few choice (and useless!) windows/buttons, including the main menu as well as anything else that's actually useful - anything that would let you resolve the to-be-decision that you just delayed, for example. Coming from Civ 5, this reduced me to near insanity in short order...but I reinstalled it to give it another try, and it's going much better).

I like some things better, as well as some things worse. We'll see.

(e): sentence structure
(e): sentence structure again. What a mess of clauses everything in between those parentheses is. 

Edited April 24, 2014 by Bartimaeus

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

FONV and IWD2.

[Drowsy Emperor]

Well, I'm ****ed. Steelseries wants me to ship the keyboard back to them (3 weeks + substantial costs) and provide a proof of purchase (invoice for a 2 year old keyboard?) and then they may replace it and ship it back to me (further 3 weeks) at which point the customs will look inside, see a 100$ keyboard and slam me for 50euros in taxes.

 

In effect this means I'll be buying another keyboard.

 

All this bother for a single keycap since they evidently don't send replacements. 

 

There you go people. If you're outside the US don't ****ing bother with anything from Steelseries.

[Bokishi]

Waiting for Dark Souls 2 to unlock on steam. I know I probably won't beat it though

[Keyrock]

Back to Call of Pripyat.  I went to the Jupiter Factory and visited the helicopter crash site there, as well as going through the chain of documents that eventually lead me to the plans to open up the underground passage to Pripyat.  While I was there, I also completed the Strelok's group 3 stashes questline and got Strelok's SIG Sturmgewehr 550 (/rubs hands together).  Strelok's SIG 550 is arguably the best assalut rifle in the entire game and a definite upgrade from the LR 300 I had been using up to that point.  The SIG 550 is already one of the better rifles in the game, but Strelok's modified model eliminates the only 2 real disadvantages the gun has, that being the inability to mount a scope and the inability to mount a silencer.  I can already afford a SEVA suit as it is and I have a pretty good shotgun (SPAS-12), a kickass assault rifle, and a sniper rifle (SVD), so basically everything I need for that intense journey through the underground, but I want to tie up some loose ends around Jupiter before I round up a team to take through the tunnels with me.

 

Man, the mercenary ambush in the Jupiter Factory was fun.  I obliterated those chumps, and, surprisingly enough, mostly with my shotgun.  I managed to lure them to choke points where they couldn't really lob a grenade at me to flush me out effectively and had no choice but to come through that point and into point blank range.  I don't care what kind of armor you are wearing, a point blank 12 gauge blast to the face is not good for your health.

Edited April 25, 2014 by Keyrock

[Humanoid]

Well, I'm ****ed. Steelseries wants me to ship the keyboard back to them (3 weeks + substantial costs) and provide a proof of purchase (invoice for a 2 year old keyboard?) and then they may replace it and ship it back to me (further 3 weeks) at which point the customs will look inside, see a 100$ keyboard and slam me for 50euros in taxes.

 

In effect this means I'll be buying another keyboard.

 

All this bother for a single keycap since they evidently don't send replacements. 

 

There you go people. If you're outside the US don't ****ing bother with anything from Steelseries.

The switches themselves are made by Cherry, not SteelSeries, and are commonly available - the vast majority of mechanical keyboards will have Cherry switches in them (some no-brand boards will have knock-off switches of the same design). The advantage of this is that you can therefore replace both the switches and the caps (since they're generic) individually. A place like WASD Keyboards sell individual switches and caps which you might want to look into (I've used them personally with no issue shipping to Australia).

 

If your switch is damaged and not just the cap, then it's a bit more of a tricky fix which might need additional hardware (potentially messing with solder), but it's still within reason as long as the electronics of the keyboard aren't shot.

[Agiel]

Working through Dark Souls 2 at the moment, rolling as a dextrous, agile mage. Beat the Last Giant and then, since I leveled up and had no significant amount of souls to lose, summoned a phantom to beat the Pursuer, pelting him with my magic (which still took a fairly long time). "Easy mode" you say? Yeah, well I guess that's why you need a toon with high intelligence to roll as a mage

 

I have also adopted a policy when it comes to souls to "use them, or lose them," now that enemies won't respawn after a certain amount of times they've been killed (no more farming souls in the Painted World).

Edited April 25, 2014 by Agiel

[Bendu]

Dark Souls 2. My first death? I fell from the ladder.

[Drowsy Emperor]

 

Well, I'm ****ed. Steelseries wants me to ship the keyboard back to them (3 weeks + substantial costs) and provide a proof of purchase (invoice for a 2 year old keyboard?) and then they may replace it and ship it back to me (further 3 weeks) at which point the customs will look inside, see a 100$ keyboard and slam me for 50euros in taxes.

 

In effect this means I'll be buying another keyboard.

 

All this bother for a single keycap since they evidently don't send replacements. 

 

There you go people. If you're outside the US don't ****ing bother with anything from Steelseries.

The switches themselves are made by Cherry, not SteelSeries, and are commonly available - the vast majority of mechanical keyboards will have Cherry switches in them (some no-brand boards will have knock-off switches of the same design). The advantage of this is that you can therefore replace both the switches and the caps (since they're generic) individually. A place like WASD Keyboards sell individual switches and caps which you might want to look into (I've used them personally with no issue shipping to Australia).

 

If your switch is damaged and not just the cap, then it's a bit more of a tricky fix which might need additional hardware (potentially messing with solder), but it's still within reason as long as the electronics of the keyboard aren't shot.

 

 

That's what I said in my amazon review. There is nothing wrong with the switches, but then SS has nothing to do with them. The keycaps they picked, basically their only responsibility, are absolute rubbish.

 

Thankfully its just a cap. I'm going to buy a set on ebay and be done with it, a larger one since with the small price difference there's no point to buying just the WASD set. So I'll have some replacements just in case.

[Agiel]

After completing "Forest of the Fallen Giants," I inadvertently went to the "Lost Bastille" without knowing that I was still way underleveled for that zone. Unfortunately, I managed to get to the boss (with the aide of some phantoms) and immediately got curb-stomped. Cue me spending Effigies so that I can summon some help to try to beat the boss so that I could recover my souls several times until finally one run I failed to get to them before I died. Lost something to the order of 30k souls. 

[Majek]

Well time to take the other way. You'll get to the same place, but you'll also get a Ring of Life protection ( if you search good enough) among other stuff. Use it. I can be repaired. :D

[Tale]

After completing "Forest of the Fallen Giants," I inadvertently went to the "Lost Bastille" without knowing that I was still way underleveled for that zone. Unfortunately, I managed to get to the boss (with the aide of some phantoms) and immediately got curb-stomped. Cue me spending Effigies so that I can summon some help to try to beat the boss so that I could recover my souls several times until finally one run I failed to get to them before I died. Lost something to the order of 30k souls.

Don't even bother with effigies unless you want to turn off invasions. Just get summoned yourself. You'll even learn the boss that way.

 

I went back to Dark Souls 2 and did both of the Rat bosses. I was seriously overlevelled for these areas. I want to try Belfry Sol next, but I hate the Belfries so much.

[Keyrock]

I got Nimble to get me a Lynx sniper rifle in Call of Pripyat, it's a modified SVD.  I consider it to be the single best sniper weapon in the game.  The Gauss Gun does more damage and has a better scope, but it's slow rate of fire and prohibitively expensive ammunition lose out to the Lynx's vastly superior rate of fire and only slightly lower damage output (The Lynx will still knock just about anyone off their feet with a single bullet and will insta-kill, to the best of my knowledge, anything with one headshot).  Now I have arguably the best sniper rifle in the game, and arguably the best assault rifle in the game.  Now I just need to get my hands on an Amsel Striker for maximum short range killing goodness.  The SPAS-12 will have to suffice until I get my hands on one.

[sorophx]

tried Mechwarrior Online last weekend and ended up playing it all week. very fun game, and what surprised me the most - very fun with random pick up squads (or "companies"). 

 

it starts off slow, giving you 4 "free" mechs - trial mech that you cannot upgrade, modify or sell. all you can do is pick one and queue for a match. but the good thing is: for the first 25 matches you get huge amounts of in-game currency, so after 25 matches you can pretty much afford any mech, save for exclusive ones ("heroes", can only be bough with real money).

 

now that I have my own mech, a whole new dimension opened up before me. you can see a lot of thought went into making the current system.

 

you have a chassis of a certain type and model. models of any one type only differ in what type of weaponry they can have mounted and how much of it. everything else is up to you entirely. you can strip down armor, put on extra armor, take as much ammo as you think you need. I literally spend hours in my garage ("mech lab") tweaking my mech. you have to watch your overall weight (mechs have a max tonnage parameter you can't exceed). do I get a new engine which has better power (more speed) and will help with cooling (you have to watch your temperatures during the fight, if you go over a certain threshold the mech will power down to cool down, if you override this, your mech will be damaged and can even get destroyed); or do I save the extra tons and go for the large laser cannon instead; or maybe just add more armor and anti-missile defenses?

 

what I like even more is that, unlike a certain game about tanks, which this game tries to mimic, you don't need to repair your mech after every battle with your own money, and you don't need to but ammo again after spending it in battle. so you can focus on upgrades and, eventually, new mechs.

 

of course, this game has some serious problems, which stem from the fact that it's free-to-play. 

 

everything costs A LOT of money. a simple weapon upgrade will go for up to 600000 C-bills. you get 60000 C-bills per battle on average (depends on your performance and the outcome, a good battle will net around 150000, while a bad loss - 40000). and a new mech? top of the line chassis cost anything from 9M to 14M (yes, million) C-bills. imagine grinding for them

 

ok, so why don't I just buy some currency? well, for one thing you can't buy anything for less than 7 USD in their cash store. and a single mech costs around 10-30 USD, depending on class and type. what's more, even painting your mech costs 10-15 USD. in other words, on the one hand this game tries to force you to spend real money, at the same time charging you so much, it becomes ridiculous.

 

and if it was an all-around great game I would! but it's flipping free-to-play, it's full of stupid bugs after years of development, and they keep adding more exclusive mechs to the game, essentially selling power, which we all know is a big no-no. so I don't have any trust in these developers and no faith in the future of MWO.

 

but let me tell you, when you get into the battle it's a brilliant game, very tactical, very slow paced, almost meditative. I have been craving for a shooter like this for ages. it's like playing a popular version of a simulation game online. very satisfying, and I know this game won't live long, so I'll be enjoying it while it lasts. 

Edited April 25, 2014 by sorophx