What are you playing now?

[Rosbjerg]

Integration: Like I can't cope with multiple rebellions of ten thousand men strong armies when my army is only twenty thousand strong. Why are rebellions for larger countries so much bigger than they are for smaller ones? I got a rebellion in Dalmatia once, before I took back the Ottoman territories, and it was like 4, 5 thousand strong. I get one after getting my territory back, and it's at least twice as large! This would make sense...if rebellions were more of an entire national thing - you know, get one in a particular area and it covers that entire area and makes it so there can't be more for a while after you put it down - but it's per freaking territory, so let's keep it tied to individual territory strength, as multiple rebellions can make your entire country fold when it makes absolutely no sense for it to.

This is something I always disliked about EU. They are fixing it somewhat in the new expansion apperantly. Where a rebellion will deplete unrest, as the angry peasants are going to war. Making multiple huge and continous rebellions much less likley.

[Mamoulian War]

Playing Tales of Xillia 2, I like it little bit less than original Xillia, due to handling of quests, but still already 100 hours into the game. Few WTF moments in game happend. After I finish it, I'll go W2 route

[Labadal]

Completed Deus Ex nonlethal playthrough and now playing Thief 2: The Metal Age. None of my versions from STEAM work, so I play the GOG versions. I find it to be really annoying to buy older games from STEAM. When I played Bloodlines, I also had lots of trouble running the STEAM version, but all went well after much tinkering and patching.

Edited September 23, 2014 by Labadal

[Nordicus]

Started playing Spec Ops: The Line the other night. I've read some positive reviews about it, both professional and user.

 

And now I hate people. It's just a ****ty corridor shooter with dude bro soldiers shouting cliches at each other. I've played a few hours but it's just so bad! What on earth did people see in this game?! It. ****ing. Sucks.

 

And to everyone who recommended it: I hate you all.

Extra Credits (<- as spoiler-free as can be) and Errant Signal should explain it more than adequately. If you haven't played through Chapter 8, then you haven't reached the part where the game starts making its point. Starts. Before that the game carries itself like a dudebro shooter with subtle hints to the contrary

 

Should've been a movie instead. Even then, I probably wouldn't like it, but at least I'd understand it.

No, absolutely not. Never. Suggesting anything like that makes it clear that the entire message of the game went very much over your head.

 

Imagine the reveal in Kotor 2 where your weird nature as a wound in the force is why you get XP and level up from killing things, amplify its importance by 10, then say "this should have been a book". No. Player agency and the illusion of player choice are fundamental to the message the game is trying to convey here.

 

Captain Walker is the avatar of a Call of Duty player. He had a simple recon mission, but he decides to be the MAIN PROTAGONIST HERO SHOOTERBANG GUY and go through hundreds of people just to satisfy his own ego and have a bit of escapism. A CoD player will not pay any mind that they've killed hundreds of people, that will not faze them. What might actually make them stop for a bit is the aftermath of a mission that looks a lot like Death From Above mission from Modern Warfare, being not nearly as nice as rank-ups, achievements, voiced congratulations or other positive feedback.

 

This is when Walker starts repeating stuff like "This is not my fault", "I didn't have a choice" and "We must move on". You know why? Because when you play a game where violence is sloppily tied to a narrative, that is the only ****ing thing you can ever do unless you quit the game! If you have to do anything bad, it's never your fault, it's what the game designers put there. Walker, even now, is thinking like the person holding the controller. If the game had allowed you to not use the thing, then Walker would never reach this moment

 

And you even didn't mention how Walker destroyed the entire city's water supplies late in the game simply because he was told to! This is arguably far worse than what he carelessly did with the white phosphorous!

 

Like the writer Walt Williams said in his GDC presentation, Spec Ops: The Line is not anti-war, anti-violence, anti-gun, or against violent video games in general. It is against glorification of war and sloppy contextualization of ultraviolence through narrative, where the player is going to (sometimes unknowingly) cause untold destruction and misery yet still feel righteous afterwards because the power fantasy story conveniently justified everything.

 

It asks writers to be more creative with their game stories (even suggesting the occasional plot where protagonist dies/fails) and asking the players to on occasion wake up and see what they're asked to do.

Edited September 23, 2014 by Nordicus

[TheChris92]

Started playing Spec Ops: The Line the other night. I've read some positive reviews about it, both professional and user.

 

And now I hate people. It's just a ****ty corridor shooter with dude bro soldiers shouting cliches at each other. I've played a few hours but it's just so bad! What on earth did people see in this game?! It. ****ing. Sucks.

It's actually not- It's a subversive discussion on the shooter genre itself. I'm going to assume you haven't gotten far yet

[BruceVC]

 

Started playing Spec Ops: The Line the other night. I've read some positive reviews about it, both professional and user.

 

And now I hate people. It's just a ****ty corridor shooter with dude bro soldiers shouting cliches at each other. I've played a few hours but it's just so bad! What on earth did people see in this game?! It. ****ing. Sucks.

 

And to everyone who recommended it: I hate you all.

Extra Credits (<- as spoiler-free as can be) and Errant Signal should explain it more than adequately. If you haven't played through Chapter 8, then you haven't reached the part where the game starts making its point. Starts. Before that the game carries itself like a dudebro shooter with subtle hints to the contrary

 

Should've been a movie instead. Even then, I probably wouldn't like it, but at least I'd understand it.

No, absolutely not. Never. Suggesting anything like that makes it clear that the entire message of the game went very much over your head.

 

Imagine the reveal in Kotor 2 where your weird nature as a wound in the force is why you get XP and level up from killing things, amplify its importance by 10, then say "this should have been a book". No. Player agency and the illusion of player choice are fundamental to the message the game is trying to convey here.

 

 

 

 

 

Started playing Spec Ops: The Line the other night. I've read some positive reviews about it, both professional and user.

 

And now I hate people. It's just a ****ty corridor shooter with dude bro soldiers shouting cliches at each other. I've played a few hours but it's just so bad! What on earth did people see in this game?! It. ****ing. Sucks.

It's actually not- It's a subversive discussion on the shooter genre itself. I'm going to assume you haven't gotten far yet

 

 

How did you guys know all this about the game, its very interesting

[TheChris92]

How did you guys know all this about the game, its very interesting

I played the game and paid attention is probably the best explanation one can offer if we don't have to go into an elaborate interpretation/analysis of what Spec Ops tries to tell about shooters in general and the true horrors of warfare.

[Nordicus]

How did you guys know all this about the game, its very interesting

After beating the game and loving the direction it took in the latter half, I basically started consuming every video and article that discussed it in detail. There were a lot of very similar interpretations of authorial intent there, and most of those were proven correct in Walt Williams' We Are Not Heroes: Contextualizing Violence Through Narrative session at GDC 2013

[Malcador]

Seems like it is unfun to play regardless of how deep it is.

[Hurlshort]

Spec Ops: The Line is literally the only shooter I have finished in the last decade.  It was wonderfully thought provoking and elicited a gamut of emotions.  It is not a long game, so I recommend sticking to it.   

Edited September 23, 2014 by Hurlshot

[Malcador]

Squeezed every bit out of Consortium myself, hm, maybe I will go in and play as a jerk - though that way is harder. Once that's done I guess I will flip a coin between Wasteland 2 and C&C 3.

[Keyrock]

Slowly playing Wasteland 2 and loving it.  I'd be a lot further along, but the NFL is cutting into my gaming time and will be for quite some time.  My Sundays are almost completely booked, Monday night, now Thursday nights too.  Freakin'  NFL, when they're not covering up beating the crap out of women, they're putting the squeeze on my gaming time.  Damn you, Roger Goodell, does your evil know no bounds? 

Edited September 23, 2014 by Keyrock

[BruceVC]

 

How did you guys know all this about the game, its very interesting

After beating the game and loving the direction it took in the latter half, I basically started consuming every video and article that discussed it in detail. There were a lot of very similar interpretations of authorial intent there, and most of those were proven correct in Walt Williams' We Are Not Heroes: Contextualizing Violence Through Narrative session at GDC 2013

 

 

Well all I can say is "Well done Sir" , that was very fascinating 

[Tale]

Watcher's Keep, just got through the maze.

 

I like puzzles.

[BruceVC]

Seems like it is unfun to play regardless of how deep it is.

 

No the game is fun and I thought kept you interested in the narrative the whole way

[Blarghagh]

- Trying out Skyrim and not really getting what the fuss is about.

 

- I suppose I'm halfway through Book of Unwritten Tales and loving its awkward Discworld ripoff humor.

 

- Speedrunners is bloody hilarious. The most rage inducing moments from four player Mario games used as game mechanics.

[Raithe]

I think part of the fuss is that it's pretty, and it's a lot better then Oblivion was.

 

Apart from that, it's pretty much your standard Bethesda hiking simulator that's got a huge modding community.

It's one I can dip in occasionally when I can't really focus on anything and just idly wander around in with no particular goal, but it doesn't exactly have depth of story behind it.

Depth of in-universe lore and history, yes.. but involving story.. not so much.

[Keyrock]

- Trying out Skyrim and not really getting what the fuss is about.

• Fus-Ro-Dah-ing people off cliffs is pretty fun for a little while.
• It's pretty
• At one time it had hilarious backward flying dragons

That's all I got.

[Lexx]

You can wear fur clothes and hunt deer with a bow in the woods.

[Tigranes]

I guess I feel like, when I'm playing a strategy game, especially a strategy game like this, that when I don't have a goal, or when I'm not doing anything, I'm screwing up. I spend the first ten years of my campaign in an almost OCD-like fit, first destroying Venice's and its vassals' navies, then occupying all of its territory to take all of their non-Italian land, (most of which is Orthodox and Greek to begin with, with the exception of Dalmatia). At that point, while I have a rather weak army, especially after beating Venice down whose army is difficult to beat, I have either the first or second most powerful navy in the world, and nearly all of my territory is only accessible via the Ottoman Empire, and who's gonna screw with them to get to me? So, ironically, even with them as my rival, the Ottomans are actually a sort of great shield to me while I'm weak, as nobody can really touch me via the Mediterranean due to my naval strength, and the Ottomans themselves are too busy with other stuff to bother with their Greek problem - that, or their ruler has died and they only have a regency council and can't deliberately make war to begin with.

 

The next part depends on what exactly's going on, but usually I rest for at least two years while building my army up to the new force limit thanks to the Venetian territory gains. Depending on how long this takes, I might annex my vassal, Athens, while I'm waiting. Between this, I'm making claims on the Ottoman territory that I can, as well as making friends with Eastern Europe, particularly the other Orthodox nations nearby, (Serbia and Wallachia in particular). If the Ottoman Empire fails to go to war with any major nation, (or even the one territory nations in Anatolia), I will take some extra time to build up gold reserves and then to train an army far beyond my normal force limit so that I can deal with both the Ottoman and Crimean armies, (whom the Ottomans *always* ally with, at least that I've ever seen). The extra gold reserve is because even without normal casualties, I'll be running a deficit after my army is completely trained. If they *do* go to war with a major nation, I will usually say screw it and form a temporary alliance with whatever opposing major player there is in the war, and try to occupy as much territory I can before they reach a peace...at which point the Ottomans are exhausted with war and can't much deal with me.

 

From that war, I take back all of Greece and the Balkans with the stupid exception of the Ottoman's capital, which is right in front of Constantinople, (hey, another thing I forgot to complain about - not being able to annex capitals unless you're completely annexing the entire nation - stupid as heck, particularly if the territory is one of your freaking cores).

 

At this point, I vassalize Wallachia, as I'd rather not go to war with them right after the previous, but I'd also like to have a shield of sorts. I vassalize Serbia...if I can. If they make me their rival, I have a...short war with them. Otherwise, they're just a normal ally. Then what? Make Trebizond a top ally if I haven't already for future vassalization and annexation...um...maybe take back Genoan Crimea because it's Greek and Orthodox and would be easy to integrate? Annex Cyprus because the Mamluks are too scared of my navy to back up their guarantee of the Knights, and Cyprus is, again, Greek and Orthodox as well as one of my core territories for historical reasons? At this point, I'm making a *huge* amount of money because navies are relatively cheap - even large ones - and I only have a moderate army for my nation size, (around 20k, 30k at max), that's backed up with the force of my other Orthodox allies as well as my extremely strong economy that would let me make a much larger army pretty much instantly if I needed to, even if it were in the form of mercenaries. I'm usually in first or second place in the scores at this point.

 

After all that, I...am at a loss as to what to do. I spent a huge amount of effort into making sure the two previous big wars went right and now...I don't have much anything left to do. I've either made war with or allies out of all my neighbors. Should I try...expanding into Italy? After everything I'd done previously, the game just feels really weak and like it has ground to a standstill. I'm supposed to just sit around for a few decades to continue my previous wars or annex the allies I've made, or..? I see everyone continuing to make war with each other, and their naval forces moving all over the map, and I'm just sitting here twiddling my thumbs, waiting for an arbitrary amount of time to pass to continue my affairs. I restarted my game about five times, and each time, I got to this point where I started feeling really uncomfortable with how things were going, even though everything had gone to plan.

 

RE: Integration: Like I said, I like the mechanics. I just think...they're too extreme. I can't cope with multiple rebellions of ten thousand men strong armies when my army is only twenty thousand strong. Why are rebellions for larger countries so much bigger than they are for smaller ones? I got a rebellion in Dalmatia once, before I took back the Ottoman territories, and it was like 4, 5 thousand strong. I get one after getting my territory back, and it's at least twice as large! This would make sense...if rebellions were more of an entire national thing - you know, get one in a particular area and it covers that entire area and makes it so there can't be more for a while after you put it down - but it's per freaking territory, so let's keep it tied to individual territory strength, as multiple rebellions can make your entire country fold when it makes absolutely no sense for it to.

 

You're not doing anything 'wrong', and when I play Byzantium that's what I tend to do as well, anything else feels rather 'wrong' given the empire's centuries-long historical struggles. My suggestions in terms of how I discovered EU as an infinite fountain of fun rather than 'what do I do now':

 

(1) Despite appearances, if you know what to do then Byzantium is pretty easy/OP. Try a German OPM with the Holy Roman Empire restrictions on expansion; the Dutch; or a bit more hardcore but fun, the Knights; a Kazakh / Russian / Indian minor; an African / American minor...

 

(2) In such a complex game it is inevitable that the AI can't do everything very well. Set yourself house goals. E.g. roleplay your leaders. I tended to have each Byzantine king fixate either on a conquest of the Balkans or the East, or some forlorn dream of Southern Italy, meaning they would pursue that against 'good sense', but the next sovereign might abandon the effort - as happened historically. Play ironman, which is actually great fun. Do not ally yourself to huge powers, because it becomes weird when the French are sending their entire army to help you fight Venice. Etc.

 

(3) Get into mods. Lots out there which introduce different mechanics, some very good.

 

As for integration, yes, it's silly to get gigantic rebel armies. But even with those armies, integration is far easier in EU than it was in most cases in history. The entire concept of rebels springing from the ground is silly (try CK2 if you actually want nobles that conspire against you then raise their levies). It's meant to more or less simulate the difficulties you'd have, and the boots on the ground you'd need, for pacification. Again, (1) I agree rebel mechanics suck, everyone does, but (2) integration mechanics are not extreme when compared to historical difficulties, and (3) if they were less 'extreme' you would be done with your superfast map-painting even faster. 

[Bartimaeus]

snip

The problem with these kinds of plots, is that they're never player-driven, but rather obviously-stupid-protagonist-driven. Like I said before, I wouldn't have done all the horrible things to begin with, because it's obvious from the very basic tone of the game that this isn't, y'know, your normal military action shooter. Because if you make it freaking clear to the player that hey, let's look at this from a real world perspective and realize it's horrible, so please don't do it...you know what? The player has a tendency not to do those horrible things and instead try to work around them as best as they can...alternatively, they might think harder about their options and maybe realize, yeah, this is absolutely horrible, but it still has to be done - but at least I realize that it's horrible and that there might well be consequences. The game allowed for NONE of that. There's never any choice in the game - it's, "protagonist tells you to do horrible thing after horrible thing that are obviously horrible things that you're gonna be yelled at later for, so you do it because you have literally no other choice to progress the game, and then the game gets mad at you". It's predictable, it's boring, it's preachy, and it's, quite honestly, a little pathetic.

 

It's actually not- It's a subversive discussion on the shooter genre itself. I'm going to assume you haven't gotten far yet

This is so painfully obvious pretty soon into the game. A good game it does not make, however. There were so many other ways to do what the game was trying to do, but it took one of the worst options to try to do so - a completely one dimensional, railroaded, linear third person corridor shooter. You know what they could've done for that white phosphorous scene? Make a save right before the "decision" to use it, and let the player *decide* what they want to try and do - use it, or don't. The game is supposed to be more realistic than most other military shooters, right? So have the militants completely overwhelm the player each and every time they try to fight the camp head on...or let the player try and sneak through, but allow for there to be no actual passage to get through so the player always gets caught and butchered. Something along those lines so that the player organically *wants* to try and use the white phosphorous - preferably without really thinking about it beyond "I'm frustrated and this seems like an easy way out" - and isn't just railroaded into using it. At THAT point, the game is justified in showing, "holy crap, look at what you just did!".

 

An important part of making that work, though, is making sure the game doesn't look like it's obviously rigged in the game's favor for the other options, but rather, just simply too hard for the player to pull off realistically. That can be tough, but at least I'd understand if they failed on that part.

Edited September 23, 2014 by Bartimaeus

[Volourn]

 "Freakin'  NFL, when they're not covering up beating the crap out of women"

 

While the NFL handled it wrong, there was no cover. It was known he had punched his fiance, knocked her out, and thend ragged her out of the elevator ebfore the video was shown to the public. So, don't make stuff up. Plenty of reasons to fire Godell. No need to make stuff up.

[Bartimaeus]

Byzantine king

*twitch*

 

Hey buddy, they're EMPERORS! And, uh, empresses, too, I guess - I got one or two Theodoras while playing, which I thought was pretty neat, even though it wasn't entirely grounded in history for the Romans.

 

I'll try and give the game another try with your suggestions in mind. It did ruin Total War for me, after all. Thanks.

 

"Freakin'  NFL, when they're not covering up beating the crap out of women"

 

While the NFL handled it wrong, there was no cover. It was known he had punched his fiance, knocked her out, and thend ragged her out of the elevator ebfore the video was shown to the public. So, don't make stuff up. Plenty of reasons to fire Godell. No need to make stuff up.

wot

Edited September 23, 2014 by Bartimaeus

[BruceVC]

 "Freakin'  NFL, when they're not covering up beating the crap out of women"

 

While the NFL handled it wrong, there was no cover. It was known he had punched his fiance, knocked her out, and thend ragged her out of the elevator ebfore the video was shown to the public. So, don't make stuff up. Plenty of reasons to fire Godell. No need to make stuff up.

 

Are you sure that's confirmed because the interview I watched with him he said they didn't know the full scope of the violence, then when he saw the video they decided  to act  against Ray Rice

[Volourn]

They had already acted on it. They suspended him for 2 games (not enough) but the  video came out with people obiously being horrified by the actual footage so they suspended him again for 6 games and the team fired him.

 

But, people knew what he did. The police said it and Rice himself admitted to it. Even the Ravens and the league both stated that Rice was honest about what happened. He and his fiancee got into a tiff, she hit him a few times, he punched her hard, she fell unconcious, and then he dragged her out of the elevator. This was known prior to video but , of course, the video makes it more 'real'.

 

Godell is just trying to to damage control because he knows he handled the situation wrong - both by the extremely short initial suspension and then suspending him for the same event a 2nd time which is gonna get the NFL in trouble. But, the NFL knew about the video, and they knew exactly what happened. The only difference is the public never saw the video.