What are you playing now?

[Darkpriest]

 

<snip>

 

NWN was one of the biggest disappointments I've ever had with a game and it seems I got the worst of it too by trying to play a wizard (as I generally do).

 

In other news, I picked up my year old XCom: Enemy Within playthrough, the game's still fun though I think I really should have started my second playthrough on Classis or so because after the initial few months the difficulty rather plummets. Now I'm trying to decide whether to drag it out to get the "shoot down 40 UFOs"-achievement or just use the Gollop Champer and get this playthrough over with...

 

 

Play the Long War mod... the game is a completely different experience then

Edited February 23, 2015 by Darkpriest

[Humanoid]

The difficulty of non-modded XCOM plummets regardless of selected difficulty, and it's a deliberate design decision to do so (as per developer interview) to avoid the situation of an unwinnable game that you've invested months into. The Long War mod on the other hand is a fairly flat difficulty throughout the whole campaign - though the campaign admittedly takes about an order of magnitude more time to get through, the name of it is fairly literal. For what it's worth, "normal" difficulty Long War (the easiest option) is tuned to be approximately the same difficulty as unmodded classic, though the challenge is of a different nature.

 

Where you go from here depends how much more time you want to put into it: normal mode teaches you a lot of bad habits (perpetuated by the "advice" the game itself gives you) which you'd want to get rid of if attempting classic - which I'd dive right into instead of finishing a normal campaign that's reached the trivial stage. Long War ....well, it's fantastic as feels like a new game, but if you don't have triple-digit hours to invest into it, you mightn't get all that far.

[ManifestedISO]

 

Was supposed to get paid today, thereby playing The Order: 1886. Neither of which happened. 

The universe has conspired to prevent you from playing a horrible game. God exists and he is a PC gamer.

 

 

Very true, possibly. That would mean the Holy Ghost is an Xbox gamer, so, if it's all the same, I'll hang out with Satan and a Playstation. 

 

Still haven't been paid. Maybe Tuesday. 

[Krookie]

started a new skyrim game, really looking forward to picking up an Xbox One or PS4 when some decent RPGs come out. Till then it's been mainly Starcraft 2 and CS:GO. 

[GhostofAnakin]

Dying Light went from fun open world missions to on-rails and no moment to pause while being forced to play a continuous mission for over an hour straight in the blink of an eye.

 

Setting the bomb + Rescue/Pit area was really bugging me tonight.  Especially the pit, since my entire character was built around his arsenal and bombs.

 

More than that, I wanted to quit an hour into that mission but it just kept going and didn't seem there was a moment I could quit without having to start all the way from the beginning of the mission again.

[Guard Dog]

A few months back, I decided I was going to play through Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate II, Throne of Bhaal, Neverwinter Nights, Neverwinter Nights 2, and Mask of the Betrayer with the same character.

 

So having finished Throne of Bhaal, I went directly to Neverwinter Nights, and then I remembered why I can keep coming back to Baldur's Gate again and again...and why I never touched NWN for years after finishing the original campaign:

 

- The OC is bland and banal. It consists almost entirely of fetching MacGuffins (Waterdhavian creatures, words of power, etc) via quests that are totally straightforward, and without any alternate means of solving them. With the exception of the Charwood quest, nothing in the campaign is particularly memorable and compelling. Worst of all, the game never really establishes any sort of motivating factor to your character. In BG, you had the murder of Gorion and sorting out the iron shortage to compel the PC. In the sequel, you had Irenicus torture you and abduct Imoen. In NWN, on the other hand, your character is just some random academy student with no background and no personal stake in the conflict.

 

Another thing that bothered me was just how frequently the solution to your quests involves mass slaughter of human beings. For instance, there's one sidquest wherein your character is tasked with stealing pieces of an artwork from noblemen who have offended the local whorehouse madam. Each nobleman's estate is guarded by someone who says that he really doesn't like his job and won't stop you from entering. Since my character is a wizard with no real stealth skills, but with good Charisma and several ranks in Persuade, I thought I might try to bluff my way past the interior guards.

 

Nope! The only real solution was to violently murder all the guards. And these people weren't evil, they were just doing their jobs. The most ludicrous example had to be the quest where you must free some animals from a zoo because the local druid believed they were being mistreated. The only solution offered to me? Kill all the guards in the zoo and murder the proprietor!  There's this odd dissonance in the game where my character is 100% good-aligned, yet I've racked up a body count in the hundreds, with many of those deaths coming under circumstances of extreme moral dubiousness. And no one ever calls you on it!

 

- What? Do you mean to tell me that the character who was incredibly rude, abrasive, condescending, and unhelpful in every single conversation with me....is EVIL? My god, I got whiplash from this UTTERLY SHOCKING AND COMPLETELY UNEXPECTED PLOT SWERVE!

 

- Playing as a mage is highly tedious. As in Baldur's Gate, a low-level wizard has a pitiful amount of HP and can only cast a few weak spells per day. They need some sort of melee support if they are to survive. In BG, this wasn't a problem, because the game gave you decent melee fighters near he start (Khalid and Jaheira in the first game, Minsc and Jaheira in the second). Not only that, you had full control of your party members.

 

Not so in NWN. Instead, you are allowed to have one "henchman" who is completely under the control of the AI. Unfortunately, the AI is utterly brain-dead. For instance, they can only attack targets that they have a direct line of sight to, otherwise the target may as well not even exist. So imagine my character is standing in front of a door to a room filled with monsters who could tear through her puny amount of HP in a heartbeat. In BG, I could order my melee fighters in first to deal with the enemies, while my mage stayed back and cast spells from a safe distance. In NWN, my henchmen will often stand just to the side of the door, meaning he can't see the monsters inside and will thus ignore my attack orders. The only way to get him to attack is to walk into the room first and hope he follows me inside, which is far more dangerous, especially if there are archers in the enemy ranks. You could cast invisibility on yourself, or summon a creature inside the room to aggro the enemies, but I should not have to waste spells just to do something that would be trivial if I had full control of my party!

 

Now, this isn't a hard game by any stretch, but playing as a wizard who has to rely on her henchmen more so than other classes at low levels is incredibly frustrating. Clerics blowing their Turn Undead spells on weak zombies that they can kill with one swing of their mace...clerics trying to heal themselves in close combat and get murdered by Attacks of Opportunity...a melee fighter who decides to ignore the five guys trying to hack him to pieces and run after that archer in the distance and thus get murdered by Attacks of Opportunity...you get the picture. There's a henchmen AI mod that does a bit to ameliorate the issue, but it's not enough.

 

- The graphics are as bland as the OC. Being 2D, the pre-rendered graphics of Baldur's Gate hold up fairly well more than ten years later. NWN's 3D graphics have not. The areas are visually uninteresting and very obviously constructed with tilesets as opposed to the more organic locales of Baldur's Gate. And bloody hell, who designed the armour for women in this game? Elder Scrolls modders? You know you've got a problem when this is the most reasonable thing any female fighter wears:

 

 

- So I gave up on the OC and started with the first expansion pack, Shadows of Undrentide. The story itself is nothing special, but there are some definite improvements here, such as being able to adjust your henchman's inventory, and the fact that the game offers multiple quest solutions depending on your class and abilities (such as the bit with the kobolds holding a woman hostage in the local tavern). But the henchmen remain an issue for spellcasters, because none of them are good melee fighters. You've got a Cleric/Rogue, a Barbarian/Sorcerer, and a Bard (there's a Paladin, but she doesn't join you). And this expansion likes to throw relatively tough opponents at you, and in larger numbers than what you faced in the OC. Later on, you start facing opponents who are not just spell resistant, but spell immune, at which point a wizard better hope that her summons and henchman can take them down. Otherwise, you're SOL.

 

Now I realise that the main draw of NWN was never its campaigns, but in the toolset and online play, which is a fair point. But surely BioWare must have realised that there would be a good number people coming into this game from Baldur's Gate who would be completely disappointed that it lacked almost everything that BG so good.

 

Tonight I'm going to try out Hordes of the Underdark, which I've never actually played before. I've heard it's the best part of NWN...we shall see.

Yeah, I'd say this is all pretty much on the money. With the exception of the third act of HotU the official NWN material was god-awful. There were hundreds of hours of decent to excellent user made modules though. But you had to shuck a lot of oysters to find those pearls. And it was difficult to string enough of them together in to a campaign for one character.

 

NWN2 was a lot better as far as the quality of the writing, quests, and overall plot (no surprise considering who wrote it), but it suffered from engine limitations.

 

BG I & II were lightning in a bottle though. You can play a lot of games and never find one you like as much. Why do you think folks are still playing them after all this time?

[Keyrock]

Dying Light went from fun open world missions to on-rails and no moment to pause while being forced to play a continuous mission for over an hour straight in the blink of an eye.

 

Setting the bomb + Rescue/Pit area was really bugging me tonight.  Especially the pit, since my entire character was built around his arsenal and bombs.

 

More than that, I wanted to quit an hour into that mission but it just kept going and didn't seem there was a moment I could quit without having to start all the way from the beginning of the mission again.

I actually like the setting the bomb mission, I liked the intensity and panic the time constraints added to it.  The pit, though, I hated.  Outside of the horrifically disappointing final boss fight, the pit was the most angry and frustrated Dying Light made me in the entire game.

 

I'm playing more Hand of Fate.  I really like this game.  This may be the closest any video game has ever come to recreating a table top gaming experience.  Using cards to create randomized "maps" and loot drops is a brilliant idea and executed really well.  Heck, even the combat has gotten more fun now that I'm fighting stronger enemies and have access to better equipment with special abilities, giving me more options during combat.  It's still the weakest part of the game, but I'm having a decent bit of fun with the combat.  Hopefully the game keeps getting deeper the further I go, like it has so far.

 

As an aside, anyone have any advice on what codec and settings to use for youtube videos?  I think I just skimped too much on the bitrate trying to keep the file size down, which resulted in a kinda crappy looking video.  Is there a better codec to use than H264?

[Althernai]

I'm currently about 85% through the original Knights of the Old Republic (the one from 2003). The interface is awful, the combat is pretty bad and the engine is obviously dated, but the game as a whole is still surprisingly good. I'll probably make a separate thread with a more detailed review when I'm finished.

[500MetricTonnes]

I'm currently about 85% through the original Knights of the Old Republic (the one from 2003). The interface is awful, the combat is pretty bad and the engine is obviously dated, but the game as a whole is still surprisingly good. I'll probably make a separate thread with a more detailed review when I'm finished.

Funny, I was just watching a hilarious review/let's play of KotOR from one of my favourite internet reviewers, SF Debris. Here it is:

 

I loved this line in particular:

 

Bastila: "What have you been doing all this time?"

(as the main character)SF Debris: "Becoming the living avatar of regret."

[GhostofAnakin]

 

Dying Light went from fun open world missions to on-rails and no moment to pause while being forced to play a continuous mission for over an hour straight in the blink of an eye.

 

Setting the bomb + Rescue/Pit area was really bugging me tonight.  Especially the pit, since my entire character was built around his arsenal and bombs.

 

More than that, I wanted to quit an hour into that mission but it just kept going and didn't seem there was a moment I could quit without having to start all the way from the beginning of the mission again.

I actually like the setting the bomb mission, I liked the intensity and panic the time constraints added to it.  The pit, though, I hated.  Outside of the horrifically disappointing final boss fight, the pit was the most angry and frustrated Dying Light made me in the entire game.

 

 

The Pit was annoying, but more so because of those stupid running zombies.  The actual "boss fight" was relatively easy if it weren't for those running things buzzing around.

[Keyrock]

 

 

Dying Light went from fun open world missions to on-rails and no moment to pause while being forced to play a continuous mission for over an hour straight in the blink of an eye.

 

Setting the bomb + Rescue/Pit area was really bugging me tonight.  Especially the pit, since my entire character was built around his arsenal and bombs.

 

More than that, I wanted to quit an hour into that mission but it just kept going and didn't seem there was a moment I could quit without having to start all the way from the beginning of the mission again.

I actually like the setting the bomb mission, I liked the intensity and panic the time constraints added to it.  The pit, though, I hated.  Outside of the horrifically disappointing final boss fight, the pit was the most angry and frustrated Dying Light made me in the entire game.

 

 

The Pit was annoying, but more so because of those stupid running zombies.  The actual "boss fight" was relatively easy if it weren't for those running things buzzing around.

 

Virals are really annoying and quite dangerous early in the game.  They're a piece of cake later on when you have a powerful weapon.  I've decapitated so many virals that I'm into the hundreds.  They are a definite annoyance in the fight with the Demolisher, though.

[GhostofAnakin]

Hmm.  I unlocked every safe zone shown on my map, but I didn't get the trophy for doing so on my PS4.

 

On a different note: I hate those "protect" quests.  The person you're trying to protect dies so friggin' easily.  They'll approach a group of 10 or more zombies, so it's difficult to keep them off the person while I kill each of them in turn.  I've failed to keep alive the person I'm protecting all three times I attempted it.

[Wrath of Dagon]

I'm currently about 85% through the original Knights of the Old Republic (the one from 2003). The interface is awful, the combat is pretty bad and the engine is obviously dated, but the game as a whole is still surprisingly good. I'll probably make a separate thread with a more detailed review when I'm finished.

Yes, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. I would also argue the engine is not dated, since the game has its own unique look and wouldn't be improved by newer graphics.

[mkreku]

All these Dying Light posts are slowly convincing me to buy the stupid game. It's down to $41 in Sweden now. Worth it? I might have to mention that I loved Dead Island.

[Keyrock]

All these Dying Light posts are slowly convincing me to buy the stupid game. It's down to $41 in Sweden now. Worth it? I might have to mention that I loved Dead Island.

I hated Dead Island and I still love Dying Light.  It's way better than Dead Island, it's what Dead Island should have been, and even with the annoyances of the pit battle and the lame as hell final boss QTE battle, I still loved the game and continue to play it occasionally to do side quests, challenges, and just parkour around Harran and slice heads off.  As long as first person parkour isn't a turn off for you, you will love Dying Light if you loved Dead Island.

 

Pro-tip:  Get the dropkick skill as soon as possible.  It's hilarious.

[Tale]

Dangan Ronpa 2

 

The mysteries are already better than the first game. I figured out the culprit in all the first game's cases before the trial started. (except case 2 where someone was intentionally screwing with evidence, so I assumed they were the culprit)

 

First case and I went into it not having any real clue until halfway, then I kept waffling back and forth between two possibilities.

[Nonek]

Hand of Fate, a weird combination of deck building, choose your own adventure, and brawler from Defiant Development.  Also, this is an opportunity for me to shamelessly plug my first ever Let's Play video. 

 

 

As it's my first Let's Play, it's a learning experience.  I definitely need to work on my audio levels and using better codecs, also, just getting more comfortable commentating while playing.

 

Tolerable, I know that sounds like harsh criticism but it's praise really, as I find myself switching off from the inane drivel that most Youtubers produce. You've got a good strong voice that's not irritating or overly excited, and you don't fall pray to the squeeing humour that far too many emulate. If I may suggest a queue card, not with a script but with topic buzzwords laid out before you, one for every subject you deal with. So it's not stilted or stiff as scripts always sound, but sounds more like improvisation on a theme.

 

Public speaking was exceptionally difficult for me at work, and what I did to try and break my own reticence was perform readings, play them back and try to improve as practice truly does work. Good luck.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Hand of Fate, a weird combination of deck building, choose your own adventure, and brawler from Defiant Development.  Also, this is an opportunity for me to shamelessly plug my first ever Let's Play video. 

 

 

As it's my first Let's Play, it's a learning experience.  I definitely need to work on my audio levels and using better codecs, also, just getting more comfortable commentating while playing.

 

It's always strange when someone on a forum I frequent does a video and they sound nothing like I would've guessed.

[Bartimaeus]

Small suggestion: turn up your mic volume some. I turned up my volume to 100% (it's normally around 30-40%), and it's still a little below my acceptable "normal" volume range. (The video volume is set to 100%, too.) I can hear you and make out words, but it's really hard to follow at this volume.

 

Although...I realize now after saying that, that the game itself is about the same volume level as your voice (a little louder, but not much). What're you using to record?

[Keyrock]

Tolerable, I know that sounds like harsh criticism but it's praise really, as I find myself switching off from the inane drivel that most Youtubers produce. You've got a good strong voice that's not irritating or overly excited, and you don't fall pray to the squeeing humour that far too many emulate. If I may suggest a queue card, not with a script but with topic buzzwords laid out before you, one for every subject you deal with. So it's not stilted or stiff as scripts always sound, but sounds more like improvisation on a theme.

 

Public speaking was exceptionally difficult for me at work, and what I did to try and break my own reticence was perform readings, play them back and try to improve as practice truly does work. Good luck.

 

Not harsh at all.  Also, I welcome any honest criticism, harsh or otherwise.  Yours was particularly constructive, thanks for that.  I'm not looking to do any kind of schtick, I'm just playing games and doing my normal stream of consciousness out loud.

 

 

It's always strange when someone on a forum I frequent does a video and they sound nothing like I would've guessed.

 

I know what you mean.  I still remember the first time I heard myself on a recording and how shocked I was.  "That's what I sound like?"  I don't have a very good public speaking voice, not much I could do about that.

 

Small suggestion: turn up your mic volume some. I turned up my volume to 100% (it's normally around 30-40%), and it's still a little below my acceptable "normal" volume range. (The video volume is set to 100%, too.) I can hear you and make out words, but it's really hard to follow at this volume.

 

Although...I realize now after saying that, that the game itself is about the same volume level as your voice (a little louder, but not much). What're you using to record?

I'm using Simple Screen Recorder to capture the video and in-game sound and Audacious to capture the microphone sound (keep in mind that I'm on Linux, so Windows-only software does me no good).  I then split out the audio from the video recording and mix the game and microphone audio together into one track in Audacious (this lets me adjust levels or make cosmetic adjustments like I did in my 3rd video).  I then put the video and the newly mixed audio together and encode it using Pitivi.  I turned the volume up in my 2nd and 3rd videos after noticing how quiet the first one was (I didn't link them here thinking linking just 1 was shameful enough).  I may turn up the gain in postprocess on the audio some more in future videos.  Thanks for the suggestion.

Edited February 24, 2015 by Keyrock

[GhostofAnakin]

 

All these Dying Light posts are slowly convincing me to buy the stupid game. It's down to $41 in Sweden now. Worth it? I might have to mention that I loved Dead Island.

I hated Dead Island and I still love Dying Light.  It's way better than Dead Island, it's what Dead Island should have been, and even with the annoyances of the pit battle and the lame as hell final boss QTE battle, I still loved the game and continue to play it occasionally to do side quests, challenges, and just parkour around Harran and slice heads off.  As long as first person parkour isn't a turn off for you, you will love Dying Light if you loved Dead Island.

 

Pro-tip:  Get the dropkick skill as soon as possible.  It's hilarious.

 

 

The dropkick is hilarious when it works.  When I time it wrong, my guy jumps up into the air only to deliver a little girl kick that only stumbles the zombie.

[LadyCrimson]

It's always strange when someone on a forum I frequent does a video and they sound nothing like I would've guessed.

I thought about doing some Let's Plays once (narrated) but when I tried to practice, I realized two things:

 

--I do this mild/quiet giggle when I'm amused, and apparently I'm amused a lot

--I sniffle/mini-clear my throat a lot (allergies).

 

I can control the latter but I couldn't cease the giggles.

[Keyrock]

 

It's always strange when someone on a forum I frequent does a video and they sound nothing like I would've guessed.

I thought about doing some Let's Plays once (narrated) but when I tried to practice, I realized two things:

 

--I do this mild/quiet giggle when I'm amused, and apparently I'm amused a lot

--I sniffle/mini-clear my throat a lot (allergies).

 

I can control the latter but I couldn't cease the giggles.

 

The giggles might be endearing 

 

I've noticed I vary the volume of my voice too much.  I have a tendency to say some things more quietly, under my breath a bit, which is obviously not good for a Let's Play.  Gotta work on that. 

[LadyCrimson]

^ when I v-blogged it all seemed fine/I didn't really notice the giggles for some reason, but when you can't see the face it seemed a little weird to me. Maybe if I did the PiP thing w/your face in the corner. And yeah, consistent volume can be difficult to maintain at first too and I'm a quiet talker to begin with.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I doubt you guys could understand me if I did a LP.