Good Old Games

[majestic]

I'm noticing a worrying trend, whenever there is a big sale on GOG it reads "OWNED" on most of the listed items, so I tried a mystery game and got A Golden Wake, a newer point and click adventure with old-school charm. I never really get lucky with those. Out of all the MYSTARY games I got the only really good one was Chroincles of Riddick.

 

On the brigt side I got myself Shadow Warrior for 3€.

[Zoraptor]

I own about a third of the mystary games elsewhere, so I basically never buy them. I really don't need a third copy of Hearts of Iron 2 or EU3.

 

I'd guess that some people would be interested in the LucasArts/ Film bundles though, with two Star Wars bundles and an adventure bundle. Again, I own about half of the titles retail, and the individual discounts aren't so great. Unless there's something great I'll almost certainly wait until after Christmas to buy anything further.

[majestic]

I bought all those bundles when they were released, regardless of already owning almost all of the games already. I'm kinda paying GOG for their work and the fact that I don't need to fiddle with fan-made patches and ScummVM out of pure lazyness (except for Privateer 2, they should really include the deinterlacer mod in their normal setup, the videos are unwatchable without it) - the same reason why I stopped putting my computers together myself.

 

That, uh, and my tendency to not having any idea where my really old CDs (and disks) are. Probably somewhere in the basement. Heh.

Edited December 3, 2015 by majestic

[Malcador]

Giants Citizen Kabuto is free for the next day or so

[HoonDing]

The real-time base building in Kabuto was annoying, having to hunt for food and gather workers. But there was a trick I used so that you had all the time in the world before you were attacked.

[majestic]

The real-time base building in Kabuto was annoying, having to hunt for food and gather workers. But there was a trick I used so that you had all the time in the world before you were attacked.

 

I found the races with Delphi much more annoying. Bad controls and a horrible case of rubber band AI, no thanks.

[ktchong]

I am somewhat disappointed by this Winter Sale.

[Mamoulian War]

Darkest Dungeon ninja released on GOG!

 

https://www.gog.com/news/release_darkest_dungeon

[Nonek]

I was reading a rather negative review of Darkest Dungeon and growing somewhat discouraged, I then noticed the reviewer had over a thousand hours of gametime in the Early Access version of the game, this left me thoroughly confused: If a game has provided over a thousand hours of gameplay then surely one must have enjoyed or found some value in that, why else continue playing unless one is a masochist? I'm left rather befuddled, think i'll wait for a trusted review.

[Fenixp]

If a game has provided over a thousand hours of gameplay then surely one must have enjoyed or found some value in that, why else continue playing unless one is a masochist? I'm left rather befuddled, think i'll wait for a trusted review.

The game has been in Early Access for quite a while now and developers were actively working on it, so it's quite possible developers introduced a feature said player strongly disliked and stopped playing the game there, thus the negative recommendation.

[Ganrich]

 

If a game has provided over a thousand hours of gameplay then surely one must have enjoyed or found some value in that, why else continue playing unless one is a masochist? I'm left rather befuddled, think i'll wait for a trusted review.

 

The game has been in Early Access for quite a while now and developers were actively working on it, so it's quite possible developers introduced a feature said player strongly disliked and stopped playing the game there, thus the negative recommendation.

If it is the review I am thinking of, and I believe it is, then Fenixp is correct. I occasionally read the codex at work (not a lot to read on 3rd shift as news doesn't occur much at 3AM EST), and every Darkest Dungeon thread has the reviewer expressing his disdain for the direction the developers took with the game during early access.

[Nonek]

Well it was a Steam review, but I can imagine the chaps at the Codex having a good old laugh at the gentleman in question, and the situation in general.

 

Edit: Chaps name is Celerity and he has spent 1337 hours on the game, which is a meme I believe.

Edited January 20, 2016 by Nonek

[Ganrich]

Well it was a Steam review, but I can imagine the chaps at the Codex having a good old laugh at the gentleman in question, and the situation in general.

Yeah, he has recently made a Steam Review, and he had 1337 hours into the game. I believe his handle is Celerity (both on steam and the codex). It's a mixed bag on the Codex. Some see him as the typical "impossible to please codexian" and it seems that some share similar feelings on the issues he brings up. I haven't played the game so I don't know one way or the other. Alas, the codex is the codex.

[Keyrock]

The Codex is a mysterious place where even those that in other places would be considered grognards are mere n00bs and the surliest of the surly teach the young the ways of the dismissive sneer.

Edited January 20, 2016 by Keyrock

[samm]

Damn Darkest Dungeon :/ If I knew it'd come to GOG I wouldn't have steamed the early access. As it stands though: At the stage I played it, it required you to go through a lot of people that you can afford to loose in order to boost some good ones. Can get very frustrating and repetitive to grind for money to remove quirks / buy equipment / better abilities.

[Humanoid]

It's fairly trivial for the player to rebalance things as they please, most things are easily accessible in plain text in the game folder. That's a plus, but it does then bring into question as to why there aren't any difficulty presets. The stock answer is of course that there's a "one true vision" of what the developers want the game to be, but I'm not convinced that's a healthy philosophy to have.

[Fenixp]

It's fairly trivial for the player to rebalance things as they please, most things are easily accessible in plain text in the game folder. That's a plus, but it does then bring into question as to why there aren't any difficulty presets. The stock answer is of course that there's a "one true vision" of what the developers want the game to be, but I'm not convinced that's a healthy philosophy to have.

There aren't difficulty presets, sure, but you can tweak difficulty quite heavily by toggling a bunch of features in the options menu. And of course the game itself contains a mechanic which allows you to adjust difficulty on the fly.

 

Damn Darkest Dungeon :/ If I knew it'd come to GOG I wouldn't have steamed the early access.

EA tend to get a lot of patches even after release, so Steam would be the place to grab the game anyway, unless you want to support GOG for their ideology.

Edited January 23, 2016 by Fenixp

[samm]

EA tend to get a lot of patches even after release, so Steam would be the place to grab the game anyway, unless you want to support GOG for their ideology.

I totally want to support GOG for their ideology, and do not see how patches or EA play into Steam's hand? Patches on GOG just work like in the good old days or via Galaxy, so I do not see the problem there. And is Darkest Dungeon an EA game now? Sorry, it's almost 6am here, so maybe that's why I don't see the connection

[omphaloskepsis]

I totally want to support GOG for their ideology, and do not see how patches or EA play into Steam's hand? Patches on GOG just work like in the good old days or via Galaxy, so I do not see the problem there. And is Darkest Dungeon an EA game now? Sorry, it's almost 6am here, so maybe that's why I don't see the connection

Early Access, not Electronic Arts.

 

 

FWIW, I played Darkest Dungeon about 6 months ago and loved it.  The only reason I stopped was because I didn't want to get burned out before the final product was released.  It's got extremely rough but manageable RNG.  It's also got great art and a unique stress mechanic that I hope inspires other games.  It's also unique because stress can ruin party members, so you can't get attached to members that you've built up for a while, even if they've become power houses.  You have to have strategy about managing and dismissing members that become a problem.  

 

I can't explain how great the idea of the stress system is.  Various factors like darkness, lack of food, and combat grind down morale, and eventually break one or more of your party.  When that happens, things usually go bad, though occasionally they'll go crazy in a good way (like religious zeal that inspires others).  The type of condition might lead to members constantly whining or directly insulting others during combat, which brings down morale further.

 

In terms of development, from what I've heard there were different ideas about where the game should go, and the hardcore balance group won, leading to closing some loopholes in combat that others felt gave the game and party composition more flexibility.  As I said, I haven't played in a long time, but I'm hoping that the game hasn't become tedious or a repetitive grindfest as a result.  And even if it has, the art, atmosphere, party management, and stress mechanics would probably make it worth checking out for folks with an RPG or rogue-like bent.

[Fenixp]

I totally want to support GOG for their ideology, and do not see how patches or EA play into Steam's hand? Patches on GOG just work like in the good old days or via Galaxy, so I do not see the problem there. And is Darkest Dungeon an EA game now? Sorry, it's almost 6am here, so maybe that's why I don't see the connection

EA as in Early Access. Sorry, abbreviations are spawn of the devil. And the issue with GOG and patches is that often, it takes unnecessary amount of time for them to arrive to GOG because of their "curation process" (where they don't really curate anything at all beyong "Does it install?" and package it) - that's why, when I buy a game that which I expect will receive a lot of/frequent patches, I tend to prefer to get it off Steam as Steam users get their patches in a timely manner.

 

Nonetheless, absolutely - if you believe GOG is pursuing "good cause", waiting a bit should not be a problem.

 

As I said, I haven't played in a long time, but I'm hoping that the game hasn't become tedious or a repetitive grindfest as a result.

Might be a bit of an unpopular view on the topic, but I sort of feel like the game is supposed to be a grindfest. From what I have seen from the game, it's sort of designed as one of those endless rogue-lites, with Hamlet being the persistent progression system organically included into the game. Which also means that it should take you about ten million runs to ever finish the damn thing. It even seems to be designed to progressively get more and more difficult until it kills off most of your high level heroes just for you to be able to repeat those bits with more stuff next time around.

 

I can absolutely see why some people would find this design unappealing, but I'm really enjoying it - when all your high level people die, it's no biggie, you can hire and train new ones for essentially free. And increasing difficulty curve keeps you on your toes, rewards either your planning and party composition in case you succeed the first time around or your continuous progression if you succeed later on.

 

As for repetition, it definitely didn't set in 10 hours after starting it for me, which is not something I could say about any other rogue-lite game in existence (with exception of Sunless Sea which ... Well, is not actually much of a rogue-lite). As far as I'm concerned, it's extremely tightly designed, smart and highly personal game. I think it's the first one which does the whole "The game tells you stories generated by gameplay" and succeeds 100%.

Edited January 24, 2016 by Fenixp

[Fenixp]

Edit: Sorry, accidentally made a multi-post, nothing to see here. Why can't I delete my own posts?

Edited January 24, 2016 by Fenixp

[sorophx]

because destroying evidence is a crime

[Nonek]

Openend up an old e-mail account to do some business and found i'd backed Darkest Dungeon when it was on Kickstarter, well that saves me a purchase though one worries about ones own profligate nature in forgetting quite a large expenditure, usually I make Scrooge look like a spendthrift.

[Fenixp]

Aaand GOG introduced their own Early Access called "Games in development"

 

This could be really cool for archival of unfinished versions.

Edited January 28, 2016 by Fenixp

[Mamoulian War]

Early access thingie has arrived to GOG. With handpicked games, so we probably do not see the typical Steam Greenlight Garbage.

 

http://www.gog.com/news/introducing_games_in_development

 

Called Games in Development.