What are you playing now?

[Oerwinde]

Finished The Banner Saga.

 

In a game that is so good at hitting deep emotional notes with sparse art/animation/text (and that map!), the thing that bothered me most was when I lost civilians to starvation. Soldiers die in battle? Heroes fall in plot events? Well, it's a tough world; stuff happens. But civilians starving because we ran out of supplies, well, that felt like pure avoidable error by leadership.

 

(That said, the game is replete with "haha, screw you for picking option C despite every indication that it was a reasonable choice" moments, a few of which can easily lead to starvation issues. I get that that was part of the point-- immerse the player in the role of a refugee caravan leader forced to make decisions with imperfect information-- but it still got me rather angry at the game (rather than the in-world causes) from time to time.)

 

 

This is probably crazy of me, but I'm actually thinking of giving Dragon Age 2 a go next. (I nope'd out of the demo back when it was new.) After the earnest empathy, wonky slow-paced fighting, and slow-scrolling art canvasses of the Banner Saga, some twitchy, cheesy, fanservicey Biowarism might actually feel good. I'm thinking of a thoroughly unlikeable melee rogue Hawke. I've been moderately spoiled on some broad plot points, so I figure that, if a large part of what the Hero does is going to fail spectacularly regardless of her actions, I might as well make a character who deserves to see her life's work fall apart. Female, because I'm a reflexive contrarian with regard to "canon." (I've also got a "dead chaste Warden, drunken loser Alistair" DAO save to import around here somewhere.)

 

...

 

(Yeah, I should probably just apply a cold compress and find a good book to read for the next few days before The White March hits.)

While DA2 does have its issues (reused areas... A lot of reused areas, weak 3rd act, some of the NPCs make weird decisions that make no sense... Orsino I'm looking at you), I found it enjoyable. Yes DAO was way better, but DA2 was a pretty solid 6.5-7 out of 10 for me.

[Guard Dog]

Restarting PoE again. I never finished it the first time, too many real world concerns for gaming time. But with an expansion just a few days away time to "make the time".

Edited August 22, 2015 by Guard Dog

[Wrath of Dagon]

Found a few problems in Cyanide's Game of Thrones. For one there's a game breaking bug in Chapter 9 where you have to sneak through a dungeon and there seems to be no way out, so I ran around and around and couldn't figure it out. Turns out from watching walkthroughs there's a guard that's supposed to be patrolling so you can sneak past him but he's just standing in one place, blocking the way. Finally figured out if I reload the start of the dungeon I could quickly go there and trigger him normally.

 

Then there's a long timed fight (the only timed so far and hopefully the last) that's easy to fail, plus it gets tough at the end so you're likely to die, and no saves anywhere. I got frustrated and did it on easy, hate repeating long sequences. In one place there's a long sequence of several conversations and cutscenes and no saves allowed until after a tough fight that follows. Very douchy. But still a great game overall.

[GhostofAnakin]

I'm tempted to play The Witcher 3 again, with the new NG+ feature.  I'm trying to hold off, though, because I'd rather wait until the first expansion is released in October.

 

I just wish I had something else to play instead.  Maybe it's time I picked up the new Batman.

[Bendu]

Bloodborn. Defeated the second boss on first try, actually. I escaped from the first encounter.

 

[Keyrock]

Doing the main plot missions in X3: Albion Prelude is really paying off.  They gave me a freakin' Argon Centaur corvette for one of the missions and I got to keep it afterward.  I had forgotten you get a corvette that early into the main plot missions.  I mean, it's a fairly mediocre corvette, but still, it's a far larger and more powerful ship than anything I owned previously, I'll take it, thank you very much.  I mean, that's a 10 million credit ship, it's overpriced at that price, but still.  It came damn near fully equipped too.

[Labadal]

Shadowrun: Hong Knog. Not talking about it much because I am always paranoid about spoilers when I play a new game that I really like.

Edited August 23, 2015 by Labadal

[Bendu]

These boss fights are really tense. That one was really tight. Also going for a Bloodtinge/Skill build.

 

[Gromnir]

am gonna wait a couple months to play the new shadowrun. we had a few tech issues with the earlier releases and waiting a bit don't hurt us none.

 

we had considered starting da:i, but we abstained this long already, so am likely gonna hold off until end-of-year cheapened bundles become available.

 

pillars of eternity is on hold for us.  we got more than our fair share o' hours invested in the title already, but am gonna wait for both parts o' the expansion to be released before we play again, so am kinda avoiding all things poe for a few months.

 

in a little over a month we managed to level 5 characters from 1-60 on the harbinger server for swtor.  am now having 8 60s on harbinger. doesn't make much sense to gear those characters as once the expansion arrives, new gear will be available along with the additional 5 levels.  maybe we play a bit more so we got a nice reserve o' comms?

 

perhaps we contact WOPR and play some chess?

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Hurlshort]

Really having trouble settling on a character for Shadowrun HK.  I keep starting over.

[teknoman2]

i spent all day playing war thunder. there was a bombers only event and it was a perfect oportunity to get huge amounts of points for almost no risk, for planes that are lucky to get any points in a normal game. i made weeks worth of progress in a single day

[melkathi]

I feel an urge to start and fail an impossible ironman game of XCOM, just to be prepared for XCOM 2.

 

They really should patch XCOM so it can save your failure in impossible ironman and let you import it to XCOM 2

It would be a neat,sarcastic wink at other games alowing you to import characters.

Edited August 23, 2015 by melkathi

[Darkpriest]

I feel an urge to start and fail an impossible ironman game of XCOM, just to be prepared for XCOM 2.

 

They really should patch XCOM so it can save your failure in impossible ironman and let you import it to XCOM 2

It would be a neat,sarcastic wink at other games alowing you to import characters.

 

It would be funny to have memorial with the names from the failed XCOM campaign at the start of the XCOM2 :D

[Nonek]

Luxor the Moonprince stands at the Tower of the Moon, looking Southeast to the Downs of Shadows.

 

Finally gotten around to playing the Lords of Midnight, I was oddly touched by the memorial in Poe to Mike Singleton, a Titan of the industry who was all too quickly forgotten and taken far too soon. This was a very classy gesture, and as a piece of entertainment that broke frontiers and was enormously ambitious, very warranted.

 

I'm overdosing on nostalgia and I cannot deny it.

[Luridis]

While DA2 does have its issues (reused areas... A lot of reused areas, weak 3rd act, some of the NPCs make weird decisions that make no sense... Orsino I'm looking at you), I found it enjoyable. Yes DAO was way better, but DA2 was a pretty solid 6.5-7 out of 10 for me.

While I like the overall game, there are some things I decidedly dislike about what I am seeing in the Dragon Age series...

 

"NPCs make weird decisions that make no sense" - I understand exactly what you mean here. Some of the behaviors, reactions and conversations are unequivocally outside of the established character. I believe this is the result of spreadsheet balancing. Developers do things like tally up all the pluses and minuses to a particular game element, in this case that's companion approval, and then try to adjust so that all choices are more or less equal in the long-term. Telltale games did this and it was highly visible to me in several episodes of The Walking Dead. However, numerically neutral behavior among our friends and acquaintances is not how real people behave, so we pick up on it instantly.

 

Frankly, I think the writer/designer/developers in question need to read more well done character driven novels. Good writers do not artificially create conflict in order to establish drama. Instead, they establish personalities that will inevitably conflict about something. After that, it does not seem out of place when drama results between the two over some key element of the plot. Conversely, when they conflict about seemingly random things, especially things they showed no real conviction about before. Or, you'll see characters that seem to disagree about nothing then, out of nowhere, the two start arguing over some newly introduced plot element. We see those situations as unusual because they are, and are thus what I refer to as "artificial drama."

 

To give two examples that come to mind...

 

The Last of Us: In this game there comes a point where the protagonist is requested, by his assumed sweetheart, to protect an adolescent girl and escort her through dangerous territory. He is instantly opposed to the idea and behaves downright unreasonably. But we, the observers, instantly understand why this conflict arises. When the world fell apart some years earlier he lost his adolescent daughter during the chaos. So he could feel any of these: Doesn't want attachment or risk of it, doesn't want responsibility for another little girl who could die under his protection, and/or doesn't want to be reminded of what he lost. His confrontational disposition feels relevant because we know enough about the situation to relate, even if we don't agree.

 

DA - Inquisition:  Cole, a spirit that appears in human form, is concerned about being bound by nefarious mages to do ill. Solas, a mage with a history of communing with friendly spirits, is arguing with him over how to handle this. After you acquire something to help him, it doesn't work for him because, according to Solas, he is saddled with some personal burden. So, the three of you set out to discover the source...

 

When you find the source, you discover that the man who killed the person Cole originally appeared to help is still alive and Cole is quite angry to see him as such. Solas tells Cole he needs to embrace his helpful nature and forgive the man. Given what Solas said before about what spirits turn into if they are influenced to feel and behave inconsistently with their nature, I was inclined to agree.

 

Now, Varric walks into the scene and has a problem with this and I instantly feel artificial drama. First, Varric has never shown any interest in Cole before. I've never heard him talk about Cole, never seen him speaking to Cole, and he's never expressed any opinions when others were very quick to voice their own. Varric suggests that Cole could become "more human" by "working though this". Note that, the meaning of that statement is never really explained to the observer either. Cole wants to kill the man, Solas suggests not allowing it to happen and now Varric is suggesting what, exactly? That we allow him to go knife this guy because that will "make him more human?" The whole scenario is completely out of character for Varric. He normally keeps to himself and the only person I've ever seen him conflict with is Cassandra. Yet now, he's determined he knows Cole well enough to butt-in, have an opinion as to what is best for Cole, and has a negative response if you don't agree... I don't believe it. This whole scenario reeks of being shoe-horned in, and probably to balance some approval numbers.

 

Game designers/writers need to stop playing the analysis game on dialogue and just write realistic characters. When they don't, it shows and they appear foolish, at least to me.

[melkathi]

 

I feel an urge to start and fail an impossible ironman game of XCOM, just to be prepared for XCOM 2.

 

They really should patch XCOM so it can save your failure in impossible ironman and let you import it to XCOM 2

It would be a neat,sarcastic wink at other games alowing you to import characters.

 

It would be funny to have memorial with the names from the failed XCOM campaign at the start of the XCOM2 :D

 

 

Exactly.

Probably too late to try and bug Solomon about it

[Vaeliorin]

For some reason, playing Shadowrun: HK made me really want to play Temple of Elemental Evil.  Got the latest Circle of 8 patch, started it up, and man...the game looks really good still.  I was kind of stunned.

 

Anyway, have a Fighter (with a Ranseur), Cleric (Longsword/Shield), Druid (Scimitar/Shield), Rogue (Dual-wield), Bard (Longbow), and Wizard (Crossbow) for my party.  Hit level 3 from fetch quests, Welkwood Bog, and grinding random encounters trying to get the stupid swamp lotus (level 2 characters versus trolls doesn't work very well, btw...had to reload after getting that one.)  I finally did get it (yay, first time I've ever gotten it before Amii kicked the bucket!) and now I'm ready to hit the Moathouse.

 

I have to admit, I really like the variety of enemies that you find in the random encounters, particularly things that you wouldn't normally find.  Giant Crayfish, in particular, was a pleasure to encounter.

 

Hopefully I'll actually get somewhere near finishing it this time.  Never made it past level 5 before (it was the first time I played it, and I was really frustrated with having a level 5 party with like 4 magic items between them...this was before Co8, so masterwork stuff was much harder to find, and I didn't really want to use XP on enchanting back then.)

[Keyrock]

I decided to take a break from doing the main plot missions in X3: Albion Prelude to get back to my trading empire building.  I bought my 6th transport and my 6th station, going high-tech for the first time with a drone manufacturing plant.  Generally speaking, high-tech is high risk/high reward.  The potential profit to be made is greater, but high-tech products tend to be a lot more specialized, hence locating buyers can be a problem, whereas something like ore is easy to sell because it's needed almost everywhere, so while you don't make massive profit, the income is steady, hence why I like building ore mines so much, they're reliable.  With high-tech plants, finding a location where you have buyers is top priority.  I found just such a spot in a highly militarized area of the galaxy.  There are a whole bunch of military installations spread around 4 or 5 sectors, all of them needing fighter drones, and there isn't a drone factory for a dozen sectors in all directions.  Unsurprisingly, these military installations constantly have little or no drones on hand, on account of nowhere to get them from nearby and it being highly impractical to get them from a quarter of the galaxy away.  Building a drone factory  smack dab in the middle of the sectors makes sure I always have eager buyers for my products.

 

Getting the resources I need to keep the factory running is a somewhat less rosy predicament.  The factory needs 3 resources to produce drones: energy cells, silicon wafers, and massom powder.  The energy cells are a piece of cake, there is a solar power plant one sector away and several more a couple sectors in the other direction, nice, easy, reliable resource.  The massom powder and silicon are a bit more iffy.  There is a massom mill just 1 sector away, but it's usually woefully understocked and there isn't another one anywhere near.  The closest silicon mine is a whopping 5 sectors away, thankfully it's usually well stocked as there are very few installations that use silicon wafers in the general area (one of the reasons I don't just build my own silicon mine nearby) and there are solar power plants nearby to keep it full of resources.  Another good bit of news is that high-tech facilities, like a drone factory, tend to produce products and chew up resources slowly, so I only need to get resources for the plant once in a long while.  With high-tech plants you'll go through long periods of no sales, and quick bursts of high profit, as opposed to the slow but more consistent trickle of profit from more generalized installations.  I'm not particularly worried about the silicon wafers, I think that one silicon mine will keep me stocked well enough, but I am worried about the massom powder.

 

I see several solutions:

 

1) Build my own massom mill nearby.  This comes with the caveat that I then have to keep the facility supplied with scruffin fruit, luckily scruffin farms are at least a little bit more plentiful in the area (there are 2).

 

2) I could attach both a massom mill and a scruffin farm to my drone factory, turning it into a complex.  This option would entail the greatest out of pocket expense to start, as I'd have to buy both the massom mill and the scruffin farm, as well as 2 complex construction kits to connect all the facilities.  In the long run, though, it would make for a highly efficient facility that only relies on silicon wafers and energy cells.  In theory I could also have attached a silicon mine to my complex, further reducing my resource requirements down to just energy cells, but that would have required building my drone factory in a far less ideal location as far as nearby customers go, since you can't just build a silicon mine anywhere (like you can a drone factory, massom mill, or scruffin farm), a silicon mine needs to be built on an asteroid, and one that is rich in silicon.

 

3) I can set up a program for my transport pilot where I have them not only service my drone factory, but also monitor the nearby massom mill's resource levels (I have a satellite in that sector, so I always can see supply levels and prices) and supply that mill with the resources it needs (scruffin fruit and energy cells) whenever it gets low.  I can do this with a drone factory since there is so much downtime with a high tech installation because the products take a long time to manufacture and the resources are consumed slowly, thus that transport should have ample time to service another station while still attending to the duties of my own station (whereas I couldn't do this were it an ore mine which constantly churns out product and goes through resources).  This way I highly raise the probability of the massom mill being well stocked when I need to buy from it and I make a little bit of extra profit to boot when selling resources to the mill.  This seems like the best way to go.

Edited August 24, 2015 by Keyrock

[mkreku]

I recently started on Dragon Age: Inquisition too (it was so cheap, I couldn't resist), and boy was it a mistake to play it directly after The Witcher 3. It's worse in every aspect!!

 

Dragon Age: Inquisition is not a bad game in itself though. It's just.. mediocre. It reminds me of Kingdoms of Amalur. Basically it's like Battlefield's levels (big but not open world) mixed with really ****ty World of Warcraft combat (press 1, wait for cooldowns, press 3, wait for cooldowns and so on) and Kingdoms of Amalur's cartoon graphics. Oh, and it's all "collect 10 of X to win Y" quests. Everywhere.

 

I'm having fun with it, but I can't help to sit and think about what a huge accomplishment The Witcher 3 actually is while playing it.

[SadExchange]

I decided I couldn't play DAI and The Witcher 3 at the same time so I started over on DAI because it's been out longer and Witcher is still being patched up. I've played for about 22 hours and just last night and just put it down for a bit due to feeling I wasn't progressing anything except fetch quests and clearing maps. Due to these two issues, the story became muddled almost and I know I could just stick to main quest line but main do I feel like I'm forcing myself to play.

I then played The Witcher for an hour to keep the story fresh and man was that a mistake because that game excels as compared on all fronts. I may just say screw it and give up this latest playthroigh of DAI and enjoy gaming again by playing The Witcher but I'm still thinking DAI will turn around somewhere and be fun too. Lol

[Malcador]

FM and SRHK, former is going well, the game's not going to screw me over until the tail end of the season. Rather enjoying SRHK but I am not sure my Decker is done well, I am getting better at the hacking minigame though.

Edited August 25, 2015 by Malcador

[Keyrock]

Right now I am bordering on too many games to play, it's an embarrassment of riches.  

 

I got my drone factory in X3: Albion Prelude to the point where it's fully operational and relinquished control of the transport servicing it to a hired pilot.  There's always that awkward period with a new hired pilot where they spend excessive periods of time sitting idle at the station when there are wares that could be sold.  You can either wait that period out or, if you're monitoring the situation, give the pilot a direct command to sell wares, which is what I did.  After that initial period the pilot generally becomes more efficient and has minimum down time, I guess their training is complete and they know the job.  I'm at that point now, I'll monitor the situation a bit longer just to make sure, but the pilot seems to have a grasp of the job now and is buying and selling wares as it makes sense to.  I'm back to flying the Centaur corvette and back to doing the main plot missions.  Next up I need to help set up defenses for a high tech station overseeing some experimental stuff.  Basically I need to haul 3 lasertowers over to the station and set them around the perimeter to help keep the station safe.  This is one mission where they actually didn't give me the necessary equipment to complete the mission, I have to obtain the lasertowers myself.  I suppose I can't complain, since they did recently give me a 10 million credit ship, so spending around 500,000 credits on lasertowers out of my own pocket is the least I can do (plus I can easily afford it).  One reason I took a break from the missions before is that lasertowers are hard to obtain, for two reasons: 1) You need pretty high reputation with a race to be able to buy them (I didn't have enough with anyone before, I do now with the Split). 2) They are constantly out of stock in most places (which gives me an idea to build my own lasertower factory in the future, there's money to be made there).  I found a factory that builds them in Split space and made my way over there.  Right now I'm using my corvette as a makeshift transport to haul ore and energy cells to the factory so they can build some more lasertowers (they have 1 in stock right now, which is 1 more than any other place I've come across in my travels recently).

 

I'm balls deep into Shadowrun: Hong Kong.  I just did a mission where I attended a party and did some snooping (also Gobbet got to fill up on expensive food and drinks).  I managed to get that one done with zero loss of life (there was combat but it ended before anyone got killed).  I like missions I can do without killing, better yet, without any combat whatsoever.  I feel missions like that better reflect my own experiences with the PnP game.  Back when I played the PnP game, combat skills were usually a contingency, for when a job went sideways.  Ideally, our team would get in, bypass security, and get out, ghost style.

 

Also, Crookz - The Big Heist comes out today.  I'm pretty excited to play that again after playing through the demo a week or so ago.  That game is right up my alley; tactical team-based stealth set in the 70s with funk tracks and a foxy black woman with an afro.  I got that bad boy pre-loaded for when I get home.  I'm usually anti-pre-order, but if you put out a free demo of your game that gives me ample time to 1) make sure it works on my machine 2) gives me a feel for how it plays and lets me decide whether I want to play more, then I have no qualms about pre-ordering, since I can make an informed decision, even better informed than if I had only read reviews.

 

And this is all before the deluge of games that come out in September.  How am I going to find time to play all these games? #FirstWorldProblems

[marelooke]

Restarted in SRR because of the broken savegame, the plan is to play all three in the correct order.

 

On the side I'm still playing Defiance, got an EGO rating in the 700s now, found out that to be able to call down Arkbreaks I need to go through the entire related questchain first (only did part of it so far), but I keep getting sidetracked by Incursions, Arkfalls, Arkbreaks and my neurotic need to complete all the sidequests before advancing the main quests so I'm not making great progress

[Tale]

I bought Until Dawn today. I also found out two more games I was looking forward to come out next week, so I'm set for a while. Danganronpa Another Episode and Stein;s Gate PS3 in addition to Metal Gear Solid V.

 

Poor Planetside 2.

[Jordan Joestar]

E.Y.E.: Divine Cybermancy

 

After this I'll play:

Batman serie

PayDay 2

Jade Empire

KOTOR I

KOTOR II