What are you playing now?

[Mamoulian War]

Finished adding more content to me new site   about my EU game

 

https://sites.google.com/site/mamoulianfh/letsplay/europa-universalis-page2

 

Parts 2 and 3 complete with pictures

[Tale]

 

Well, I put down DA:I because after 22 hours, it was just feeling like a chore to play, so maybe I'll go back to it with renewed interest some time.

 

Only way I can push through replaying that game is by sticking to the main questline as much as possible.  The side content, by and large, is incredibly boring.  I still don't know how they came to the decision to make it "open world" and thought those quests would be good.

 

Said it before, I guess it's time to say it again, that game is simply weird because it seems like two games taped together. There's the big open world and then there's the actual plot quests. The two almost never interact! Like going ahead with some plot quests changes what enemies appear in the first open world area, but that's as good as it gets.

 

The plot quests are actually pretty fantastic. But the fact that they chose to not do anything important in the open world really makes it feel like you're wasting your time running around, only farming points to access the next plot segment.

[GhostofAnakin]

Yeah, it almost feels like they decided to make an open world MMO, with just random fetch quests that you could do with a bunch of friends but that weren't very in depth, but then remembered it also has to be a single player game and tacked on a short story set in the same world, even if the two don't interact with one another all that much.

 

It was just a bad design decision to go forward with.

[Tale]

To hazard a guess, I think the main quests were done internally at Edmonton. The open world parts might be the result of those job postings we heard for EA Shanghai to work on Dragon Age. This is why there's such disconnect between the two.

[GhostofAnakin]

I'd rank DAI's sidequests as, by far, the most boring of any BioWare game.  In large part because of that complete disconnect from the main story.

 

I don't think it helped matters that The Witcher 3 came out just a bit after DAI, and one of its strengths was actually its sidequests.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Finished Game of Thrones. Might be the best story I've seen in an RPG, but what a downer! Mors is a very cool character, kind of like Carth and Canderous rolled into one, except 10 times tougher than either!

[HoonDing]

 

It made perfect use of the setting.

 

Manly characters and wenches that get what's coming to them. Imagine something like that in a BioWare or CD Project game.

[majestic]

To hazard a guess, I think the main quests were done internally at Edmonton. The open world parts might be the result of those job postings we heard for EA Shanghai to work on Dragon Age. This is why there's such disconnect between the two.

 

Huh, so the filler crap essentially came from a Chinese sweatshop content factory. Now that you mention it, yeah, I can totally see that being true. I think that's a new low, even for EA.

[Oerwinde]

Finished Game of Thrones. Might be the best story I've seen in an RPG, but what a downer! Mors is a very cool character, kind of like Carth and Canderous rolled into one, except 10 times tougher than either!

 

I was a big fan. I heard nothing but bad about it, but I really enjoyed it. Looking up the endings, there really isn't any "happy" endings either. I really liked Alester until his revelation.

[melkathi]

Accidentally joined the Dozen

 

Not a fan of some of Obsidian's writing choices. You did some mercenary work for us, congratulations you're in. Erm, no? I was just here to take your money? I'd rather die than join idiots like you?

Edited September 1, 2015 by melkathi

[Humanoid]

 

To hazard a guess, I think the main quests were done internally at Edmonton. The open world parts might be the result of those job postings we heard for EA Shanghai to work on Dragon Age. This is why there's such disconnect between the two.

 

Huh, so the filler crap essentially came from a Chinese sweatshop content factory. Now that you mention it, yeah, I can totally see that being true. I think that's a new low, even for EA.

 

 

Well at least it wasn't the core content, like the stuff farmed out in Human Revolution.

[Rosbjerg]

Accidentally joined the Dozen

 

Not a fan of some of Obsidian's writing choices. You did some mercenary work for us, congratulations you're in. Erm, no? I was just here to take your money? I'd rather die than join idiots like you?

Quite a few complained about that, always thought it was clear enough. The way they worded the quest made me stop at least cause I felt it was a point of no return. Different temperaments I guess.

[melkathi]

 

Accidentally joined the Dozen

 

Not a fan of some of Obsidian's writing choices. You did some mercenary work for us, congratulations you're in. Erm, no? I was just here to take your money? I'd rather die than join idiots like you?

Quite a few complained about that, always thought it was clear enough. The way they worded the quest made me stop at least cause I felt it was a point of no return. Different temperaments I guess.

 

 

What is worse is the follow up conversation where the dozen head honcho admits to having sold you out to the Crucible Knights to use you as a distraction. For that my character would lock him up in the keep's dungeon and throw away the keep (was going to type key, but the typo illustrates the point nicely enough). They set you up and you do not even have a dialogue option to be miffed about it? That is worse than the childish tantrums the player throws in DA2.

[Keyrock]

I continue to be impressed by how good Hitman Go is.  I can't believe I scooped this up for 99 cents, I kinda feel like I owe Squeenix some more money for this game...  then I think about the Deus Ex pre-order crap they're pulling and any feeling of being beholden instantly goes away.  Anyway, it's a really good little puzzle game.  Who knew turn-based Hitman would work this well?  I've still yet to see any microtransactions.  My guess is that maybe you can buy the tokens you get for completing the levels and optional challenges so that people that fail to complete the optional challenges but still want to unlock latter sets of levels can pay to do so.  If that is indeed the microtransaction scheme then that seems fair to me.  

 

Over on the desktop side of things, Crookz - The Big Heist keeps getting more and more tense.  I pulled a prison break and I came so close to screwing up at the end.  The whole thing took me about 2 1/2 hours to complete and a little over 2 hours in I thought I was caught for sure.  I used a noise emitter to lure a guard away from his normal route to give myself a little extra time to pick a lock, but I underestimated how fast the guard moved and my timing was just barely off, so his vision cone caught a couple of my crew members as they moved toward the door my locksmith was taking care of.  I was boxed in with nowhere to run except through the door that wasn't yet fully picked and I didn't think my locksmith would get it done in time.  He did, just barely, then it was a tense game of hide and seek hiding next to a staircase and around the back of a pillar to escape the guard's vision  while he searched for me.  It was super duper close, but eventually he gave up looking for me and went back to his regular route.  My stealth score was crap for that mission, but I was just happy to finish at that point.  I do like how there are usually multiple ways to approach obstacles, depending on your crew and the tools you have, and how you can sometimes turn a screw up into a positive, like when a guard leaves his usual route to search for one of your crew he caught sight of, another crew member can take that opportunity to perform a time consuming task, like picking a lock or rewiring a switch box, that might have been very difficult to do (if not impossible) without being spotted while the guard was on his usual patrol route.

Edited September 1, 2015 by Keyrock

[Mamoulian War]

We have state holiday here today, so I used the free time, to rewrite and add pictures to Parts 4, 5 and 6 of my EU sessions

 

https://sites.google.com/site/mamoulianfh/letsplay/europa-universalis-page3

 

I have found today, that will latest drivers, my PC has became capable of using ShadowPlay to record or stream. I have also found out, that 5 minutes of High quality recording uses 1,9GB of HDD :-/

 

Has any of you tried out to work with it? I am thinking, if it is worth to use in some cases while playing for example Lords of Xulima or other older games.

[Tale]

Played around with Until Dawn's final chapter. Turning off vibration makes Don't Move easy.

 

 

I saved Sam and Jess, but made a bad choice that got Mike killed. I knew it was bad immediately after I made it.

 

Then I replayed the final chapter again to try and get everyone killed. Sadly, once you get to that point, Ashley and Emily are locked to live. I know how to kill Emily earlier, but unsure about Ashley. However, I also skipped over two optional segments with Ashley. That might be the trick.

 

Mike is a tough bastard, though. Anyone else gets grabbed by a Wendigo, it's instant death. Mike gets tossed around the room in two separate instances instead. And then survives to take out the last Wendigo with him. The game makes it seem like Mike and Sam are unkillable until the final sequence. Sam I believe it, but Mike... damn, the stuff he goes through in the asylum, if he's unkillable there, it'll be screwed up.

 

Hopefully Mike can die earlier, but keeping him alive to the final episode is the key to saving the others.

 

[Starwars]

After finishing up Shadowrun Hong Kong (which was excellent), I'm not playing Pillars of Eternity with the expansion. Going as Druid this time around. Have done some stuff around the expansion areas, found the two companions etc. Still quite a bit left to do there.

Some of the encounters are really tough, and I'm only on Hard this time around. 

 

With the second part of the expansion, this game is gonna be pretty damn enormous.

 

After I finish up PoE (will be a while), I'm gonna dive into STASIS which I'm *really* looking forward to. Good time to be a gamer now.

[Enoch]

 

 

Accidentally joined the Dozen

 

Not a fan of some of Obsidian's writing choices. You did some mercenary work for us, congratulations you're in. Erm, no? I was just here to take your money? I'd rather die than join idiots like you?

Quite a few complained about that, always thought it was clear enough. The way they worded the quest made me stop at least cause I felt it was a point of no return. Different temperaments I guess.

 

 

What is worse is the follow up conversation where the dozen head honcho admits to having sold you out to the Crucible Knights to use you as a distraction. For that my character would lock him up in the keep's dungeon and throw away the keep (was going to type key, but the typo illustrates the point nicely enough). They set you up and you do not even have a dialogue option to be miffed about it? That is worse than the childish tantrums the player throws in DA2.

 

 

Speaking of which, I am playing DA2.  To my surprise, I don't hate it.  (Yet.) 

 

As I mentioned, the demo put me off the game, back in the day, as the camera and combat style were exactly what I didn't want to see DAO become.  This time, I'm approaching it a bit more open-mindedly, as it's not that dissimilar to some other games that I have enjoyed before (most prominently, the KotOR games).  The reinforcements-in-waves stuff remains idiotic, and it does feel faintly ridiculous to play with friendly fire off, but it's passable.

 

And, so far, the game compares will to its predecessor in the writing department.  I'm not bothered by having a more defined protagonist, and the dialogue wheel has its challenges, but the early companions are far less annoying than Alistair and Morrigan were.  I had been planning to play Hawke as something of a jackass, but I'm finding it difficult to do so around Bethany and Aveline, whose company I'm enjoying.  Plus, an overall story motivation of "find a safe home for you and your family" beats the pants off of "only the Chosen One can save the world from a horde of slavering evil monsters!" 

 

I'm presently in the thick of Chapter 1 sidequests.  They're way too densely packed-- each major map has at least one marker on it at present-- and the journal isn't very good at reminding me what they're all about.  (It only seems to tell me what I should do next, without any reminders I can find of who I'm working for and what the overall goal is.)  Together, that gives the overall impression more of chasing the "quest arrows" than of figuring out how to complete a task.  But, if I make myself focus on mission at a time, the content of the quests themselves has been pretty satisfying.

 

I'm probably not far enough in to be bothered by the infamous area re-use issue.  I've passed a number of caves conveniently blocked off by carts and mysterious doorframes on blank walls, though, so I can guess what's coming.  I'm willing to treat it as a aesthetic issue and I'll try to not let it bother me.  That said, I'm not going to be happy about it when they ask me to run through the Bone Pit again.  Whoever designed that area for a game with this kind of camera needs a good smack on the forehead. 

[Starwars]

I think I lost interest in DA2 somewhere in the second act. I kinda enjoyed it at first as well. Hope you can have fun all the way through.

[redneckdevil]

I finished up Hong Kong. Took my sweet time with it, was excellent but I will say this. Dead mans switch seemed to have the best music and best "atmosphere".

I dunno if I wanna start up PoE or witcher 3 now. Atm killing time in South Park stick of truth. Such a fun and quick South Park rpg lol.

[Tale]

Metal Gear Solid V, Danganronpa: Another Episode, and Stein;s Gate should all be arriving today.

 

I'm so enthusiastic that I can not conceal it.

[Monte Carlo]

Fallout Vault (Android). It's great fun.

[Raithe]

Mad Max.

 

As expected, it's got some of the control issues similar to the Just Cause games on pc. I was slightly annoyed that I had to set the Invert Y on mouse manually in the config settings. For some reason the in-game Invert Y only works for controllers...

 

Nice and sprawling game with lots of running around to find scrap metal. Lots of scrap metal needed. Seriously. The atmosphere is good, but the steering on the vehicles seems slightly heavy, but still fun.

[melkathi]

 

 

Speaking of which, I am playing DA2.  To my surprise, I don't hate it.  (Yet.) 

 

I'm presently in the thick of Chapter 1 sidequests. 

 

I'm probably not far enough

 

 

Edited it down to the main points

 

Personally I wasn't even that bothered by the re-use of maps. The whole rest of the game takes such a quality nosedive after chapter 1, the re-use of assets is the least of its problems.

[Lexx]

Started Mad Max while MGS5 is downloading. So far it's not that bad, and I think the graphics are solid. The desert landscape looks pretty nice and driving the vehicle is fun so far.

 

Though, I accidentally wasted 3 shotgun shells already because I accidentally pressed the B key....