Video Games Thread, Son Of Video Games Thread

[paddington]

$200 million would have been better spent making a crapton of dlc for skyrim, adding in new areas, new skins for items, more baddies. If freaking star wars IP can't generate enough income from box sales and subs I doubt elder scrolls can.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

It seems to me that it'd be a lot easier to squeeze the fools who will pay for a while before dropping the subscription fee. I foresee another SWTOR

Yeah, this is what's going to happen. They've probably forecast a surge of pre-order and early live box sales (at $60 a pop, a little will go a long way), plus 6-12 months of subs which will recoup a lot of the startup costs. My guess is they will be using this time to develop their F2P model.

[KiDisaster]

Just finished Far Cry 3. Took me about 40 hours doing all the side quests (except for the Wanted Dead ones), taking over all the bases and everything. Had a lot of fun with it. I kinda want to do the co-op now, might see if I can find someone to play that with. Till then, time for Blood Dragon.

[ztemhead]

I played my first MMO today and this Russian kid kept killing me and making fun. :bawl:

Then I remembered that life expectancy in the US is 20 years greater than in Russia, and I felt better.

[Jace, Extat]

I played my first MMO today and this Russian kid kept killing me and making fun. :bawl:

Then I remembered that life expectancy in the US is 20 years greater than in Russia, and I felt better.

:bowdown:

[Jabronius Maximus]

Just finished Far Cry 3. Took me about 40 hours doing all the side quests (except for the Wanted Dead ones), taking over all the bases and everything. Had a lot of fun with it. I kinda want to do the co-op now, might see if I can find someone to play that with. Till then, time for Blood Dragon.

I've logged 27 hours on FC3 since I downloaded it on release day (couldn't get around to some of the side quests). I got Blood Dragon, albeit on PS3, but I spent about 20 hours on it. I completed literally everything and got Rex to the max level, and spent some time just rampaging around killing dragons. Compared to the $60 I paid for FC3, and any full price game for that matter, the $15 BD was an incredible value.

[Werthead]

Enjoying IWD2. It's just a whole string of combat encounters against some some well-drawn backdrops and with some great music, but for all of that it's very engaging. The combat is good, the threat is refreshingly non-global in nature and there's a good sense of progression. My only problem now is that I can't find any arrow quivers or bolt cases, so half my inventory is taken up by ammo for ranged weapons.

[Muttering Bill]

I've started a second trip through Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen while I wait for DS2. But with a level 80+ character everything just dies as soon as I look at it.

Re: Demon's/Dark Souls: I don't like dealing with invasions myself, so I just stay Hollowed while I play. This is especially easy because I hoard scarce items in games, so I don't want to use my limited Humanity or whatever it is to bring myself back to life.

In Dark Souls 2 being Hollow no longer protects you against invasions. From's way of saying "too bad, deal with it."

I'll be playing offline my first time through.

[MerenthaClone]

I've started a second trip through Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen while I wait for DS2. But with a level 80+ character everything just dies as soon as I look at it.

In Dark Souls 2 being Hollow no longer protects you against invasions. From's way of saying "too bad, deal with it."

I'll be playing offline my first time through.

Well, a few points. They've significantly redone invasions now. By making all gear scale with stats (instead of the elemental weapons and pyro-hand being totally stat-independent) they've significantly reduced the gear advantage an invader will have. They've also added a covenant that automatically summons another player guardian if you get invaded. Finally, while being hollow doesn't prevent invasions, it does put you far lower in the priority queue. (Being in some PvP covenants moves you up in the queue, plus something else I can't remember) And there is an item you can use to take yourself out of the queue for a while.

So maybe try it out, they've reworked invasions enough that I (someone who played through hollow most of DS1 my first time) am really interested to see how it plays.

edit: Also, by increasing the number of eligible invade targets, they've reduced the chance that any one person will get invaded.

[Derfel Cadarn]

Enjoying IWD2. It's just a whole string of combat encounters against some some well-drawn backdrops and with some great music, but for all of that it's very engaging. The combat is good, the threat is refreshingly non-global in nature and there's a good sense of progression. My only problem now is that I can't find any arrow quivers or bolt cases, so half my inventory is taken up by ammo for ranged weapons.

I really need to play IWD2. Currently playing Baldur's Gate using the BG2 engine mod. I've pimped out my characters with boots of speed and TOB gear so I can speed through the story. Khalid is a badass - dual-wielding bastard swords. It's weird listening to him cringe in battle while turning foes into mincemeat. It would be like overdubbing Arnie in the Terminator with C3PO.

One thing I'd like to try if I get the time is to create a full party in TOB and import them into BG and see how fast I can play through the main story ignoring all side areas/quests.

[KiDisaster]

I know everyone, myself included, is sick to death of Kickstarters but I just found out about this one and I gotta say I'm thinking about chipping in.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1460250988/darkest-dungeon-by-red-hook-studios

Looks awesome. Side scrolling dungeon crawler with turn based combat, roguelike elements, looks like it might have some kind of Oregon Trail element in terms of the party movement (i.e. you don't control it directly, the party moves forward and random events happen along the way which you have to respond to). I absolutely love the art style too, looks awesome.

[Fez]

Any trip reports on The Wolf Among Us? I'm hearing it's REALLY short and not nearly as well written as the first episode. :/

I finally played episode two tonight. I would've last week, but had to wait for the patch for that season pass error and then I was out of ton.

Firstly, on the 360 at least, the first 10 minutes or so are almost unplayable due to freezing, stuttering, and load times. It gets better after that, but long load times last throughout the episode (which took me a little over an hour and a half to play). I'm not sure if that's just my machine, a general fault of 360s, or a problem the game has on all platforms, but it was really annoying.

I think the episode itself was well-written in a literal sense, the dialog was as great as ever and there were lots of little moments that I suspect were callbacks to actions from the first episode (I've only played through once so far, I'll need to do it at least 3 more times to get a broader sense of things*). But on the broader scale, the writing was a bit disappointing. I'm pretty sure only two of the large decisions from Ep. 1 really changed things a lot in Ep. 2, and several of the other large decisions weren't even mentioned or referenced (and there were a whole lot of plot threads dangling from Ep. 1 that weren't addressed in Ep. 2; some where though). Also there weren't any of those "choice" moments in Ep. 2, and the one decision that seemed fairly large I'm pretty sure only directly impacts the scene immediately after it. Furthermore, the only fight scene isn't nearly as long or creative as the fights in Ep. 1.

Ep. 2 is by no means bad, it just doesn't live up to the expectations set by Ep. 1. But it does allow even more options to tailor Bigby's personality and watch the world react, so that's fun; and it continues to advance the main plot, which is a reasonably interesting one.

*Once with the same save from Ep. 1 doing different stuff in Ep. 2, and then doing things both ways in Ep. 2 from my other Ep. 1 save.

[Jabronius Maximus]

Looks like The Order: 1886 will not be featuring any multiplayer.

Initially I was disappointed, because there was some L4D potential there. But looking back, the most memorable games I've played recently (LoU, RDR, Infinite, etc) have had great SP modes, and forgettable or nonexistent MP. So my expectations haven't changed all that much (although I really would like to see some gameplay before I decide).

Also it looks like it'll be running at 1920x800, with some AA. So it should look damn good too.

[KiDisaster]

Looks like The Order: 1886 will not be featuring any multiplayer.

Initially I was disappointed, because there was some L4D potential there. But looking back, the most memorable games I've played recently (LoU, RDR, Infinite, etc) have had great SP modes, and forgettable or nonexistent MP. So my expectations haven't changed all that much (although I really would like to see some gameplay before I decide).

Also it looks like it'll be running at 1920x800, with some AA. So it should look damn good too.

100% fine with me, too many great single player games with mediocre multiplayer tacked on for absolutely no reason other than to, presumably, sell map packs or justify the $60 price point in cases of the campaign being really short or something.

Not every game needs, or should have, a multiplayer mode.

That said I am kinda surprised, I did initially think it was going to be a 4-player coop game. SP works for me though.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

I know everyone, myself included, is sick to death of Kickstarters but I just found out about this one and I gotta say I'm thinking about chipping in.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1460250988/darkest-dungeon-by-red-hook-studios

Looks awesome. Side scrolling dungeon crawler with turn based combat, roguelike elements, looks like it might have some kind of Oregon Trail element in terms of the party movement (i.e. you don't control it directly, the party moves forward and random events happen along the way which you have to respond to). I absolutely love the art style too, looks awesome.

Looks killer. Seriously thinking about throwing $29 bucks at 'em.

[Jabronius Maximus]

100% fine with me, too many great single player games with mediocre multiplayer tacked on for absolutely no reason other than to, presumably, sell map packs or justify the $60 price point in cases of the campaign being really short or something.

Not every game needs, or should have, a multiplayer mode.

That said I am kinda surprised, I did initially think it was going to be a 4-player coop game. SP works for me though.

I'm perfectly fine with paying $60 for an 8-12 hour game, if it means there will be an engrossing SP mode. But the pressure is on Ready at Dawn/SSM to deliver, because it looks like the SP is all the game has. They absolutely have to nail it, otherwise the game will fade away quickly.

[KiDisaster]

I'm perfectly fine with paying $60 for an 8-12 hour game, if it means there will be an engrossing SP mode. But the pressure is on Ready at Dawn/SSM to deliver, because it looks like the SP is all the game has. They absolutely have to nail it, otherwise the game will fade away quickly.

The length of a game doesn't really matter to me that much, it's more about how much I enjoyed it. If I spend $60 on a game that only took me 5 or 6 hours to beat but I enjoyed the hell out of those 5 or 6 hours then I consider it worth it, but then $60 isn't a massive amount of money to me anymore. Before I started working I was much less enthusiastic about short games :lol:.

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

$200 million would have been better spent making a crapton of dlc for skyrim, adding in new areas, new skins for items, more baddies.

It's easy to make this argument now. Back in 2007, when the studio formed? Not so much.

[Gears of the Beast]

$200 million would have been better spent making a crapton of dlc for skyrim, adding in new areas, new skins for items, more baddies. If freaking star wars IP can't generate enough income from box sales and subs I doubt elder scrolls can.

Well it's Zenimax's money. Yeah Zenimax are the parent company of Bethesda Softworks but I seriously doubt that money would have gone directly to Bethesda Game Studios if ESO was never a thing. I doubt BGS have any problems raising funds, especially after Skyrim. Not making a 'crapton' of DLC for Skyrim is down to time, not money. They needed to move onto their next project. Quite frankly, I'm kind of annoyed they spent any time making DLC for that fucking game.

[andrew_]

Elder Scrolls Online will have a F2P option within 12 months. There are probably a handful of mmo's that can survive on a sub-only model and from what I can see ESO won't be one of them. I look forward to playing it for free in the near future :) .

I fear it will mirrors SWTOR's fate. By this I mean they both have huge budgets, both have huge voice casts, both rely on their franchise name and history to entice and lure subs, and ESO in turn will have the same problems that SWTOR had. Aka the devs are not able to put out extra end game content fast enough due to the time and effort needed to produce content on the same level as the rest of the game.

So unless they have planned ahead better (in comparison to SWTOR) this MMO will unfortunately be dead within 3 years.