Video Games: 'Does Not Open From This Side' Edition

[KiDisaster]

I worked my way through the Catacombs last night, and as if the Blighttown flashbacks from Farron Keep weren't bad enough, fucking bonewheel skeletons. Luckily they seem to be slower than they used to be, and it was easy to pull one at a time unlike that godforsaken area right before the Pinwheel fight. Took care of Wolnir without much trouble and then walked up the stairs to one of the most jaw droppingly gorgeous views in any Souls game, and that's saying something. 

Tackling Irithyll after work today. I am excited and scared. 

[Sullen]

10 hours ago, Slurktan said:

They are the hardest boss in the main game so grats on beating them!  There are two that can be harder in the Oolacile side area you are nearing   I'm curious to see how you do with them

I think that depending on your build, the Four Kings can easily be harder than Oreo and Smoores, it all depends on your damage output and your ability to tank several hits in a row.

[Sullen]

2 hours ago, KiDisaster said:

I worked my way through the Catacombs last night, and as if the Blighttown flashbacks from Farron Keep weren't bad enough, fucking bonewheel skeletons. Luckily they seem to be slower than they used to be, and it was easy to pull one at a time unlike that godforsaken area right before the Pinwheel fight. Took care of Wolnir without much trouble and then walked up the stairs to one of the most jaw droppingly gorgeous views in any Souls game, and that's saying something. 

Tackling Irithyll after work today. I am excited and scared. 

Did you find the "secret" area in the Catacombs? The Smouldering Lake?

It's an entirely optional area, but there's a good deal of items to be gained there... I gained two Undead Bone Fragments in the first five minutes, personally. I'd honestly advise you to do that area before forgetting about it, it's quite short.

[Werthead]

This Total Warhammer video showing an assault on a Bretonnian city by the undead is quite interesting. The losing side comes damn close to turning it around, impressively.

Bretonnia aren't in the game as a "full" faction, but apparently you can hire them as mercenaries and defend their cities. That sounds to me like they'll properly be in the first expansion or maybe DLC.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

Just now, Werthead said:

This Total Warhammer video showing an assault on a Bretonnian city by the undead is quite interesting. The losing side comes damn close to turning it around, impressively.

Bretonnia aren't in the game as a "full" faction, but apparently you can hire them as mercenaries and defend their cities. That sounds to me like they'll properly be in the first expansion or maybe DLC.

This Warhammer game is the one game I've been waiting for, for years! 

But somehow I've become so tired of the Total War franchise, its really lost its sparkle somehow. I think it has something to do with the more arcadey, repetitive nature of the battles. They usually all end up the same way and never seem to feature any actual tactics. I'm not sure adding even more arcadey elements to it will sell it for me.

[Werthead]

A moment, everyone, for the passing of the X-Box 360.

Although I am very surprised by this. The X-Box One has not sold well (looking at the figures I was shocked to see that PS4 is close to outselling the XB1 by 2 to 1) and it doesn't look like it's going to suddenly take off, and with PS4 romping home the victory this generation I'd have assumed that Microsoft would have kept the 360 and its enormous back catalogue of games around as a budget system. But clearly not.

[Fez]

14 minutes ago, Werthead said:

A moment, everyone, for the passing of the X-Box 360.

Although I am very surprised by this. The X-Box One has not sold well (looking at the figures I was shocked to see that PS4 is close to outselling the XB1 by 2 to 1) and it doesn't look like it's going to suddenly take off, and with PS4 romping home the victory this generation I'd have assumed that Microsoft would have kept the 360 and its enormous back catalogue of games around as a budget system. But clearly not.

I suspect Microsoft is getting ready to move fully over to PC gaming; they're already working hard to make the X-Box One indistinguishable from a low-end PC and I think that trend will continue with whatever they produce next being basically the Microsoft version of a Steam Box. This being evidenced by the various leaks about Microsoft planning some sort of change to the X-Box One, the X-Box One already running Windows 10, the announcement that all Microsoft exclusives will also be available on PC through Windows Live, etc. The 360 doesn't really square with that vision and they probably sell so few at this point that the economy of scale of keeping production going isn't worth it.

Meanwhile, Sony is doing this PS4 NEO thing, which might pay off but is also an enormous gamble that could badly damage future sales. And no one still knows anything about the Nintendo NX, but it'll probably be more powerful than the PS4 or X-Box One and if Nintendo can actually get third party support this time around it'll be a major console factor again. Plus, the new lines of graphics cards are going to get unveiled pretty soon, which means older lines of cards that are already enormously more powerful than anything the consoles can do are going to start seeing some decent price drops.

Bottom line, the console business is in a pretty massive flux right now and I think Microsoft is prepping to reposition itself entirely around PC gaming; so ending production on an older console that probably isn't particularly profitable anymore isn't so surprising to me.

[KiDisaster]

1 hour ago, Sullen said:

Did you find the "secret" area in the Catacombs? The Smouldering Lake?

It's an entirely optional area, but there's a good deal of items to be gained there... I gained two Undead Bone Fragments in the first five minutes, personally. I'd honestly advise you to do that area before forgetting about it, it's quite short.

No I did not. I suspect there's a load of other optional or hidden content that I've already missed in the game as well. Thanks for the tip  

I think that depending on your build, the Four Kings can easily be harder than Oreo and Smoores, it all depends on your damage output and your ability to tank several hits in a row.

Four Kings are the one boss I could never, ever get the hang of. Even after multiple play throughs when I had pretty much every other fight down to a science, Four Kings was still a struggle. I know some people find the fight really easy but for my money it's the hardest boss in the vanilla game. Gwyn being a close second because I cannot parry. Even three games and a Bloodborne later, I just cannot do parries. I don't even try anymore. 

[Sullen]

12 minutes ago, KiDisaster said:

No I did not. I suspect there's a load of other optional or hidden content that I've already missed in the game as well. Thanks for the tip  

No problem!

Just two tips if you wish to tackle on the area.

1) Don't bother killing the crabs, unlike the ones found in both swamp areas, these crabs don't have any unique drops, they're just there to block your passage and killing them is more time consuming than anything.

2) If you haven't bought Flashsweat yet, now would be a good time to do so, the boss of the area specializes in fire damage, and several items are placed in patches of lava in the area, Flashsweat allows you to reach them easier.

[KiDisaster]

2 minutes ago, Sullen said:

No problem!

Just two tips if you wish to tackle on the area.

1) Don't bother killing the crabs, unlike the ones found in both swamp areas, these crabs don't have any unique drops, they're just there to block your passage and killing them is more time consuming than anything.

2) If you haven't bought Flashsweat yet, now would be a good time to do so, the boss of the area specializes in fire damage, and several items are placed in patches of lava in the area, Flashsweat allows you to reach them easier.

I have Fleshsweat but I haven't used it for anything. I've just bought up almost all of the pyromancies from Corvyx (I think that's his name) cause I'm doing Pyro as a secondary focus (mainly just a stock standard dex build, but having some fireballs to chuck is helpful). 

Also...CRABS HAVE UNIQUE DROPS?! Time to go back and massacre the bastards. I just avoided them in the swamps. 

[Sullen]

Just now, KiDisaster said:

I have Fleshsweat but I haven't used it for anything. I've just bought up almost all of the pyromancies from Corvyx (I think that's his name) cause I'm doing Pyro as a secondary focus (mainly just a stock standard dex build, but having some fireballs to chuck is helpful). 

Also...CRABS HAVE UNIQUE DROPS?! Time to go back and massacre the bastards. I just avoided them in the swamps. 

The crabs in the Crucifixion Woods drop the standard pyromancy boosting ring, while the single crab in Farron's Keep drops an upgraded version of it IIRC.

The one in Farron's Keep should not have been hard to deal with if you talked with the giant archer earlier in the game, it's one of the few areas where he comes to your aid and essentially destroys the crab by himself. (Which is a good thing, because fighting a crab while knees-deep in poisonous swamp is no walk in the park)

In all honesty, the crabs are probably my most hated enemy in all of the Soul series, they're vicious fuckers, attack fast as hell, deal a great deal of damage (though they don't stagger a lot), have both a grab and a projectile, and can't be cheesed. If you try to kill them from a distance they simply run away and heal up. Hell, sometimes they'll even do that if you're in melee range.

Oh, and they can attack you even if you are an invader, so invading in the Crucifixion Woods isn't exactly the best of ideas.

[briantw]

42 minutes ago, Fez said:

I suspect Microsoft is getting ready to move fully over to PC gaming; they're already working hard to make the X-Box One indistinguishable from a low-end PC and I think that trend will continue with whatever they produce next being basically the Microsoft version of a Steam Box. This being evidenced by the various leaks about Microsoft planning some sort of change to the X-Box One, the X-Box One already running Windows 10, the announcement that all Microsoft exclusives will also be available on PC through Windows Live, etc. The 360 doesn't really square with that vision and they probably sell so few at this point that the economy of scale of keeping production going isn't worth it.

Meanwhile, Sony is doing this PS4 NEO thing, which might pay off but is also an enormous gamble that could badly damage future sales. And no one still knows anything about the Nintendo NX, but it'll probably be more powerful than the PS4 or X-Box One and if Nintendo can actually get third party support this time around it'll be a major console factor again. Plus, the new lines of graphics cards are going to get unveiled pretty soon, which means older lines of cards that are already enormously more powerful than anything the consoles can do are going to start seeing some decent price drops.

Bottom line, the console business is in a pretty massive flux right now and I think Microsoft is prepping to reposition itself entirely around PC gaming; so ending production on an older console that probably isn't particularly profitable anymore isn't so surprising to me.

The problem they're going to face is that, inevitably, people are not going to ditch Steam for whatever shit service Microsoft ends up offering.  It'll be just like Origin.  People will use it to play the games that they can only play on Origin, but they'll buy everything else on Steam.

[KiDisaster]

30 minutes ago, Sullen said:

The crabs in the Crucifixion Woods drop the standard pyromancy boosting ring, while the single crab in Farron's Keep drops an upgraded version of it IIRC.

The one in Farron's Keep should not have been hard to deal with if you talked with the giant archer earlier in the game, it's one of the few areas where he comes to your aid and essentially destroys the crab by himself. (Which is a good thing, because fighting a crab while knees-deep in poisonous swamp is no walk in the park)

In all honesty, the crabs are probably my most hated enemy in all of the Soul series, they're vicious fuckers, attack fast as hell, deal a great deal of damage (though they don't stagger a lot), have both a grab and a projectile, and can't be cheesed. If you try to kill them from a distance they simply run away and heal up. Hell, sometimes they'll even do that if you're in melee range.

Oh, and they can attack you even if you are an invader, so invading in the Crucifixion Woods isn't exactly the best of ideas.

Weird. I dodged around the crab in the Keep to get the items around the white tree, and I wondered why he wasn't firing on it since he seems to always shoot at areas that have those trees. Maybe it bugged. He never shot at the crab. 

I have the standard pyro boosting ring since I started as a pyromancer. It's a starting item for the class. Come to think of it, I did end up killing the crab in Farron's keep (I was able to cheese it by standing on the walkway to the bonfire and chucking fireballs at it, although at one point it glitched through the wall and landed on top of me which scared the shit out of me). It dropped a ring that extends spell effects. 

[Rhom]

28 minutes ago, briantw said:

The problem they're going to face is that, inevitably, people are not going to ditch Steam for whatever shit service Microsoft ends up offering.  It'll be just like Origin.  People will use it to play the games that they can only play on Origin, but they'll buy everything else on Steam.

And that becomes the question... will they move to corner the market with exclusivity like Nintendo in the 8/16 bit days?

I do think this signals a shift in consoles.  As mentioned above we are already seeing a move away from the traditional console model.  Microsoft already wanted to do away with physical discs for games and was roundly shot down on that front during development.  (All the negative press during development is a huge contributing factor to the PS4 winning so handily.) 

I think my question is whether we may be seeing the end of the console wars as we know it?

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

This Total Warhammer video showing an assault on a Bretonnian city by the undead is quite interesting. The losing side comes damn close to turning it around, impressively.

Bretonnia aren't in the game as a "full" faction, but apparently you can hire them as mercenaries and defend their cities. That sounds to me like they'll properly be in the first expansion or maybe DLC.

I can't link from my work computer, but if you go to wiki.totalwar.com/w/Total_War:_WARHAMMER_Future_Content_Blog, they have outlined what DLCs and free LCs they plan. Apparently Bretonnia will not be a faction added in a DLC, which is complete bullshit. 

Also, like I said, this game will be the first in a trilogy. I would think the next two will have campaigns of equal content to this one, so not really be considered expansions. I don't really know anything about the Warhammer universe, so I don't know why they are doing it this way. Maybe they wish to cover more than one time period.

[Sullen]

2 minutes ago, KiDisaster said:

Weird. I dodged around the crab in the Keep to get the items around the white tree, and I wondered why he wasn't firing on it since he seems to always shoot at areas that have those trees. Maybe it bugged. He never shot at the crab. 

I have the standard pyro boosting ring since I started as a pyromancer. It's a starting item for the class. Come to think of it, I did end up killing the crab in Farron's keep (I was able to cheese it by standing on the walkway to the bonfire and chucking fireballs at it, although at one point it glitched through the wall and landed on top of me which scared the shit out of me). It dropped a ring that extends spell effects. 

Extends spell duration, that rings true, my apologies!

I see no reason in trying to take down the crabs in the woods then. Hell, you can pretty much run away from the damned crabs for the rest of the game! Honestly, I thought the stat distribution for Pyros was kind of disappointing this time around, in DS1 they were by far the best class to start with, but now I feel that pyromancy is too demanding to make a viable build. Dexterity weapons and straight swords seems to be the way to roll this time around.

[KiDisaster]

1 minute ago, Rhom said:

I think my question is whether we may be seeing the end of the console wars as we know it?

Don't worry. The VR wars are about to begin. With Oculus trying their best to keep games exclusive to their headset and people already finding ways to hack/mod them to work on the Vive. 

Never fear. Fanboyism and greed will never die

[briantw]

2 minutes ago, Rhom said:

And that becomes the question... will they move to corner the market with exclusivity like Nintendo in the 8/16 bit days?

I do think this signals a shift in consoles.  As mentioned above we are already seeing a move away from the traditional console model.  Microsoft already wanted to do away with physical discs for games and was roundly shot down on that front during development.  (All the negative press during development is a huge contributing factor to the PS4 winning so handily.) 

I think my question is whether we may be seeing the end of the console wars as we know it?

The problem as I see it is that, other than Halo, Microsoft doesn't really have any high-profile exclusives.  And this is the PC, where players have access to (at least) half a dozen shooters that are better and more competitive than Halo.

I'd also say that the problem with exclusivity is that it's unlikely that Microsoft will offer developers a better deal than Steam does for PC exclusivity.  Steam is pretty developer-friendly when it comes to the share they get of each Steam sale compared to competitors.  The only developers likely to be exclusive to whatever service Microsoft offers are the ones owned by Microsoft, and as stated that doesn't really inspire a lot of confidence since that basically gives them Halo and not much else of note.

[Fez]

38 minutes ago, briantw said:

The problem they're going to face is that, inevitably, people are not going to ditch Steam for whatever shit service Microsoft ends up offering.  It'll be just like Origin.  People will use it to play the games that they can only play on Origin, but they'll buy everything else on Steam.

Microsoft could force/buy exclusivity deals that make major publishers put PC games only on their service. Or they could actually make a better alternative than Steam. There's no rule that software platforms stay dominant forever and Steam does have issues that Microsoft could exploit (like having terrible curation services) if they're smart; in 10 years Steam could end up being the MySpace of video game purchasing software. Or hell, Microsoft could probably buy Valve if they wanted to, it'd probably be less than they paid for Minecraft. Or they could create some sort of distribution deal with Valve surrounding Steam.

There's a lot of options, depending on what exactly they want to do.

[RumHam]

3 minutes ago, briantw said:

The problem as I see it is that, other than Halo, Microsoft doesn't really have any high-profile exclusives.  

I wonder if they ever considered saying "no more Playstation Minecraft." It's gotta bug them that they paid all that money for it and it's not even exclusive. That would be a huge one.