Video Games: Fantasy's Final '16

[Werthead]

Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire officially announced and put up for crowdfunding on Fig. Looks like it's going to be Pillars of Eternity with pirates. Which is nice.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, Fez said:

New Mass Effect: Andromeda trailer dropped today. Looks great.

"I don't need an army; I've got a Krogan."

 

And to the surprise of no one you have youtube commenters crying SJW! over a woman's haircut, and square jaw.

[The Anti-Targ]

50 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire officially announced and put up for crowdfunding on Fig. Looks like it's going to be Pillars of Eternity with pirates. Which is nice.

Now that's more like it. Interestingly for potential Fig investors the break even sales target is 600K. That seems like a very low risk proposition, especially considering PoE was profitable. Kind of a bummer that IIRC you can only become a Fig investor if you live or are tax registered in the USA. I wouldn't mind putting $1K in as an investor.

Also the important question for me is will you be able to play online co-op story campaign. My brother and I really enjoyed playing Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights 2 co-op, so I would love to be able to play this in co-op. I understand PoE has no co-op and while I still intend to play it, I want to be able to play PoE 2 with someone.

[Pliskin]

I'm incredibly sad to have finished The Last Guardian already... Amazing experience.

Can't seem to find any plush Trico though, and that's a shame. You'd think that's the first thing they'd be selling...

[Werthead]

Pillars of Eternity was okay. It was quite remarkably dull, which I was surprised by given that I thought it was an Avellone game. Then I looked closer and saw it was actually a Sawyer game which Avellone did some writing on, which explained quite a lot (and Avellone quitting Obsidian pretty much straight after explains rather more).

I was starting to wonder if Obsidian could be written off, but then their new team of writers made Tyranny, which was really great (far better than Pillars of Eternity), which has restored my faith somewhat.

[Mudguard]

18 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

It's not free money, since every pledge gets something in return, even if it's only the game, once it's finished. And for higher pledges they are giving art books and other such things which do not come at zero cost.

They don't have to sell equity in their company. Investors can simply invest with a X% of return agreement. Indeed they should be taking BS3 to Fig, not Kickstarter.

It's not always free money, but sometimes it is.  Often the lower pledges are just donations, and there is no recourse for donors if the Kickstarter fails and delivers nothing.  But when the Kickstarter works, a lot of the pledges are essentially pre-orders.

Giving money for X% return is essentially giving out a loan or purchasing a bond.  But these things both cost the company money in the form of interest or it's equivalent, whereas there's no real cost for receiving money through Kickstarter.

[The Anti-Targ]

4 hours ago, Fez said:

New Mass Effect: Andromeda trailer dropped today. Looks great.

"I don't need an army; I've got a Krogan."

 

What does the character (Scott Ryder I presume) saying that line sound so much like Nolan North?

Mr Krabs is Daddy Ryder, which is cool. I love Clancy Brown's voice.

One funny youtube comment response was: Shepard would never have said that line, he/she would have said "I don't need and army; I've got me."

[Joe Pesci]

On 1/25/2017 at 5:21 PM, Rhom said:

Oh definitely.  It was essentially the Dream Team of JRPGs when it launched.  Had Sakaguchi who created Final Fantasy, Yujii Hori who created Dragon Quest, and Akira Toriyama of Dragon Ball fame.  It was amazing when it was released.

And dammit... now you're making me want to download the game from the App Store and play it on my phone!   

Stay away, it's consumed me!

[Jace, Extat]

11 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

One funny youtube comment response was: Shepard would never have said that line, he/she would have said "I don't need and army; I've got me."

Jace Shepard: I don't need an army, I have a plane to catch.

[DunderMifflin]

Intersting speculations going on around yesterdays Mass Effect introductions, specifically the the character Cora Harper. 

The Cerberus head known as the Illusive Man from Mass Effect 2 was named Jack Harper.

[Rhom]

29 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

Intersting speculations going on around yesterdays Mass Effect introductions, specifically the the character Cora Harper. 

The Cerberus head known as the Illusive Man from Mass Effect 2 was named Jack Harper.

Interesting.  Where was that revealed?

[DunderMifflin]

42 minutes ago, Rhom said:

Interesting.  Where was that revealed?

Mass Effect Evolution. A comic series about the origins of the Illusive man.

 

[The Drunkard]

Been playing CK2 recently. Started a game as a duke under Charles Karling (Charlemagne) and, when he died and his empire split into various parts, my heir worked his way up to King of West Francia, conquering the crown off of Charles' son Bertlin. Seeing as Bertlin was heir to other kingdoms in Francia (Middle Francia and Burgundy, iirc), I banished him and seized his remaining territories so that I wouldn't lose them when he eventually gained those new titles. He ended up as a landless courtier in Middle Francia, with -100 relations with me.

Many years later I checked up on him, only to find out he died a blind, landless lunatic, "killed by rabble". Poor dude.

Also, East Anglia is the Harrenhal of this game. The original owners were executed when I took the place, the guy I put in charge (the brother of my character at that time) died in battle, his son died in the dungeon of my next character, and that son's brother, wife and two children all died of illnesses over a number of years. Not sure who I'll punish with it next.

[Jasta11]

Long War 2 has turned out to be pretty good. It does away with some of the frankly BS difficulty spikes present in the first one (hello missions with 5 mega beefed up Outsiders in the UFO) and introduces a slew of neat new mechanics, especially Infiltration. Now, you don't begin missions by dropping in with the Skyranger, you instead send your troops to infiltrate the mission site over a couple of days. The longer they stay, the less enemies you face once you launch the mission. And launching immediately basically makes the mission impossible; I tried once for kicks, and got hit by literally 4 pods at once in the first 2 turns.

The early game is pretty easy so far, since all your soldiers can get an item granting them 2 extra HPs. The strategic layer, however, is a bit of a nightmare, I've been strapped for supplies since the beginning and only just figured that I needed to send soldiers as advisors to Resistance haven to sniff out ADVENT spies stealing all my precious supplies.

[Azzanadra]

On 1/26/2017 at 4:54 PM, Werthead said:

Pillars of Eternity was okay. It was quite remarkably dull, which I was surprised by given that I thought it was an Avellone game. Then I looked closer and saw it was actually a Sawyer game which Avellone did some writing on, which explained quite a lot (and Avellone quitting Obsidian pretty much straight after explains rather more).

I was starting to wonder if Obsidian could be written off, but then their new team of writers made Tyranny, which was really great (far better than Pillars of Eternity), which has restored my faith somewhat.

Avellone wrote like two characters (which also happened to be the most interesting), The Grieving Mother and Durance. Which reminds me I still need to finish that game, but I agree with you that it just felt dull, which is a shame because I really appreciate all the work put into it. I think as I grow older long games need to do more to justify their length, I am tired of these super-long RPGs that feel some need to pad out their lengths to justify the cost or something. Like the best games I have played this past year have all been less than 10 hours: Portal, Portal 2, Resident Evil REmake, Metal Gear Rising: Reveangance. 

Its a shame because RPGs in general are my favorite genre, but this excessive need to make a game as "big!" as possible really detracts from the whole experience. 

[Rhom]

9 hours ago, Azzanadra said:

Avellone wrote like two characters (which also happened to be the most interesting), The Grieving Mother and Durance. Which reminds me I still need to finish that game, but I agree with you that it just felt dull, which is a shame because I really appreciate all the work put into it. I think as I grow older long games need to do more to justify their length, I am tired of these super-long RPGs that feel some need to pad out their lengths to justify the cost or something. Like the best games I have played this past year have all been less than 10 hours: Portal, Portal 2, Resident Evil REmake, Metal Gear Rising: Reveangance. 

Its a shame because RPGs in general are my favorite genre, but this excessive need to make a game as "big!" as possible really detracts from the whole experience. 

Agreed.  I think part of my problem is obviously reduced gaming time as I get older.  The other part is all the added stuff takes away from consistency with the central theme, which when combined with my reduced/sporadic playtime makes it hard for me to get attached to a game.

[Melphis Amekia]

Anyone here playing Tales of games? I unfortunately don't have any consoles so, for now, I've only played through Tales of Zestiria, which I absolutely love to a fault, and am currently going through Tales of Berseria and am really really loving it so far too.

[The Anti-Targ]

2 hours ago, Melphis_Amekia said:

Anyone here playing Tales of games? I unfortunately don't have any consoles so, for now, I've only played through Tales of Zestiria, which I absolutely love to a fault, and am currently going through Tales of Berseria and am really really loving it so far too.

I played Tales of Graces f on PS3 a couple of years ago. I liked it, but I haven't been strongly motivated to play through another Tales game. I always heard Tales of Vesperia was one of the best Tales games, but it was never released for PS3 and I didn't own an Xbox 360.

17 hours ago, Azzanadra said:

Avellone wrote like two characters (which also happened to be the most interesting), The Grieving Mother and Durance. Which reminds me I still need to finish that game, but I agree with you that it just felt dull, which is a shame because I really appreciate all the work put into it. I think as I grow older long games need to do more to justify their length, I am tired of these super-long RPGs that feel some need to pad out their lengths to justify the cost or something. Like the best games I have played this past year have all been less than 10 hours: Portal, Portal 2, Resident Evil REmake, Metal Gear Rising: Reveangance. 

Its a shame because RPGs in general are my favorite genre, but this excessive need to make a game as "big!" as possible really detracts from the whole experience. 

8 hours ago, Rhom said:

Agreed.  I think part of my problem is obviously reduced gaming time as I get older.  The other part is all the added stuff takes away from consistency with the central theme, which when combined with my reduced/sporadic playtime makes it hard for me to get attached to a game.

One of the problems with RPGs having contrived time filling stuff is that you get story beats which indicate urgency, and then you can run off and do a bunch of level grinding side quests, and then do the urgent thing. I think the only urgent matter that lead to consequences if you didn't get on it immediately in recent memory for me was in Mass Effect 2 after the Collectors had taken the Normandy Crew. If you went on the suicide mission immediately you saved Kelly Chambers, if you delayed to do other stuff she dies. But in the grand scheme of things, that doesn't really matter. If an RPG can be constructed in a way that actual story missions can be time bound, in that if you don't do them then the story takes a different direction and not that the game forces you to do a mission if you reach the time limit and haven't done it yet, then that can be a good development. I think also in Dragon Age Origins is you leave Redcliff village after first arriving and finding out about the undead attacks then the village gets destroyed. So you have to stay if you want the village to remain.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

On 1/26/2017 at 11:48 AM, Rhom said:

 

Looks great.  Do still wonder why an ark ship would take a reproductively sterile member along for the ride though...  

 

Because FANS WOULD REVOLT if we got robbed of a Krogan teammate again! Oh...you meant lore wise. Yeah............

[The Anti-Targ]

On 27/01/2017 at 7:48 AM, Rhom said:

 

Looks great.  Do still wonder why an ark ship would take a reproductively sterile member along for the ride though...  

 

31 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

Because FANS WOULD REVOLT if we got robbed of a Krogan teammate again! Oh...you meant lore wise. Yeah............

I dunno. Considering the attitude towards Krogan reproduction in the timeline the departure of the Arks is set, I would think bringing on a few squads of Krogan to help establish the Milky Way species in the new galaxy is a pretty good idea. Better for a few of them to fight and die than more people who can actually breed. Then in a couple of hundred years after colonies have been settled and secured and new alliances with indigenous Andromedans achieved, having the Krogans all die out and become extinct in Andromeda would bee seen as desireable. And given the fatalistic attitude of many Krogan towards the species survival I imagine there would be plenty of Krogan ready and willing to go on a mission that has zero intention of potential to preserve the Krogan species. They'd be just going for the opportunity to be able to fight with a whole bunch of new species.

And of course there are more than enough Asari for Krogans to breed with. Even though the offspring will of course be Asari, the Krogan willl leave a biological legacy of sorts.

Hopefully the Geth (not the heretics) caught wind of this plan and stowed away a few units in the Ark software. Not having a Legion 2.0 (well actually a Legion 0.5 I guess) would be unfortunate.