Video Games: A (Sonic 3D) Blast From The Past

[The Anti-Targ]

Playing a second Greenskins round of TW Warhammer, playing as Bloody Hands Savage Orcs, I almost screwed up a special item quest by eliminating or forcing confederation / vassalhood on all greenskin factions. I was meant to carry out an assassination on a greenskin lord, so I had to wait for a region to rebel due to loss of public order before I could do it. Fortunately there's a lot of public disorder in several regions so I didn't have to wait long. Not sure what I would have done if public order in all my regions was good. I did have one faction under vassalhood, so I suppose I could have broken the Vassal agreement and done an assassination. It's funny that for the Greenskins campaign you can't win with a Greenskin tribe as vassals, you have to eliminate them by slaughter or through confederation to be the last surviving greenskin faction.

Speaking of Vassals, in my Orion Wood Elf play through, one of the empire factions, who was doing quite poorly, offered to become a vassal. To which I heartily agreed. Lucky for them too, because they either would have been wiped out, or forced into confederation. They made it to the late game as a semi-independent people thanks to my magnanimity. Wood Elves is quite an interesting faction to play. You are neither friends nor enemies with anyone. Even Bretonnians are generally reasonably disposed to you, with the exception of Carcasonne (the Fey Enchantress), who if you play chapter objectives you pretty much wipe out early game. I pretty much formed military alliances and trade agreements with all Bretonnians quite early in the game. Neighbouring Dwarves seem to be the least friendly. Any neighbouring faction who declares war on me gets no quarter, I wipe them out even if they ask for peace. I'll have no threats on the border of Athel Loren.

I got Mass Effect Andromeda for free by Signing up for EA Access. Even though I've played Mass Effect 2 on PC, I'm not sure moving to PC was the best idea. There are elements of playing Mass Effect with a controller that I find much easier, since I am not really a fast action KBM player. My muscle memory for keyboard bindings is so much weaker than for PS4 controller. And I really don't like the default key bindings in ME:A. I'll probably have to change them around, but that's such a pain in the arse, and not being a very experienced action/shooter KBM player I don;t really have a sense of what would be good keyboard bindings for it. I might have to find other ways to make having paid for a year of EA Access worth eh money, and switch to ME:A on PS4 and stump up the cash for it. I'm not far into the game at all, so starting over wouldn't be too much of a pain. And controls aside I'm liking the game so far for what it is. Or I could just push through and try to get a better handle in the KBM controls.

[Werthead]

Completed the Road to Independence Campaign on Empire: Total War. Started a short Grand Campaign as England, seeing how it goes.

Even on Hard, the AI is pretty piss-poor. It's worse than the pre-patched Rome I or Medieval II, which is impressive.

[Werthead]

Creative Assembly are announcing the first Total War Saga game tomorrow. Weird, I'd assumed they were going to wait until at least Empire Divided was out.

[KiDisaster]

Been playing Destiny 2 quite a bit since the PC version came out, and we got the raid done last night. It was only our second attempt, so I was quite pleased we cleared it. It was myself, two friends and three randoms. The first attempt two of our randoms kept running off from the rest of the group during the Pleasure Gardens encounter (where a group of four must sneak past patrolling dog enemies to some glowing flowers to collect stacks of a damage buff) and alerting the damn dogs so we never got past it. 

Got real lucky with our randoms this time around though. Everyone was cool and knew what they were doing, or actually asked and listened to explanations. Very cool raid overall, with heavy emphasis on coordination over actual combat. I look forward to trying more when the expansions come out. 

I've seen some rumors that they may add in some Destiny 1 raids overtime. I hope they do, never got to try any of those. 

[Corvinus85]

9 hours ago, Werthead said:

Completed the Road to Independence Campaign on Empire: Total War. Started a short Grand Campaign as England, seeing how it goes.

Even on Hard, the AI is pretty piss-poor. It's worse than the pre-patched Rome I or Medieval II, which is impressive.

I still don't understand why you find Warhammer so boring, especially when you complain about how easily you win a campaign in Empire. Warhammer has its flaws, but I wouldn't call it boring.

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

Creative Assembly are announcing the first Total War Saga game tomorrow. Weird, I'd assumed they were going to wait until at least Empire Divided was out.

I'm glad CA is getting the ball rolling on all its TW projects. Maybe by the end of the year we'll get an announcement on the new historical era project.

[The BlackBear]

EA's reddit comment about their 'unlockable heroes' has managed to become the most downvoted comment of all time, by quite some way.

It's sitting at -488k right now and next after that is -24k

And in response they have now reduced the price by 75%

[Jace, Extat]

6 hours ago, Werthead said:

Creative Assembly are announcing the first Total War Saga game tomorrow. Weird, I'd assumed they were going to wait until at least Empire Divided was out.

Much like Corvinus, Jace is very excited to see the Historical games be given attention. One wonders if CA is aware of all of the angst from their long-time fans (I'm sure they were following my bi-weekly rants about the subject closely) and has been focused on getting the word out about the new stuff. Maybe? We had radio silence as far as historical titles for a awhile, the only info of substance this year came in late summer and all they said was 'we are making stuff'.

4 hours ago, Corvinus said:

I still don't understand why you find Warhammer so boring, especially when you complain about how easily you win a campaign in Empire. Warhammer has its flaws, but I wouldn't call it boring.

 

I find it boring too, I just don't give a shit about whatever Count Von Trout and the Empire have beef over.

[Jace, Extat]

6 minutes ago, The BlackBear said:

EA's reddit comment about their 'unlockable heroes' has managed to become the most downvoted comment of all time, by quite some way.

It's sitting at -488k right now and next after that is -24k

And in response they have now reduced the price by 75%

Jace is happy she cancelled her pre-ordering of EA materials.

[RumHam]

I was just reading about that. At first I figured it was a "but you can speed up the process with real money!" thing, but apparently it's not. So I'm a little confused. 40 hours for the top tier characters was too much. But this doesn't seem like it was even the worst thing EA has ever done, so why did it become the most downvoted thing ever?

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

Much like Corvinus, Jace is very excited to see the Historical games be given attention. One wonders if CA is aware of all of the angst from their long-time fans (I'm sure they were following my bi-weekly rants about the subject closely) and has been focused on getting the word out about the new stuff. Maybe? We had radio silence as far as historical titles for a awhile, the only info of substance this year came in late summer and all they said was 'we are making stuff'.

It's funny, for years, many other fans were hoping for fantasy TW games (see Medieval II mods), and when it finally happened, here came the historical purists. Once again, the old saying goes you can't please everyone.

I don't know the ins & outs of their business, but it's clear that CA has now managed to significantly expand their team. They are not giving up on Warhammer, or fantasy in general, any time soon, but they have the crew to work on more than one game at a time, which means we could very well be getting some TW game every year from now on. That's something to celebrate.

[Jace, Extat]

39 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

It's funny, for years, many other fans were hoping for fantasy TW games (see Medieval II mods), and when it finally happened, here came the historical purists. Once again, the old saying goes you can't please everyone.

I don't know the ins & outs of their business, but it's clear that CA has now managed to significantly expand their team. They are not giving up on Warhammer, or fantasy in general, any time soon, but they have the crew to work on more than one game at a time, which means we could very well be getting some TW game every year from now on. That's something to celebrate.

Hey, Jace is always happy to play a non-shitty ASoIaF game. And you bet your ass that I enjoy some legions of undead minions. But while I think it was a probably a really good business decision (not that I know anything about such subjects) to go with a pretty obscure tabletop game for their first foray into licensed IP's, I maintain that I have the right to bitch about them devoting like 5 years to it.

That said, it will all have been worth it if as you say we get a solid stream of games with a mix of historical titles and licensed material.

[Slurktan]

2 hours ago, Corvinus said:

It's funny, for years, many other fans were hoping for fantasy TW games (see Medieval II mods), and when it finally happened, here came the historical purists. Once again, the old saying goes you can't please everyone.

I don't know the ins & outs of their business, but it's clear that CA has now managed to significantly expand their team. They are not giving up on Warhammer, or fantasy in general, any time soon, but they have the crew to work on more than one game at a time, which means we could very well be getting some TW game every year from now on. That's something to celebrate.

Maybe the "historical purists" have seen this fantasy version and then realized it is worse in every single way to a fan made mod for a TW game that came out in 2006?

[Corvinus85]

4 minutes ago, Slurktan said:

Maybe the "historical purists" have seen this fantasy version and then realized it is worse in every single way to a fan made mod for a TW game that came out in 2006?

Never played that mod, so I can't say if it was better, but I'm thinking some of the people who were raging about going back to historical games were prepared to hate it from the start. And, imo, Warhammer is better than the last two historical ventures.

[Slurktan]

3 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

Never played that mod, so I can't say if it was better, but I'm thinking some of the people who were raging about going back to historical games were prepared to hate it from the start. And, imo, Warhammer is better than the last two historical ventures.

It probably is, but that's like saying it's a slightly better shade of poop.  Congrats you beat Rome 2 and Attila: two massively dumbed down strategy games.

[The Anti-Targ]

2 hours ago, Corvinus said:

It's funny, for years, many other fans were hoping for fantasy TW games (see Medieval II mods), and when it finally happened, here came the historical purists. Once again, the old saying goes you can't please everyone.

I don't know the ins & outs of their business, but it's clear that CA has now managed to significantly expand their team. They are not giving up on Warhammer, or fantasy in general, any time soon, but they have the crew to work on more than one game at a time, which means we could very well be getting some TW game every year from now on. That's something to celebrate.

Surely the aim should not be to please everyone with the same game. The aim should be to please those with an interest in a fantasy version of Total War. The historical purists already have plenty of games to play, and they will get more in future. CA are then providing valued games to a wider cross section of the gamer market.

Warhammer was the first Total War game I ever bought. And it's likely Warhammer 2 is the second Total War game I will ever buy. And it might be the last. Seems I'm the target for these games, not people who have played most of the previous games. Though as a person who despises on disc DLC, if CA does the same shenanigans and has races and factions in the release game but behind a paywall I am likely to not buy Warhammer 2 and never buy another CA game ever again. I have enough games I want to play from developers and publishers who aren't abusing people buy putting content that should be in the release version behind paywalls that I do not need to give my money to companies that do that sort of shit and expect gamers to suck it up.

Wood Elves should not have been behind a paywall. Skaven, or Tomb Kings or Lizardmen should have been the expansion DLC, not fricken unlocking a race that was part of the original release game. I am shamed to admit I paid the price for unlocking Wood Elves, but I hated myself for doing it, and I won't do it again. And I only did it because I bought the basic game for cheap on a Steam sale.

[Corvinus85]

26 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Surely the aim should not be to please everyone with the same game. The aim should be to please those with an interest in a fantasy version of Total War. The historical purists already have plenty of games to play, and they will get more in future. CA are then providing valued games to a wider cross section of the gamer market.

Warhammer was the first Total War game I ever bought. And it's likely Warhammer 2 is the second Total War game I will ever buy. And it might be the last. Seems I'm the target for these games, not people who have played most of the previous games. Though as a person who despises on disc DLC, if CA does the same shenanigans and has races and factions in the release game but behind a paywall I am likely to not buy Warhammer 2 and never buy another CA game ever again. I have enough games I want to play from developers and publishers who aren't abusing people buy putting content that should be in the release version behind paywalls that I do not need to give my money to companies that do that sort of shit and expect gamers to suck it up.

Wood Elves should not have been behind a paywall. Skaven, or Tomb Kings or Lizardmen should have been the expansion DLC, not fricken unlocking a race that was part of the original release game. I am shamed to admit I paid the price for unlocking Wood Elves, but I hated myself for doing it, and I won't do it again. And I only did it because I bought the basic game for cheap on a Steam sale.

I don't disagree with you on the paywall issue. It is what it is. I'm not someone who constantly searches for games, I tend to stick with the series I've come to love over the years, so I pay'em. (occasionally the full price, other times I wait for discounts) I bought all the DLCs for Warhammer, most of them on sale. I got the Norsca DLC for free, because I pre-ordered Warhammer II, which I was gonna get first week anyway, so might as well. (btw, Skaven and Lizardmen are available in the vanilla game, but the Tomb Kings will be a DLC).

On another subject, but still related to paywalls, I have relented and got Origin Access for a month to try out Battlefront II. I didn't play the first one, at all, as I really hate what EA has done with these games, apart from the visuals, which are just gorgeous. The first one didn't have a single player campaign story, and it didn't have space battles, so those were deal breakers. But II has them, so I'm curious, but I doubt I'll buy it. This loot box/credits or whatever the hell is called system does not attract me one bit.

[Jace, Extat]

4 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

I don't disagree with you on the paywall issue. It is what it is. I'm not someone who constantly searches for games, I tend to stick with the series I've come to love over the years, so I pay'em. (occasionally the full price, other times I wait for discounts) I bought all the DLCs for Warhammer, most of them on sale. I got the Norsca DLC for free, because I pre-ordered Warhammer II, which I was gonna get first week anyway, so might as well. (btw, Skaven and Lizardmen are available in the vanilla game, but the Tomb Kings will be a DLC).

On another subject, but still related to paywalls, I have relented and got Origin Access for a month to try out Battlefront II. I didn't play the first one, at all, as I really hate what EA has done with these games, apart from the visuals, which are just gorgeous. The first one didn't have a single player campaign story, and it didn't have space battles, so those were deal breakers. But II has them, so I'm curious, but I doubt I'll buy it. This loot box/credits or whatever the hell is called system does not attract me one bit.

I'm not sure when or how this loot box thing started, but I am increasingly infuriated by the idea.

[briantw]

6 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

I'm not sure when or how this loot box thing started, but I am increasingly infuriated by the idea.

I don't know when it started, but Team Fortress 2 and Counter-Strike have been doing it for years.  

The main difference is that, in both of those games, crates give either cosmetic items or unique weapon skins, so they don't offer any kind of competitive advantage.  TF2 was also free to play by the time crates came around, so no one really took issue with the idea of paying to unlock them.  They just offer unique ways to customize your character or give your weapons add-ons that track kills, head shots, etc.

I don't take issue with a F2P game having loot boxes, or crates, or whatever, especially when they don't actually give the people who unlock them any sort of advantage outside of looking more stylish. 

[Jace, Extat]

10 minutes ago, briantw said:

I don't know when it started, but Team Fortress 2 and Counter-Strike have been doing it for years.  

The main difference is that, in both of those games, crates give either cosmetic items or unique weapon skins, so they don't offer any kind of competitive advantage.  TF2 was also free to play by the time crates came around, so no one really took issue with the idea of paying to unlock them.  They just offer unique ways to customize your character or give your weapons add-ons that track kills, head shots, etc.

I don't take issue with a F2P game having loot boxes, or crates, or whatever, especially when they don't actually give the people who unlock them any sort of advantage outside of looking more stylish. 

Yeah, I've seen shit like that since the internet existed man. This gambling for actual virtual advantages is what's infuriating. It's sick and cynical and gross.

[Slurktan]

30 minutes ago, briantw said:

I don't know when it started, but Team Fortress 2 and Counter-Strike have been doing it for years.  

The main difference is that, in both of those games, crates give either cosmetic items or unique weapon skins, so they don't offer any kind of competitive advantage.  TF2 was also free to play by the time crates came around, so no one really took issue with the idea of paying to unlock them.  They just offer unique ways to customize your character or give your weapons add-ons that track kills, head shots, etc.

I don't take issue with a F2P game having loot boxes, or crates, or whatever, especially when they don't actually give the people who unlock them any sort of advantage outside of looking more stylish. 

League of Legends has been doing it for a long time too.  However their latest update has essentially made it pay to win for new players.  They've completely changed how you get champions and it is basically entirely luck now.