Video Games: This is (Elite) Dangerous

[Werthead]

That sounds right. I've been pretty strictly doing space hauling and I'm feeling a need to try some other stuff out (I did take on one kill pirates mission, which I did not complete but did learn a lot more about the game's systems, like what an interdictor is). Long term though, the game is going to need more content; fortunately, it sounds like that's exactly the plan. I don't want it to turn into an expy of Eve Online, but I think it could draw some inspiration from there; at least in terms of making the market more complex and adding some form of industry.

I wonder what the long-term plan for the rest of the galaxy is, too. I doubt all 400 billion (!) systems will ever get visited by anyone, but quite a few will be at some point. And right now all there is to do outside the settled systems is explore, fuel scoop, and eventually go back to a settled system to sell the exploration data; which seems like a waste considering how much of the galaxy that is. My idea would be to add some alien empires far away from human space, which mostly function the same as human space for anyone who could get out to them, but with the added ability to make massive amounts of money trading stuff across the void back and forth with the human systems (and with a regular trade route like that, there could be more pirates hanging around the closest systems, NPC and other players for those in open play)

The idea of a vast empty galaxy is intriguing but ultimately pointless, agreed. There has to be more out there (although there never was in Frontier or First Encounters, but they didn't have the dynamic online stuff). I suspect that the Thargoids' home systems will eventually show up (assuming they are not native to hyperspace, as theorised in the original game) and maybe some other things: AI civilisations in distant corners of the galaxy, rogue human colonies from centuries ago? There's a lot they can do with this stuff.

Just did another combo mission and pulled in 30K for a quick hour's worth of flight. Pretty good stuff. I also did some exploration of a system. For 20 minutes worth of flying around and pinging my discovery scanner at things, I clocked in about 3K of data. Not a great return.

Something I am getting annoyed about: taking up pirate-killing missions only for one of the pirates to make a counter-offer. I automatically accept it and have no choice but to go off and comply or not get any return at all. Twice now I've gone on pirate-killing sprees for 20K a pop only to end up accepting a 3K bribe from the pirates to leave them alone, even though I didn't want to. Really weird.

I'm also getting bored of being interdicted, deploying weapons for a fight only to find it's a police Viper on standard patrol rather than a pirate. Dull.

[paddington]

Got a new video card and Alien isolation, dragon age 3 both look pretty good. Alien is really atmospheric, not played much of dragon age mainly because my brother gifted me Kerbal space program. Spent most of christmass blowing up little green men at take off.

[fuseprime]

Since I had a 360 during the last gen, I didn't get the opportunity to play The Last of Us. I've been playing the remastered edition the past couple days and I'm addicted. This is one of the more challenging games I've played in a while. I'm not typically a stealth player, so this has been a test for me. A whole lot of studying enemy routes, and striking promptly.

And it goes without saying how good the voice acting and story is.

I loved TLoU. I had gifted it to a friend who purchased a second-hand PS3 (for the Blu-Ray), He's mostly a Madden/COD guy, and he was addicted as well. He said it felt like an interactive story. The nerd in me immediately suggest Telltale's TWD, and the Uncharted series, and some RPGs, and then some more games....

Needless to say, I think it's a great "gateway" game for people who don't normally play single-player games.

[Impmk2]

Something I am getting annoyed about: taking up pirate-killing missions only for one of the pirates to make a counter-offer. I automatically accept it and have no choice but to go off and comply or not get any return at all. Twice now I've gone on pirate-killing sprees for 20K a pop only to end up accepting a 3K bribe from the pirates to leave them alone, even though I didn't want to. Really weird.

The original mission is still active - just not shown in your transmissions. You can go back to killing pirates as normal until objective complete comes up and collect that reward. It isn't at all clear that it's a choice and it's kinda crappy, they really need to fix it. Confused the hell out of me the first few times it happened and lead to some frantic googling and lost money.

I am debating whether to trade in my current viper for a cobra mk.III for a bit more cargo capacity, or keep on going with the viper and upgrade the weapons which looks to be far stronger with combat. The asp is a long long way off in either case.

[l2 0 5 5]

I loved TLoU. I had gifted it to a friend who purchased a second-hand PS3 (for the Blu-Ray), He's mostly a Madden/COD guy, and he was addicted as well. He said it felt like an interactive story. The nerd in me immediately suggest Telltale's TWD, and the Uncharted series, and some RPGs, and then some more games....

Needless to say, I think it's a great "gateway" game for people who don't normally play single-player games.

Absolutely. I'd recommend this game to anyone who was looking to break the monotony of sports/run-and-gun games. I don't think I've ever talked to myself more during a game. This thing has me second-guessing everything.

[Sivin]

Lock your doors, shutter the windows, hide the women and children!

I'm online! If anyone wants to play Xbox One with me, I've got Battlefield 4 and the Master Chief Collection.

[Reny of Storms End]

How can Sony claim PSN is online for all systems when no one I've heard of or seen has logged on? Does it come back for like twenty seconds?

[eyenon15]

I've been logged on ps4 since last night

[Jabronius Maximus]

Can confirm, mine was back up last night and still works. Finally! Any word on compensation for this outage?

[eyenon15]

Only thing I've heard is a free month of plus for everybody

And that was word of mouth not from anywhere official

[Kalbear]

Sony should consider hiring some actual network and security techs. Their security and response procedures are kind of laughable at this point.

[Werthead]

I am debating whether to trade in my current viper for a cobra mk.III for a bit more cargo capacity, or keep on going with the viper and upgrade the weapons which looks to be far stronger with combat. The asp is a long long way off in either case.

The Cobra is probably the best all-round ship in the game. A well-flown Viper will beat one, but frankly the AI isn't hot enough to worry about. For PvP I'd go with a Viper or an Eagle - the Eagle is faster and more maneuverable, has a better jump range and its powerplant isn't as gimped as the Viper's (even when upgraded) - but if you're playing solo the Cobra is certainly the ship to go for.

I'd gotten bored of the starting systems. It sounded like I'd missed out on the first big wave of story events in the Sorbago system, but now it looks the Empire is provoking a confrontation with the nearby Federation system of Luluwala, which it accuses of supplying the rebels with guns. Some stuff could be about to go down, so I said screw and am heading over there. 112 light-years. Got it down to about 70ly, but some of the routes are a bit torturous. I don't want to do too much fuel scooping but I may have to resort to it to avoid rather crazy round trips to make sure I can re-fuel at stations.

Also discovered what happens if you try to fly through a gas giant's rings in supercruise: you get smashed back down to normal space, almost crash into floating icebergs and then get jumped by pirates. It turns out that if there are resource nodes in a gas giant's rings, the rings will likely be crawling with rogue ships. Great for bounty hunting, less great if you're just passing by.

Discovered something weird: Polaris requires a special permit to visit. Not that I'm going that way soon (900 ly away, well outside settled space), but it seems a bit odd.

ETA: Ah, of course. Polaris was hugely important in the previous Elite game, First Encounters.

It was where the massive hyperportal to Thargoid home space was located.

[Fez]

Took a few hours to play and beat Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons after seeing it for $2 on steam. I don't often play those kind of short, straight-line games, but I'm thinking I should look into them some more; this was really good. I'd heard it was good, which is why I got it, but I didn't know anything about it. There were a few moments throughout, and then the ending of course, that really got to me.

[Reny of Storms End]

Sony should consider hiring some actual network and security techs. Their security and response procedures are kind of laughable at this point.

I totally agree, and it's not even an isolated incident.

So after having been unable to sign in at my family's home during my stay there over the holiday, I got on without a hitch the moment I returned to Pittsburgh. Where my friends all informed me they have been getting on and playing for the last three days with no problems. So maybe my inability to log in had more to do with my location.

[Rhom]

I totally agree, and it's not even an isolated incident.

So after having been unable to sign in at my family's home during my stay there over the holiday, I got on without a hitch the moment I returned to Pittsburgh. Where my friends all informed me they have been getting on and playing for the last three days with no problems. So maybe my inability to log in had more to do with my location.

:dunno:

I was unable to play last night either. Have yet to try today.

[Reny of Storms End]

:dunno:I was unable to play last night either. Have yet to try today.

I'll be hoping you can get on today Rhom.

So with my free games, all that happened was I was locked out from them. The second I reupped my PSN plus they unlocked and were playable again. That was a relief.

[eyenon15]

If you still can't get on PSN this will probably work. It worked for me and everyone else I talked to.

http://youtu.be/SVaOo2fsZsU

[Rhom]

I just got a call from Bank of America. I have two cards with them. One for my office and one that I do very little with... however one of the things I do with it is pay for PSN stuff.

That card was dinged by someplace in Mexico for a dollar earlier today. The charge was denied, but they have now opened a fraud report and closed it. This has happened various times over the years, its always a pain in the ass to re-input any recurring charges; but I do appreciate that they monitor it so closely.

So I'm not saying that my number was stolen from Sony; but I certainly can't rule it out either.

[Rhom]

If you still can't get on PSN this will probably work. It worked for me and everyone else I talked to.

http://youtu.be/SVaOo2fsZsU

Thanks. I will check that when I get home today.

[Reny of Storms End]

Thanks. I will check that when I get home today.

I also did this, so my getting back on PSN might have less to do with where I was located and more to do with the fact that I did this.