Video Games: "Completeness" becomes important somehow

[Rhom]

Finally took the time the last couple of weeks to finish out MGSV.  Well... mostly.  I learned real quick after the end of Chapter one that I found no interest in running a repeat of an earlier mission with one hand tied behind my back.  So I started skipping those missions in favor of running more Side-Ops and eventually progressing the story (such as it is).  Completed mission 45 (the last readily available regular mission) last night and then looked up the requirements to play mission 46 (which gives you the "ending" of the game) and saw that it required running all those gimped repeat missions and did something I've never done with a game... I said "To hell with it" and watched some dude run that last mission on YouTube.   

So anyways, saw the mega twist ending that was actually spoiled for me here several months ago and really enjoyed the gameplay along the way; but I just have too many other games in my queue to be spending my limited gaming time bashing my head against the wall trying to run a mission over again with perfect stealth.   

Now onto the Nathan Drake collection...

[Rhom]

On ‎6‎/‎8‎/‎2016 at 9:29 AM, Ruhail said:

Too 90's for me

 

What exactly was "Too 90's"?  The Batman Beyond costume at the end?

[Ruhail]

11 minutes ago, Rhom said:

What exactly was "Too 90's"?  The Batman Beyond costume at the end?

The overly armoured and flashy neon light centric aesthetics which were very popular during the grimdark/edgelord 90's era of comicbooks

[Jace, Extat]

Seemed pretty cool. I liked the first one, I'll buy it.

[briantw]

Started the new Witcher 3 expansion last night, and finished Hearts of Stone yesterday as well.  This is what DLC should be.  Hearts of Stone used a lot of existing world assets (and fleshed out a section of the map that was mostly barren in the base game), but it told an excellent story with unique characters over the course of about 15 hours (with the side quests and such).  Blood and Wine, on the other hand, has an entirely new map with dozens of things to do.  I'm almost overwhelmed by the amount of new content.  I've already gotten like ten new quests in my log and I'm only two or three hours in.  I also have yet to hit about half a dozen of the sign boards with exclamation points promising even more quests.  

Oh yeah, and there's a new gwent deck!  The gwent games I've been playing so far have actually been somewhat of a challenge, too.  I haven't lost yet, but it's been close in a few of the games.

[Ravness]

10 hours ago, Fez said:

Noticed something odd last night, not sure if it was a fluke or if people have started getting some serious theory-crafting done, but I saw a bunch of teams running two Mercys. Sometimes this failed miserably due to a lack of firepower, but other times, which I assume were teams actually coordinating, it worked shockingly well. If the rest of the players are bulkier, high damage characters and there's two Mercys to buff/heal them, they become way too tough to beat unless the other team really gets its act together.

I feel Zenyatta + either Mercy or Lucio make for some pretty solid supports. Get the heals going while turning tanks to pudding with those orbs of discord. Only problem is that he's super squishy.

[Jasta11]

2 hours ago, briantw said:

Started the new Witcher 3 expansion last night, and finished Hearts of Stone yesterday as well.  This is what DLC should be.  Hearts of Stone used a lot of existing world assets (and fleshed out a section of the map that was mostly barren in the base game), but it told an excellent story with unique characters over the course of about 15 hours (with the side quests and such).  Blood and Wine, on the other hand, has an entirely new map with dozens of things to do.  I'm almost overwhelmed by the amount of new content.  I've already gotten like ten new quests in my log and I'm only two or three hours in.  I also have yet to hit about half a dozen of the sign boards with exclamation points promising even more quests.  

Oh yeah, and there's a new gwent deck!  The gwent games I've been playing so far have actually been somewhat of a challenge, too.  I haven't lost yet, but it's been close in a few of the games.

 

Yeah, the value package is real. Albeit I found the signposts don't have too many quests; most of them are picked up in Beauclair proper. You also outlevel many sidequests quite fast, sadly, since the main plot line of BaW showers you with XP.

Also still playing TW:WH. I don't think I've liked a Total War game that much since Shogun II. My Vampire campaign has got to the point that Chaos and the Norscans are tearing through the Empire's provinces at a fairly alarming rate. And they still hate me enough to refuse any aid. So I'm torn between letting them burn as I consolidate my gains, or prematurely declaring war on Chaos. Because Archaon's cheerleaders have something like 6 or 7 stacks rampaging around, and if they turn their gaze towards me I barely have 2 and a half stacks myself. There are only so many tides that Mannfred can turn.

The game is still high on the Steam charts, so it seems to sell well too.

[The Anti-Targ]

Manchester United (Yes the Football (Soccer) club) is bidding for ownership of an Overwatch esports team. They aren't the first such club to get into esports team ownership but they are the globally most high profile. They're unlikely to be getting into this because the top brass at the club are all huge Overwatch fans, so they must see that there is a good business case for owning an esports team. If they are expecting a decent return on investment I'm guessing they will be wanting TV coverage of games, not just Twitch and Youtube.

http://www.thescoreesports.com/news/8370-report-manchester-united-in-bidding-war-with-fnatic-over-overwatch-team

[Melphis Amekia]

Wow. That is certainly pretty cool, actually, so long as they take care of the players they sign.

I imagine that, if Arsenal ever decided to sponsor anything in esports, they'd sponsor SC2. Perfect match.

/sarcasm, btw. anyone with business sense would sponsor Overwatch, Dota 2, LoL or CS:GO. I meant it more symbolic like.

[The Drunkard]

8 hours ago, briantw said:

Oh yeah, and there's a new gwent deck!

There's a quest relating to this that's pretty funny. 

Diffusing a fight between gwent enthusiasts over the canonicity of the new deck at a tournament.

It can be pretty OP if you get a good hand. It's replaced the Northern Realms as my standard deck.

[The Anti-Targ]

Hmmmm, What do do after MGS V, Uncharted 4 or The Witcher III DLC?

[briantw]

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Hmmmm, What do do after MGS V, Uncharted 4 or The Witcher III DLC?

I haven't played Uncharted 4 as I no longer have a PS4, but The Witcher 3 DLC is incredible.  Hearts of Stone is akin to the Bloody Baron quest from the main game in terms of storytelling, and Blood and Wine could basically be an entirely new game.

[Mark Antony]

Yeah I think I rate the DLCs better than the main game although like you said the Bloody Baron storyline was fucking awesome. 

Hearts of Stone is a little better story wise than Blood and Wine but Touissant is probably my favorite region in the game with Skellige being a close second. 

[briantw]

12 minutes ago, Mark Antony said:

Yeah I think I rate the DLCs better than the main game although like you said the Bloody Baron storyline was fucking awesome. 

Hearts of Stone is a little better story wise than Blood and Wine but Touissant is probably my favorite region in the game with Skellige being a close second. 

Toussaint is cool because it's just so different from everything else in the game, and really from most other games in this genre.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

On 6/6/2016 at 8:57 PM, Procrastimancer said:

I wouldn't worry about interfering with others. I got the game a month ago and all that I have encountered is someone grabbing a mining node before I could and some jackass snagging a chest I'd unlocked after I popped out to make room in my inventory. If you are on a quest that requires you to kill things and there are other players there, just go for it. Kill credit for a mob goes to anyone who attacks, so feel free to just jump in and lend a hand.

 

Okay cool, I was worried about stealing XP, though stealing loot made me a bit nervous--but after having a few people push in front of me and steal some shit from under my nose, I got over my timidness. I like the game--I did play one other MMORPG--Dark Age of Camelot. But it was so long ago I remember hardly anything--except it was really grindy. And it seems that hasn't changed much. Though it seems the game doesn't penalize you like DAOC used to do like when you died.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

24 minutes ago, briantw said:

Toussaint is cool because it's just so different from everything else in the game, and really from most other games in this genre.

I haven't tried either DLC yet, and I should, I have them both. I loved the main game. I am replaying Witcher 2 since I played Witcher 3 without a real game 2 save. I know it doesn't matter, but I feel like it'd be cool to import my own save and start over. Of course, starting over--I wonder if I'll ever get to the damned DLC. It took me a year to play 150+ hours and beat the game the first time.

[Lyanna Stark]

23 hours ago, Fez said:

Noticed something odd last night, not sure if it was a fluke or if people have started getting some serious theory-crafting done, but I saw a bunch of teams running two Mercys. Sometimes this failed miserably due to a lack of firepower, but other times, which I assume were teams actually coordinating, it worked shockingly well. If the rest of the players are bulkier, high damage characters and there's two Mercys to buff/heal them, they become way too tough to beat unless the other team really gets its act together.

 

Can probably work well unless the other team coordinates flanking attacks on the healers. Determined flankers (Genji, Tracer especially since they can move behind quickly and easily, but Edgelords or McCree can do the same) can be a real PITA as Mercy and/or if the opposing team has a competent sniper (flying along with a Pharah is nice, but you are also a sitting duck for any sniper worth his or her salt). Even a good Lucio can take down Mercy. I'm normally not a good enough Lucio to single handedly take out a Mercy, but it has happened more than once if I get some good shots at her, then a punt and a melee hit.

[briantw]

8 hours ago, Simon Steele said:

I haven't tried either DLC yet, and I should, I have them both. I loved the main game. I am replaying Witcher 2 since I played Witcher 3 without a real game 2 save. I know it doesn't matter, but I feel like it'd be cool to import my own save and start over. Of course, starting over--I wonder if I'll ever get to the damned DLC. It took me a year to play 150+ hours and beat the game the first time.

The only reason I didn't do NG+ with Witcher 3 is because the base game took me 101 hours to do everything.  I did the main quest, every witcher quest, found every notice board and did all those quests, every secondary quest I found, fully upgraded two sets of witcher armor, hit almost every question mark in Velen and all in White Orchard and Kaer Morhen, and did a lot of the treasure hunts.  I knew if I started a NG+ I'd never have any hope of finishing it again.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

11 hours ago, briantw said:

The only reason I didn't do NG+ with Witcher 3 is because the base game took me 101 hours to do everything.  I did the main quest, every witcher quest, found every notice board and did all those quests, every secondary quest I found, fully upgraded two sets of witcher armor, hit almost every question mark in Velen and all in White Orchard and Kaer Morhen, and did a lot of the treasure hunts.  I knew if I started a NG+ I'd never have any hope of finishing it again.

 

I didn't even do all of that, and it still took me more than a 100 hours. It's SOOO big. I love it though. I'm with you, I wonder if I'd ever finish it again. Maybe I'll just play the DLC on my old save, and try a new game separately and see what happens.

[Jasta11]

Bless a slow week at work, I finished Blood and Wine, albeit I kinda rushed through the main story.

All in all a very good DLC. Very much the size of ye olde expansion packs, and some of the new game mechanics, especially the Mutation system, breathe some very much needed fresh air into the combat. I have a few quibbles with it, such as how many of the accents sound a bit fake and how Grandmaster Witcher gear is way too expensive for what it does (especially the weapons), but no big complaints at all, apart from one thing (end of DLC spoiler, careful);

Spoiler

I thought Syanna's motivations were a bit too melodramatic. Oh, boohoohoo, your 12 years old sister didn't drop everything to save you. Tough, yeah, but coming back to murder her in cold blood while dying yourself? And unleash an extremely unstable vampire on her duchy? Sheesh, lady. That's some Tyrion-level daddy issues right there.

Plus, I thought the good ending was way too sunshine and roses. The Syanna that was ready to die if it means killing her sister, now becomes her BBF after a few choice words from Geralt and Anna? Eh. Not that satisfying IMO. The bad ending is also not that much in the DLC's tone. I'd have prefered a bittersweet one, but I suspect I would need to take a different path to see it, such as not giving Syanna the ribbon so that Detlaff kills her. Which would be the most fitting end for her character, I think.