Video Games: Thread Simulator 2016

[karaddin]

I'm talking visual design, not skill design - the animated short (actually the video I meant, not launch trailer) didn't give remotely enough sense of actual abilities.

[Jace, Extat]

I'm starting to get really mad at CKII. I started a playthrough as Duchess for Thessalonike to establish mine own Macedonian dynasty on the Roman throne, but in the two revolts I've been part of the fucking computer ally refuses to take the field against the Imperial armies while they're split (and therefore vulnerable) and instead determines to siege stupid provinces and give them time to collect into an overwhelming force. I don't have the men to meet either of the two enemy forces of about 2200 and 3500 alone, and I don't know if it's possible to tell the computer to get off its ass and help me win this damn war.

[Shryke]

On 11/4/2016 at 4:02 PM, KiDisaster said:

Necromancer class being added to D3 and the remake of first game in D3's engine is pretty nice. 

It's nice but it's such a big bunch of nothing much. Big letdown imo. Doesn't even come with an expansion. I honestly feel like they were prepping to talk about Diablo 4 and something happened to delay it in development or the like and now it's been pushed back and so they had, like, nothing.

Even HOTS comes out for the 20th anniversary year of Diablo and announces ... 2 Warcraft heroes. It was honestly kinda funny.

In general I feel like Blizzcon this year was real light on announcements. We got Sombra (which is cool enough) and a new Coop Commander in SC2 and a new Hearthstone expansion and 2 HOTS heroes and a new class and some areas in D3 and it's really not much. Shit, WoW and HOTS dropped stuff twice as big as what we got this weekend back in August/September.

Some of the eSports stuff has been pretty cool though.

[Fez]

On 11/5/2016 at 9:01 PM, Werthead said:

I do want to try it, but I've been put off by the first two games, both of which were crushingly mediocre. Not helped by a bug in The Witcher 2 that I can only overcome by reloading an autosave and completely redoing the last 2 hours of the game.

I really, really disliked The Witcher 2 for a lot of reasons, but I picked up The Witcher 3 last week anyway because it was on sale and I was desperate for a long, story-based AAA RPG. I'm 18 hours in now, and its pretty good. The writing is pretty strong, especially the world-building parts (some of the characters too, but its not the strongest part), and the world is gorgeous and fun to explore. On the other hand, combat (and character movement in general) is terrible and I'm not a huge fan of how they structured the main narrative; with it (thus far anyway) being a series of unrelated quests that barely move the main story forward (e.g. NPCs having me do lengthy quest chains to resolve their own issues just so they can give a tiny bit of information about where to head to next).

Its a solid game, but I think Dragon Age Inquisition is a lot better. That game had its own issues, especially its pacing problems, but it had all those great character moments and interactions (like all Bioware games do) that The Witcher 3 does not. There are a handful of really good characters, like the Bloody Baron, but it just doesn't compare. IMO.

[Rhom]

7 hours ago, Shryke said:

It's nice but it's such a big bunch of nothing much. Big letdown imo. Doesn't even come with an expansion. I honestly feel like they were prepping to talk about Diablo 4 and something happened to delay it in development or the like and now it's been pushed back and so they had, like, nothing.

Even HOTS comes out for the 20th anniversary year of Diablo and announces ... 2 Warcraft heroes. It was honestly kinda funny.

In general I feel like Blizzcon this year was real light on announcements. We got Sombra (which is cool enough) and a new Coop Commander in SC2 and a new Hearthstone expansion and 2 HOTS heroes and a new class and some areas in D3 and it's really not much. Shit, WoW and HOTS dropped stuff twice as big as what we got this weekend back in August/September.

Some of the eSports stuff has been pretty cool though.

The thing that bugs me about the Necromancer is that they don't even know how they will add it.  Sounds like they may have some sort of microtransaction or something to include it.  Kind of aggravates me considering the game has always added things for free with the exception of a full on expansion pack.

[Jasta11]

Necromancer will be paid DLC, albeit they don't know the price yet. I'm probably not going to buy it, I stopped playing D3 a long time ago. Only so many Rifts that you can do before it becomes all the same.

Blizzcon made me want to buy Overwatch, but I already have so much on my plate. Still playing Total Warhammer a bit, still playing WoW (with a new raid dropping tomorrow and boatloads of content in the 2 patches they unveiled at Blizzcon commig soon-ish), and I'm going to pick up Tyranny on the 10th probably, because it's Obsidian and they're never made a game I didn't love.

And now a friend also wants me to play Path of Exile. It's a free to play ARPG on Steam, and it's really quite good. It feels very much like Diablo 2.5, using many of the same trappings such as potion chugging and scrolls of town portal, but with its own twists. It also features an absolutely gigantic skill tree, with several hundred passive nodes (albeit most of them are simple +damage or +life, there are some game-changing ones). Best of all, it's almost a free game. The microtransaction stuff is mostly cosmetics, with stash tabs also being behind paywalls but you get 4 tabs by default, which is enough for many items and currencies. But you can access all character classes, all difficulties, all Leagues, all items, all 4 acts from the get go.

[Jace, Extat]

4 hours ago, Fez said:

I really, really disliked The Witcher 2 for a lot of reasons, but I picked up The Witcher 3 last week anyway because it was on sale and I was desperate for a long, story-based AAA RPG. I'm 18 hours in now, and its pretty good. The writing is pretty strong, especially the world-building parts (some of the characters too, but its not the strongest part), and the world is gorgeous and fun to explore. On the other hand, combat (and character movement in general) is terrible and I'm not a huge fan of how they structured the main narrative; with it (thus far anyway) being a series of unrelated quests that barely move the main story forward (e.g. NPCs having me do lengthy quest chains to resolve their own issues just so they can give a tiny bit of information about where to head to next).

Its a solid game, but I think Dragon Age Inquisition is a lot better. That game had its own issues, especially its pacing problems, but it had all those great character moments and interactions (like all Bioware games do) that The Witcher 3 does not. There are a handful of really good characters, like the Bloody Baron, but it just doesn't compare. IMO.

I agree with this assessment, I still haven't finished Witcher3. 2 things make DA:I unassailable. 

1. I can play a lady character.

2. I can judge prisoners from my lofty throne.

[KiDisaster]

Yeah, but The Witcher 3 has boob magic and a grizzled older male protagonist who is literally incapable of showing emotion so...

12 hours ago, Shryke said:

It's nice but it's such a big bunch of nothing much. Big letdown imo. Doesn't even come with an expansion. I honestly feel like they were prepping to talk about Diablo 4 and something happened to delay it in development or the like and now it's been pushed back and so they had, like, nothing.

Even HOTS comes out for the 20th anniversary year of Diablo and announces ... 2 Warcraft heroes. It was honestly kinda funny.

In general I feel like Blizzcon this year was real light on announcements. We got Sombra (which is cool enough) and a new Coop Commander in SC2 and a new Hearthstone expansion and 2 HOTS heroes and a new class and some areas in D3 and it's really not much. Shit, WoW and HOTS dropped stuff twice as big as what we got this weekend back in August/September.

Some of the eSports stuff has been pretty cool though.

True, I was hoping for more from the Diablo announcements. I think I missed the part about the Necromancer class being paid DLC, I assumed it would be another free update for some reason. 

All things considered I wasn't hoping for much from Blizzcon this year, they generally have the big stuff every other year and since we got Overwatch and Legion last year (I think that's when they officially announced both of them but I could be wrong) this one was bound to be light. 

Sombra looks like she might usurp Mei as the most annoying character to play against. Which is awesome and makes me want to play her immediately. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

 Blizz really needs to figure out a way to monetize Diablo 3 the same way they have HoTS, Starcraft, Overwatch and Hearthstone. It's the one game that doesn't have a microtransactions store. They were really good about providing meaningful patches with new items, pets, wings, etc for a long time without any sort of monetization (outside of the old Real Money Auction House), but it appears those days of freebie maintenance are done. They haven't added anything meaningful over the last 3 seasons reallly.

[GallowKnight]

Mass Effect: Andromeda Trailer

[Rhom]

7 minutes ago, GallowKnight said:

Mass Effect: Andromeda Trailer

I'm hooked.

If they are still saying "Spring 2017" I'd really like a bit more of a firm date at this point as well as some party member info... but the game looks awesome.

[Corvinus85]

20 minutes ago, GallowKnight said:

Mass Effect: Andromeda Trailer

Mixed feelings. The trailer was bit all over the place. Hopefully the game won't be.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

14 minutes ago, Rhom said:

I'm hooked.

If they are still saying "Spring 2017" I'd really like a bit more of a firm date at this point as well as some party member info... but the game looks awesome.

Same. I think it's safe to say they'll trickle out more info between now and release. But this was definitely enough for now to keep my interest at a high level.

[Ded As Ned]

I've never played any of the ME titles... where should I start?

[Jace, Extat]

19 minutes ago, Ded As Ned said:

I've never played any of the ME titles... where should I start?

The first one. Dated, and the game play is shit, but the story is great and worth it to get to ME2 and 3 which are outstanding. 

If you're gonna skip 1, don't even bother.

[Ded As Ned]

2 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

The first one. Dated, and the game play is shit, but the story is great and worth it to get to ME2 and 3 which are outstanding. 

If you're gonna skip 1, don't even bother.

Ah, I see they sell the trilogy as one package for the PS3... so probably was a moot question.  I'm trying to clean up on some of the big titles I've missed before the move to the PS4 in a few months... if I can ever get away from Skyrim that is.

[Melphis Amekia]

1 minute ago, Ded As Ned said:

Ah, I see they sell the trilogy as one package for the PS3... so probably was a moot question.  I'm trying to clean up on some of the big titles I've missed before the move to the PS4 in a few months... if I can ever get away from Skyrim that is.

I disagree on the dated and gameplay is shit notions for ME1. In terms of tech, the graphics are dated, but they aged well and are actually pretty pretty, IMO. As for gameplay, it is a bit clunky, especially when you drive in the Mako(a rover/tank), but I actually prefer it to the more standard, ammo-based system used in ME2 & 3. I may be in the minority on that, though.

And ME3... is a very, very good game, at certain points, but it has absolutely huge flaws. I would still play through it, and I'd make sure to play the Citadel DLC after you finish the game as the fluff parts of the DLC are pretty much awesome.

[Ded As Ned]

Dated games don't really bother me, if the game is good.  I still spend a significant amount of my gaming time playing everything from original Atari games up to the previous generation.  

[Corvinus85]

8 minutes ago, Planetsider said:

I disagree on the dated and gameplay is shit notions for ME1. In terms of tech, the graphics are dated, but they aged well and are actually pretty pretty, IMO. As for gameplay, it is a bit clunky, especially when you drive in the Mako(a rover/tank), but I actually prefer it to the more standard, ammo-based system used in ME2 & 3. I may be in the minority on that, though.

I find the constant drive to upgrade weapons and equipment too tedious in ME1. For ME2 it's too simplistic + there is the tediousness of resource gathering. I think in that regard ME3 finds a better balance than it's predecessors.

[briantw]

3 hours ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

I agree with this assessment, I still haven't finished Witcher3. 2 things make DA:I unassailable. 

1. I can play a lady character.

2. I can judge prisoners from my lofty throne.

Technically you can and do play as a lady character in Witcher 3 too, just not for the entire game.