Video Games - Sequels of Dread and Anticipation

[IlyaP]

7 hours ago, Fez said:

In my playing, I dropped Torment: ToN, it just felt like a ton of text that was going nowhere and I didn't care about anything in it.

I've been led to understand that a portion of the game's content got cut, and left the game feeling a bit strained and thin at places. Which might go a way towards explaining things. 

Also, I kind of get the feeling there's almost TOO MUCH world building, and too much explaining, and not enough focus on strong, interesting characters - which, honestly, I never felt any of the party members were.

[Ghostlydragon]

Final Fantasy 12. I hated the combat back in 2008 but as I have played so many action rpgs since then, I absolutely love the combat now and really appreciate the game. I guess it was just too ahead of its time back then so lots of gamers like myself didn't like the game but in a world of action rpgs like kingdom hearts, ff7r and much more, it is just easier to enjoy. I'm just glad it came to ps4. I doubt I ever would have played my housemates ps2 copy a second time.

[aceluby]

The problem I had with FF12 was that after a while I had set my automation up to the point that I was basically just watching the game play itself.  After a few sessions of watching a game play itself I shelved it out of boredom and just never picked it up again.  Was probably 1/2 way through and was the last FF game I played besides replaying FF7 every few years on my PSP.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Back in the streets. Must be pretty close to the end of GTA5 because I am having to kill so many people on each mission. Hate that I can't see shit with the sniper rifle.

[Inkdaub]

Fenyx Rising is pretty great so far.  I'm not very far in, though.  Just got my bird last night.

[Rhom]

6 hours ago, Inkdaub said:

Fenyx Rising is pretty great so far.  I'm not very far in, though.  Just got my bird last night.

Been wondering about the game.  Saw an ad that it was on sale I think.

[Werthead]

The developers of Hogwarts Legacy have apparently put the ability to create a transgender character in the current build of the character creator in the game. Interesting to see if this survives to the final release version or if anyone involved in the project or licencing tries to have it removed.

[Mexal]

4 hours ago, Rhom said:

Been wondering about the game.  Saw an ad that it was on sale I think.

It's a fun game. Feels very Breath of the Wild in the way they set up the game, the puzzles, dungeons, the plot but has it's own twists (no real towns, NPCs). I played for awhile (freed the 2nd God) and then moved on to something else but will likely jump back.

[Slurktan]

4 hours ago, Werthead said:

The developers of Hogwarts Legacy have apparently put the ability to create a transgender character in the current build of the character creator in the game. Interesting to see if this survives to the final release version or if anyone involved in the project or licencing tries to have it removed.

Guess it depends if Rowling has any say

[Toth]

15 minutes ago, Slurktan said:

Guess it depends if Rowling has any say

*grabs popcorn as someone is screeching about restrooms in the distance*

[MercenaryChef]

valheim is just the distraction i have been looking for! 2 irl friends and i are on a persistent private server living out our dreams of being vikings. 

we all work different hours and don't play together often and it is fun to see our village and farm grow when you log back in. yesterday my friends came back to find i had mined and logged a massive swath of the black forest into a wasteland. i have been stripped of my logging and mining rights alas.

[Argonath Diver]

How did you get the server set up? I'm trying to goad my brother into playing it. I love the idea of him and his small group of gamer buddies popping in and out of a persistent world. I'm having fun solo, but knowing I could go nuts on a big Viking castle/longhouse and actually being able to show it off sounds awesome.

I'm not far in the game yet, as I spent an inordinate amount of time making cabins dotted around my first generated island, when I should probably be sailing out to find more Black Forest. I do wish there was more 'stuff' around, but I'm really digging it so far.

[briantw]

35 minutes ago, Argonath Diver said:

How did you get the server set up? I'm trying to goad my brother into playing it. I love the idea of him and his small group of gamer buddies popping in and out of a persistent world. I'm having fun solo, but knowing I could go nuts on a big Viking castle/longhouse and actually being able to show it off sounds awesome.

I'm not far in the game yet, as I spent an inordinate amount of time making cabins dotted around my first generated island, when I should probably be sailing out to find more Black Forest. I do wish there was more 'stuff' around, but I'm really digging it so far.

We got our server through a third-party hosting service, although I didn't personally set it up so I'm not sure which one.  My friend who took care of it isn't online right now, but I'll ask him later when he logs on.  EDIT: It's hosted through Zap.

Pro tip: Bring the equipment necessary to set up a portal when you go sailing so if you find a new island, you can easily get back to your main base.  Set up a portal there first before leaving, give it a name, and then give the exit portal the same name to link them up.  If you don't have portal tech yet, you need to find the crypts/vaults/caves (not sure what they're technically called) in the Black Forest.  The key item you need to build portals is located within them.  The other two items needed can be scrounged for pretty quickly and easily.

Also, you're generally better off not building bases in the Black Forest early on.  It's much safer to build in the Meadows within a short walking distance of a Black Forest biome.  Trolls can do some serious damage to your bases if they stumble upon them, which is a constant danger when you settle in the Black Forest.  Outside of it, you really only have to deal with trolls during the "The Ground is Shaking" event, which spawns a couple of trolls near your base that you have to deal with.  I learned the hard way that you should build your town walls a safe distance from the closest building to minimize the damage that random event can do.  Assholes fucked up my longhouse because I was at my base alone and none of my friends were close enough to a teleporter to get there quick enough to help me.  I didn't have the DPS back then to quickly pick them off, and since the attack was sudden and I was just doing work on my town, I hadn't eaten the food necessary for soaking up damage or to maximize stamina, which forced me to keep my distance and do my damage with arrows while they beat the shit out of the front door of said long house.  

I was able to rebuild, but goddamn was that ever a pain in the ass.  I got hit with that event twice in the same fucking session, although thankfully the second time they spawned on the other side of my town and only broke a section of my wooden fence.  Two of my friends were able to get to my aid that time too, which further minimized the damage.  

Now that we've beaten the (current) final boss, I'm going to spend some time building a few new buildings.  I've spent the past few nights gathering wood in anticipation of doing so.

[Argonath Diver]

I did happen to see a streamer have that event pop, and it went similarly poorly for him as well. Someone there mentioned to build in Meadows for that reason, and my main lodge is fine. The cabins were ill advised; I just like building stuff in these kinds of games more than exploring sometimes.

I have gone through all the Black Forest on my seed's opening island, but there's an adjacent one that I can island hop to that looks promising. No vaults, although I did solo a Troll cave today that was pretty frenetic and awesome. I've mostly maxed out my gear before the second boss, just need to level my mace skill more and find the bastard.

My brother lives in a Portland house with a bunch of other hipster gaming nerds. I'm jealous back here, but we do meet up from time to time. I'm hoping one of those guys spreads the fun; we had a pretty colossal Raft and this has even more potential for building shenanigans. Though their internet connection is garbage, so it'd likely have to be a 3rd party host like yours.

I hear the next major content update fleshes out building. I want a truly colossal viking hall if the physics system will let me.

[briantw]

5 minutes ago, Argonath Diver said:

I did happen to see a streamer have that event pop, and it went similarly poorly for him as well. Someone there mentioned to build in Meadows for that reason, and my main lodge is fine. The cabins were ill advised; I just like building stuff in these kinds of games more than exploring sometimes.

I have gone through all the Black Forest on my seed's opening island, but there's an adjacent one that I can island hop to that looks promising. No vaults, although I did solo a Troll cave today that was pretty frenetic and awesome. I've mostly maxed out my gear before the second boss, just need to level my mace skill more and find the bastard.

My brother lives in a Portland house with a bunch of other hipster gaming nerds. I'm jealous back here, but we do meet up from time to time. I'm hoping one of those guys spreads the fun; we had a pretty colossal Raft and this has even more potential for building shenanigans. Though their internet connection is garbage, so it'd likely have to be a 3rd party host like yours.

I hear the next major content update fleshes out building. I want a truly colossal viking hall if the physics system will let me.

You can build some pretty giant halls already.  The one I built is pretty huge.  You just have to understand how the build system works and make sure everything is properly supported and connected to pillars that are connected to the ground.  Building with core wood (which you can get in the Black Forest from the right trees) and, later, stone or iron reinforced wood will allow you to build a lot higher if needed.  Those options will open up after you get into the third biome, as mentioned below.  For now, make sure you're saving up your stone, though, because if you want to build anything substantial, you'll need a metric fuckton of it.

As far as the troll event, that can happen regardless of where your base is.  My main village is firmly in the Meadows and I have gotten the event there multiple times.  The closest Black Forest is at least a two minute walk from me (aka not within line of sight) and I've never seen a randomly spawned troll nearby, just the typical greylings and necks during the day and various forms of greydwarf at night.  As far as I know, all of the random events can happen anywhere.  I got hit with one called "A Cold Wind From the North" in a Meadows base that is at least five to ten minutes from the closest Mountains biome, and once you beat the fourth boss I believe there's a goblin raid event, although I've never seen it personally.

I've never actually gone into a troll cave.  I assume you may be able to get the object necessary to create teleporters in them, but can't say for sure.  Regular caves are pretty much the same, only smaller.  Crypt is probably the wrong word for the Black Forest caves I speak of, though, as crypts are what you'll be able to find in the game's third biome with the item you get from the second boss.

As far as the second boss goes, bring fire arrows.  The Elder is a substantial step up in difficulty from the first boss.

[briantw]

2 hours ago, MercenaryChef said:

valheim is just the distraction i have been looking for! 2 irl friends and i are on a persistent private server living out our dreams of being vikings. 

we all work different hours and don't play together often and it is fun to see our village and farm grow when you log back in. yesterday my friends came back to find i had mined and logged a massive swath of the black forest into a wasteland. i have been stripped of my logging and mining rights alas.

A nice way to get around turning the entire area around your base into a barren wasteland is to do your tree chopping on a private server and then bringing the spoils of your work into your main server and dumping them off.  Since player inventories are stored on the client side, you take what you're carrying from server to server, which makes this viable.  I don't bother building on my single player instance, outside of a small defended shelter with a bunch of chests for me to dump things in.  The game tends to load you into servers quick enough, though, that I usually just hop right back into my main server once my inventory is full.  If you left your main server next to some empty chests, you can massively over-encumber yourself on your private server, hop into the multi-player one, dump it all off real quick, then go right back and get to work.  

I've found this to be a massive time-saver when I want to build something big.  The countless forest trips that gradually grew in distance as I stripped the land of resources became increasingly tiresome.  You can build a cart to somewhat negate this, but it takes me about twenty seconds to go from one server to another, which I'll take over five minute treks back and forth every time, even with a cart.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Holy shit I beat the game. That was a shock.

@aceluby, are the mechanics of the samurai game you mentioned pretty similar to RDR2? I know you said the general gameplay overlapped a lot.

[Inkdaub]

On 3/2/2021 at 3:25 AM, Rhom said:

Been wondering about the game.  Saw an ad that it was on sale I think.

Fenyx is a more engaging pc than I thought she would be.  I've got her dressed in a cool outfit and her abilities are fun to play.  Voice acting is pretty good.  Little details...like the cosmetic headpiece you are wearing having an animation showing it vanishing for cutscenes.  Platforming is fun and fairly short.  Overall I'm glad I bought the thing.

[aceluby]

16 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Holy shit I beat the game. That was a shock.

@aceluby, are the mechanics of the samurai game you mentioned pretty similar to RDR2? I know you said the general gameplay overlapped a lot.

Sword fighting instead of guns, but overall pretty similar.  Open world, travel via horseback, mission based, better fast travel than RDR2, lots of sidequests and places to explore, with a straightforward skill progression tree as well.  I'm a little over 1/3rd of the way through and really like it.

[briantw]

I'd say Ghost of Tsushima is more Assassin's Creed Odyssey than Red Dead.  Minus the nonsense future bullshit, of course, and with better combat and just generally more polished gameplay.  But you could have slapped the AssCreed name on it and no one would have blinked.