Video Games - Legendary Edition

[IlyaP]

On 5/11/2021 at 8:24 AM, Werthead said:

As for why things went south, they took Drew Karphyshyn off the third game and changed everything so the setup from ME1 and 2 no longer made sense, and then the executive producers locked themselves in a room and did the ending just by themselves without the massive amounts of feedback and iteration that every other decision in the game entailed.

Given this (which I did not know, having only played ME1), is there any chance of some kind of...ME3 Director's Cut where Karphyshyn's ideas are restored and the narrative redone to tie in more closely with the first two games?

[Werthead]

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is 120 GB on PC, which seems a tad excessive. I'm going to assume that's for all three games with the highest resolution textures and you can't choose to only have one installed, but that still seems rather OTT.

2 hours ago, IlyaP said:

Given this (which I did not know, having only played ME1), is there any chance of some kind of...ME3 Director's Cut where Karphyshyn's ideas are restored and the narrative redone to tie in more closely with the first two games?

No. They'd have to rebuild the game from the ground up.

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is 120 GB on PC, which seems a tad excessive. I'm going to assume that's for all three games with the highest resolution textures and you can't choose to only have one installed, but that still seems rather OTT.

Remember Rome Remastered at 70GB. So 3 games in one with different environments and characters, I say it's falling along the line of these recent remasters.

[Werthead]

25 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Remember Rome Remastered at 70GB. So 3 games in one with different environments and characters, I say it's falling along the line of these recent remasters.

40GB each isn't too bad on that basis (excepting that ME1 is a much smaller game than its sequels) but it sounds like you can't install one game at a time. It's all three or nothing, which is weird because you play them sequentially, not simultaneously.

The Halo remaster collection allowed you to add or remove games as you like, to better manage hard drive space.

[Fez]

In CK3 gameplay, I have now founded the Norse kingdom of Yemen under the protection of Byzantium. Now I need to start converting the provinces to Asatru. Also, I want to reform the religion before my current ruler dies, since she has an insanely high piety after executing every single prisoner who can't afford a ransom. Problem is, I can't reform without controlling at least 3 Asatru holy sites, and they're all the way up in northern Europe. Also, disappointing, I can't figure out a way to create an offshoot branch of Asatru at all; I assume because the religion is still unorganized. But what this apparently means is that the only I can implement equal gender laws is by going on some crazy distant wars up north, or by changing religions entirely. And I want to keep worshiping Odin, so I guess crazy distant wars it is.

This is the game where I've finally discovered just how truly powerful raiding is too. In previous campaigns, I'd raid a bit at the start, but then stop as my economic building got going. This time, I am constantly raiding and it is the basis for almost my entire economy. All my money has going into men-at-arms and levy producing buildings. I've fought so many offensive was and have such low popularity in my conquered territories that I regularly get rebellions. I can put them down easily, but it ruins my control ratings which further tank my economy. So raiding it is. Definitely felt in character when I got the event for my ruler to declare herself viking.

[Jace, Extat]

4 minutes ago, Fez said:

In CK3 gameplay, I have now founded the Norse kingdom of Yemen under the protection of Byzantium. Now I need to start converting the provinces to Asatru. Also, I want to reform the religion before my current ruler dies, since she has an insanely high piety after executing every single prisoner who can't afford a ransom. Problem is, I can't reform without controlling at least 3 Asatru holy sites, and they're all the way up in northern Europe. Also, disappointing, I can't figure out a way to create an offshoot branch of Asatru at all; I assume because the religion is still unorganized. But what this apparently means is that the only I can implement equal gender laws is by going on some crazy distant wars up north, or by changing religions entirely. And I want to keep worshiping Odin, so I guess crazy distant wars it is.

This is the game where I've finally discovered just how truly powerful raiding is too. In previous campaigns, I'd raid a bit at the start, but then stop as my economic building got going. This time, I am constantly raiding and it is the basis for almost my entire economy. All my money has going into men-at-arms and levy producing buildings. I've fought so many offensive was and have such low popularity in my conquered territories that I regularly get rebellions. I can put them down easily, but it ruins my control ratings which further tank my economy. So raiding it is. Definitely felt in character when I got the event for my ruler to declare herself viking.

You should convert to Orthodox. Recapture the holy lands and deliver them to their rightful liege, the Emperor of the Romans.

[Fez]

6 minutes ago, Babblebauble said:

You should convert to Orthodox. Recapture the holy lands and deliver them to their rightful liege, the Emperor of the Romans.

Nah. Said Emperor already made me a criminal for refusing to convert. Fortunately he/his successors have never tried to imprison me. Possibly because they've been busy fighting a series of civil wars all game, or because I've maintained maxed out relations with each emperor (not sure if that matters for this though), or I've just gotten lucky. But regardless, I'm not doing any favors for him.

More than that though, being Astaru has been a big advantage in my endless wars. It controls the holy sites giving +5% heavy infantry damage (and most of my MaA are huscarls), +20% knight effectiveness, +20% navy speed, and -5% MaA costs. Plus, being unreformed I get a general +10 advantage in all combat. And, thanks to having the Warmonger religious tenet, I can go on endless wars* through the conquest CB and not need to worry about claims or religious wars. Its basically all the benefits of tribal government while actually being feudal. Which does make this an easy game. But I'm just here to have fun with an OP, though not brokenly so, custom ruler. 

*Technically I could run out of prestige and then the fun would stop, but thanks to going down the August trait tree (plus a bunch of prestige generating traits I picked up during the game, like viking) I have over 4k prestige currently and gain about 10 more every month.

[A True Kaniggit]

9 minutes ago, Fez said:

Nah. Said Emperor already made me a criminal for refusing to convert. Fortunately he/his successors have never tried to imprison me. Possibly because they've been busy fighting a series of civil wars all game, or because I've maintained maxed out relations with each emperor (not sure if that matters for this though), or I've just gotten lucky. But regardless, I'm not doing any favors for him.

More than that though, being Astaru has been a big advantage in my endless wars. It controls the holy sites giving +5% heavy infantry damage (and most of my MaA are huscarls), +20% knight effectiveness, +20% navy speed, and -5% MaA costs. Plus, being unreformed I get a general +10 advantage in all combat. And, thanks to having the Warmonger religious tenet, I can go on endless wars* through the conquest CB and not need to worry about claims or religious wars. Its basically all the benefits of tribal government while actually being feudal. Which does make this an easy game. But I'm just here to have fun with an OP, though not brokenly so, custom ruler. 

*Technically I could run out of prestige and then the fun would stop, but thanks to going down the August trait tree (plus a bunch of prestige generating traits I picked up during the game, like viking) I have over 4k prestige currently and gain about 10 more every month.

Make a family history.  And lie heavily. 

[IlyaP]

3 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Make a family history.  And lie heavily. 

Sounds like Thanksgiving with the family! 

[Clueless Northman]

12 hours ago, Werthead said:

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is 120 GB on PC, which seems a tad excessive. I'm going to assume that's for all three games with the highest resolution textures and you can't choose to only have one installed, but that still seems rather OTT.

Andromeda was on sale on Steam, obviously to cash in on ME Legendary's release. So I bought it. Close to 50G for the install, it seems, which is quite high.

I also checked a few other games, Dishonored 2 and Deus Ex Mankind Divided are above 40G. Meanwhile, a huge game like Skyrim merely takes 13G and Witcher 3 tops at 36G... Heck, LOTRO merely takes 32G and WOW 75G.

[Fez]

Folks, the install size for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is over 200 GB. We're well through the looking glass on game sizes.

CoD does at least finally let you pick-and-choose which gameplay modes you want installed. But they had to do that. Because of the reserve space needed to install patches, it was starting to become impossible to have it and almost literally any other games installed at the same time on any of the console versions with 500GB hard drives.

[Slurktan]

14 hours ago, Clueless Northman said:

Andromeda was on sale on Steam, obviously to cash in on ME Legendary's release. So I bought it. Close to 50G for the install, it seems, which is quite high.

I also checked a few other games, Dishonored 2 and Deus Ex Mankind Divided are above 40G. Meanwhile, a huge game like Skyrim merely takes 13G and Witcher 3 tops at 36G... Heck, LOTRO merely takes 32G and WOW 75G.

Skyrim isn't a huge game.

[Argonath Diver]

Our Valheim private server is still up 3 more months, but alas my brother who set up the group isn't interested at all except an hour or two a week of inefficient hunting, and two other guys gave up. Only one other fellow and I left, and I feel a bit sad that my first real build, a fully terraformed peninsula, hasn't had a single guest. 

I am curious how new content patches will affect existing worlds. I am eagerly awaiting Hearth and Home,  its first major content patch, as I'm certainly more interested in building a giant  viking hall more than fighting the silly monster AI. I dont think it'll have a new biome or mats requiring a new seed, but perhaps later expansions will.

My old premise of a new char on any server isn't as interesting now that I have many more hours in material collection and building vs character progression. If the server I made New Burtholm dries up, I'll likely spend a day wrecking it and dragging thousands of pounds of ingots and wood over to a single player hoard.

[Werthead]

Subnautica: Sub-Zero also came out today which may not have been their best idea in terms of timing. Seems to be well-regarded, aside some complaints that the map is too small compared to the original (both in terms of area and depth, with far fewer underwater and underground "levels") and the new arctic surface areas don't make up for the lack of space elsewhere. More than a few people saying it's a glorified expansion pack, but praising the better story and larger cast of characters.

19 minutes ago, Slurktan said:

Skyrim isn't a huge game.

My fairly completionist playthrough of the game plus all DLC took about 130 hours, and that's at the low end of things amongst people I know. It's a pretty big title by any measure, even if it doesn't have (by a long shot) the biggest open-world map ever, or the best story.

[Slurktan]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

My fairly completionist playthrough of the game plus all DLC took about 130 hours, and that's at the low end of things amongst people I know. It's a pretty big title by any measure, even if it doesn't have (by a long shot) the biggest open-world map ever, or the best story.

Skyrims landmass is small and it constantly reuses assets hence why it is such a "small" game comparatively. I have no idea why you brought up hours played given the remark I commented on.

[Werthead]

40 minutes ago, Slurktan said:

Skyrims landmass is small and it constantly reuses assets hence why it is such a "small" game comparatively. I have no idea why you brought up hours played given the remark I commented on.

Install size is not the only, or even primary, indicator of a game's size.

That's also not right either, Skyrim with the HD texture pack installed takes it to around 20GB, and with the DLCs to around 25GB. That's quite big for a game that's ten years old.

[Fez]

To mee, the thing impressive about Skyrim is that it has a fair amount of audio in it. It's mostly boring audio, but there's a lot of it. And my understanding is that audio is often responsible for ballooning game install sizes, alongside 4k texture packs. Guess Bethesda actually properly compressed the audio, unlike Activision.

[A True Kaniggit]

Started a Mass Effect Playthrough as Jane. 
 

Spacer, Sole Survivor, and Vanguard.

[Werthead]

2 hours ago, Fez said:

To mee, the thing impressive about Skyrim is that it has a fair amount of audio in it. It's mostly boring audio, but there's a lot of it. And my understanding is that audio is often responsible for ballooning game install sizes, alongside 4k texture packs. Guess Bethesda actually properly compressed the audio, unlike Activision.

The sheer amount of music in Skyrim is bananas. If you decompress the audio files, there's something like 6-8 hours of music in the game (a lot of it is the same stuff rearranged in different ways, but accounting for that it's still 3 hours of original material). Audio is easy to compress though. It's the high-resolution textures that murder games' storage space, and the main reason for the ballooning size from SD to HD to 4K.

Since widespread adoption of 8K is not remotely on the horizon for another decade or so, hopefully this means we'll stop seeing game sizes balloon so massively moving forwards.

[RumHam]

On 5/13/2021 at 10:28 AM, Werthead said:

40GB each isn't too bad on that basis (excepting that ME1 is a much smaller game than its sequels) but it sounds like you can't install one game at a time. It's all three or nothing, which is weird because you play them sequentially, not simultaneously.

The Halo remaster collection allowed you to add or remove games as you like, to better manage hard drive space.

On Xbox one it only installed the first one even though I have the space. I have to hit install for the other two games.