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Videogames 2023: Dreams of the Sandbox Kings


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1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Meanwhile, in Final Fantasy VII a quarter of a century ago, nothing at all stopped you from renaming Cloud as "Dickman Fuckballz" (if you so wished) and this had no impact on the game, aside from a very rapidly-wearing-thin gag.

Obligatory:

 

 

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6 hours ago, polishgenius said:

 

I had a quick read-around, and it looks like they've gone so insane with the restrictions that the word 'chav' is on the list. 

So are things like 'poo', 'hell', and, rather brilliantly, 'dumb', meaning that 'dumbledore' is a name disallowed by the games' rules. 

Poor anyone named Michelle along with many other very common names. What a stupid mistake.

Edited by A True Kaniggit
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Finished Dragon Age: Inquisition a couple of nights ago for the second time. It's the first time I properly finished it since I didn't have Trespasser (big extended ending/expansion pack) the first time round. 

Ach, what a frustrating game. Combat was pretty but dull. The strategy table was dull in that it seemed there was nothing meaningful to lose. The main plot itself was boring, and any urgency it might have had was diluted by the open world aspect. Occasionally it managed to work itself up to set piece sequences (e.g. the Masque in Orlais) that should have been fantastic, and in fact were good, but could have been better with adjustments. 

I increasingly hate the Bioware format of needing to talk to characters in the base between missions so that cutscenes fire and you can advance through their story. It becomes so rote so fast, and made me miss the days of BG2 when you just had to cross your fingers and hope the script managed to fire correctly to get the next portion of dialogue. 

At the same time, I can't completely hate it because I like the setting, and like the way its heart is so much in the right place. 

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2 hours ago, dog-days said:

Finished Dragon Age: Inquisition a couple of nights ago for the second time. It's the first time I properly finished it since I didn't have Trespasser (big extended ending/expansion pack) the first time round. 

Ach, what a frustrating game. Combat was pretty but dull. The strategy table was dull in that it seemed there was nothing meaningful to lose. The main plot itself was boring, and any urgency it might have had was diluted by the open world aspect. Occasionally it managed to work itself up to set piece sequences (e.g. the Masque in Orlais) that should have been fantastic, and in fact were good, but could have been better with adjustments. 

I increasingly hate the Bioware format of needing to talk to characters in the base between missions so that cutscenes fire and you can advance through their story. It becomes so rote so fast, and made me miss the days of BG2 when you just had to cross your fingers and hope the script managed to fire correctly to get the next portion of dialogue. 

At the same time, I can't completely hate it because I like the setting, and like the way its heart is so much in the right place. 

That game is one where the ridiculousness of some of the open world stuff was very apparent.  You're the leader of this massive Inquisition, but you can't send someone else out to pick some fucking flowers for you while the world is at stake?

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17 minutes ago, briantw said:

That game is one where the ridiculousness of some of the open world stuff was very apparent.  You're the leader of this massive Inquisition, but you can't send someone else out to pick some fucking flowers for you while the world is at stake?

This is a problem with most open-world games to be fair.

In fact it's long been a trope of RPG games in general, which usually have your character engaging in mundane side-quests despite the world being in dire peril.

Here's an old parody video that sums it up.

 

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1 hour ago, briantw said:

That game is one where the ridiculousness of some of the open world stuff was very apparent.  You're the leader of this massive Inquisition, but you can't send someone else out to pick some fucking flowers for you while the world is at stake?

And collect ram skin. And iron. And flowers. And random shards scattered throughout the world for....something (never did find out, the fetch questiness of it all drove me bonkers), and so on. Yeah. It's a gorgeous world, with some terrific sound design and music, and some lovely artwork, but by Jove, Thedas has never felt emptier. 

And yet it was, upon release, Bioware's best selling game. 

I weep. 

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6 hours ago, dog-days said:

Finished Dragon Age: Inquisition a couple of nights ago for the second time. It's the first time I properly finished it since I didn't have Trespasser (big extended ending/expansion pack) the first time round. 

Ach, what a frustrating game. Combat was pretty but dull. The strategy table was dull in that it seemed there was nothing meaningful to lose. The main plot itself was boring, and any urgency it might have had was diluted by the open world aspect. Occasionally it managed to work itself up to set piece sequences (e.g. the Masque in Orlais) that should have been fantastic, and in fact were good, but could have been better with adjustments. 

I increasingly hate the Bioware format of needing to talk to characters in the base between missions so that cutscenes fire and you can advance through their story. It becomes so rote so fast, and made me miss the days of BG2 when you just had to cross your fingers and hope the script managed to fire correctly to get the next portion of dialogue. 

At the same time, I can't completely hate it because I like the setting, and like the way its heart is so much in the right place. 

I loved the first Dragon Age, and managed to wreck the CD rom of the second installment so didn't get further along except for the higher level DLC which I think was an add on to the first game more than a sequel.  From what I recall a reasonable diversion but not amazing.  

Does Thedas have staying power or are there plenty of other fresh games to spend my limited time on?

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8 hours ago, dog-days said:

Finished Dragon Age: Inquisition a couple of nights ago for the second time. It's the first time I properly finished it since I didn't have Trespasser (big extended ending/expansion pack) the first time round. `

I just started this again.  I got about 3/4 the way done back when it came out and never finished.  I loved the original versions of these back when it was Baldur's Gate and the first two Dragon Ages, but there is something about this one that just gets boring after a while.  I am not a gamer at all.  Baldur's Gate and Dragon Age is all I have played.  But I don't think I am going to finish it again this time.  Maybe being a mage is just boring and I should try another class.

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I'm about six hours into the Hogwarts game (that's inflated by wanderings-off for drugs to explore Huffelpuff culture and then time spent gazing Luna Lovegood-ish at stuff for long periods... because of the drugs explorations of Huffelpuff culture

 

Anyway, I love it. Seriously. It's so good that I cannot remember the last game I bought that was good enough to compare it to. It feels like a total callback to the golden age (for me) of videogame RPGs (I'm sorry, I don't know all the special TechnoLingo. They're just 'RPGs' to me). 

Like the Mass Effect teams and the Nathan Drake teams have been incubating a Damien Wayne kinda VideoGame writing Chosen One to put this thing together for the past ten years. 

 

It's got bugs or whatever. Sometimes the screen gets all screeny. And that's it. Y'know, sometimes when you run outside real quick it's like dark and whatever for a second or two and then it turns into a beautiful late summer/early fall day at Hogwarts and you're in a land of wonder and enchant 

I recommend. The writing is good. And I liked the character creator a lot. Kinda spare compared to Cyberpunk's, the Character Creation screen for which is an awful lot like trying to make long term fashion choices while being operated on by a chimp with "a hard-on and a hacksaw." (-Jon H Ryan) 

But I dig my little purple-haired Jimmy Darmody witch. And a bunch of the outfits actually LOOK COOL. Like they look FLLLLLY. It's a great problem to give me, if you're a game developer, to have to sit there and rationalize to myself that I can wear the full cloak-ensemble for, like, the early parts of the game because the character's a new dork and dorks wear the full outfit. But also the full outfit actually looks pretty fucking cool. Like, all of it. So at some point I wanna make a conscious choice to put the cloak away and become a Cool Kid... but I can't yet! Because the cloak looks so fucking cool! And then there's other, non-uniform outfits I wanna wear too!

That's fun! :) To me, at least. 

Anyway, I recommend. 

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19 hours ago, grozeng said:

I just started this again.  I got about 3/4 the way done back when it came out and never finished.  I loved the original versions of these back when it was Baldur's Gate and the first two Dragon Ages, but there is something about this one that just gets boring after a while.  I am not a gamer at all.  Baldur's Gate and Dragon Age is all I have played.  But I don't think I am going to finish it again this time.  Maybe being a mage is just boring and I should try another class.

I played as a human fighter on my first run through (as an elven mage this time), and don't think it made a huge difference to the experience. From an rp-ing perspective, playing as an elf and playing as a mage mean you have more at stake in the story, but that's about it. 

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I remember that I had fun as a rogue in Dragon Age Inquisition, since combat became a lot more reactive as you zipped around the battlefield trying to backstab people/dragons. But it's been a while since I played. I'll probably try to replay the whole trilogy when DA4 finally comes out. I can't believe it's been almost nine years...

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My Skyrim Re-Run has caused me to become extremely old-school yesterday after I happened to see Elder Scrolls Online in a sale and wanted to prevent myself from getting weak. Who needs that to see all of Tamriel? So... I installed Elder Scrolls 1: Arena again.

This time I managed to find my way out of the first dungeon! And... well, in a lot of ways it feels like a test version of Daggerfall. Very similar graphics and mechanics, though with a plain old XP system instead of the later "get better as you keep using it" system. There is also no guilds to join, no horses, houses or boats to own and the equipment seems to be rather limited as well with just one light and medium armor type and then a couple of scaling heavy ones. I started as a Spellsword who can only wear medium armor and I was able to buy the whole chain armor set at the first town with my money earned in the first dungeon. However fortunately Spellsword feels so far really powerful as I can easily heal mid-combat and use a variety of convenience spells while at the same time still deal with enemies in close combat.

Quests so far also are... suspiciously boring. So you can ask in town for general rumors that lead you to two-stage dungeon crawl quests to find unique artifacts (apparently the predecessor to the daedric quests, some of the items even are the same) and then you can ask for work rumors which either leads you to guys in taverns who give you simple delivery quests in town or (somewhat more rarely) the local lord in the palace who will... give you a simple delivery quest to another town in the province. That's it, so far. It's all fetch quests everywhere. According to the wiki you get more complex object retrieval quests in dungeons later on, but so far... it doesn't look like it. I must admit, after a couple hours and being level 7 I feel a little bored and need to keep going with the main quest. Hopefully I'm strong enough for that one as I'm currently just dicking around in Elsweyr after an artifact quest for a powerful ring led me there. The progression in Daggerfall just felt far more rewarding, I must say.

I also have to say that I find the enemy spawning system annoying. In Daggerfall all enemies load in as you enter a dungeon and then you can clear it out, all simple. In Arena the Dungeon is always empty as you enter and random enemies constantly spawn into your vicinity. 90 % of the time into your back, because screw you! Or right in front of you just when you close a menu and wanted to continue on. This makes resting and healing up an unnecessary gamble all the time and you never know whether the game gets a kick out of dropping two wizards fireballing you to death into your back directly after an encounter that left you with three hitpoints.

Edited by Toth
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So I decided to get myself a ps5 for my birthday and jump into Demon's Souls after enjoying Elden Ring so much. A couple of observations so far

1) The iterative improvements between the two make a big difference, ER plays so much more smoothly and has jumping.

2) Going from the most refined to the least refined is also quite challenging from the difficulty perspective. Most of the combat mechanics are pretty simple compared to the complex attack chains of ER bosses, but the huge run backs with sadistic map design has me struggling

3) Speaking of map design - fuck Depraved Chasm, fuck Swamp of Sorrows, and especially fuck whoever decided making your character stand there tugging at their feet while you get your head caved in because you tried to dodge while one pinky toe was bogged in mud was a fun mechanic. Lake of Rot is a gorgeous paradise by contrast.

4) FromSoft have gotten much better at the intuitive map design from the practice. The way ER let's you see basically every major destination the moment you walk out of the tutorial area gives you a good vibe of which way to go, and the grace arrows fill in most of the rest. I have no fucking idea in DeS.

5) I was hoping this might get me some muscle memory for using a controller and I'm not optimistic after 15 hours lol. I see people baffled at playing even ER with a mouse+kb, but I remain clueless how anyone gets workable camera control like this. Trying to aim the bow is so painful. I'm still tripping over myself when trying to change items and then use them as well, but I'm sure as fuck not learning a claw grip, my fingers are too arthritic for that.

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5 hours ago, karaddin said:

So I decided to get myself a ps5 for my birthday and jump into Demon's Souls after enjoying Elden Ring so much. A couple of observations so far

1) The iterative improvements between the two make a big difference, ER plays so much more smoothly and has jumping.

2) Going from the most refined to the least refined is also quite challenging from the difficulty perspective. Most of the combat mechanics are pretty simple compared to the complex attack chains of ER bosses, but the huge run backs with sadistic map design has me struggling

3) Speaking of map design - fuck Depraved Chasm, fuck Swamp of Sorrows, and especially fuck whoever decided making your character stand there tugging at their feet while you get your head caved in because you tried to dodge while one pinky toe was bogged in mud was a fun mechanic. Lake of Rot is a gorgeous paradise by contrast.

4) FromSoft have gotten much better at the intuitive map design from the practice. The way ER let's you see basically every major destination the moment you walk out of the tutorial area gives you a good vibe of which way to go, and the grace arrows fill in most of the rest. I have no fucking idea in DeS.

5) I was hoping this might get me some muscle memory for using a controller and I'm not optimistic after 15 hours lol. I see people baffled at playing even ER with a mouse+kb, but I remain clueless how anyone gets workable camera control like this. Trying to aim the bow is so painful. I'm still tripping over myself when trying to change items and then use them as well, but I'm sure as fuck not learning a claw grip, my fingers are too arthritic for that.

The remake has easily the best graphics but as you say it is still demons souls. Primitive boss design and slow combat and just a bunch of janky shit like how you upgrade stuff. (For your sanity dont go sharp).

Most of the maps have a fairly quick run back to the boss if you open all the shortcuts and don't mind occasionally suiciding in the hole to flame lurker.

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I enjoyed Skyrim on my first playthrough, but have never gone back to it. I tried once, thinking I should get my money's worth, but gave up after a few minutes of playtime. I went through the map pretty thoroughly the first time round, and there's nothing I really remember as being especially good about it. No interesting quests that I wanted to revisit, for example, or locations that I wanted to see again. 

Realised Sims 4 was free, and gave it a go. I played the original back when it came out, and largely used it to supress/ redirect the urge to decorate my bedroom in an unusual colour palette, and also to see what would happen if I deleted the ladder to the swimming pool while a sim was doing lengths. I haven't played much so far, and have mostly got the impression that it's all much the same, but with slightly better graphics. Can't comment on the swimming pool ladder issue yet. 

Pharaoh: A New Era is out, and I'm thinking about getting that for myself in March. Also Strange Horticulture

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Having gotten 120 hours out of Skyrim first time around, I did go back last year and got about 50 hours enjoyment out of the game, but then felt I couldn't press on. I was missing a lot of the UI improvements from Fallout 4 and 76 in that engine. Conversely I did a second full playthrough of Fallout 4 a year before that and almost 100%ed all the quests and all the DLC as well, which I hadn't been expecting. The generally better reception to Skyrim compared to Fallout 4 remains something I feel mildly puzzled about.

That's also why I suspect I'll thoroughly enjoy Starfield whilst also logging several novels' worth of microcomplaints about it.

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3 hours ago, Slurktan said:

The remake has easily the best graphics but as you say it is still demons souls. Primitive boss design and slow combat and just a bunch of janky shit like how you upgrade stuff. (For your sanity dont go sharp).

Most of the maps have a fairly quick run back to the boss if you open all the shortcuts and don't mind occasionally suiciding in the hole to flame lurker.

I'm going faith with large sword of moonlight so I think the weapon upgrades just take boss souls? Getting the weapon was the reason for being in 5-1 and 5-2 already lol. I found the spot it falls first try but took so long finding the way up to knock it down.

Funny you should mention dying in the hole to flame lurker, that's what I'd done just before wrapping up for the night haha. Died 3 or 4 times to the boss and close to twice as many on the run back. Gave Dragon God a couple of tries and it should be fine, then I'll probably go back to 1-3 and continue through there

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15 hours ago, karaddin said:

I'm going faith with large sword of moonlight so I think the weapon upgrades just take boss souls? Getting the weapon was the reason for being in 5-1 and 5-2 already lol. I found the spot it falls first try but took so long finding the way up to knock it down.

Funny you should mention dying in the hole to flame lurker, that's what I'd done just before wrapping up for the night haha. Died 3 or 4 times to the boss and close to twice as many on the run back. Gave Dragon God a couple of tries and it should be fine, then I'll probably go back to 1-3 and continue through there

Yeah not boss souls to upgrade that, it needs colorless demon souls which means going full black tendency then finding the big wormy squid demons if which there is one per area (not level).

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