What game are you wasting time on?

[Raghar]

Game #14 is sort of beaten. I did the Empire and Undead Campaigns in Disciples II. I will keep the game installed for the rest of the campaigns, but I will take a break. In both campaigns, my main hero became a power house, that could probably have killed anything on their own. Especially my Undead hero, with his HP regen. Overall, a very solid game, but it took me a new PC, and a lot of internet searching to make the game work.

What do you mean new PC? You click on configeditor.
Set:
Screen resolution.
Display game in window.
And set Direct3D.

Then set compatibility mode to 98. And you can launch it and play without problems.

 

[Sigourn]

The Witcher 2.

It's kind of shit tbh. It's a gorgeous game... for the most part. Sometimes the lighting is way too much, even with Bloom disabled, and there are some very questionable color tint choices.
The user interface and combat are total decline compared to the first game. Seems like I'm just gliding around the enemies, compared to the total control I had in TW1. The camera movement is pretty bad and I often lose my bearings, one of the biggest downsides of doing away with the overhead view of the first game. And the interface makes everything a chore, gamepad or keyboard, each have their downsides.

And CDPR continued their retarded trend of having massive cutscenes before a fight, forcing the player to prepare much, much in advance.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

And then there's the dragon fight.

 

[Abu Antar]

Game #14 is sort of beaten. I did the Empire and Undead Campaigns in Disciples II. I will keep the game installed for the rest of the campaigns, but I will take a break. In both campaigns, my main hero became a power house, that could probably have killed anything on their own. Especially my Undead hero, with his HP regen. Overall, a very solid game, but it took me a new PC, and a lot of internet searching to make the game work.

What do you mean new PC? You click on configeditor.
Set:
Screen resolution.
Display game in window.
And set Direct3D.

Then set compatibility mode to 98. And you can launch it and play without problems.

This did not work on my now old and dead PC. That solution works on my current PC.

 

[Lagole Gon]

I had 16 out of 17 roses for my mouse spouse. I was looking for the last rose everywhere...

It... It was in the starting location... in the prison cell you wake up in...

 

[NecroLord]

So I completed the main Morrowind questline.
I can see why it has a following, it really is a grand and intoxicating experience.
Fighting through those dark dwemer ruins, meeting an old friend who remembers you whilst you don't, killing him and then finding him still alive and stronger than ever and blasting you with magic while you have to make your way to the heart was pretty tense.
Moonshadow was actually useful here, as you can use it to bypass him and his minions to get to the heart and destroy it. Only issue is that after I destroyed it...nothing happened. I thought it was a bug until I walked away from it and finally the journal updated. Bit of a fault on Bethesda's part.

Destroying the Heart of Lorkhan should result in a snippet of spoken dialogue from Dagoth Ur, visual effects showing the Heart being destroyed, the collapse of Akulakhan (hard to miss), and, as you're leaving, an appearance from Azura with one of the three video cutscenes found in the base game. If not, you experienced a bug, likely caused by a mod.

My apologies, I wasn't clear.
Yes, that all happened, but only when I stepped on the bridge away from the heart.
At first I though I did run into a bug, but it was just the script being weird. The heart did indeed shrink, Dagoth did indeed panic that I was destroying the heart and Azura did give me a nice ring.

On another note, I now feel bad for making the Black Star in Skyrim. Azura is a good Daedra.

Speaking of soul gems, I'm really happen they did away with the chance to fail to recharge in later games. That felt kind of bullshit and tedious to me.
On the other hand, I do like how weapons recharge over time.

Playing Tribunal now.

Some initial thoughts -
- I'm kind of confused about it. On one hand, you get it pretty early in the game when the Dark Brotherhood attack you, but it seems to be mid to late game content? You fight a lot of enemies and adamantium armour seems pretty high tier, not to mention the NPC that can just make ebony and glass gear. So is it meant to be played after the main quest, or not? Not sure.

- There is no world map for Mournhold, which isn't good.

- Most of the action is in the sewers. So the DLC is a sewer level. Also not good.

- There appears to be some leveled list nonsense? At level 30 the Dark Brotherhood have daedric weaponry and during a side quest a NPC attacked me with a daedric wazikashi. So much for the exotic rarity of daedric gear I guess. Also goblins are really tough. I don't know if they have HP scaling shit or if they are actually meant to be mid to late game enemies.

- I did a side quest where I had to pay 3000 gold to free some prisoner. I then tried to pick pocket the gold from the ring leader. I failed and he ran away so I killed him. No one cared. Not even his body guards nor the former prisoner. Amazing AI reactivity in action.

- I discovered you can buy a literal pack rat. 10/10, best Bethesda DLC of all time.

Be careful with those fuckers.
The Dark Brotherhood assassins can also be equipped with Adamantium Jinkblades of Wounds. They poison and paralyze you. Can stun lock you and the powerful poison effect will kill you.
There are some really nasty fights in Tribunal.

 

[NecroLord]

After killing the Trickster, Garrett returns to the usual business of professional thieving.
Finished Thief: Gold and am now playing its sequel.
Thief 2: The Metal Age is in many ways better and more polished than Thief: The Dark Project. The supernatural elements of the first game are almost entirely abandoned. Thief 2 is a proper steampunk game, whereas its predecessor was a dark fantasy game with steampunk elements added in. The level design is better across the board. Game starts in full force, with many great missions like "Shipping and Receiving" and "Framed".
I could play Thief all day long. That's what it does to a motherfucker.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

So I completed the main Morrowind questline.
I can see why it has a following, it really is a grand and intoxicating experience.
Fighting through those dark dwemer ruins, meeting an old friend who remembers you whilst you don't, killing him and then finding him still alive and stronger than ever and blasting you with magic while you have to make your way to the heart was pretty tense.
Moonshadow was actually useful here, as you can use it to bypass him and his minions to get to the heart and destroy it. Only issue is that after I destroyed it...nothing happened. I thought it was a bug until I walked away from it and finally the journal updated. Bit of a fault on Bethesda's part.

Destroying the Heart of Lorkhan should result in a snippet of spoken dialogue from Dagoth Ur, visual effects showing the Heart being destroyed, the collapse of Akulakhan (hard to miss), and, as you're leaving, an appearance from Azura with one of the three video cutscenes found in the base game. If not, you experienced a bug, likely caused by a mod.

My apologies, I wasn't clear.
Yes, that all happened, but only when I stepped on the bridge away from the heart.
At first I though I did run into a bug, but it was just the script being weird. The heart did indeed shrink, Dagoth did indeed panic that I was destroying the heart and Azura did give me a nice ring.

On another note, I now feel bad for making the Black Star in Skyrim. Azura is a good Daedra.

Speaking of soul gems, I'm really happen they did away with the chance to fail to recharge in later games. That felt kind of bullshit and tedious to me.
On the other hand, I do like how weapons recharge over time.

Playing Tribunal now.

Some initial thoughts -
- I'm kind of confused about it. On one hand, you get it pretty early in the game when the Dark Brotherhood attack you, but it seems to be mid to late game content? You fight a lot of enemies and adamantium armour seems pretty high tier, not to mention the NPC that can just make ebony and glass gear. So is it meant to be played after the main quest, or not? Not sure.

- There is no world map for Mournhold, which isn't good.

- Most of the action is in the sewers. So the DLC is a sewer level. Also not good.

- There appears to be some leveled list nonsense? At level 30 the Dark Brotherhood have daedric weaponry and during a side quest a NPC attacked me with a daedric wazikashi. So much for the exotic rarity of daedric gear I guess. Also goblins are really tough. I don't know if they have HP scaling shit or if they are actually meant to be mid to late game enemies.

- I did a side quest where I had to pay 3000 gold to free some prisoner. I then tried to pick pocket the gold from the ring leader. I failed and he ran away so I killed him. No one cared. Not even his body guards nor the former prisoner. Amazing AI reactivity in action.

- I discovered you can buy a literal pack rat. 10/10, best Bethesda DLC of all time.

Be careful with those fuckers.
The Dark Brotherhood assassins can also be equipped with Adamantium Jinkblades of Wounds. They poison and paralyze you. Can stun lock you and the powerful poison effect will kill you.
There are some really nasty fights in Tribunal.

Yeah, I discovered that the hard way. Fortunately I had some cure paralysis and reflect potions as well as that +10% resist paralysis amulet from the ashlanders.

 

[Star Citizen]

Hexen 2, what else? This shit's the most faithful transition from 2D to 3D that any FPS adopted. Brilliant.

 

[Star Citizen]

Just got done with Deus Ex 1 and that is simply one of the best games made.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Thief 2: The Metal Age is in many ways better and more polished than Thief: The Dark Project. The supernatural elements of the first game are almost entirely abandoned. Thief 2 is a proper steampunk game, whereas its predecessor was a dark fantasy game with steampunk elements added in. The level design is better across the board. Game starts in full force, with many great missions like "Shipping and Receiving" and "Framed".
I could play Thief all day long. That's what it does to a motherfucker.

As I've said numerous times before: Thief 2 has the better engine and gameplay mechanics, but Thief Gold is the better game.

Variety is the spice of life, and TG delivers that in spades. Do you prefer being thrown into a different scenario in every mission, or do you want to be in the same steampunk-setting mission after mission? I prefer the former, but I can understand people preferring the latter if it's done right... which sadly Thief 2 just misses out on doing.

Both games suffer from the endgame dragging on a bit, but Thief 2's endgame has the added 'bonus' of being an utter mess. Get to the third floor of Gervasius's manor in 'Casing the Joint' and you'll see what I mean. Another example is new gameplay mechanics being thrown into the game in the final mission.

And once you're done, there's always the Fan Missions. Hundreds of them, going back 23+ years.

I'll just direct you to our FM spokeman:

Spoiler

 

[Hag]

The pathing is terrible. Like, I've seen enemies get stuck on trees, and on flat ground of all things.

Yeah that's really awful. When I replayed Morrowind few years ago I was annoyed some otherwise challenging fights went easy because the opponent was stuck on a rock or something.

- Similarly, the world map is rubbish and inconsistent. Some important landmarks are shown and some aren't (such as actual daedric shrines), and you aren't allowed to make your own notes, and good luck trying to find a specific NPC wandering around in the wilderness. This and the above point allowed me to understand why quest markers were introduced.

The physical version of the game comes with a nice paper map with all and every place, cave and landmarks. Same for the extensions. Makes moving around much easier.

Have a nice time in Mournhold, city of the weirdoes. It starts slowly and has its share of idiosyncrasies but be ready for a quite a ride. Underrated extension in my opinion.

 

[NecroLord]

Thief 2: The Metal Age is in many ways better and more polished than Thief: The Dark Project. The supernatural elements of the first game are almost entirely abandoned. Thief 2 is a proper steampunk game, whereas its predecessor was a dark fantasy game with steampunk elements added in. The level design is better across the board. Game starts in full force, with many great missions like "Shipping and Receiving" and "Framed".
I could play Thief all day long. That's what it does to a motherfucker.

As I've said numerous times before: Thief 2 has the better engine and gameplay mechanics, but Thief Gold is the better game.

Variety is the spice of life, and TG delivers that in spades. Do you prefer being thrown into a different scenario in every mission, or do you want to be in the same steampunk-setting mission after mission? I prefer the former, but I can understand people preferring the latter if it's done right... which sadly Thief 2 just misses out on doing.

Both games suffer from the endgame dragging on a bit, but Thief 2's endgame has the added 'bonus' of being an utter mess. Get to the third floor of Gervasius's manor in 'Casing the Joint' and you'll see what I mean. Another example is new gameplay mechanics being thrown into the game in the final mission.

And once you're done, there's always the Fan Missions. Hundreds of them, going back 23+ years.

I'll just direct you to our FM spokeman:

Spoiler

I always preferred the first game and its atmosphere.
Missions like "Down Into the Bonehoard" and "The Haunted Cathedral" are awesome, despite not focusing on usual thief stuff, like breaking into mansions and stealing shiny jewels.
Both games are great, regardless of the little differences between them.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

So uh...why the fuck am I getting one shot by Black Dart gang members? How are you supposed to kill them?

 

[NecroLord]

So uh...why the fuck am I getting one shot by Black Dart gang members? How are you supposed to kill them?

There is a secret lever which looks like a torch near the entrance (Variner's ghost should've told you about it). Pull it to flood the entire area (have some Waterbreathing potions or a spell available).

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

So uh...why the fuck am I getting one shot by Black Dart gang members? How are you supposed to kill them?

There is a secret lever which looks like a torch near the entrance (Variner's ghost should've told you about it). Pull it to flood the entire area (have some Waterbreathing potions or a spell available).

Yeah I found the ghost. Too bad it was after I used Chameoleon to kill the first two gangsters and then used their own OP darts against the rest.

Also, Fuck Gaenor. Absolute shit design.
Oh yeah sure, give an obvious grifter OP stats and armour that exists to fuck you over if you're going in blind. I had to blow something like 30 weight units of potions on him. Heals, fatigue, fortfies the lot. Not to mention a bunch of buffs from enchantment and some summons. You can't even use strike enchantments or debuffs against him because of his spell reflection, though that barrage of fireballs from one of my rings did the trick.
I had to finish the cunt off with a Steel Blade of Heaven because my daedric Wazikashi was too worn down.

In gamer tradition I then tea bagged his corpse and stripped him of his armour. Not to loot it, because ebony armour is heavy and I'm using a light armour build. But to humiliate him, so his naked corpse is unprotected by his armour that is mere inches away from him, so that his flesh may be rended by vultures and other vermin.

Can you kill the bastard before he gets his stupid buffs? Like, can I just merc the fucker as soon as I see him on subsequent playthroughs?

 

[NecroLord]

Can you kill the bastard before he gets his stupid buffs? Like, can I just merc the fucker as soon as I see him on subsequent playthroughs?

It can be done. You need high weapon skill and high Luck or Agility or both (to he able to consistenly land hits on him).
A really high Strength is also really good to have, especially as you progress through the game, as it means being able to hold more loot without being encumbred and the ability to deal very high damage, most importantly.
With a really high Strength, you could just kill Gaenor in a few hits.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

It's how you encounter him that really bothers me.

He's an NPC in an area full of other NPCs in a game that encourages you to speak to NPCs during a questline where you have to talk to NPCs.
He takes your money and will always turn hostile.
He comes back three days later with his bullshit armour and stats during which time the player could have made hours of progress that could be lost depending on when the last save before Gaenor was made.
Due to how primitive the AI is the other NPCs will not run from the fight nor will guards try to help you, and instead might get in the way of your attacks. Which means that you now potentially have a bounty, the NPC you hit attacking you, guards and Gaenor attacking you all at once.
Oh, and he's in front of a very, very important building in the Expansion.

He's designed to fuck over the player for no reason or warning. The designer who thought of this must be a petty cunt.

I'm beginning to understand why Tribunal has such a bad reputation among players; it really isn't that well designed, especially compared to the main game.

- Most of the game takes place in a sewer, and as we all know sewer levels are the best level in any given game.

- You have goblin weapons, cobbled from literal garbage, dealing more damage than daedric weaponry.

- Daedric and ebony weapons seem a lot more common here, which undermines the exotic rarity of them in the base game.

- You have shitty vagrant bandits dealing more damage than fucking Dagoth Ur, and no one warns you about them one shotting you. They warn you that they use potent poisons, they don't warn you that they have .50 BMG throwing darts.

-Oh, and the ghost who's supposed to give you advice about them? He's no where near the bandits and looks like the hostile ghosts that are in the same area, so chances are you're going to kill him first time you see him.

- You have a blacksmith which can craft gear. which is great. What is isn't great is that the requirements are stupidly high; you need 30 pieces of ebony to make a single piece of armour, on top of 10k gold.
30 ebony weighs 300 units of weight. How am I supposed to get the ebony to him without making multiple trips and dumping it as his feet? By the time I gathered the funds and materials I would have found an ebony suit. Especially if I used sethealth 0 on Gaenor because fuck that guy.
Similarly, a single piece of adamantium weighs 50 weight units. That means I'll have to make at least 2 trips out of the sewer if I have the pack rat, just to make the boots. A cuirass requires 10 pieces, which is about 500 weight units. Why is it that bloody heavy? It's a waste of the player's time.

- It's late game content that's available at level 6. This is terrible design; it messes up the itemization of the base game because you get early access to a really strong set of light armour and enchanted weapon, and it doesn't even fit in with the story that well because why would there be a hit on a nobody who just stepped off a boat? The Dark Brotherhood trigger should really either be after you declare yourself to be the Nerevarine or after the destruction of the heart of lorkhan.

- Apparently this is the Expansion that gave Todd the idea to use level scaling because they did such a piss poor job designing the encounters that it was too hard and tedious for a lot of players. So it's going in the book of grudges just for that alone.

That said, I am really curious to see where the story is going to go. There was just an attack by weird looking robots, and I don't know who sent the hit on me.
The evidence points at Helseth, but it would seem the church hates him and they kept sending me down into the sewer to fight all sorts of shit, so he might have been framed by them.

It's just that the overall gameplay design of the expansion is pretty rubbish compared to the main game. It just reeks of later Bethesda design philosophy. I hope Blood Moon is better.

 

[NecroLord]

It's how you encounter him that really bothers me.

He's an NPC in an area full of other NPCs in a game that encourages you to speak to NPCs during a questline where you have to talk to NPCs.
He takes your money and will always turn hostile.
He comes back three days later with his bullshit armour and stats during which time the player could have made hours of progress that could be lost depending on when the last save before Gaenor was made.
Due to how primitive the AI is the other NPCs will not run from the fight nor will guards try to help you, and instead might get in the way of your attacks. Which means that you now potentially have a bounty, the NPC you hit attacking you, guards and Gaenor attacking you all at once.
Oh, and he's in front of a very, very important building in the Expansion.

He's designed to fuck over the player for no reason or warning. The designer who thought of this must be a petty cunt.

I'm beginning to understand why Tribunal has such a bad reputation among players; it really isn't that well designed, especially compared to the main game.

- Most of the game takes place in a sewer, and as we all know sewer levels are the best level in any given game.

- You have goblin weapons, cobbled from literal garbage, dealing more damage than daedric weaponry.

- Daedric and ebony weapons seem a lot more common here, which undermines the exotic rarity of them in the base game.

- You have shitty vagrant bandits dealing more damage than fucking Dagoth Ur, and no one warns you about them one shotting you. They warn you that they use potent poisons, they don't warn you that they have .50 BMG throwing darts.

-Oh, and the ghost who's supposed to give you advice about them? He's no where near the bandits and looks like the hostile ghosts that are in the same area, so chances are you're going to kill him first time you see him.

- You have a blacksmith which can craft gear. which is great. What is isn't great is that the requirements are stupidly high; you need 30 pieces of ebony to make a single piece of armour, on top of 10k gold.
30 ebony weighs 300 units of weight. How am I supposed to get the ebony to him without making multiple trips and dumping it as his feet? By the time I gathered the funds and materials I would have found an ebony suit. Especially if I used sethealth 0 on Gaenor because fuck that guy.
Similarly, a single piece of adamantium weighs 50 weight units. That means I'll have to make at least 2 trips out of the sewer if I have the pack rat, just to make the boots. A cuirass requires 10 pieces, which is about 500 weight units. Why is it that bloody heavy? It's a waste of the player's time.

- It's late game content that's available at level 6. This is terrible design; it messes up the itemization of the base game because you get early access to a really strong set of light armour and enchanted weapon, and it doesn't even fit in with the story that well because why would there be a hit on a nobody who just stepped off a boat? The Dark Brotherhood trigger should really either be after you declare yourself to be the Nerevarine or after the destruction of the heart of lorkhan.

- Apparently this is the Expansion that gave Todd the idea to use level scaling because they did such a piss poor job designing the encounters that it was too hard and tedious for a lot of players. So it's going in the book of grudges just for that alone.

That said, I am really curious to see where the story is going to go. There was just an attack by weird looking robots, and I don't know who sent the hit on me.
The evidence points at Helseth, but it would seem the church hates him and they kept sending me down into the sewer to fight all sorts of shit, so he might have been framed by them.

It's just that the overall gameplay design of the expansion is pretty rubbish compared to the main game. It just reeks of later Bethesda design philosophy. I hope Blood Moon is better.

Bloodmoon has many tough battles. I would say even more difficult than Tribunal.
No more sewer bullshit, thank Azura.
Bloodmoon is better across the board. Takes place in Solstheim (which is still a territory of Skyrim in the 3rd Era).

 

[Kabas]

I tried Morrowind again, now with OpenMW sourceport.
Sourceport is pretty good, fixed my grievance with the alchemy interface.
It didn't fix my grievance with the slow walking speed and my general dislike for rise by use skill systems.

 

[DeepOcean]

Trying finish The Secret World for the third time, two previous attempts ended with me bored half way through, not a fan of MMOs, they are usualy made having in mind lazy people or people that have more time than good sense being massive time wasters for little reward.

It is not diferent here, if you actualy bothered to read what the abilities do, you will be in tutorial mode for hours and hours and more hours, that is the main source of my pain but why do I insist?

The main reason being that it is the best game with a well made urban fantasy setting on the Market. Yes, that is a sad thing that you have an avalanche of worse versions of Tolkien, every year but no urban fantasy RPG that you need to play a semidead MMO from 2012 to get that fix.

Basically, every time I get bored with mundane pointless mmo combat stuck all the way on the very easy, I get on a tavern where there is a depressed forest God taking alcohol to forget how shitty his forest became trying to learn how to write a love letter out of boredom with a tavern keeper that is a romantic sitcom junkie.

 

[Delterius]

Basically, every time I get bored with mundane pointless mmo combat stuck all the way on the very easy, I get on a tavern where there is a depressed forest God taking alcohol to forget how shitty his forest became trying to learn how to write a love letter out of boredom with a tavern keeper that is a romantic sitcom junkie.

you must soldier on

tokyo awaits

which faction btw

 

[NecroLord]

Deus Ex 1 and that is simply one of the best games made.

No arguments here.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Finished Tribunal.
The last couple of areas were pretty cool. Instead of sewers it was a dwemer facility, daedric ruins and finally the Clockwork city.
Almamexia was a joke. I stun locked her to death with the Dagger of Symmarchus or whatever it's called. The mech you fight in the previous room was more of a threat.
The swords and armour you get were pretty cool, but the swords are long blades and the armour is medium, so the end of expansion rewards are pretty much pointless for any build that doesn't use long blade or medium armour. Oblivion at least gave you a version of the Dragon Armour that is based on your highest armour skill, so you aren't completely left out.

Off to Solstheim now I guess.

 

[Abu Antar]

I started the second DLC in Control, that is a crossover with one other game from the same developer.

In Octopath Traveler II, I have recruited all characters, so time to move to their chapter two's. It's mostly too easy, with fun boss fights sprinkled in here and there. Exploration is fun, especially finding higher level dungeons, and having to actually grit your teeth to get through, or give up. I like how the world is connected, too. Second game in a row with an amazing soundtrack. If they make the OST available on Spotify, this will join the first game's OST on my JRPG music playlist.

Jagged Alliance feels a bit underrated to the second game. The enemy is really freaking smart on the harder difficulty. I have to think about most of my moves, when there are a few enemies close to me. They are not afraid to grenade your ass, and the game doesn't mind sticking it to you with RNG. I've had a few occasions where I just wanted to outright scream, which I would have probably done if I wasn't home alone. 12 of 60 sectors owned, but it hasn't been a cakewalk.