Mr. Tact wrote on Jan 26, 2022, 10:50:
I'm confused. How does multi-player work for this game? It's limited number of players but you can join anyone's game? I thought it was an mmo model?

The methods and scaling systems involved have changed throughout the Dark Souls series but generally if you want a co-op buddy or help, you look for certain-colored floor signs and interact with one to summon a co-op person/friend (or a red sign to duel them). Later on, you can password-protect the signs so that only your friend's signs who use the same password will show up instead of random people. But becoming Ashen (basically enabling Online mode) to summon your friends also allows for invaders to invade your game. Generally there are 3 "friendly" slots available (if you use a specific item) for you to summon people or even for random "Blue Bros" to appear to help you out when you're being invaded by an enemy player (up to 3 or 4 I think).

It's convoluted but in an odd way, it's part of the series charm since it's a very unique multiplayer system with pluses and minuses. When it boils down to the basics, if you want a co-op friend to help you with a tough area or boss, you have to risk a chance for an invasion or two from enemy players. It sounds like a huge pain but in the later series, you'll often outnumber the invaders most of the time (we're talking most commonly like 3v1) unless you go to a specific PvP-centric area. And you'll also be able to fight a troublesome bosses with your friends without needing to worry about Invaders since the bosses are sectioned off behind "Fog Walls."

Fion wrote on Jan 25, 2022, 13:00:
I love me some soulsborn games, especially Fromsofts' offerings. I just don't think I'll pick up Elden Ring because I don't have the reflexes for these games anymore. I hit a wall in Sekiro I just could not get passed, so I doubt I'll pick up Elden Ring, as much as I want to.

From the videos of the open beta that I've seen, it seems like Elden Ring is more similar to Dark Souls than Sekiro in that there's a variety of weapons, armors and builds to use that doesn't rely solely on parrying, dodging or *shudder* constant weapon-swapping. A lot of my playthroughs of the Dark Souls games for the first time around relied on using a 100% physical resist shield so I can turtle up and play defensively that way I can figure out enemy attack patterns. Once I got access to better weapons and got used to the combat system, I tend to go for huge ultra/greatswords to bring on the pain and that relies more on methodical timing and pacing than super quick reflexes given how slow and telegraphed (in pvp) those weapons are to swing.

That's probably why I adore the Dark Souls series since it's so build-friendly and allows for varied styles of play. Elden Ring seems to be taking queues from that.

aka_STEVE wrote on Jan 24, 2022, 13:51:
I've watched videos on it and I know it's like Dark Souls ... but I still can't make up my mind on getting this or not.
Although we've all been burned by so many overly-hyped games in the past 2 years , I think I can wait for honest reviews.

It really does depend on if you enjoy the Souls-like style of gameplay and difficulty. Although Elden Ring isn't Dark Souls in name, ultimately it IS still a Souls-like game but now in an open-world and with a mount. Even with games from the same studio such as Bloodborne and Sekiro, they were both variants of the Souls-like formula with enough fundamental gameplay changes to be different from "Dark Souls." I would assume that Elden Ring would be similar in that regard but based off of what I've seen, it retains more Dark Souls-like methodical gameplay than the two variants that I've mentioned which were reliant on hyper-aggressive combat and parrying-counter attacks.

From Studios had a consoles-only open beta for Elden Ring and a bunch of the various Youtubers that I follow had videos showing off the gameplay of that beta. It's very similar to Dark Souls in regards to how combat feels but the open-world nature and mounted combat provided a big change to the Souls-like formula. I have a handful of online friends who are fully into the Dark Souls series so we're all pretty hyped for the release of Elden Ring. The only problem will be dividing our group for co-op since I would assume the limit for Elden Ring would still be 3 or 4 (depending on how many invaders we're willing to risk).

afka Rossini wrote on Jan 22, 2022, 17:57:
I recently smashed up my left wrist so I'm looking for PC games that can be played with just a mouse. I like civ 6, but I'm getting a little bored with it. Any ideas would be much appreciated.

Yeah I can mirror Cutter's opinion in that if you like turn-based RPGs that requires just a mouse, I've been having a lot of fun with Expeditions: Rome. If you're looking for something cheaper, Expeditions: Conquistador can be had on Steam for $20 and Expeditions: Viking for $30.

Cutter wrote on Jan 17, 2022, 13:25:
And none of it makes a lick of difference without removing that giant cancerous tumor at the top - and the others on the board - first. Who he hell is still financially supporting Actiblizz at this point?

Gamers? All of the idiots who continue to buy the next iteration of CoD or whatever Blizzard shits out? As long as gamers keep giving them a ton of money, Kotick is not leaving anytime soon.

WannaLogAlready wrote on Jan 15, 2022, 04:41:
OpticNerve, thanks for the well meaning spoilers.
As to that pair, they clearly explain why the rest of us are rather dumb for being interested in games they haven't played

Yeah, I was debating about if what I've said were big spoilers or not but if you play the game's intro for the first 10- 30 minutes or even watched some of the trailers, basically the whole plot that I've described is revealed to you through the dialog and acting/mo-cap. There's a LOT more involved (and major surprising spoilers that I've yet to mention) but the whole game boils down to it basically being a bonding journey between a father and son.

In a way, I kind of understand the assumptions of this God of War game since the original PS2 games were pretty basic in Kratos characterization. He was an angry Spartan who violently killed monsters and Gods and there were even minigames where you were banging women. That's probably why IMO this new God of Wars works so brilliantly because it's the same violent and angry dude who is now older and is TRYING to be a better person to his son but just doesn't know how to do it yet.

This comment was edited on Jan 15, 2022, 10:43.

RogueSix wrote on Jan 14, 2022, 21:42:
Yeah, I agree, it's about $15 cool for me. It looks like one of those neckbeard games anyway. You know, a game with MOIGHTY dumb brute warriors that is mostly enjoyed by people with a lot of hair who watch strongmen competitions 24/7 and stuff like that. I'm not a part of that club so I'm not sure if I'll ever buy it at all. I'm kind of tired and completely burned out on these action games with endless monster slaying and one boss fight after another.

bigspender wrote on Jan 15, 2022, 00:58:
Cool I can finally be an over bearing father figure with a massive case of the 'not-gays' and taint everything with toxic masculinity on PC now too.

I really enjoyed the first GoW back on PS2, but what is this lol?

I'm guessing you both haven't seen much media about this new God of War series. Yes Kratos was/is a pretty violent and simple brute but this series is ALL about an older, reclusive Kratos who is now a father trying to connect with his not-so-much-a-warrior son after his wife passes away. It also deals with a son trying to meet the lofty expectations of his warrior father after he constantly fails to live up to his initial expectations as well as a father who has known nothing but war and violence trying to connect and show more humanity with his young son who needs him now more than ever. Yes there's a lot of monster and boss slaying but the core of the game and storyline is about the adventures of a father and son who have nothing in common trying to understand and bond together with their grief after the loss of a wife and mother as they try to fulfill her final wish.

It's not just a game that's a mindless killathon but it actually has a lot of heart and soul within it's characters and storyline which is why this iteration of the series is so beloved, praised and has so many awards.

Jim wrote on Jan 9, 2022, 01:47:
it was good until they said PvP. PvP rebalances wreck weapons and builds.

The game has been available in other regions for around 3-4 years now and apparently PvP is quite good and well-balanced due to it mainly being arena-based and all of the character's levels and skill points are equalized. It has a very active PvP community overseas it seems like.

Another bonus is that there'll be a ton of PvE end-game dungeons/raids and content that's available as well as few major bugs when it's released in NA/EU due to how long the game's already been out.

RedEye9 wrote on Jan 7, 2022, 17:17:

OpticNerve wrote on Jan 7, 2022, 17:07:

RedEye9 wrote on Jan 7, 2022, 16:36:
@OpticNerve
Here's is something cheap to gather dust. Logitech G Extreme 3D Pro Joystick on-sale $20 at Amazon.
Not a complete HOTAS but it may make your flying easier?
saw it mentioned here https://hardforum.com/threads/logitech-extreme-3d-pro-20.2016752/

Wow thanks for the heads up. At $20 each, that is definitely an easy grab to test the waters to see if I prefer two of those for flying. If I end up adjusting to those, I can pick up something more durable (and of course it'll probably be a bit more expensive). Thanks again RedEye9!

EGADS, you can run two at the same time? That may have scarred me for life.
6YO Dual Joystick Setup Review - Star Citizen https://youtu.be/JrxXrfYQ8UM
6yo reddit
you may want to double check all that

Thanks for the links! It's definitely going to be a huge learning curve for me being a traditional keyboard and mouse user but the general consensus that I've seen in a lot of SC flight-stick videos and threads is that dual sticks is optimal for most space sims due to the fine movement control you can have with them while flying in space (of course there are outliers who prefer different setups). While the mouse in particular is great for general aiming, the binary off and on of keyboard keys doesn't really allow for precise movement and control. The more I fly various ships (especially the agile ones), the more I'm noticing this so it'll be a fun experience to try out a different control scheme.

This comment was edited on Jan 7, 2022, 19:03.

RedEye9 wrote on Jan 7, 2022, 16:36:
@OpticNerve
Here's is something cheap to gather dust. Logitech G Extreme 3D Pro Joystick on-sale $20 at Amazon.
Not a complete HOTAS but it may make your flying easier?
saw it mentioned here https://hardforum.com/threads/logitech-extreme-3d-pro-20.2016752/

Wow thanks for the heads up. At $20 each, that is definitely an easy grab to test the waters to see if I prefer two of those for flying. If I end up adjusting to those, I can pick up something more durable (and of course it'll probably be a bit more expensive). Thanks again RedEye9!

Mr. Tact wrote on Jan 7, 2022, 14:28:

OpticNerve wrote on Jan 7, 2022, 14:18:
I bounced off pretty hard with Elite: Dangerous due to how souless, overly-grindy and barebones the base game felt. And apparently the newest expansion/add-on just made everything worse for that game.

I haven't played E:D since before the expansion, which as you indicate is both not very good and not well received. Prior to that I thought the game was great. However, I'm not looking for FPS elements in a space sim, nor do I particularly understand why anyone would. The exploration, trading, mining, and combat provided in the base game can be grindy, but it doesn't have to be. Were you using VR and/or a HOTAS setup? I'm not a VR guy, but have heard/read good things about it. I think a HOTAS really helps immerse you in the game.

I don't have a HOTAS setup since I'm mostly a casual player (flyer?) and a game has never really warranted me shelling out money for a flight stick. I do have to admit that I'm very tempted on getting two for Star Citizen though (which seems recommended for space sims). I do have disposable income but the nagging part of my brain keeps thinking that outside of SC, I just don't see myself ever needing a flight stick (nonetheless two of them) for anything else. I never really got the appeal of the Flight Simulator games and space shooters are a pretty niche market so if I ever get bored or fed up with SC, those sticks would end up collecting dust.

As for the FPS element in a space sim, I think a big part of it is the immersion-factor that goes with it. Here's a good and wacky video that sort of showcases it pretty well: https://youtu.be/xWO9GY8wiKM?t=1847

For context, this is a PvE Bounty mission where normally you're supposed to use one of your ships and do the traditional, simple thing of flying to the target bounty (in this case, a Hammerhead sub-capital ship) and just shoot it down and the Bounty is done and complete. Now these wacky idiots instead used their hoverbikes to stealth their way to the Hammerhead, cut open the hatch doors, leave a gift on the Captain's Desk, shoot the captain/pilot, self-destruct the ship, escape under fire to provide their own cover fire for their pick-up with rocket launchers while floating in space. I didn't even know that was possible in PvE at all in bounty missions but it makes complete sense that you could do this since this is absolutely possible against other players in a PvP environment. This kind of stuff (the FPS elements) just adds a big layer of immersion and emergent gameplay for me that few other games really provide at the moment and seems less like a gimmick now that it's incorporated into the multiplayer mode.

This comment was edited on Jan 7, 2022, 17:13.

Mr. Tact wrote on Jan 7, 2022, 08:16:
That's the most positive post I have seen about Star Citizen in some time, OpticNerve.

I personally can not factually disagree with it since I haven't spent a single second in the game. That said, your opinion swims against the stream of many others. I hope you are right, that there is a good game in there which might break free some day. However, as I like to say, I wouldn't bet on it.

It's probably due to it being a relatively shiny and new thing for me to play with friends and the in-game community is very helpful and friendly (so far) which probably provides a bit of biasness on my part, especially since I (as a casual) haven't really enjoyed a space sim/shooter since Freespace 1 & 2 and Freelancer (for the modded multiplayer). I bounced off pretty hard with Elite: Dangerous due to how souless, overly-grindy and barebones the base game felt. And apparently the newest expansion/add-on just made everything worse for that game.

At the moment it essentially feels like Grand Theft Auto Online, a Space Sim and a FPS had a love-child - but in space. It's not just a bunch of separate hanger, FPS and racing modules bundled together like I originally thought but an actual online mode with one big galaxy to explore, various proc-genned missions to do (bounty hunting/delivery/mercenary/search/maintenance) as well as mining, pvp and a lot of ships (obviously) to aim for. It's also bug-prone, laggy and runs like shit so a player's patience with that can be tried at times.

I can completely understand the deserved criticism that CIG/Chris Roberts gets about Star Citizen and the slow, glacial pace of the development cycle. If I was an original backer and waited all of these many, MANY years for the promised game to be released by now, I'd probably be pissed off and bitter about it as well. But since I'm relatively new to the game, right now all I can see is the potential that the PU (Persistent Universe) has with what is currently in there and apparently a lot of players with a ton of money to waste are seeing that as well. Of course this will probably change once time goes by and the lack of promised features starts to annoy and gnaw at me but as it currently is, I'm enjoying my time with it since it scratches an itch that no other online game currently scratches.

(Edit: $40k for all of the current ships is fucking ridiculous though)

Kxmode wrote on Jan 5, 2022, 13:39:
I'll let Chris's own words speak:

Chris Roberts in 2012, "And while Star Citizen will offer in-game purchases as part of its business model, Roberts was adamant that there won't be anything in the game that you can't buy solely with in-game money if you're willing to put in the time to earn it. Those who want to buy their way to a cool in-game setup will probably be limited by a per-month real-world currency cap, Roberts said, but even without that kind of system, there would be limits to how much advantage a Star Citizen player can get by throwing their money around."

Chris Roberts from the AUGUST 31ST 2013: Letter from the Chairman: $17 Million!: "I'm very opposed to having a game where ANY of the items, outside of your initial game/ship package, can be only purchased with cash. I hate the bifurcation of items in most online games, even when they are just for flair items. I want Star Citizen to allow players to earn everything they need in-game for ships, upgrades, and even flair. I was disappointed to see so many people feeling that we were trying to gouge people or do a money grab."

Chris Roberts in 2018, "Developing and operating a game of Star Citizen's ambition is expensive. From day one of the campaigns, we've been quite clear on the economic model for Star Citizen, which is not to require a subscription-like many MMOs, but instead rely on sales of initial game packages and in-game money to fund development and online running costs. To ensure money isn't a deciding factor in progression, the core principle that the game follows is that everything you can obtain with real money, outside of your initial game package, can also be earned in-game via normal and fun gameplay. There will also be plenty of things that can only be earned by playing."

Whenever CIG takes money for a spaceship, they create an unfair advantage in a multiplayer environment. This is a cursed problem that cannot be solved once the game goes live. So the only solution is never to release the game.

To be fair, currently one of the strongest PvP ships in Star Citizen is the Gladius light fighter. It's quick, agile and a good player can constantly evade shots, find weak spots and just constantly whittle down even big ships due to it's mobility and size. And it's also relatively cheap to buy with in-game credits at around 1.1m which is absurd given that it's currently the best dog-fighting ship in the game. A lot of the absurdly expensive big ships are mostly for showing off or for big Organizations (guilds)/a group of friends who just want to control one big giant ship together. But if you pit a group of 6 players controlling one big combat ship against 6 players controlling cheap light fighters each, the light fighters will win almost every time (unless they really, really suck). As it currently stands, big, expensive whale ships =/= pay2win.

From what I've experienced, it's not that hard (just a bit grindy) to make millions of credits in-game to buy any of the currently-flyable ships either via Mining or doing Bounty Hunting PvE missions so Roberts is not wrong in that regard. The main reason why people spend such an absurd amount of money is because a lot of them are just flight/space sim nerds who have a shitload of money to spend on their hobby. It's the same type of people who literally spend thousands and thousands of dollars to have a fully decked out flight sim cabin with multiple displays, HOTAs setups and extra cabinet buttons and layouts. It's also a preventative thing where there's bound to be server wipes due to a big patch implementing major changes and all of your in-game credits and ships are now gone. The only way to prevent this is to shell out real money to buy ships so they'll be there in your hanger after future wipes.

I fully admit to scoffing and joking about Chris Roberts and "Scam Citizen" but an online buddy of mines kept bugging me to try it out and he was so convinced that I'd love it that he even offered to buy me a cheap pledge back to join him in the game. Not wanting a handout, I bought a cheap pledge package myself and I do have to fully admit that so far, Star Citizen is really quite addictive if you love space sims/shooters. It's also a weird juxtaposition because while the game is buggy and performs like shit on modern hardware, it also shows an amazing amount of promise because it IS an amazing, unrivaled feeling when you can run around an absurdly detailed city, buy armor & guns, take a flying shuttle to the city's space port, randomly run off any docking-bay platform, leap out into space and zero-G float into and land in the open cargo bay doors of a friend's huge mining ship and run around in its interior while that friend pilots us to a new adventure at a distant planet or moon. All without a single loading screen.

Star Citizen definitely warrants most of its criticism but while Robert's promised game is moving at a snail's pace, the basis of a great online game IS there and I personally can see the game being an amazing online FPS/space sim if it ever does gets released. I really do think that someone needs to reign in Chris Roberts and to get him to polish and optimize what they have now in the online version of the game and release big, new content afterwards. At this rate, I'm afraid it's going to be a George R.R. Martin situation where Roberts is going to croak and the company will go tits up before he's satisfied and releases the game.

This comment was edited on Jan 7, 2022, 02:14.

It's astounding how there are some people who are willingly defending million/billion dollar companies and leadership who have been constantly shitting on employees, customers and are finally being called out on it. It's not like the Pete Parsons or the Bobby Koticks of the world actually give a flying shit about any of you unless it concerns the amount of money you willingly toss at them for their next derivative iteration of their games. And it's not like their games have gotten any better throughout the years. In fact, all of them have gotten worse and have artificially been tweaked and refined to bleed money from customers.

So hey, why don't some of you guys stop being asshole human beings instead of shilling for these millionaires and billionaires huh?

Bodolza wrote on Dec 10, 2021, 13:13:
Quantic doing a Star Wars game actually has me a bit excited. It should be pretty different than any other Star Wars games. I just hope Disney hasn't ironed out all the French-Canadian quirk.

I'm the complete opposite. As soon as I saw them being the studio behind this, my interest in the game dropped. Quantic Dream just simply does not know how to make proper games imo.

Obligatory:

WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME?

Bodolza wrote on Nov 23, 2021, 14:02:
I was excited for the new Bebop show, and ended up bailing about half-way through the first episode. It was just painfully bad for me. Campy and cheesy, but unfunny. I've heard it gets better after the first episode, so I may give it another shot. WoT and Foundation have been disapointing, too.

I watched the first episode of Arcana. It's suprisingly well written for a show aimed at young teens. It's very tropey, though. That's fine for kids who haven't been exposed to the same story 50 times already, but I'm not sure I'm up for that again.

After binging the first season of Arcane, I wouldn't say that it's really aimed at young teens. The show has a good amount of swearing, violence, death, sexuality (one scene takes place in a brothel even), and later on there's a decent amount of politics that I think would bore young teens who just want action scene after action scene. Each episode usually just has one actiony set piece but a lot of it revolves around characters exploring, getting into conflicts or just talking about important stuff.

And although episode 1 and 2 begin as tropey, I'd say that the show in general does a really good job of subverting tropes (for the most part) in that most of the characters aren't just black or white/good or evil. Most of the important characters are varying shades of grey and what side of that grey is at is debatable by fans. Things doesn't always work out as planned and there are usually consequences for certain character's actions that can actually have meaningful impact in shaping them from there on out.

Arcane is definitely my favorite show of the year so far and I daresay that it might be my favorite animated show in a good long while. It completely ups the ante in regards to how absolutely beautiful CGI-animated shows could be going forward.

This comment was edited on Nov 24, 2021, 01:31.

Hump wrote on Nov 17, 2021, 17:41:
Volition is such a talented studio. I would rather have seen them spend the time developing a new IP instead Freespace 3.

There. Fixed

Jim wrote on Nov 17, 2021, 14:29:
Eh, they will be merging servers. That will probably be an ongoing process. I see lots of people around. Depending on traffic it may be a good time for leveling up trade skills. We had a covenant abandon our server, so things have quieted quite a bit.

I would also think that once the Player-Test-Realm patch with all the balance changes + market linking + Void Gauntlet comes out, a chunk of players will return to try out the new weapon (basically a class) at the very least. Unlike most MMOs (since there isn't a monthly sub) you don't really lose anything by taking a break from the game and returning whenever there's new content.

Right now they're banning dupers, fixing exploits and testing out the new patch in the PTR. There isn't new content yet (that's coming with the PTR patch) so there's no real incentive for max-level players to stick around in the game's current state of bug-fixing. But based off of the things being data-mined with the PTR patch, there's a bunch of incoming new content (weapons, armor sets, enemy types, quest-type variations, new areas, new main questlines, possibly mounts etc.) so that should be a good indication if the player-base is truly dead or not when all the new stuff comes out.

As much as Amazon Game Studios have really screwed up with the earlier patches, they've quickly been patching out major issues, fixing exploits and have increased the speed at how they deal with exploiters. Coming from how obtuse and slow the Blizzard have been with fixing major issues in WoW + with how annoyingly quiet they've been communicating with their player-base a lot of times, I have to at least give AGS credit for being open with their players in regards to how they've screwed up, how they're working on various issues (dupers) and how open they've been with their dev blogs in regards to how certain games mechanics in New World work (Luck/Loot/Server Merges etc.).

fakespyder wrote on Nov 15, 2021, 19:44:

William Rubin wrote on Nov 15, 2021, 16:40:

Tipsy McStagger wrote on Nov 15, 2021, 12:16:
Prometheus and Alien: Covenant absolutely fucking sucked.

I can't agree more. Premetheus was so bad I can't understand why people liked that film.

The scripts were awful, the characters unlikable and I still don't understand the Alien's evolution of the species. If someone can point me to a concise explanation of that I'd be interested to see it.
On a Technical level there are some lovely shots and even some scary horror moments. But I agree that the 2 movies were overall terrible.

I always felt that Ridley ruined the mystique and appeal of the Engineers by devoting an entire movie about them. Moreso when it was revealed that instead of being an otherworldly alien-type of being based on the remnants of the Space Jockey in Alien, we find out that it was just a space suit and that underneath it all, they're just giant, boring, translucent, bald humans. Ugh.

Such a big, fat, giant waste of an awesome and creepy design from H.R. Giger.

Ridley needs to figure out in his old age that revisiting, explaining and fucking around with things that worked for fans is a surefire way to piss them off. George Lucas already learnt that lesson with the Prequels before he said, "fuck it all" and sold everything to Disney. He knew that what he envisioned for his franchise didn't coalesce with what fans want. Ridley needs to learn this.