jacobvandy wrote on Jun 23, 2019, 22:59:
I'm 10 or 12 missions in to the campaign so far (about the same number of hours), it seems I've barely scratched the surface based on my progress with the tech tree and across the world map, but it's pretty awesome! I love the blend of base-building and tactical missions, and the overall progression is satisfying. It's a great introduction to the game, too, because you start out with only basic units and buildings, then unlock new stuff slowly as you go. I'm sure that's a lot easier to swallow for newcomers compared to survival mode, where everything is thrown at you at once.

I'd recommend ignoring the bitching and moaning on Steam reviews and forums, though. Most complaints are about the forced 'iron man' mode in regards to saving, as well as the difficulty. These are not new things introduced with the campaign, it's been that way throughout early access and they've been very straightforward in that it's not going to change. This is an intentionally old-school kind of RTS, and it's not going to appeal to everyone. But if that's what you like, GET IT, because it's really good.

I, for one, wholeheartedly support these guys for making a game that is actually challenging and doesn't allow you to save-scum to undo every little mistake. Sure, you will fuck up while learning the game and you will fail some missions... But apparently that's not okay for a lot of people. They can't stand "wasting their time," as if playing the game itself is no fun at all if it ends in a loss. And yet they also refuse to lower the difficulty (and reduce their meaningless score) out of some weird sense of pride. So it's a catch-22 of modern gamer idiocy.

Yep. You can drop the difficulty down to easy, no problem. That it's still not an auto-win is fine. The whole idea of the game is that one infected zombie can destroy a colony if you have holes in your defense. Save scumming ruins this so why would they put it in?

Real problems, like the hokey voice acting, are something one gets used to.

I'm starting to think Epic has the right idea not putting in steam reviews or forums. The mob is mostly idiots most of the time.

Whoever is having trouble finding the pickups in the adventure missions, you get used to it. Not all boxes/materials are lootable. And some are hidden away, look for cracks in walls and barely visible gaps in tress and you will 100% both each time. My one complaint other than voice acting is that these missions struggle to be super compelling, though there have been some fun rooms! But each seems better than the last so maybe that will work out. Actual mission design in general for the other scenarios already seems more modern, freeform and fun than anything in the 90's.

It's so good. If it wasn't for discovering Opus Magnum on PC gamepass I'd be mainlining it.

jdreyer wrote on Jun 19, 2019, 02:34:

Kxmode wrote on Jun 19, 2019, 01:48:

RedEye9 wrote on Jun 18, 2019, 22:27:

Kxmode wrote on Jun 18, 2019, 21:49:
Also, 12,231 people have rated the game on Steam.

The majority are labelled EARLY ACCESS REVIEW.
Have to wait and see what leaving the EA program does for sales and reviews.

70% so far based on launch reviews.

Sounds like the campaign is just too hard. Hopefully that gets tweaked.

I lost my first mission! Didn't set up a ranger patrol and hundreds died/got zombified! Awesome! Feels about the same as survival so far, but with an easier, smoother onramp (Less options to start with, shorter/smaller maps initially) and like survival, you have control over the difficulty. Just gotta swallow your manly pride and knock that baby down to 50/25% difficulty until you become one of those 800% survival god nerds that complain about it being too easy! God knows it took me a long time to graduate from zombie food minimal difficulty embarrassment in Survival, and even then I wouldn't brag about it. I love RTS but I was never good at it.

Flatline wrote on Jun 8, 2019, 16:58:
I think at this point it's blatantly obvious that GRRM is *actively* trying to avoid finishing ASOIF.

Meh. Maybe some things are better left unfinished. Let George get p-p-p-paaaaid doing this crap, I'm sure the money per hour of effort is worth it with minimal risk. It feels like he owes us those last books but I imagine legally that is not the case, though the publisher might want the advance back.

I'm a pretty big Halo fan, but saying there is no incest is a diversion. I'm pretty sure Chief has a hard on for the digital clone of his adoptive mother (Who kidnapped him). Racy!

jdreyer wrote on May 23, 2019, 16:35:

Numinar wrote on May 23, 2019, 12:13:
4 billion bucks and still can't get a first person PUBG or Firestorm game down here. Come on you fucks, don't do us dirty. The demand is there if the games are functional.

Not sure what you mean? Apex, Firestorm, and Blackout are all first person. You don't have them in Australia?

Apex is good but sci-fi BR doesn't do it for me (Despite loving Halo and Titanfall 2). I love BFV but Firestrom servers are dead here. Bad matchmaking/server spool up design I suspect, leading to fewer players = self fulfilling prophecy. You get no game at all or 200+ms sever in asia/US. PUBG is the same. Servers died during some of the more fucked patches/cheater waves and now you can't get a FPS server on the continent, only TPS, which is gross. They should just force FPS, even once a week would be fine so I could get my fix.

Blackout dosn't sound great, even with the setting. I'd try it but that would mean spending money on another BR that probably sucks in AU so not worth the risk. If any of my friends/family get into it I would consider though.

Flo wrote on May 30, 2019, 02:49:
Check out Void Bastards. Not a rogue like fan but I played an hour or so last night and want to go back.
https://www.polygon.com/reviews/2019/5/28/18638843/void-bastards-review-xbox-one-pc-bioshock

I'd love to but stuck on Outer Wilds. Probably better on PC (Especially if it had TrackIR) but I've already got gamepass so xb1x it is and the game is phenomenal. Flys like a friendly version of kerbal, looks like the promised version of NMS, structure like a golden age adventure game. So good.

Yeah this is fucked. The OS and games keep getting better, but between this and meltdown and the other stuff my 6600k has been bashed with the nerf bat hard. I mean 3 years is a good run but it should have been fine until next console refresh at least, or would have been.

Oh wow Nidhogg is the shiiiiiiiit. 2 Looks amazing. But since the PC got the attic treatment I need my local same screen goodness on a console. I'll see if the sale has transferred to one of them, good price.

jdreyer wrote on May 23, 2019, 22:25:
Comcast does so much lobbying that it says disclosing it all is too hard.

Disclose or go to jail.

Wait, so not disclosing is a few thousand dollar fine, while all their illegal lobbying reaps them millions? Can we make all corporate lobbying illegal already?

\

They write the laws. This is what state capture feels like. Wonder why politics and media seem obsessed with culutre issues? Because all major parties are close enough to being on the same page when it comes to the real important stuff, like selling weapons to authoritarians and channeling capital into fewer hands and keeping the citizens that could stand up to them divided and fighting each other like the steppe tribes of Eurasia were manipulated into doing.

4 billion bucks and still can't get a first person PUBG or Firestorm game down here. Come on you fucks, don't do us dirty. The demand is there if the games are functional.

Not sure myself but 50k didn’t get you that far in marketing. If you can get a top streamer on your game for an hour it’s probably a better targeted ad than anything else you can spend that money on. And if the streamer actually likes it and sticks with it then you’ve won the lotto.

saluk wrote on May 9, 2019, 01:50:
The consequences of something like this being on the books would be worse than the sin of gacha games.

Not saying it would be good, but I'd take the incompetence and self serving corruption of career politicians over the inhuman nightmare that is regulatory capture by inhuman corporations, the analogue version of Terminator's Skynet. Institutions which have more power than most world governments, certainly larger reach, and absolutely no interest in human well being have no place in writing legislation, and yet here we are.

Yes, pollies often finds themselves at the service of corporations. Yet there are brief moments, as those under Roosevelts, where some individual through bravery, stupidity or opportunism actually does something useful and stands up and defies their moneied benefactors.

Dev wrote on May 8, 2019, 21:28:

jdreyer wrote on May 8, 2019, 20:16:
I agree sports card have a similar mechanic. Difference is that they aren't a $134B industry, so have flown under the radar.

No, but start throwing in all the collectibles, like magic cards, pokeman cards, and other CCGs, and all those things at gamestop where you buy a figurine and you get a random one inside, etc etc, and it starts adding up.

Yeah this is a very difficult thing to regulate, and regulation might make it worse, as where there are loopholes, the execs will have the cover of being 'legal' whilst using some of the nastiest manipulative technology imaginable to extract money out of people.

But anything has to be better than the anything goes approach we have now. Pubs had their chance and plenty of time to regulate themselves as with the ESRB and agree on a best practices framework, but the money in using gambling technology/psychology on kids and everyone else was too lucrative. Consumer behavior has helped in places (BF1 and BFV were negligibly aggressive on MT after the Battlefront games took all the heat for their bullshit for instance) but it's obviously not enough.

MT me all day. I've got you paradox! (for at least some of it) and Payday 2 (Now and then, when it's good and on special) But the second you fuck with good, fun, progression design to incentivise it than go to prison forever you dumb greedy fuckface and if we need authoritarian Republicon laws to do it than so be it.

Yes, this makes me a hypocrite and there are a million other issues more important but if this is what it takes, I'm all for it.

It's probably not worth another 4 years of Trump, which is definitely happening due to useless corporate Dem stooges, but it will be some comfort.

Oh yeah I've felt much better since I gave up porn for *checks notes* working to increase executive bonuses/worshiping a made up sky wizard/doing all the drugs/drinking all the beer (never on same night as drugs though, that would be crazy!)/commenting on my favorite video game news website my own absurd but very serious and you must respect me morality.

Creston wrote on May 3, 2019, 23:13:

on Xbox One it runs at 900p with a framerate cap of 30 FPS

Fuck almighty, why still even bother with that piece of shit.

It's cheap. Kids and the less well to do can play their COD or fortnight or whatever on it and it's better than a phone for games. I would probably suggest a base PS4 as a better system and library, though Gamepass is a great family deal. I don't think I've bought anything on XBOX other than BFV and Red Dead but there has been plenty of good stuff to play for cheaper than netflix, and I probably use it way more.

I'm thinking of getting one for downstairs for SoT Lans, which we are on break from in new house as the PC and Xbox1x are secured away from evil visiting children in the anne frank room upstairs. 900p and 30fps sounds like less than what we had on PC in 2003 but on a 1080p TV it's not too bad. Depends on the kind of game. The best optimised games like Destiny, run better at 30fps than some games I have on PC that run triple that. Devs that care about it have a fixed target and can get the frame timings perfect for a more consistent experience.

But I'm pretty tolerant of less than perfect visual fidelity, I've been at it since the mid 80's, if there is a good game in there and it's executed well for the platform why would I begrudge anyone's enjoyment of it? The 'bloody peasant' attitude just seems so petty and weak. It's like telling people to sell the Corolla and walk everywhere because it's a piece of shit compared to a BMW. Hell the Switch gets a good thrashing in this house and that thing is weaker than a phone, yet the games are soo much better. Sure it's not going to run ARMA or Elite or 144fps new DOOM but not every game has to be a monster like that.

In fact even on PC the "bloody peasant" slur can apply to anyone not running 2080's in SLI if you really want to take that attitude to it's natural conclusion. It's an arbitrary line drawn by almost exclusively what I will cruelly and unfairly continue to assume are insecure men trying to justify their entertainment purchasing habits or the poor work/life balance required to maintain them.

jdreyer wrote on Apr 28, 2019, 17:23:

HorrorScope wrote on Apr 28, 2019, 13:31:
Forager? Maybe EGS is right.

That it's number one makes no sense to me. On the other hand, it's published by Humble, which has its own distribution platform. I wonder why they didn't make it exclusive.

As big as Steam is for people like us, it's not that big of a deal globally I imagine, even in games. It probably could have been, but possibly for the best I don't think there was anyone there interested in leveraging it's accidental monopoly into a global money printing powerhouse. There are probably single games on mobile and FTP that pull comparable amounts of money and active users, games we've never even heard of though perhaps Steam's more humble ambitions are why it's still here.

Cutter wrote on Apr 25, 2019, 10:13:
Why wouldn't he call it 'The Gas Cloud'?

Honestly, as insane as this all sounds, if it's a low-barrier entrance to some supcom-flavoured goodness than I am IN. My group of friends only has a few people insane enough to invest in anything more than an XBOX1X, and I think they are missing out (Whilst they probably think I'm a massive middle aged man child, and they are right!) but I know they would love some of this stuff were it not for the $$$ and time/education investment required to PC properly.

Rigs wrote on Apr 23, 2019, 15:23:
God damn, I don't know who the majority of these characters are! I think the last time I played Mortal Kombat in a serious way was...probably around the time the first movie was out. Yikes! I can kinda see who some of these characters are (or are supposed to be), if it's indeed them and not some 'new character but with the same traits as an old one only with different color clothes'...

Hmmm, *thinks back* ...yeah, I think MK3/Trilogy was the last one I really got into, though I did play MK4 on the PC quite a bit but didn't really follow the very bare story... *shrugs* Something tells me I didn't miss much...

=-Rigs-=

I mean, depends what you are into. This is the third game of the modern trilogy. 9 retold MK1-3, X followed the kids of the main cast fighting to prevent Armageddon or something in a nightmarish future and took itself super seriously, and this new one has serious Johnny Cage from X and self aware Cage from 9 interacting with each other.

So if you want some campy wrestling level story, it's good for that! (Or at least the first two were, the new one seems like it's even cooler so far) The MTX does seem rough though. But I'm guessing you don't need to worry about it for VS or Story mode.

The OG was so fresh as it was a new take on the genre, more real time civ game than it's contemporaries. It was amazing and AOE2 was even better. I don't think that type of game has much of a market anymore, it needs to move it. Feels like progress ground to a halt after Sins of a Solar Empire and Supcom Forged Alliance.

Starcraft/Company of Heroes are good but stuck in their zoomed in clickfesty ways, which is allright if that is what you are into but I want something new, something that brings the scale and the ease of use at the same time. Maybe an ancient world setting but split the difference with total war for the units and not make it unfun like Ancestors. Or something like Steel Division with a little more fidelity, scale and base building.

We need someone to try again. Ignore the conventions, start from scratch and do what you can do with modern resolutions and cpu power. Guess it's too expensive a gamble though and it's something many have failed at.

Shit, monhun on gamepass! Nice!