VaranDragon wrote on Sep 2, 2020, 09:12:
Never played this series but heard pretty good things about it. Is it kind of like Civilization?

Nope! More like the sims combined with a visual novel interacting with a strategy layer but 100 times better than that sounds. You play successive heirs, not always connected to their original geographical powerbase. It's medieval times titles to places where you don't speak the language is fine fucking peasants just need to cough up them taxes and levys! It's super awesome. Lots of RNG or bullshit from parts of the planet you were not even thinking about brewing to ruin your day, though "painting the map" can be a goal of yours, it's more of a "Stay alive and try and keep at least my favorite kids also alive".

You might spend a night or two securing ireland but good luck if you took your eyes off england and the monstrous continental force of Normans that are eyeing you off with a snack! It's not always fair but it wouldn't be historical if it was. That said things get ahistorical very quickly depending on who wins wars or dies of syphylis at certain times. Does islam conquer all of europe instead of getting reqonquisted? Do the russians somehow survive the mongols and do the same? Do the vikings create colonies in africa and give it the new world treatment 400 years earlier? All part of the fun!

CK2 was getting creaky after 8 years and a million DLC. This sounds like a good refresh but I better go find out... sleep is for the weak right?

Yes! I needed this, cannot afford all the beer required to be drunk enough to handle the wait for Spelunky 2 but this should do in a pinch.

I gate to say asset rip but if you edited that Blazing Sails trailer with the logo from Sea of Theives most people wouldn't know the difference. Kinda gross.

But aslo, we need more games like Sea of Theives. Was just hoping for ones with a little originality and less asset-rip off lookalikes.

theglaze wrote on Aug 28, 2020, 08:37:

Reactor wrote on Aug 28, 2020, 05:32:

VaranDragon wrote on Aug 28, 2020, 03:43:

Numinar wrote on Aug 28, 2020, 00:15:
Into the Breach is worthy of being a repeat given it’s a lock in top 10 game of all time easily that has all but ruined TBS for me outside of boardgames. I bet they wish they had made some DLC for it to flog, though it’s greatest strength is the lack of bloat and tight editing/pacing that makes every second spent with the thing meaningful and interesting.

Well I gotta remember to check Epic's store next thursday. FTL was awesome, though I've heard Into the Breach is not on the same level of greatness its quite good.

Into the Breach is amazing. I constantly got beaten down by it, but I always enjoyed playing it. It’s right up there with FTL in my eyes, but obviously very different.

It's the writing that lets down Into the Breach, it comes across as sterile without personality or humor. I think they were trying to capture Starship Troopers humour, but failed. That said, the gameplay is great!

It's one of my favorite parts of it, even though it's probably not cool to spruik famous sex pest Chris Avalone these days. The brief snippets from the CEO's, characters and even the random NPC pilots all feed into the world building without overstaying their welcome. The dynamic chats from the surviving civilian structures after you have saved them or gotten most of them killed are amazing and add so much to the feeling of you actions having consequences in a way most AAA games never even get close to.

Not trying to yum your yuck though I'm a big idiot and am often wrong but ITB is 100% an all time and forever 10/10, every aspect of what it's going for perfected like Spelunky HD or Factorio (or Kerbal if it didn't have performance/UI issues).

Burrito of Peace wrote on Aug 27, 2020, 23:05:
This needs to exceed Children of the Nile which set the bar for Ancient Egyptian building games. Tried the Builders of Egypt prologue and it felt clunky. Unfortunately, the developer's only two games on Steam have a "mixed" review. Likewise unfortunately, Tilted Mill seems to have quietly cratered in to nonexistence. Shame, really, as they were the reformation of Impressions which created Pharoah, Cleopatra, Caesar and the other classic city building games.

Yeah not going to get too excited about this yet... Impressions style wlaker games peaked with Emperor in terms of mechanics and Zeus in terms of full package entertainment. None of them work well, even with GOG. Unless I dig the old pentium 66 out of the garage. Children of the Nile on the other hand was something different and far superior, such an amazing game and still works well today and yet ended up being an evolutionary dead end, with maybe only Banished getting close to that feeling of ruling over people as a leader instead of ruling over idiots as a god.

Into the Breach is worthy of being a repeat given it’s a lock in top 10 game of all time easily that has all but ruined TBS for me outside of boardgames. I bet they wish they had made some DLC for it to flog, though it’s greatest strength is the lack of bloat and tight editing/pacing that makes every second spent with the thing meaningful and interesting.

Claimed! Will wait for the MP before giving it more than a cursory go though.

Three Kingdoms is meant to be much better, more ambitious and willing to let go of some of that classic TW cruft but I can't bring myself to spend $90 AUD on a video game these days unless it's beyond amazing.

So happy for these guys. I know it was rough going for some of the team towards the end there, that last 10% is the hardest to get right, even if your game has been solid for 4 years already. It was a long relentless dev cycle but the time in the oven is worth it, the game is a fucking miracle and legendary top ten game of all time easily. I suspect nobody would have thought something like Satisfactory was even possible without it. Their release/beta discipline made for a healthy mod scene despite constant bug fixes and optimisations. Their weekly dev diary is the only one I never skip. I hope all these guys are millionaires and can chill out with their families for a good chunk and enjoy success. I just wish Kerbal as this solid performance wise.

Here is a better trailer that never gets old even though it is. It's one of their early ones but with the release assets!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8SBp4SyvLc&feature=emb_rel_end

Mr. Tact wrote on Aug 14, 2020, 21:49:

Ding Ho wrote on Aug 14, 2020, 21:25:
How's the multiplayer on this?

It works well as far as I know, although I have never utilized it...

Way better than it has any right to work. Slow machines/internet can cause problems but they stress tested it with hundreds of players at once. A decent server can be set up to handle dozens quite easily. I've played 2-3 player with direct connection with just a bit of lag due to one player having bad internet but nothing that gets in the way.

I agree great Dev team (I did some work with their pub once! Was not worthy though). DI might have been too ambitious for it's own good but that's how things move forward.

Was looking forward to Hellraid for so long. All I want is MP Ultima Underworld with decent, chivalry or DI analogue combat. Or something close but nobody has gotten there yet or even tried really.

Crammond’s F1 games were amazing so I’ve got a soft spot for this shit. Wish he had kept making games instead of missiles or whatever he ended up doing. It had hot seat or null modem cable multiplayer way back in ‘92 or whatever! With AI drivatars decades before Forza! The 2019 version of the codemasters game is on gamepass as well if anyone is interested. Not sure if on PC but gimme that mofo on the 65” all day long please!

Rigs wrote on Aug 2, 2020, 17:18:
Yeah, no. I can't see 343 going the Battle Royale route. They might have some mode that is similar in some ways but it isn't going to be FORTNITE: HALO Edition. If it's one thing 343 is not known for, it's chasing trends...

=-Rigs-=

Yep. The more "Modern" Halo gets the more it loses it's charm. 4 and 5 were good games but I don't really want to ever play them again. Hoping they get back to what made the Bungie games so awesome, that almost irrational devotion to being it's own thing.

Not that I don't think Halo BR wouldn't be great. Just that the series was known for inventing genres, prefecting online console play and adding features that others tried to copy, not the other way around.

It’s either smart or a sign of desperation. Really wish EA had gone down this path with Firestorm that game could have been something.

Why is everyone surprised. The good Bungie Halos always chose features, scale and performance over fidelity. It might not look as good as the most recent Sony 3rd person adventure but who cares it has co-op and the combat and pvp will be way better.

MoreLuckThanSkill wrote on Jul 24, 2020, 21:17:
This looks great, but somebody was saying on bluesnews (I think?) that it's basically a reskinned Company of Heroes, in terms of gameplay mechanics.

If only. Even COH2, which is a good game, didn't capture the pure joy of COH and it's subtleties.

The board game is good, but not as good as the art which is where the apeal is. Games need to be better than good in a world where I get access to dozens of them a month through subscriptions and whatnot though.

Man I would be excited about this but Games for windows 2 really fucked me on the last update so I wont hold my breath that this willwork. I think I'll just order another XB1 controller and play it splitscreen on the 65" with the consoles where it's been for 4 years or so. Such fond memories of this game. Such a good Xbox lan platform with Gears 2 way back when. 4v4 CTF duels with the mobile sand crawler bases on sandstorm or whatever it was called was THE SHIT.

eRe4s3r wrote on Jul 5, 2020, 18:06:

Mr. Tact wrote on Jul 5, 2020, 18:01:

eRe4s3r wrote on Jul 5, 2020, 17:55:
Are you guys joking? We know this in the EU since March - why you think full face masks are MANDATORY here?

There are two different things here. Spreading from droplets produced by coughing, sneezing or talking is one thing, actual "airborne" is different. The first is certainly happening and is very significantly reduced by wearing a mask. The second would come straight out of the air without the droplets, this is what the "report" or whatever you want to call it is claiming, which masking might reduce, but less effectively.

Is this a language barrier thing? Something that is airborne is something you can get from breathing. And this applies to this virus 100% and has been known since March. Small air droplets are called aerosols for a reason. They are airborne by nature, outside and in good ventilated areas they fall to the ground instantly and dry up, in bad climate (cold air, recirculation) you can get infected. This has happened and has been explored IN DETAIL in 5 different meat factories in Germany, in at least 6 known in France and at least 4 known in Austria, where the virus spread through the climate circulation cooling system in the factory. That is the literal definition of airborne in my book.

And again, we guessed this since March, that it could spread through climate systems was confirmed in June and fully confirmed after 1 infected infected over 1500 people in a factory with a recirculating cooling system. The virus spread over the cold air and infected *everyone* that is why this virus is so tame right now, when winter comes this will become a 2nd wave. Which is why I am keeping to these rules, mask and distance, no singing, shouting, no places with lots of people and more distance and outside whenever possible. Climate controlled environments are potentially safe, and potentially unsafe, depends on the climate systems. Obviously where you should not be right now is anywhere where it's around 6°C and 40-100% humid since this is apparently the environment where this virus is air transmittable, and not just via droplets.

I mean, did no one in your US science community listen to the podcast of Dr. Drosten? The person that literally wrote the science on corona virus (Sars 1 was discovered by him, and he is leading researcher along with his institute on this new virus, that it could spread via aersols and not just via droplets was a well reasoned theory in March and proof for it came in June)

Edit: I just realized, could it really be nothing of the research we did in Germany reached the US or WHO? Drosten said in his (many) podcasts that scientists could prove that it could spread via aerosols, although they used a much higher base rate of aerosols than breathing would cause. Later on when the Tönnes hotspot was investigated it was found the virus had become fully airborne in the factory, due to temperature (5-7°C) and high humidity. Unique situation? Hardly, the same situation happened in many other meat processing plants.

And maybe worse, here in Germany we call that climate situation "Winter"

I think you guys are saying the same thing. It's possible that the aerosoled narrative is suppressed due to the economic damage or the liability of those in the west that didn't act on it.

We had basically nixed it in cold, wet Victoria Australia so we chilled out, our tourism has never been busier (Since rich idiots can't travel to greece at the moment). It's primarily hitting more working class/poor suburbs and people in high density housing that do all the crappy jobs that people expect you to do even in a pandemic like sanituation, security, baggage handling, cafes etc. It's back now and going buck wild. Maybe it dosn't kill as many people as we feared but not interested in spending three months tubed up in hospital before dieing or watching my parents being triaged out of the treatment program due to age or some shit if it gets bad enough.

jdreyer wrote on Jun 23, 2020, 15:24:

Numinar wrote on Jun 23, 2020, 00:36:

My dream of building the ultimate Into the Breach fan site will probably have to stay up in my brain for now.

Well, games comprised of the efforts of large teams. Avellone's contribution was fairly minor, IMO. The genius of that game lies with the gameplay designed by Ma and Davis. Baby/bathwater.

Of course, but the connection I feel to the characters in that all time top 5 game for me probably has a lot to do with Chris. They are not whole creations of his though, pretty sure I saw/read in interview that it was a collaborative effort.

And really it's how the minimal narrative links and works with the gameplay that makes it all work. I'm sure another contractor could have approximated it. Still, it makes me sad. Sad in a way I shouldn't be because I didn't get encouraged to get drunk and felt up by some creepy nerd which is the bigger problem here.

Read the article my good friend, making the Xenomorph less "unfair" is one the things it does.

I imagine though, that the second you make AI in any game even somewhat competent your ability to murder a thousand enemies/survive unbalanced horror scenarios becomes somewhat impotent.

The Hellraid concept is so fucking cool. Gimme that MP Ultima Underworld-lite bullshit right now Techland!