Yeah, this is awesome news! Ironically, just yesterday I was thinking it is too bad the best Dead Rising game (Dead Rising 2: OTR) will never get Steamworks treatment. Dead Rising 3 is nice and all but DR2: OTR is the real non-dumbed-down experience.

So after months they finally remove the guaranteed treasure goblin spawn...but I still made 100 million from him in two days.

Isn't it funny how players find something they really enjoy and then Blizzard removes it.

Anyway, I'm sadly already bored of 2.1. I don't understand why Blizzard just doesn't let us have fun how we want. They force us to do bounties to get rift fragments, then rifts to get greater rift fragments, then do the boring trial part... Then finally we can do a greater rift.

Man, just let us do G Rifts all the time and let us pick our difficulty...

Just for reference, I jumped in and did two Greed's Domain runs. I went from 4 million gold to 62 million. 62 million! This is out of control.

For reference, I only played Torment 2 (400% more gold) with my decent Lvl 70 Wizard. If you want to know how to get to Greed's Domain fastest, simply go to Halls of Agony Level 2 and find the guaranteed Goblin spawn somewhere on that floor. With the temporary boost, you always get 2 Goblins to spawn and it seems to take 10-20 Goblins to spawn a portal.

Anyway...totally crazy how much gold you get. Patch 2.1 is good overall...although I wish I could just do Greater Rifts whenever I wanted and be able to pick the difficulty.

I just don't understand the world anymore...

Darks wrote on Aug 13, 2014, 21:12:

Brumbek wrote on Aug 13, 2014, 18:23:
Two words: cash grab.

Okay, so how is this a cash grab, when...

This is the very model of a cash-grab. You take a game that sold very well like BL2, and then you outsource it to another (much cheaper) studio new to the franchise. Then you re-use almost all the ideas and content from the original game (artwork, menus, loot system, character trees/archetypes).

Also, going with a prequel is a classic cash grab move (Arkham Origins) wherein you focus on minor/less interesting characters from the original game. Then you throw in some fan service stuff to hide the cash grab (playable Claptrap, which makes zero sense considering BL1/BL2 made it clear they/he is weak and can't fight but lore be danged!).

Note: not all cash grabs are bad quality. I'm not saying the game will be bad. Often times developers who know they are simply being used to make a cash grab game will get righteously indignant and work extremely hard to deliver a great game (a la Bioshock 2, although Bioshock 2 was a true sequel that innovated).

For those who love Borderlands, it's nice they are making the game. That doesn't change the fact it is a cash grab and should be called out as one. Plus there is a strong chance it will be a sub-par rehash of BL2 with less content. There's about an 85% chance of this, I'd say.

Two words: cash grab.

"visually stunning journey" ... right, about that... have they watched their own trailers? This game is visually bland, flat, and generic.

Why can't I just believe marketing lies?! WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!

DangerDog wrote on Aug 11, 2014, 19:55:
More like the knee jerk reaction to Titanfall.

I have to bring some sanity to this "they copied Titanfall" idea. Sledgehammer already have said they created the Exosuit movement system in 2011 and early 2012 right after MW3 (their first CoD game) shipped. Hence, they didn't copy Titanfall...rather, both studios came up with similar ideas. Great minds think alike and all that.

Secondly, double-jumping, dashing, and all that stuff is hardly something unique. Those ideas have been around for a LONG time.

I will admit I find it a bit funny they are all excited about the Uplink mode where you have a ball and have to carry it to the goal. Anyone ever play Unreal Tournament 2003's Bombing Run mode? I'm not complaining; that mode was great fun!

Anyway, Advanced Warfare is looking really interesting with some great innovations. I admit the whole system is getting old...too bad Advanced Warfare didn't come out two years ago...now I have lost much interest in CoD MP...one can only prestige so many times...

Still, SP looks great and the Co-op mode should be great! That alone justifies the experience IMO. I put about 60 hours into MW3 SP and Co-op combined.

PS: one of the studio leads (Glen or Michael, I forget) said he hasn't even played Titanfall, which is a bit weird honestly.

The comic could be very good because PoE actually has extremely excellent lore and dialogue. I was blown away by just how good the writing was when I first played. I mean the writing is downright poetic and witty.

So yeah, I just wanted to plug that. PoE to me, is totally worth playing through once on Normal difficulty (pretty easy) just to experience a great fully-voiced story.

PropheT wrote on Jul 23, 2014, 00:36:
Dragon's Dogma is my favorite game, I've played through it so many times... the only thing I'd say about it is that I wouldn't recommend reading anything prior to playing through it at least once, just find your own way and don't sweat it if you miss a quest or two.

You can really powergame it hard, and most of the info out there now is for the metagame of perfecting your character, etc... just better to skip any guides and have fun with it instead, and do the powergaming later if you want to.

Quoted for truth! Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen is also my favorite modern RPG. It is just so brilliant. The combat is truly phenomenal, even making the Souls games look boring. Being able to actually climb your enemies and take them down yourself, amazing!

DD:DA, so perfect. I put 200 hours into it maxing everything, and I still enjoy playing it. And as an aside, it even does slow-down right! Instead of having a choppy framerate like the Souls games, DD just literally slows the entire engine down, so you actually have more time to react.

Somebody stop me! I could praise DD:DA for ages!

Paranoid Jack wrote on Jul 22, 2014, 17:59:
Any help locating a graphics mod for DarkSouls2 PC version would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

Sadly, there are no true graphics mods for Dark Souls II. There are two methods people use to claim "realistic graphics":

1) SweetFX: this is a shader suite made for most D3D9 games. It tends to sharpen the image and increase contrast.

2) ENB: Boris' sort of infamous D3D9 injector that tweaks the graphics.

Here is my honest opinion: I dislike SweetFX and ENB for Dark Souls II because both distort the artistic vision. Still, go here if you want to jump in and try installing these.

My number one tip for making Dark Souls II look REALLY nice is this: constantly use your torch. Not joking. With your torch out, the lighting engine is actually amazing and the areas look so, so nice.

It is infuriating they don't give you an option to always wear a torch/lantern on your hip since it really does make the game look 200% better.

Anyway, as is, we just have to settle for the totally washed out, ugly gray nonsense that is Dark Souls II graphics.

John wrote on Jul 2, 2014, 08:39:
Yeah, it wasn't a great game but I enjoyed DI too. I have Riptide as well but haven't had a chance to play it yet.

I'm a huge fan of DI and DI:R, having unlocked every achievement for both on PC. We need more DI and DI:R love because they don't get the credit they deserve.

The ease of Coop is brilliant in both, letting any level player play with any other and the enemies scale to each player dynamically (all games need this!). And Coop fast travel when another player reaches a quest location, brilliant as well!

The crafting is amazing, the zombie dismemberment is second to none, the loot system rewards exploration, and so on.

There's just nothing quite like DI and DI:R. That is why they sold millions. ...as for Deep Silver milking the IP to death...blah.

Rhett wrote on Jul 1, 2014, 21:32:
Why are they even bothering with Dead Island... They should have just rebooted it after DI 1 and Riptide, with Dying Light. Now they have Dying Light, Dead Island 2, Dead Island: Epidemic, and now Escape Dead Island. What the hell.

Dying Light looks awesome. I was hoping they'd just go with that, but now there's 3 Dead Island games on top of that, when Dying Light looks almost exactly like Dead Island already.

Let me explain this confusing mess. Originally Techland made Dead Island for Deep Silver the publisher. Deep Silver owns "Dead Island" name and franchise. Dead Island went on to sell a TON of copies and has legions of fans despite low review scores.

Deep Silver, being a somewhat shady/DLC hungry/milking publisher, wants to milk the Dead Island name for all its worth. Hence, you got a rushed, inferior follow-up with DI: Riptide (still a great game if you enjoy DI). Now you are getting Dead Island Epidemic MOBA (garbage), Dead Island 2 being made by Yager (of Spec Ops fame), and this new nonsensical survival "Dead Island".

Since Techland can't use the Dead Island name, they have developed the true spiritual successor of Dead Island: Dying Light. Dying Light is being made by Techland for Warner Brothers the publisher.

As such, the true creative spirit and innovation of Dead Island is being implemented into Dying Light. Dead Island 2 has nothing to do with the original developers, and is simply a cash-in by Deep Silver. Can Yager make a great game with Dead Island 2? Hard to say. Spec Ops was memorable but pretty generic gameplay-wise.

TLDR: Blame Deep Silver for everything, and support Techland because they've put out and are working on some really innovative and good products (CoJ: Gunslinger, Hellraid self-published).

This comment was edited on Jul 1, 2014, 21:54.

Slick wrote on Jun 29, 2014, 22:08:
"you simply cannot have a fair match since you have zero confidence what you are seeing is what the server or other players are seeing."

-welcome to online gaming.

Except I said Modern Warfare 1-3 were fine regarding netcode. No need to go to extemes. No game is perfect, but plenty are entirely adequate regarding client-side prediction and netcode.

Slick wrote on Jun 29, 2014, 22:08:
let me spell it out for you: which do you think is more intense to render in real-time:

Please don't take this so personally. I don't understand why you feel the need to get snarky and rush to Battlefield's defense. We shouldn't defend poor quality products.

And yes, obviously BF takes way more CPU and server power to calculate everything. So the code is way more complex. And yet BF gets the simple stuff wrong...the stuff that is as simple as CS or Q3 or MW.

DICE puts out buggy, broken games, and BF3/4 still have so many issues...see the very article were posting about...I just encourage everybody to desire excellence in their games rather than settling for over-priced overly-buggy software.

TheEmissary wrote on Jun 29, 2014, 19:15:
The reason older games had better netcode is because they were far simpler simulations. Quake had fewer players, smaller maps, and raycast weapons. Modern games have orders of magnitude more entities and object states that they have to worry about synchronizing. The more complex something becomes the higher likelihood of errors cropping up.

I'm not so sure about this. If the netcode was wacky for vehicles, I'd cut BF more slack. But BF can't even get the most basic netcode stuff right. I think the BF developers aren't nearly as smart as people like Carmack or Sweeney or other game engine netcode people.

Anyway...to each their own. Being very competitive, I despise broken netcode...sometimes I wish I could ignore it...but for now both Battlefield and CoD:Ghosts are dead to me because you simply cannot have a fair match since you have zero confidence what you are seeing is what the server or other players are seeing.

Just an aside, for CoD:Ghosts players, you ever watched your killcams? It is totally insane how there is a good 2 seconds of gameplay on your killcam that you NEVER saw when you were playing. For instance, with you playing you turn a corner, see a guy, shoot twice, then die suddenly. You watch your killcam and you see the other player see you turn the corner, then he fires 6 times at you before you even start shooting. Note: you NEVER saw his 6 shots in YOUR game, hence why you just *suddenly died*.

Absolutely pathetic that DICE can't get netcode right. Quake 3 got it right 10+ years ago, which meant Modern Warfare 1-3 got it right as a result. Now, any serious CoD player will know that ironically CoD:Ghosts also ruined their netcode, introducing the "you duck behind cover then die" and the "turn a corner and die instantly" phenomenon that BF4 suffers from.

Sigh...as if Battlefield and CoD weren't bad enough with derivative content...now both series can't even do netcode right (BF never could).

On the plus side, CoD:AW this year is by a very competent developer and can possibly redeem CoD netcode-wise and maybe innovation-wise. Still, boring!

I'm tired of unranked, totally anti-competitive FPSs. I'll take Destiny Co-op over BF and CoD nonsense.

Slick wrote on Jun 27, 2014, 02:04:
i miss good singleplayer FPS games. it's a lost art form. multiplayer is like reality TV, you can pump out way more episodes of it and people will buy it. I remember when quake 3 came out with only MP bots as the SP option. it was the beginning of the end.

So true...I remember having so much anticipation for Quake 3...then finding out it was MP only...a dark day. What developers don't realize is that SP anchors players to your game. Think of Call of Duty-everybody knows Captain Price and Soap! And we have good memories of the big events of CoD SP. Who can forget repelling onto the ship in that amazing storm at the very start of MW1?

So even if a SP campaign is only 6-8 hours, it creates attachment and meaning to the otherwise hollow MP experience. But foolish devs just want to pump out the easy MP stuff and still charge $60...cough Titanfall. Do not support.

Beta was pretty fun. I'd definitely pay $2 for it on Steam sale. ...wait...they want HOW MUCH?! ...and it's NOT ON STEAM?!

xXBatmanXx wrote on Jun 19, 2014, 00:13:
Fun little mod. I'll wait for the $5.00-$10.00 version.

Well said, indeed. I found the beta mildly amusing for an hour or so. I suppose I'd pay $5 for it.

What I can't understand is after so many Battlefield games, they still don't have any auto-team balance system. Every game I played either had me crushing the other team or getting crushed. It would be so trivial for the game to auto-balance after each round to ensure the top players were equally divided into teams.

This to me, apart from the bad netcode, bugs, generic setting, and bad collision is the biggest issue. It is SO RARE to get into a balanced and competitive game. So why should I waste time on either crushing others or getting crushed? How is that meaningful?

...ah, I remember the good old days...I'd play Counter-Strike and purposefully join the losing team to give myself a challenge. Back in the early days we had a good community of players who would willingly balance teams for the sake of the competitive spirit...but now in 2014...you're stuck on the team the game decides with no auto-balancing...LOGIC!

Just gave the Destiny Alpha a try on my PS4. Typical console shooter. 30 FPS is totally weak and ruins the smooth shooter experience. Auto-aim is on and can't be disabled it doesn't seem. The world exploration is fun. The textures are nice and crisp. Overall the graphics are nice with great lighting effects. But did I mention 30 FPS?

Also, the towns are typical MMO nonsense where everything is poorly organized and you have to run ages to find what you want. And you have to see other idiot players with "420RacistDunce" names.

Destiny would be amazing if it was 60 FPS...and let me disable seeing other players.