What are you playing right now?

[mariusz]

Some mobile games like Mayhem Combat and Space Pioneer. On PC only MMORPGs :)

[Velaryon]

I really loved my first 100 hours of MHW, but after I fought all the monsters, and the only thing left to do was fight tougher versions of the same monsters while grinding for optimum equipment...well...I'd rather just move on. Had a blast, though.

I can definitely understand that. At this point, what keeps me playing is less the game itself and more the fact that it's a chance to play co-operatively with friends I now live about 200 miles away from. I keep things somewhat fresh by using different weapons when I can. I limited myself to only the hammer and the insect glaive during my initial playthrough, so that I could prolong my interest by taking on more weapons later on. Now I'm experimenting with the bow, switch axe, and a couple others, which helps make fights a little more exciting.

If I were playing solo though, I definitely would have moved on by now.

[Jama7301]

I've been playing Backtracking: The Game - Palette Swap Edition, formally known as "Digimon World 3".

[Zevox]

Huh. So, re-playing Knights of the Old Republic like I mentioned, and surprisingly came across something that I'm pretty sure I never noticed in it before.

One of the stories that Canderous Ordo, your Mandalorian companion, tells you if you talk with him seems to be a direct reference to the Yuuzhan Vong of the New Jedi Order novels. He tells a story about what seemed to be an asteroid that he shot during a battle, which then came alive and shot thermal blasts at him and his Mandalorian companions - and when they tracked its hyperspace route after it fled, it lead beyond the outer edge of the galaxy. Which sounds exactly like the Vong's biotech ships.

I had to look up when those books were published relative to when the game came released, but sure enough, timing's right - the series was just wrapping up when the game came out. Weird that I don't recall ever noticing this reference in the game before, given I was reading those when they were being released. It also implies that the Vong were at least probing the Star Wars galaxy for a long time before they finally arrived, given KotOR is ancient history relative to when most Star Wars stuff takes place.

Not important in any way I guess, but caught me by complete surprise, so I felt like sharing. Pretty cool that a game this old that I've played so many times can still do that.

[warty goblin]

Been playing a bit of Warhammer 40k: Gladius - Relics of War: Why do; Warhammer games -- have != so many <> stupid parts to their names?

This is being billed as a 4X game. It is not. It is a 3X game, because it skips straight from Exploring and Expanding to Exterminating; Exploiting would represent negotiations of some sort, and that's just not acceptable in the grim darkness of the dark and grim future. That's right ladies, gentlemen and combat funguses, there's absolutely no diplomacy whatsoever. The only question to ask when meeting one of your friends and neighbors is whether you can kill them all now, or will be forced to kill some of them later due to pressing murder-obligations on other fronts.

Overall it reminds me rather pleasantly of the excellent Warlock: Master of the Arcane, in that it's not so much a Civilization-alike as it is a hex based war game with a tabula rasa starting condition and some level of city development. It borrows Warlock's so-clever-it-should-be-standard trick of letting a city build both a building and a unit at the same time, and actually extends it, so if your city has an infantry production building and a tank factory it can build an infantry and a tank unit at the same time. I rather love this feature, and it works just perfectly for a game as utterly combat-focused as this one is.

Right, combat, we should talk about that. It's the same largescale hex based thing as the last to Civs or Warlock or its predecessor games, Elven Legacy and Fantasy Wars. There's a couple of changes, units that don't shoot automatically enter Overwatch and can shoot things that enter into their firing range automatically. This makes a defensive line actually possible, particularly because longer ranged units are pretty low down the tech tree. The model for armor and morale is more complicated as well. It's a pretty good system, and there's plenty of units to throw around, with reasonably distinct roles and abilities to be unlocked in the tech tree. Delightfully, it leaves off those horrible fiddly +30% when fighting in a swamp or next to a mountain or whatever that the Civ games insist on. So you can concentrate on the more interesting stuff; figuring out which fronts to attack on, where to hold the line, and how to maneuver in order to do that.

Overall I'd say this is sort of the definition of a B game. It's good-not-great if you like this sort of thing, and probably utterly tedious in every way if you don't.

[NeoVid]

The big update to Shadow of War (No Microtransactions Version) has me playing it obsessively. Again.

[LibraryOgre]

Mass Effect 2. Femshep Paragon as I can manage Vanguard.

Pull is the best power. Sure, Vanguards talk about the Charge, but... Pull.

[factotum]

The big update to Shadow of War (No Microtransactions Version) has me playing it obsessively. Again.

I was considering getting the game once they got rid of those, but I understand that the "end game" part of it pretty much relied on the ability to be able to buy orcs--have they rebalanced that to account for the removal of microtransactions, or is this a lazy hack job where they've just removed them without otherwise changing the game at all?

[rooster707]

I decided to tear myself away from Into The Breach for a while so I don’t burn out and get sick of it before I unlock everything. (I still haven’t finished FTL because of that happening, even though I love FTL.)

I meant to play something new, but instead I just started another run of Dark Souls. I’m playing as a sorcerer this time, and it’s very different. Harder in some ways, but easier in others. (I killed the Capra Demon on my first try, which was very satisfying.)

[NEO|Phyte]

I was considering getting the game once they got rid of those, but I understand that the "end game" part of it pretty much relied on the ability to be able to buy orcs--have they rebalanced that to account for the removal of microtransactions, or is this a lazy hack job where they've just removed them without otherwise changing the game at all?

They reduced the requirements for progressing the Shadow Wars epilogue stuff, upped the level cap, let you keep gaining skill points after reaching the level cap, added 'prestige' skills (haven't fired up the game to see what these actually are yet), and added the ability to spend mirian to level gear up to your level, as well as perfect gems to reroll secondary traits.

:edit: Now that I've loaded the game and am looking, looks like all those training order things you could get out of the old boxes can now just be straight bought with the miriam stuff you have absolute piles of by virtue of playing the game. Don't know if the 'give a guy some levels' one existed before, but it's there now. As for the prestige skills, looks like they're just a 'give yourself bigger numbers with this thing' for each skill branch, that you can grab multiple times.

[NeoVid]

I was considering getting the game once they got rid of those, but I understand that the "end game" part of it pretty much relied on the ability to be able to buy orcs--

You'll only hear that from people who haven't played the game. Late game orcs are much stronger, meaning a better pool of possible recruits, and orcs you control will be flat out better than AI uruks if you use any of the items that give your guys bonuses to damage and damage resistance. I have four complete playthroughs with $0 spent on microtransactions.

And any advantage micros may have been able to give is gone anyway, since now you can recruit orcs from online play. If you go up against someone who filled an entire fort with uber Legendaries, you can get copies of them for your army if you want.

[factotum]

And any advantage micros may have been able to give is gone anyway, since now you can recruit orcs from online play.

I don't do online play, so that's not any advantage as far as I'm concerned. I ended up buying the game anyway because it was on sale at GamersGate, but haven't yet got around to installing and playing it.

[Ebon_Drake]

So, I've finished Life Is Strange now. Really enjoyed it overall, but I felt the last episode kind of dropped the ball and left it with a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion regardless of what you picked. I will take back my criticism about the collectibles though, since I'd not realised how easy it is to replay sections and hoover them up at the end. I've got all achievements now, but I'm less inclined to do a full replay and will probably leave that for a while.

I've now moved on to the prequel Before The Storm. I've not finished the first episode yet, but so far I think I'm actually enjoying it more than the first game? Not sure if that's a weird opinion. I think it's perhaps because BTS is closer to what I'd expected LIS to be, i.e. teen drama simulator instead of Donnie Darko: The Game. The soundtrack is a little more to my taste (not that I disliked LIS's), Chloe is a funnier protagonist, Backchat is a hilarious mechanic, and I'm generally approaching it with an attitude of "screw consequences, I'm a teenage punk rebel!" which is very enjoyable.

I'm not entirely convinced about Rachel Amber yet though. I felt the first game pushed her too hard as this wonderful person that everyone loves and that's then made it hard to feature her as a proper character. I'm hoping she gets more rounded and humanised as BTS goes on instead of her being perfect St Rachel all the time.

E:

Spoiler: Having finished Ep1 now

Show

I can at least add anger issues and a disregard for fire safety to the list of Rachel's flaws.

[Jama7301]

Square Enix is trying to tempt me back with the free login campaign for people who's Final Fantasy XIV subscription has lapsed. I finally finished up the first part of the base A Realm Reborn storyline (after taking a year and a half to finally finish the last two dungeons. I hate doing dungeons in MMOs), and now I'll be grinding through the quests added with Patches that bridge the gaps between the base game and the expansions, until my free time runs out.

[Wookieetank]

Square Enix is trying to tempt me back with the free login campaign for people who's Final Fantasy XIV subscription has lapsed. I finally finished up the first part of the base A Realm Reborn storyline (after taking a year and a half to finally finish the last two dungeons. I hate doing dungeons in MMOs), and now I'll be grinding through the quests added with Patches that bridge the gaps between the base game and the expansions, until my free time runs out.

On the bright side, the writing quality really picks up post ARR. And now that I know they're doing another free login, looks like I'll be losing another couple of days to Eorzea XD

[Jama7301]

On the bright side, the writing quality really picks up post ARR. And now that I know they're doing another free login, looks like I'll be losing another couple of days to Eorzea XD

One of my friends is legitimately angry that I took so long to finish the main story, and haven't even started on the expansions. He knows I never would have done group dungeons with him, because that's not my scene, but it's still funny to me that he got so exasperated that I would spend time mining, or running Palace of the Dead solo (and dying) and so on instead of leveling up.

[Resileaf]

If it can make you feel better, I've been subscribed to FF14 for over a year (if not more) and I have yet to even fight Titan because I spend too much time leveling every combat class all at the same time (or not playing at all because of WoW) rather than focus on one and complete the story.

[Jama7301]

One thing that I really appreciate from the Final Fantasy MMOs, and that I couldn't get used to not having in WoW is the ability to change my character class. Being able to level different things is fun, and it helps keep things interesting for me. Being locked into a single class at creation is a bit frustrating.

[Resileaf]

I wager it also helps server population not run out of control if no one needs alts to level different classes. Very convenient.

[Norahgami]

Hey guys! New to the forums and happy to be here. Is anyone playing any Octopath Traveler? I love story driven games, and I'm only a little ways in yet, but I'm a bit disappointed in the lack of character interaction going on so far. Immersion really broke for me when the Cleric helped the thief break into a mansion without protest...

As an aside, because I saw someone above mention Final Fantasy class-changing and WoW; have you checked out Project Ascension? It's like Skyrim WoW, you pick whatever spells you want.

[Resileaf]

As an aside, because I saw someone above mention Final Fantasy class-changing and WoW; have you checked out Project Ascension? It's like Skyrim WoW, you pick whatever spells you want.

Never heard of. Is it on Steam or something?

[Spacewolf]

Ended up getting Rome total war 2 since they have reintroduced family trees, something I've been missing since Medieval 2. Although the 1 turn per year thing might stop the recreation of my ten star general lines of people raised from common captains, something I enjoyed doing in the original Rome.

[Norahgami]

It's a private server, and you can download it from their website! I used to play it, but I haven't got the time anymore.

[thracian]

That skirts super close to uncomfortable legal territory.

[Yora]

I am once again installing Morrowind. But last time I remembered to keep the save files so I can now actually continue where I left of instead of doing Balmora and the Dwemer ruins for the sixth or seventh time. I think with my last saves, I have covered about as much of the game as I ever did before.
Which I think might be 10% of the game. Or less.

[LibraryOgre]

Mass Effect 2. If your favorite character isn't the asari matriarch bartender on Illium, I don't know how to help you. You're simply wrong.

[warty goblin]

So since they patched No Man's Sky again, I'm trying that again.

First off, the visual overhaul is astonishing. Full-blown sequels often don't improve the visual quality this much. The game is now officially my favorite generator of 'holy cow, look at that vista!' moments.

After an hour or so from the beginning, it appears that the game itself has been changed a lot in terms of the item economy, but remains very much a craft'n'survive thing. They seem to be pushing the building things angle a bit more heavily this time, which is unfortunate because building stuff is something I have no interest in in a game like this. Lesse, I can be an interstellar nomad, compelled by whatever demons drive me onwards to catalogue the weirdness of the universe, or I can build a greenhouse. Nothing against building greenhouses, but this is about the farthest thing possible from the genuinely unique aesthetic of tranquil observation and exploration in the uncharted infinite that No Man's Sky creates.

(I'm reminded of an old George RR Martin story about a man who finds some sort of artifact below an alien planet that lets him spend eternity walking the universe oblivious to the fall of civilizations around him. No Man's Sky is about the only game I can think of that sort of captures that particular aesthetic.)


On the other hand, just because the game emphasizes building stuff more doesn't mean I have to actually build stuff more. So I'm looking forwards to getting back to that this evening.

[Wookieetank]

So since they patched No Man's Sky again, I'm trying that again.

First off, the visual overhaul is astonishing. Full-blown sequels often don't improve the visual quality this much. The game is now officially my favorite generator of 'holy cow, look at that vista!' moments.

After an hour or so from the beginning, it appears that the game itself has been changed a lot in terms of the item economy, but remains very much a craft'n'survive thing. They seem to be pushing the building things angle a bit more heavily this time, which is unfortunate because building stuff is something I have no interest in in a game like this. Lesse, I can be an interstellar nomad, compelled by whatever demons drive me onwards to catalogue the weirdness of the universe, or I can build a greenhouse. Nothing against building greenhouses, but this is about the farthest thing possible from the genuinely unique aesthetic of tranquil observation and exploration in the uncharted infinite that No Man's Sky creates.

(I'm reminded of an old George RR Martin story about a man who finds some sort of artifact below an alien planet that lets him spend eternity walking the universe oblivious to the fall of civilizations around him. No Man's Sky is about the only game I can think of that sort of captures that particular aesthetic.)


On the other hand, just because the game emphasizes building stuff more doesn't mean I have to actually build stuff more. So I'm looking forwards to getting back to that this evening.

Also been poking around at this a bit myself. Haven't gotten to test it yet, but supposedly you're now able to build on freighters so that you can have your base and take it with you.

I do appreciate a lot of the new changes though, being able to buy modules for your suit/ship/multi-tool in addtion to being able to make them is nice to save on resource gathering time. Adding missiles for space combat was much needed as well. Being able to add slots to your backpack just for upgrades, and super storage (500 stack instead of 250) was long over due. Not sure how I feel about the bolt caster needing ammo now when everything else is just a recharge thing.

[Psyren]

Mass Effect 2. If your favorite character isn't the asari matriarch bartender on Illium, I don't know how to help you. You're simply wrong.

Have you gotten through the Lair DLC and ME3? There's some interesting revelations about her.

[Jama7301]

Also been poking around at this a bit myself. Haven't gotten to test it yet, but supposedly you're now able to build on freighters so that you can have your base and take it with you.

I do appreciate a lot of the new changes though, being able to buy modules for your suit/ship/multi-tool in addtion to being able to make them is nice to save on resource gathering time. Adding missiles for space combat was much needed as well. Being able to add slots to your backpack just for upgrades, and super storage (500 stack instead of 250) was long over due. Not sure how I feel about the bolt caster needing ammo now when everything else is just a recharge thing.

I got No Man Sky after the Atlas update, because the game had been on my radar since launch, but I never got around to it. Really dug how zen and chill the game was, and this kinda looks like more of the same. I'm kinda stoked to get back into it.