Much flower picking and arrow shooting in that gorge done, have I.
Much flower picking and arrow shooting in that gorge done, have I.
Recently topped 4,000 hours played on Counter Strike: Source.
Jesus Christ mate, that's almost half a year!
I know right? Wondering what I could've done with that time. Heck, between that and WoW I've probably spent one full year of my life playing PC Games.
In other news, decided to delete some old save files on Skyrim en masse. Come to find out the old saves were taking up nearly 10.5 GB of HD Space!!!
I played the second Force Unleashed now and this game felt like a horrible ripp off. It actually convinced me the Force Unleashed was a very good game in comparison. The second game had no memorable boss fight. Even fighting Vader felt like an inconvenience instead of a thrilling hard experience. The first game had you fight a real challenge at the end of nearly every level. In the first game you had a wide selection of opponents and level specific enemies but in the second game there was much less variety.Originally Posted by Peter McCoy
Once the credits rolled I realized what the problem was. The first game had three producers, two of them were laid off together with their team after completing the game. The remaining one producer found a new team that was a lot smaller and only reused the assets that created the least work. So this game was basically the worst cash in since Madden (fill in a number here).
It's insane how large game files are these days. To think that back in the 8-bit and 16-bit era entire games were less than a few megabytes in size - nowadays a mere save file dwarfs those older titles core data.
My gaming these last few days has been taken up by some more Dwarf Fortress. Taking a little break from the awesomeness of Stalker: Lost Alpha, I decided to start a fresh world and a new fortress which so far is doing quite well. I found a random magma pool close to the surface and decided to base my metal industry right above it, so I have five magma smelters that can make coke from coal as well as smelt metal without using fuel - saving all my precious coke for turning iron into pig iron and then steel which both require one unit of fuel (the coke) for the reaction.
The plan is to make steel armour, wooden crossbows and silver warhammers. Although in previous games I've yet to establish an effective military and actually do shit with them. Last time I made some squads and set up their training but it was too little too late. I'm hoping this time around I can actually take on ambushes with my troops instead of my traps which right now are my only defense - albeit an extremely effective one!
Yet another game I really don't know why I haven't played sooner!
After enjoying the demo of XCOM: Enemy Unknown I was eager to play the full game. Yet despite purchasing on Steam, I've only just now started. Fucking Hell! This game is awesome! I think I did two missions in the demo which were okay I guess. But once you start levelling up soldiers and kitting them out with new gear and abilities, tactics just seem to open up right in front of you - especially combinations of mutually exclusive abilities that two different soldiers can have. I have two Assault soldiers at the moment and have just selected a new ability for each of them - one, an ability which flushes enemies out of cover, and another which allows two shots at the same target with reduced accuracy. I can see both combined being very effective against strong, entrenched units!
Looking forward to cracking on with this later! And I just completed a mission that took place right here in Liverpool. Sorry Tokyo and Cape Town, but The Pool comes first!
Nothing like getting confronted by a thief, a bear, and a troll all at once while heading from Riften to Ivarstead. At least Faendal proved at least a little useful for once. That, and the bear went after the Troll first.
Seriously Sheogorath, leave me alone! I didn't sign up for this!
...oh wait. Yes. Yes I did.
And that kiddies is why you do not make deals with Daedric Princes.
Alongside XCOM, I've been playing quite a lot of Diablo 3 since my wife very unexpectedly bought me the expansion, Reaper of Souls. This expansion fixes a lot of what was broken with the game as well as adds some cool new features and one very awesome one!
The new campaign section, Act V, is well done. The city of Westmarch, it's surrounding marshles and wilderness, as well as the battlefields of Eternity and the fabled Pandemonium Fortress are suitable dark and brooding - no doubt in response to many people's complaints that vanilla D3 was too bright and colourful in places. There are a few interesting boss battles dotted throughout the act, all of which I look forward to attempting again on a higher difficulty once I'm suitable geared! I've yet to play as the new character class, the Crusader, but given my penchant for holy warriors such as World of Warcraft's Paladin I'm sure I'll enjoy it when I decide to start a new toon. As it is I only have one main character - my Barbarian is almost Level 60 (and the expansion raised the cap to 70 so still plenty more skills to unlock!). I believe I have a Level 10 of each of the other classes (killed the first Act I boss with them all - the Skeleton King) but if I do start another serious playthrough it will be as the Crusader.
A new NPC in town is introduced with services to pay for - the Mystic. She can Enchant items - that is replace a single stat with a random new one. This costs materials and gold and before commiting you can see the possible outcomes and once you confirm the selection you get to choose from two as well as sticking with the original. But from then on, subsequent enchants of that item are only able to replace that same stat over and over again. In my opinion it's only worth doing it to replace completely unwanted stats with more desirable ones, rather than trying to get an increase on a desired one. For example, you could try replacing an items Strength bonus of 200 with a potential Strength Bonus of plus or minus a few percentae different. Hardly worth the cost. Instead I tend to replace any useless stats such as Intelligence bonuses (I'm a Barbarian!) with others such as health regeneration or XP/Gold boosts. While the Enchant service won't let you turn an otherwise useless piece of gear into something indispensable, it will let you get that little bit extra out of stuff you're already using.
The Mystics other service is Transmogrification. For a small fee of gold she can change the appearance of any significant item's, such as turning an awesome-statted albeit shite-looking helmet into a crown of badassery, or turning an OP sword into something more befitting a Barbarian like a Great War Cleaver or a Mighty Axe. As you level her up through gold-investments, much like the Blacksmith and Jeweller she can offer a wider selection of transmogrifications.
Gone is the Auction House that tarnished the vanilla release and virtually destroyed the traditional Diablo endgame of boss runs for phat loot since you could just save up your gold and buy exactly the kind of item you wanted without hoping for an awesome loot drop after killing Diablo for the five-hundredth time. Instead, prior to the release of the expansion, Blixzzard patched in Loot 2.0, a reworking of the loot tables so that Legendary items dropped more frequently (yet still not game-breakingly regular) as well as vastly increasing the likelihood of drops being suitable for the class you're playing as. Now loot runs are more immediately rewarding as I spend more time killing monsters and levelling up and increasing my fortunes than I do hopping between characters to access the shared stash to transfer suitable items to the right characters (plus I already said I hardly play my other characters but the point still stands!).
A new vendor is in town called Kadala - this is Gheed's daughter, Gheed being the vendor from Diablo 2 who happily took vast sums of gold in return for random items that had their stats determined AFTER you bought them. This time around, Kadala takes payment in the form of Blood Shards which drop in Adventure mode and to my knowledge have no other use so while it's still a gamble, you're not losing out in other ways such as missing the gold for upgrading your stash or training NPC's or paying for their respective services.
Gone are the previous difficulty modes that gradually unlock as you beat the game in the preceding difficulty. From the very beginning of a new character you have access to Normal, Hard, Expert and Master modes. Each one ramps up the difficulty such as larger spawns, higher enemy resistances and stronger rare/uniqye and boss monsters, but rewards with things such as higher XP rates and gold drops. AND...once you reach Level 61 you can access Torment Mode which has six tiers, each one turning the difficulty dial way past 11, along with super rewards beyond higher XP and gold rates - there are some Legendary items that only drop in Torment mode and the higher the tier of Torment you play, the higher the drop rate of such Legendaries. It's a fantastic risk/reward system that's much more accessable than the vanilla way of unlocking each one as you go, having to slog through an entire run of the campaign each time with each character.
But there's more! Beyond Level 70 and the final skills and runes you unlock for your character class, you can begin to earn Paragon levels. Each Paragon level applies to all your characters, and increases things such as vitality, strength, intelligence, movement speed and maximum resource pools, armour, resistances, life regen, life stealing etc. This means that you can farm levels on your Level 70 character with your already awesome gear, and the bonuses of those Paragon levels will be immediately beneficial to your lower-level characters.
Finally, Adventure Mode. The crown jewel of Reaper of Souls. Unlocked for all characters once you finish Act V with a single character, this mode essentially makes official the player-created traditional Diablo end-game content - loot runs. in Diablo 3 vanilla and Diablo 2 before it, once you'd finished the campaign the main thing you'd find yourself doing is run after run after run of a particular dungeon and it's boss monster, such as in Diablo 2 doing Baal runs in the Worldstone Chamber. Before, the only reward for such activity was the experience, gold and loot dropped by the very monsters and bosses you slayed. Now, with Adventure Mode, you are rewarded for doing what you were already going to do. When you load into Adventure mode, you are given unrestricted access to every Waypoint in the game across all 5 acts. Tyreal will mark 5 bounties on the map, all randomly generated and infinitely repeatable. When you complete a Bounty, such as "Go to the Northern Highlands and Kill High Chief Brakkis" you will be rewarded with bonus XP and gold on top of that which you've already earned from killing the monsters on your way to completing the bounty. You will also occasionally loot Rift Keystones from elite monsters. Complete all 5 bounties in the act and Tyreal will reward yo with yet more Xp and gold, as well as a new item - a Horadric Cache. When you right click on a Horadric Cache in your inventory, the ground beneath your feet errupts into an explosion of loot and gold as if you'd just slayed a boss. These can include Legendaries, rares, magic items or gems, as well as more Keystones. Now here's the good bit - collect 5 Rift Keystones and you can talk to another NPC who will then open up a Nephalem Rift - a portal to a random dungeon which gives an existing dungeon tileset a new twist of lighing and colour and also pulls it's inhabiting monsters from the game'e entire Bestiary. For example, you could enter a Nephalem Rift resembling the Royal Crypts of Act 1 and find it's populated by both the Lacuni Warriors of Act 2 and the various wraiths and spirits of Act 5. Again, you can fight your way through these miscreants, eating up all the loot, gold and XP they dish our, until you reach the Rift Guardian which is again a random Elite Boss monster with various traits. The best part is that these guardians almost always drop a Legendary amongst the shower of loot that flows out when they die.
All in all, Reaper of Souls really has breathed new life into Diablo 3, which is ironic since the main antagonist is Death.
This post turned into more of an entire Review than a "what I'm playing" but once I started typing I couldn't stop. I fucking love this game! Excuse my while I laugh at clicking the "post quick reply" button. LOL!
I....love Dwarven Smithing. Went up about 30 ranks in Smithing after hitting a set of ruins and now have quite a supply of arrows for a while.
Nothing like watching a rain of Imperial bodies slide down a Cliffside after kiting 2 Frost Trolls into an Imperial encampment.
Taking a break from Diablo 3's Adventure Mode, I've decided to finally give Mass Effect a go since it's been sitting in my Steam list along with it's sequel for a few years now when I acquired it in god-knows-what sale.
I'm at the point where the Cou ncil have just made my FemShep into a Spectre. And I have no clue what to do now. As in do I just get out there or can I change squad members, what should I buy if anything before leaving. Any tips would be appreciated.
For the record, other than shooting I have no clue whats going on in a fight, all this tech and biotics elludes me. I have an Alliance woman called Ashely, an Alliance guy called Kaiden who sounds a lot like Carth Onasi, a big grunt called Wrex, a Turian called Garren and some quarian tech woman, with one more slot silhouetted - can I unlock them on the citadel or do they come later? Grrr, decisions!
Incidentally, loving it so far.
Injustice: Gods Among Us
..wishing I could play as Batwoman or Damian Wayne when he was a little shit, but otherwise this is a fun little fighting game
Did someone from here add me? I had someone friend me on battle.net but I dunno who it isHearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft
my battle.net name is Lilaena#1718 we can battle each other
Got back into SC2 and finally finished the Heart of the Swarm Campaign. I liked playing it, although I didn't really mess around with Sarah's powers or the various mutation abilities beyond the first time selection, perhaps something to do next play-through (whenever that is). Probably my favorite part was bringing back Infested Stukov and him trying to find his purpose.
Always nice to see some Starcraft appreciation - the original game was the first PC game I ever played.
I love the alternate zerg strains you can choose from. The one's I recall choosing are:
- Zergling Raptor Strain - leap up and down cliffs and lunge at targets to close to melee range almost instantly
- Baneling Hunter Strain - leap up and down cliffs and lunge at target
- Roach Vile Strain - debuffs targets to reduce attack and movement speed by 75%
- Hydralisk Impaler Strain - attacks while burrowed and deals long range damage to single targets with bonus damage to armoured units
- Mutalisk Brood Lord Strain - Easily the best choice you can make in the campaign. The Brood lord is a long range flyer which has no direct attack; instead it spawns Broodlings in melee range of the target
- Swarm Host Creeper Strain - While the Carrion Swarm Host is arguably a better choice overall, I enjoyed using the Creepers ability to generate creep while burrowed, along with their ability to teleport to areas with Creep -it allowed me to defend a large area with a small numbe rof units
- Ultralisk Torrasque Strain - Upon death, the Ultralisk enters a chrysalis only to emerge a few second slater with full HP. This triggers a 1 minute cooldown - if the Ultralisk dies again before the cooldown is up, it's down for good
Overall I think Heart of the Swarm was just as great as Wings of Liberty in terms of how it allowed you to diversify your army. The strains coupled with the mutations allow a huge variety of units to be used through multiple playthroughs. Some combinations work better than others, but even the weaker ones have their place in terms of usefulness.
I think I'll load it up and start a new campaign!
Had probably one of my best sessions today as a DM in the Fifth Edition Game I created. We had about six people total and got a lot done, with the most hilarious moment probably being when in a Random Monster Encounter I had a Cyclops climbing up the side of a Carrack that everyone was on with a giant boulder in hand, only to critically fail on an ATK Roll with the Boulder, where it struck the Cyclops on the head and he fell back into the river.
I got a big fit of nostalgia and bought Dark Forces over Labor Day weekend. Been playing that lately and loving every moment of it.
Great game and the start of an awesome series of titles! Though the names get a bit long-winded if you ask me. You've got the original, Dark Forces. Then Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2. And technically Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast is actually Jedi Outcast - Jedi Knight 2: Dark Forces 3. Which means that Jedi Academy is actually Jedi Academy - Jedi Outcast 2: Jedi Knight 3 - Dark Forces 4. Don't ask me where Mysteries of the Sith falls into it, lol!
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