I didn't want to start a new thread, but with Telltale shutting down, what's going on with the remaining eps? I mean, I think episode 2 is still coming out in a few days...but what about the rest? If they don't come out now...talk about an epic case of blue balls....Shrinweck wrote:I'm guessing there will be multiple outcomes, but yeah probably incoming death for most/all of them. I'm just glad Javi is done. I didn't hate his story but I'm just confused why it was necessary. God only knows why they thought a new protagonist would be met with anything but hatred by the audience. Telltale has enough fucking irons in the coals without another side story delaying the sequels we actually want to see. They've finally refined the engine to the point where it doesn't feel like a shitty adventure game to move through the world, which is a plus. The combat is... better, but still not enjoyable.
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That's new thread worthy imo, that really sucks.kali o. wrote:I didn't want to start a new thread, but with Telltale shutting down, what's going on with the remaining eps? I mean, I think episode 2 is still coming out in a few days...but what about the rest? If they don't come out now...talk about an epic case of blue balls....Shrinweck wrote:I'm guessing there will be multiple outcomes, but yeah probably incoming death for most/all of them. I'm just glad Javi is done. I didn't hate his story but I'm just confused why it was necessary. God only knows why they thought a new protagonist would be met with anything but hatred by the audience. Telltale has enough fucking irons in the coals without another side story delaying the sequels we actually want to see. They've finally refined the engine to the point where it doesn't feel like a shitty adventure game to move through the world, which is a plus. The combat is... better, but still not enjoyable.
I haven't seen anything official other than the majority closure. Like kali said it's hard to believe anything will happen with episode two, but there have no been comments about ongoing series. Are the 25 remaining employees capable of putting even an extremely shitty product out for episodes 3 and 4? I have no idea. When they say that 25 employees are left to fulfill obligations to share holders or whatever all I hear is "Pencil pushers, accountants, and lawyers."
If they were offering refunds right now I would probably take one.
If they were offering refunds right now I would probably take one.
I'd have to imagine the major platforms (Sony, MS and Steam) will step up with refunds. As an adult gamer, I wouldn't really care about the $20 (as mentioned though, I didn't buy the pass) but there were a few aspects that made this a little slimy. I may be wrong, but I don't see anyway to buy individual episodes...management would have known things were in trouble before making this decision....so it seems like a cash grab for product they knew they wouldn't deliver on.Shrinweck wrote:I haven't seen anything official other than the majority closure. Like kali said it's hard to believe anything will happen with episode two, but there have no been comments about ongoing series. Are the 25 remaining employees capable of putting even an extremely shitty product out for episodes 3 and 4? I have no idea. When they say that 25 employees are left to fulfill obligations to share holders or whatever all I hear is "Pencil pushers, accountants, and lawyers."
If they were offering refunds right now I would probably take one.
As far as I've read, the skeleton crew is just there to finish up Minecraft for Netflix. Assuming this is a bankruptcy, which I think it is, that leaves all their assets up for grabs...including the last two episodes of TWD. I guess maybe it's possible another publisher could release them -- but why would they? The majority of fans have already paid for it. I dunno...seems destined to end poorly.
Hopefully, at the very least, some ex-Telltale employee leaks the script so fans at least know how it ended.
Clementine's voice actress has implied that it looks like it will be unfinished. Someone wrote Steam a fairly straightforward refund request despite having 3 hours in the game and having purchased it over a month ago. They gave it to him. Telltale is supposedly "weeks" away from any comment about their "portfolio."
I haven't decided if I'm going to pursue a ticket with Steam support for a refund or wait for something official. The automated refund process isn't going to work according to the Steam forums.
Edit: They're playing damage control and saying they're shopping at different studios to finish it up. The article I read mentioned Paradox and some THQ division.
I haven't decided if I'm going to pursue a ticket with Steam support for a refund or wait for something official. The automated refund process isn't going to work according to the Steam forums.
Edit: They're playing damage control and saying they're shopping at different studios to finish it up. The article I read mentioned Paradox and some THQ division.
I’ve been back on CK2, although now playing multiplayer...
The difficulty is different.
Due to the easy co-operation between players, there’s a lot of advantages: playing a Viking Jarl, if you want to invade and conquer Saxony (which is the Kingdom directly below Jutland), you’ll have other Vikings that you can easily co-ordinate with - for me it’s a two player game, the other player is a non-gamer, but she sits right beside me and picks up games very quickly - so it’s not difficult =)
The difficulty comes in the impoliteness it is to pause the game and deal with things - you sort of have to be constantly doing things to keep up. The number of pop-ups can be distracting.
For single player, I tend to try and focus on expansion and planting my dynasty in every single country possible. I also aim for great heirs with great stats for long prosperous reigns which happens a lot. Multiplayer, the goals are still there, but my last character (Ragnar Lothbrok’s eldest son) was a frail coward with a missing arm and a missing eye - in single player, I’d have offed him somehow (probably given him a city and sent him to one of my other vassals, or had him killed), but in this game he became the leading figure of the breath heathen army that successfully conquered the British Isles. Our end game is to put her in control of the Empire of Britannia, while I control the Empire of Scandinavia.
Back to Ragnar Lothbrok... initially the plan was to have him control Sweden, and make that the crown of Scandinavia, while the Ostrogothic Kingdom expanded Southward into Germany, but we found too much trouble with crowns and civil wars, so that’s when we faked the system a bit and had Ragnar take enough Ostrogothic land to become Emperor, and then we were able to control the Kingdoms more easily: and before we went to Britain, Ragnar led a war against the Franks - we rolled in with 20,000+ troops (including vassals) and wrecked their armies numbering 8000 in their main force, plus their 5000 allies from Lombardy; while our target was a simple county (Zeeland), the results of a depleted Frankish military saw a series of revolts which fragmented the Empire.
During the wars for Zeeland, the King of the Ostrogoths had his face ripped off by the allied armies of East Anglia, when they landed troops in our undefended homeland - so when we came to conquer the British Isles, we made the slaughter of East Anglia a priority =)
We captured several of their nobles and years later would sacrifice the imprisoned to the gods.
Probably the funniest part was the eldest son of Demark ended up being born an idiot - so he was named “Dumbo” - and decades later would become the Leader of the Revolt with the catchy title:
“Dumbo for Denmark”
Local multiplayer in this game is fun and works surprisingly well; but don’t spam anything during saving, we did this twice and it caused the game to desync and require a full reload.
The difficulty is different.
Due to the easy co-operation between players, there’s a lot of advantages: playing a Viking Jarl, if you want to invade and conquer Saxony (which is the Kingdom directly below Jutland), you’ll have other Vikings that you can easily co-ordinate with - for me it’s a two player game, the other player is a non-gamer, but she sits right beside me and picks up games very quickly - so it’s not difficult =)
The difficulty comes in the impoliteness it is to pause the game and deal with things - you sort of have to be constantly doing things to keep up. The number of pop-ups can be distracting.
For single player, I tend to try and focus on expansion and planting my dynasty in every single country possible. I also aim for great heirs with great stats for long prosperous reigns which happens a lot. Multiplayer, the goals are still there, but my last character (Ragnar Lothbrok’s eldest son) was a frail coward with a missing arm and a missing eye - in single player, I’d have offed him somehow (probably given him a city and sent him to one of my other vassals, or had him killed), but in this game he became the leading figure of the breath heathen army that successfully conquered the British Isles. Our end game is to put her in control of the Empire of Britannia, while I control the Empire of Scandinavia.
Back to Ragnar Lothbrok... initially the plan was to have him control Sweden, and make that the crown of Scandinavia, while the Ostrogothic Kingdom expanded Southward into Germany, but we found too much trouble with crowns and civil wars, so that’s when we faked the system a bit and had Ragnar take enough Ostrogothic land to become Emperor, and then we were able to control the Kingdoms more easily: and before we went to Britain, Ragnar led a war against the Franks - we rolled in with 20,000+ troops (including vassals) and wrecked their armies numbering 8000 in their main force, plus their 5000 allies from Lombardy; while our target was a simple county (Zeeland), the results of a depleted Frankish military saw a series of revolts which fragmented the Empire.
During the wars for Zeeland, the King of the Ostrogoths had his face ripped off by the allied armies of East Anglia, when they landed troops in our undefended homeland - so when we came to conquer the British Isles, we made the slaughter of East Anglia a priority =)
We captured several of their nobles and years later would sacrifice the imprisoned to the gods.
Probably the funniest part was the eldest son of Demark ended up being born an idiot - so he was named “Dumbo” - and decades later would become the Leader of the Revolt with the catchy title:
“Dumbo for Denmark”
Local multiplayer in this game is fun and works surprisingly well; but don’t spam anything during saving, we did this twice and it caused the game to desync and require a full reload.
I played Assassins Creed Odyssey and had a decent time. Every AC since 3 I've just done the shit that sounds fun and then quit playing the main story like half-way/two thirds in. This is the first one I've beaten since 3 (3 is probably the worst one in the series and burnt me out I guess). I hated the ship combat and the majority of the missions were mind blowingly formulaic but it still added up to a game I enjoyed enough to finish and put just shy of seventy hours into. This is the first game that wasn't bogged down by a Templars vs Assassins storyline (considering it happens before Origins) and instead opted for order versus chaos. It focused on the family story which was also the more engaging part of Origins. Honestly, I hope Ubisoft listens to the feedback of how tired people are of where they took the Assassins Creed franchise and just reboot it/make it end. People appear to be into the gameplay so they could still make the games in some way.
I've started in on Valkyria Chronicles 4 which should be some fun weeb trash before CDPR releases Gwent - Thronebreaker in a week or so.
I've started in on Valkyria Chronicles 4 which should be some fun weeb trash before CDPR releases Gwent - Thronebreaker in a week or so.
Thronebreaker is really good but if the prospect of Gwent, more Witcher, and CDPR don't tempt you by now then nothing I say will.
The biggest issue with the multiplayer of CK2 is that every so often it desyncs. It occurs about every 3 hours or so and seems to be linked to the auto-saving functionality.
The other issue is CK2 multiplayer can result in many hours lost =D
In our current game:
After reforming the pagan Norse religion and conquering the British Isles, we split the Empire in two: The Eastern half remained the Empire of Scandinavia, while the British Isles became the Empire of Britannia: although both Empires have holdings in the UK, Germany, and Scandinavia (the capital of Britannia is in Sweden, just south of the capital of Scandinavia). The plan was to convert both Empires to Feudalism (or one Feudal and one Merchant Republic), but not at once, because the transition can be difficult. Scandinavia (me) went first - and I fought a lot of civil wars to get the Kingdom titles off of my vassals so I can convert them to Viceroyalties.
The benefit of Viceroyalties is, rather than the Crown being inherited by a successor in the former Monarch's dynasty, it is returned to the Emperor upon the Monarch's death. This way I can control exactly who will be the most powerful vassals in the Empire. Of course, LOTS of wars against more powerful forces than mine - which is why it is very useful to have a permanently aligned tribal empire who will be the primary muscle in putting down these revolts. Especially when my personal troops at the time numbered about 1700-3000, with an additional 3000 from vassals (scattered across Europe) against giant armies of 12-15,000. Having an Empire on my side who could throw 12-20,000 troops was helpful.
During this process, the Umayyad Empire had expanded through much of the shattered Frankish Empire and reached our lands. The Caliph sent about 22,000 soldiers our way. Our first major battle proved disastrous, we went about 15,000 troops against a smaller portion of that army, about 10,000, and they crushed us. We regrouped and gathered every soldier we could muster (including mercenaries); forged new alliances, and then came back with 30,000+ troops between our two Empires, and only then were we successful. Eventually ending the invasion, and counter invading taking the Norman shore and Lower Lorraine from the Caliphate.
Sure enough, after a hard-fought and highly expensive war, the first crusade was announced by the pope, and we were the target. Although we were better prepared and were on path to victory when several orders of Knights invaded alongside the armies of Lombardy (Italy) - at the same time 8 different revolts across both Norse Empires during this time while trying to avoid assassins. While we won the wars, it was long and hard fought.
After this rough period, the era of Pagan Holy Wars began, and we countered Christendom by making Lombardy our first target. The lands went to Britannia, which was the smaller of the two Empires at the time - although now much larger. The city of Rome went to Scandinavia, who also campaigned against lower-Italy.
Outside of our circle of politics - Eastward, the Byzantine Empire has grown huge, it is the most powerful Empire in the center of the map, but Eastward, China has established itself strongly in Tibet (the Western Protectorate), and are suzerain of the Mongol Empire and other steppe peoples, as well as Aryan Kingdoms of Northern India. The Abbasid Caliphate lies between them and the rest of the world. The Abbasids are the third strongest in the world, slightly below the Byzantines.
As a note, for total territory, the Abbasids have the largest with a realm size of 743. the Umayyad's are second with 504 - so the Islamic world is incredibly large in that regard. Byzantines, while looking tiny on the map own 472. Thanks to the inclusion of Italy, parts of France, and England, the combined size of the Norse Empires is 677 (that huge land area in Scandinavia actually doesn't contribute much).
In terms of militaries (this is more up to date than what I wrote about above, events have occurred to change military sizes):
The Byzantine army is 36,390
The Umayyad's 31,647 (They had an event which gave them a ton of troops).
The Abbasids have 29,412
Norse: ~29,000 - Britannia (Tribal) 17,269 - Scandinavia (Feudal) 11,854
China has 22,483, but they are suzrain of a number of other places who have 5-12,000 each.
Dravidian Empire has 27,000 troops.
The Republic of Venice, who can hardly be seen on the map, has 7021 troops - and that is the largest in Christendom. Next largest is Burgundy at 5413, and there's a number of smaller Christian powers who are quickly being eaten up by Islamic and Norse powers.
I forgot to note that before we took over Lombardy, they owned a significant portion of North Africa, but that fell quickly after.
EDIT:
I way overdid what was meant to be a two line post about multiplayer differences =P
The other issue is CK2 multiplayer can result in many hours lost =D
In our current game:
After reforming the pagan Norse religion and conquering the British Isles, we split the Empire in two: The Eastern half remained the Empire of Scandinavia, while the British Isles became the Empire of Britannia: although both Empires have holdings in the UK, Germany, and Scandinavia (the capital of Britannia is in Sweden, just south of the capital of Scandinavia). The plan was to convert both Empires to Feudalism (or one Feudal and one Merchant Republic), but not at once, because the transition can be difficult. Scandinavia (me) went first - and I fought a lot of civil wars to get the Kingdom titles off of my vassals so I can convert them to Viceroyalties.
The benefit of Viceroyalties is, rather than the Crown being inherited by a successor in the former Monarch's dynasty, it is returned to the Emperor upon the Monarch's death. This way I can control exactly who will be the most powerful vassals in the Empire. Of course, LOTS of wars against more powerful forces than mine - which is why it is very useful to have a permanently aligned tribal empire who will be the primary muscle in putting down these revolts. Especially when my personal troops at the time numbered about 1700-3000, with an additional 3000 from vassals (scattered across Europe) against giant armies of 12-15,000. Having an Empire on my side who could throw 12-20,000 troops was helpful.
During this process, the Umayyad Empire had expanded through much of the shattered Frankish Empire and reached our lands. The Caliph sent about 22,000 soldiers our way. Our first major battle proved disastrous, we went about 15,000 troops against a smaller portion of that army, about 10,000, and they crushed us. We regrouped and gathered every soldier we could muster (including mercenaries); forged new alliances, and then came back with 30,000+ troops between our two Empires, and only then were we successful. Eventually ending the invasion, and counter invading taking the Norman shore and Lower Lorraine from the Caliphate.
Sure enough, after a hard-fought and highly expensive war, the first crusade was announced by the pope, and we were the target. Although we were better prepared and were on path to victory when several orders of Knights invaded alongside the armies of Lombardy (Italy) - at the same time 8 different revolts across both Norse Empires during this time while trying to avoid assassins. While we won the wars, it was long and hard fought.
After this rough period, the era of Pagan Holy Wars began, and we countered Christendom by making Lombardy our first target. The lands went to Britannia, which was the smaller of the two Empires at the time - although now much larger. The city of Rome went to Scandinavia, who also campaigned against lower-Italy.
Outside of our circle of politics - Eastward, the Byzantine Empire has grown huge, it is the most powerful Empire in the center of the map, but Eastward, China has established itself strongly in Tibet (the Western Protectorate), and are suzerain of the Mongol Empire and other steppe peoples, as well as Aryan Kingdoms of Northern India. The Abbasid Caliphate lies between them and the rest of the world. The Abbasids are the third strongest in the world, slightly below the Byzantines.
As a note, for total territory, the Abbasids have the largest with a realm size of 743. the Umayyad's are second with 504 - so the Islamic world is incredibly large in that regard. Byzantines, while looking tiny on the map own 472. Thanks to the inclusion of Italy, parts of France, and England, the combined size of the Norse Empires is 677 (that huge land area in Scandinavia actually doesn't contribute much).
In terms of militaries (this is more up to date than what I wrote about above, events have occurred to change military sizes):
The Byzantine army is 36,390
The Umayyad's 31,647 (They had an event which gave them a ton of troops).
The Abbasids have 29,412
Norse: ~29,000 - Britannia (Tribal) 17,269 - Scandinavia (Feudal) 11,854
China has 22,483, but they are suzrain of a number of other places who have 5-12,000 each.
Dravidian Empire has 27,000 troops.
The Republic of Venice, who can hardly be seen on the map, has 7021 troops - and that is the largest in Christendom. Next largest is Burgundy at 5413, and there's a number of smaller Christian powers who are quickly being eaten up by Islamic and Norse powers.
I forgot to note that before we took over Lombardy, they owned a significant portion of North Africa, but that fell quickly after.
EDIT:
I way overdid what was meant to be a two line post about multiplayer differences =P
I can't even fathom going back to CK2...that game sucks away my life too easily...when you keep playing all night and suddenly notice the sun is out and its morning.
Playing RDR2 and FO76.
Playing RDR2 and FO76.
It really is, and I'd say even more so when it is multiplayer.
I forgot to mention that in multiplayer, you can access other saves as multiplayer, and multiplayer games as single-player. I'm only playing 2-player, but I imagine that players in larger games who decide to sit out for a session can have AI play their characters - although if you have ever played a vassal-only game, you know how crazy the AI can be: they might aid in killing off all geniuses in their dynasty to get rid of rivals or allow someone from a different dynasty to marry all the good-genetic characters into their dynasty.
I did a cut and paste of the map directly from game as an update. It's a little messier than the in-game export option, but it leaves the names of all of the locations on (though the smaller ones are difficult to read).
* To avoid confusion: Brittania = Midgard and Scandinavia = Niflheim. We renamed the Empires.
* The blue of Niflheim is a bit difficult to distinguish from the ocean, but over in Anatolia/Turkey and Greece/Albania you'll notice that it appears as though one of my vassals managed to snag a bunch of Byzantine Empire land. What happened is that at some point in the Byzantine succession a powerful Duke named Appolonios managed to win independence from the Empire with a substantial amount of land. Without the protection of the Empire and its 40,000+ army, my Viceroy (Jedvard the Bold of Frisia), who is my character's cousin, was able to conquer Appolonios's lands in full and join them to the Empire of Niflheim.
* The Umayyad dynasty was overthrown and their Empire broke apart. Midgard has conquered a lot of their lands in Western Africa and France; pushing down from Normandy.
* The Western Protectorate is China and the states it dominates. They rule over pretty much all the Eastern World from the Arctic Ocean down to Northern India
* Abbasids lost Arabia, Yemen is owned by the Umarids (who also own Al-Andalus in Southern Spain), and the rest of Arabia is ruled by the Tamimi dynasty.
* Back in Eastern Europe, the pink (unfortunately the same colour as Midgard) is the Kingdom of Poland, and the brown beside them is Lithuania.
* The Cult of Hel is ruled by the Fylkyr of the Norse faith... That's basically the same as the Pope being in charge of the Cult of Satan.
* My goal is to convert my Empire from Late Feudal Administration to Imperial Administration - but it will take some time as the option is only available after a lot of law changing (basically I have to pay off my council every 10 years to change a law until I have all of these). I also need to get my Majesty tech level up to 5. This is what the UI looks like for this:
* Midgard is ready to switch from Tribal to Feudal - which means instead of raising vast tribal armies with prestige the focus will turn to building castles and cities and raising troops from levies. Tribal is most certainly the most powerful type of civilization for a smaller/medium sized Empire. In short, Tribal civilizations can raise small levies, but feudal civs can raise more, and they can build castles and towns, and upgrade them so they can raise even more than that. What Tribal civs have over feudal civs is they can spend 500 Prestige points (one of the game currencies) to raise 2500 troops - so a ruler who has amassed 2000 Prestige (usually takes many years) can summon 10,000 troops; prestige is acquired over time, and also from winning battles and being a successful Viking raider. To give a scale, usually in a county someone can raise levies of about 300 troops per county directly owned by them, and perhaps 1000 in their capital county, depending on how many soldiers are alive, so 10,000 troops can topple most Kingdoms with ease; no problem with Petty Kingdoms (which are independent Duchies) and Chiefs (independent Counts). But as Tribes expand to Empire sized realms, those 10,000 troops every now and then become less meaningul, it is much more effective to have larger levies available all the time (so long as they aren't dead/replenishing), and the lands can be upgraded to have even more - for example, I can raise 2700 troops from my capital & another 4000 from my other Counties I directly control. In addition, all ruler types can raise a certain percentage of vassal troops (currently I can raise about 17,000 extra troops from vassals), so when dealing with about 24,000 troops, that extra 10,0000 I could have from time to time becomes less relevant... and in the later game when everyone has developed lands so that I might be raising more than 10,000 troops from my capital alone, and 300,000 from vassals, that 10,000 becomes insignificant.... but at first, when few Empires can challenge armies of 10,000, it is incredibly valuable.
* Just on the last point, as it stands, Niflheim can raise about 24,000 troops. Midgar can raise about 21,000, but with all the prestige the current Emperor has, that number can go up by about 20,000 summoned troops (which disappear after the war is complete), we're switching Midgar to feudalism because my 24,000 troops will be more than enough to support them against any revolts or invasions; and it's a better investment for the future.
Bah! I pretty much just ignored the point of point form notes.
I forgot to mention that in multiplayer, you can access other saves as multiplayer, and multiplayer games as single-player. I'm only playing 2-player, but I imagine that players in larger games who decide to sit out for a session can have AI play their characters - although if you have ever played a vassal-only game, you know how crazy the AI can be: they might aid in killing off all geniuses in their dynasty to get rid of rivals or allow someone from a different dynasty to marry all the good-genetic characters into their dynasty.
I did a cut and paste of the map directly from game as an update. It's a little messier than the in-game export option, but it leaves the names of all of the locations on (though the smaller ones are difficult to read).
* To avoid confusion: Brittania = Midgard and Scandinavia = Niflheim. We renamed the Empires.
* The blue of Niflheim is a bit difficult to distinguish from the ocean, but over in Anatolia/Turkey and Greece/Albania you'll notice that it appears as though one of my vassals managed to snag a bunch of Byzantine Empire land. What happened is that at some point in the Byzantine succession a powerful Duke named Appolonios managed to win independence from the Empire with a substantial amount of land. Without the protection of the Empire and its 40,000+ army, my Viceroy (Jedvard the Bold of Frisia), who is my character's cousin, was able to conquer Appolonios's lands in full and join them to the Empire of Niflheim.
* The Umayyad dynasty was overthrown and their Empire broke apart. Midgard has conquered a lot of their lands in Western Africa and France; pushing down from Normandy.
* The Western Protectorate is China and the states it dominates. They rule over pretty much all the Eastern World from the Arctic Ocean down to Northern India
* Abbasids lost Arabia, Yemen is owned by the Umarids (who also own Al-Andalus in Southern Spain), and the rest of Arabia is ruled by the Tamimi dynasty.
* Back in Eastern Europe, the pink (unfortunately the same colour as Midgard) is the Kingdom of Poland, and the brown beside them is Lithuania.
* The Cult of Hel is ruled by the Fylkyr of the Norse faith... That's basically the same as the Pope being in charge of the Cult of Satan.
* My goal is to convert my Empire from Late Feudal Administration to Imperial Administration - but it will take some time as the option is only available after a lot of law changing (basically I have to pay off my council every 10 years to change a law until I have all of these). I also need to get my Majesty tech level up to 5. This is what the UI looks like for this:
* Midgard is ready to switch from Tribal to Feudal - which means instead of raising vast tribal armies with prestige the focus will turn to building castles and cities and raising troops from levies. Tribal is most certainly the most powerful type of civilization for a smaller/medium sized Empire. In short, Tribal civilizations can raise small levies, but feudal civs can raise more, and they can build castles and towns, and upgrade them so they can raise even more than that. What Tribal civs have over feudal civs is they can spend 500 Prestige points (one of the game currencies) to raise 2500 troops - so a ruler who has amassed 2000 Prestige (usually takes many years) can summon 10,000 troops; prestige is acquired over time, and also from winning battles and being a successful Viking raider. To give a scale, usually in a county someone can raise levies of about 300 troops per county directly owned by them, and perhaps 1000 in their capital county, depending on how many soldiers are alive, so 10,000 troops can topple most Kingdoms with ease; no problem with Petty Kingdoms (which are independent Duchies) and Chiefs (independent Counts). But as Tribes expand to Empire sized realms, those 10,000 troops every now and then become less meaningul, it is much more effective to have larger levies available all the time (so long as they aren't dead/replenishing), and the lands can be upgraded to have even more - for example, I can raise 2700 troops from my capital & another 4000 from my other Counties I directly control. In addition, all ruler types can raise a certain percentage of vassal troops (currently I can raise about 17,000 extra troops from vassals), so when dealing with about 24,000 troops, that extra 10,0000 I could have from time to time becomes less relevant... and in the later game when everyone has developed lands so that I might be raising more than 10,000 troops from my capital alone, and 300,000 from vassals, that 10,000 becomes insignificant.... but at first, when few Empires can challenge armies of 10,000, it is incredibly valuable.
* Just on the last point, as it stands, Niflheim can raise about 24,000 troops. Midgar can raise about 21,000, but with all the prestige the current Emperor has, that number can go up by about 20,000 summoned troops (which disappear after the war is complete), we're switching Midgar to feudalism because my 24,000 troops will be more than enough to support them against any revolts or invasions; and it's a better investment for the future.
Bah! I pretty much just ignored the point of point form notes.
CK2
We decided to end our Crusader Kings 2 game because Paradox Games, 6 YEARS after CK2 launched, has decided to give the game its biggest update ever. It added more map pieces, not just in Siberia and Africa, but also in the already inhabited zones. Many of those large provinces got broken up into smaller provinces.
How the update handled it was everything appeared empty, then after 1 game day (which took something like 15-30 seconds) the empty provinces were given out to everyone. The UI has changed a bit, they've added a bunch of new traits (not updated in the wiki yet) that include things such as fat - which I got for my character trying to be a good father (dad belly?). Lots of new little storylines added. Things seemed to go smoothly until I began to play and noticed that everything was very unresponsive, I had to click it twice. The game stuttered a lot. I figured what occurred is that the game stopped responding to commands while attempting to parse the savegame XML, this occurred every single game day. It made it so the only way we could get anything done without accidentally hitting the wrong things was to pause. We were in the middle of a war with a bunch of pagans to the East, and it became VERY frustrating moving about 10-12 small armies of 5K or so troops across the map. We played a little longer but decided to call it quits (we're about 1110 AD in our game, about halfway through the maximum time.
We plan to play again after getting Holy Fury, but we're going to take a break.
Anyway, back on the single player games!
METROID STYLE GAMES
This is the one major Nintendo series I've had difficulty getting into from pretty much the moment it hit the 16-bit era. I love Metroid 1 and 2, but the third game Super Metroid which is objectively better in every way... not so much! Same deal with the Metroid Prime games, I never found myself enjoying them, just forcing myself to play through. The main thing I figured is that I simply grew out of those types of games - when Castlevania began using the formula, I fell out of interest with that franchise as well (SotN and CotM I played through, but after that I found myself not enjoying them at all).
Then Hollow Knight came along, and I enjoyed the hell out of it, and I can't put my thumb on exactly what makes that game so much more fun to me than other similar games.
Metroid 1 got ported to Switch this week, I decided to give that game a spin. The controls are tight, the game doesn't suffer from a lot of sprite glitchiness that other NES games suffer from (well designed for the console), and it is a hell of a lot of fun running and gunning through enemies; IMO, the original Metroid is WAY more fun than any of its heavily praised successors. The stretches of vertical platforming through this game may seem a little repetitive, but I find it changes the gameplay up enough to make things feel interesting. It's a game that challenges the player to change how they think and react. Not to mention it is one of the most visually attractive early-bit games there is. The audio direction is phenomenal, giving the player a clue as to the purpose of the area they're in - the main theme is classic - then there's the Chozo beep-theme which lets you know you're 1 or 2 rooms away from an upgrade. Lastly, I think the atmosphere of the first Metroid hasn't been replicated by any of its sequels.
I also played through a few dungeons on the original Zelda when it re-released a while ago. IMO, Metroid creams it. Zelda 1 is not as well crafted of a game as people remember; it's very easy to get to points where you feel lost and there's nothing to do. Metroid... you get lost too, but the difference is that when you're lost there's ALWAYS something to do; but Metroid, despite not having a map, is a fairly easy game to wrap your head around after exploring for a while since areas are fairly distinct.
Overall, this game is as fun as I remember it being back in the 80s; (Unlike Legend of Zelda) time has not diminished it. I think it's the vertical platforming changeup that does it for me, because Faxanadu is one of the other NES games I still enjoy a lot, and it also does that sort of stuff; Metroid is way tighter than Faxanadu in terms of controls and platforming though.
We decided to end our Crusader Kings 2 game because Paradox Games, 6 YEARS after CK2 launched, has decided to give the game its biggest update ever. It added more map pieces, not just in Siberia and Africa, but also in the already inhabited zones. Many of those large provinces got broken up into smaller provinces.
How the update handled it was everything appeared empty, then after 1 game day (which took something like 15-30 seconds) the empty provinces were given out to everyone. The UI has changed a bit, they've added a bunch of new traits (not updated in the wiki yet) that include things such as fat - which I got for my character trying to be a good father (dad belly?). Lots of new little storylines added. Things seemed to go smoothly until I began to play and noticed that everything was very unresponsive, I had to click it twice. The game stuttered a lot. I figured what occurred is that the game stopped responding to commands while attempting to parse the savegame XML, this occurred every single game day. It made it so the only way we could get anything done without accidentally hitting the wrong things was to pause. We were in the middle of a war with a bunch of pagans to the East, and it became VERY frustrating moving about 10-12 small armies of 5K or so troops across the map. We played a little longer but decided to call it quits (we're about 1110 AD in our game, about halfway through the maximum time.
We plan to play again after getting Holy Fury, but we're going to take a break.
Anyway, back on the single player games!
METROID STYLE GAMES
This is the one major Nintendo series I've had difficulty getting into from pretty much the moment it hit the 16-bit era. I love Metroid 1 and 2, but the third game Super Metroid which is objectively better in every way... not so much! Same deal with the Metroid Prime games, I never found myself enjoying them, just forcing myself to play through. The main thing I figured is that I simply grew out of those types of games - when Castlevania began using the formula, I fell out of interest with that franchise as well (SotN and CotM I played through, but after that I found myself not enjoying them at all).
Then Hollow Knight came along, and I enjoyed the hell out of it, and I can't put my thumb on exactly what makes that game so much more fun to me than other similar games.
Metroid 1 got ported to Switch this week, I decided to give that game a spin. The controls are tight, the game doesn't suffer from a lot of sprite glitchiness that other NES games suffer from (well designed for the console), and it is a hell of a lot of fun running and gunning through enemies; IMO, the original Metroid is WAY more fun than any of its heavily praised successors. The stretches of vertical platforming through this game may seem a little repetitive, but I find it changes the gameplay up enough to make things feel interesting. It's a game that challenges the player to change how they think and react. Not to mention it is one of the most visually attractive early-bit games there is. The audio direction is phenomenal, giving the player a clue as to the purpose of the area they're in - the main theme is classic - then there's the Chozo beep-theme which lets you know you're 1 or 2 rooms away from an upgrade. Lastly, I think the atmosphere of the first Metroid hasn't been replicated by any of its sequels.
I also played through a few dungeons on the original Zelda when it re-released a while ago. IMO, Metroid creams it. Zelda 1 is not as well crafted of a game as people remember; it's very easy to get to points where you feel lost and there's nothing to do. Metroid... you get lost too, but the difference is that when you're lost there's ALWAYS something to do; but Metroid, despite not having a map, is a fairly easy game to wrap your head around after exploring for a while since areas are fairly distinct.
Overall, this game is as fun as I remember it being back in the 80s; (Unlike Legend of Zelda) time has not diminished it. I think it's the vertical platforming changeup that does it for me, because Faxanadu is one of the other NES games I still enjoy a lot, and it also does that sort of stuff; Metroid is way tighter than Faxanadu in terms of controls and platforming though.
Red Dead Redemption 2 (XB1)
Diablo 3: Eternal Edition (NS) - Started playing local Co-op with my girlfriend.
World of Warcraft
Hearthstone
Diablo 3: Eternal Edition (NS) - Started playing local Co-op with my girlfriend.
World of Warcraft
Hearthstone
You guys should come play PoE with me and Sine
Being married to a programmer is like having a cat. You talk to it but you're never really sure if it hears you, much less comprehends what you say.
I still haven’t played PoE yet. I assume you guys are playing on PC?
Yep, a new league starts soon, and you would start from scratch like everyone else.
Being married to a programmer is like having a cat. You talk to it but you're never really sure if it hears you, much less comprehends what you say.
I’ve been playing a lot of Metroid on NES which launched a few weeks ago on Switch for free. The combination of the Varia Suit, Screw Attack, and Ice Beam makes for some of the most fun gameplay in a 2D game. It’s kind of amazing to consider how well the designers of this game nailed it 32-33 years ago. The audio is excellent, also WAY ahead of its time in how the music and ambience seem indistinguishable at parts, how the game plays with silence in some parts: Breath of the Wild in 2017 has a bit of this style of audio too. Where the audio is bad is the low-health sound (Zelda had this too) which makes you a bit suicidal as a player.
One thing I’ll note, since I have been playing Hollow Knight as well - and I’m not the only one to point this out - is that Hollow Knight is quite a bit more similar to Metroid than the Castlevania/Metroidvania games.
Metroid is a truly fantastic game, and I am surprised at how well the game holds up today. There are some small issues, particularly the only way to avoid farming for health replenishment is to either get an Energy Tank or defeat a boss; besides that and the low-health sound (which is MUCH improved in Metroid 2) the game holds up surprisingly well. It’s perhaps the oldest game I know of that holds up this well. It’s weird how Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros are the mid 80s/early NES that became most popular, because I certainly don’t think they held up very well. I also really like Dragon Warrior, which is from this period, which I played through a few years ago, but I’m a lifelong RPG fan... I also discovered the problem with Dragon Warrior 2 was that it’s Western release had a balance bug which made the bosses WAY more difficult than they should have been - which is why everyone remembers that one as brutal...
Speaking of balance bugs, Seventh Saga has one too - it was one of the first games to use a sliding power level for enemies to account for player’s leveling up. The game had you pick 1 of 6 heroes, and you’d occasionally have to fight the others. Apparently there was a bug, and the other heroes got boosted significantly more than intended. If you leveled up too much you could block yourself from progress. Potentially the worst balance of a 16-bit+ game that didn’t have a marvel license.
One thing I’ll note, since I have been playing Hollow Knight as well - and I’m not the only one to point this out - is that Hollow Knight is quite a bit more similar to Metroid than the Castlevania/Metroidvania games.
Metroid is a truly fantastic game, and I am surprised at how well the game holds up today. There are some small issues, particularly the only way to avoid farming for health replenishment is to either get an Energy Tank or defeat a boss; besides that and the low-health sound (which is MUCH improved in Metroid 2) the game holds up surprisingly well. It’s perhaps the oldest game I know of that holds up this well. It’s weird how Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros are the mid 80s/early NES that became most popular, because I certainly don’t think they held up very well. I also really like Dragon Warrior, which is from this period, which I played through a few years ago, but I’m a lifelong RPG fan... I also discovered the problem with Dragon Warrior 2 was that it’s Western release had a balance bug which made the bosses WAY more difficult than they should have been - which is why everyone remembers that one as brutal...
Speaking of balance bugs, Seventh Saga has one too - it was one of the first games to use a sliding power level for enemies to account for player’s leveling up. The game had you pick 1 of 6 heroes, and you’d occasionally have to fight the others. Apparently there was a bug, and the other heroes got boosted significantly more than intended. If you leveled up too much you could block yourself from progress. Potentially the worst balance of a 16-bit+ game that didn’t have a marvel license.
Only thing I remember about 7th saga is the difficulty was punishing and I never finished it.
PS - post more CK2 stories. I haven't played in a while but I always enjoy reading them, lol.
PS - post more CK2 stories. I haven't played in a while but I always enjoy reading them, lol.
Haha, I haven’t had the opportunity to burn a day playing it in a while now. But plan to some time in the next couple of weeks.
Back in December I had written out a fairly lengthy post about my first few generations of a dive into the Holy Fury expansion, but it was during a blizzard and the power flickered a few times too often.
Back in December I had written out a fairly lengthy post about my first few generations of a dive into the Holy Fury expansion, but it was during a blizzard and the power flickered a few times too often.
Started and finished another playthrough of Pillars of Eternity 2 now that all the announced DLC is out. Beast of Winter was SO GOOD and entirely up my alley. Playing it made me feel sad that there may never be a third installment of the series, even if Obsidian is replacing it with that decent looking space RPG whose name I still haven't bothered memorizing. The second DLC was kind of an arena fight DLC. It was decent for what it was. The third DLC was a successful attempt at making a big(ish) dungeon delve which is something that people felt was missing from the core game. I liked it a fair amount and it had my favorite fight in the series. The villain reminded me of Irenicus from Baldur's Gate 2 which was pretty cool.
I'll probably do another complete playthrough some day. Hopefully Obsidian doesn't abandon the series.
I'll probably do another complete playthrough some day. Hopefully Obsidian doesn't abandon the series.
Shrinweck wrote: ↑Sat Jan 12, 2019 2:24 amStarted and finished another playthrough of Pillars of Eternity 2 now that all the announced DLC is out. Beast of Winter was SO GOOD and entirely up my alley. Playing it made me feel sad that there may never be a third installment of the series, even if Obsidian is replacing it with that decent looking space RPG whose name I still haven't bothered memorizing. The second DLC was kind of an arena fight DLC. It was decent for what it was. The third DLC was a successful attempt at making a big(ish) dungeon delve which is something that people felt was missing from the core game. I liked it a fair amount and it had my favorite fight in the series. The villain reminded me of Irenicus from Baldur's Gate 2 which was pretty cool.
I'll probably do another complete playthrough some day. Hopefully Obsidian doesn't abandon the series.
Makes me somewhat excited to play it (been putting it off and collecting dust). The arena dlc you mentioned specifically sounds cool.
Been trying to once again actually finish Torment: Tides...it is suuuuuuch a boring game; I think I will give up and just play PoE2
Resident Evil 2 Demo, Jan 25th can't come fast enough
I'm not a fan of arena-type DLCs but it potentially lets you skip certain fights in favor of others so that you can progress the story if you really want. Because of that I didn't feel the need to drop down the difficulty so I could skip the combat and get to the story. I kind of fucked up the decision I wanted to make but that's just added incentive to play again in the future.kali o. wrote: ↑Sat Jan 12, 2019 4:16 pmMakes me somewhat excited to play it (been putting it off and collecting dust). The arena dlc you mentioned specifically sounds cool.
Been trying to once again actually finish Torment: Tides...it is suuuuuuch a boring game; I think I will give up and just play PoE2
One of the interesting tidbits about each DLC is each one focuses on one god in the pantheon and there's a good chance the gods you're most interested in will have the most interesting DLC for you. At least that's how it worked out for me. I'm curious how the arena DLC goes if you don't repeatedly do the equivalent of spitting in that gods face over and over again in the core game lol
Downloading now. I wasn't interested because -- well it's a remake and imo, Code Veronica was better. But the thing is getting such good reviews...what choice do I have?
Also playing through PoE2 and Kingdom Hearts 3 is in a few days I think.
Jesus Christ...I'm like 20 minutes into Kingdom Hearts 3 -- basically my first KH game. I am buried under a confusing narrative...why does this game, which should be a fun mesh of Square and Disney, take itself so seriously?
Not a good start -- either Square Enix really sucks at writing or this is something that must appeal to Japanese or hardcore KH fans.
Not a good start -- either Square Enix really sucks at writing or this is something that must appeal to Japanese or hardcore KH fans.
So much Octopath. I'm through all the chapters now, starting on end-game.
I still need to loop back to PoE2, Divinity Original Sin 2, Persona 5... Not enough time for all the games I want to play. I may not ever loop back to these.
All priority is going to Switch games. Competition for TVs (although I don't know why, we have 4), portability, the console not yelling at me (like PS4) if it ever loses power, and not losing state if the device loses power (due to battery in switch) all make the Switch the best and most convenient device to game on. What's the next big RPG for Switch that I may be unaware of?
I still need to loop back to PoE2, Divinity Original Sin 2, Persona 5... Not enough time for all the games I want to play. I may not ever loop back to these.
All priority is going to Switch games. Competition for TVs (although I don't know why, we have 4), portability, the console not yelling at me (like PS4) if it ever loses power, and not losing state if the device loses power (due to battery in switch) all make the Switch the best and most convenient device to game on. What's the next big RPG for Switch that I may be unaware of?
I replayed Tales of Vesperia since the remake came out. I'd forgotten a lot about the game, so it was nice to go back to. I considered bumping our old thread for it but I guess it isn't worth it. The story was darker in places then I remembered but didn't capitalize on it at all by the end.
It ended up making me want to play Tales of Berseria again because I never finished it. It was a tragic casualty of the Hollow Knight -> Prey -> Nier Automata -> Persona 5 release cycle. So many games that would have been my game of the year any other year released back to back to back to back. God damn early 2017 was a Mecca for gaming. Berseria was very satisfying to make my way through again. I decided to start again from the beginning and checked on my old save file periodically so see all I'd done wrong my first time through. Having just played Vesperia I had a better grasp of Tales series character building and god damn did I do a lot wrong my first time through. In any case, Berseria was great and I can see why a lot of people consider it the best Tales game. I have mixed feelings on the ending but the rest of it was great and I'm not going to fault a 70 hour JRPG for three minutes of story that I didn't like as much. At least it didn't ruin the story. I considered a NG+ run but instead I...
Played through a bit of Unavowed. This is by the same dude who did the amazing Blackwell adventure series. Blackwell was the best point and click adventure series I'd ever played and this is shaping up to be better. Excited to play more. Also excited to potentially replay it to see alternative dialog with the alternate character origins and different party members you can bring along.
It ended up making me want to play Tales of Berseria again because I never finished it. It was a tragic casualty of the Hollow Knight -> Prey -> Nier Automata -> Persona 5 release cycle. So many games that would have been my game of the year any other year released back to back to back to back. God damn early 2017 was a Mecca for gaming. Berseria was very satisfying to make my way through again. I decided to start again from the beginning and checked on my old save file periodically so see all I'd done wrong my first time through. Having just played Vesperia I had a better grasp of Tales series character building and god damn did I do a lot wrong my first time through. In any case, Berseria was great and I can see why a lot of people consider it the best Tales game. I have mixed feelings on the ending but the rest of it was great and I'm not going to fault a 70 hour JRPG for three minutes of story that I didn't like as much. At least it didn't ruin the story. I considered a NG+ run but instead I...
Played through a bit of Unavowed. This is by the same dude who did the amazing Blackwell adventure series. Blackwell was the best point and click adventure series I'd ever played and this is shaping up to be better. Excited to play more. Also excited to potentially replay it to see alternative dialog with the alternate character origins and different party members you can bring along.
I soon plan to play Final Fantasy 7... Depending on how busy I am.
I have been busy as hell and will be until about April 23rd/24th, so I haven't had much time to play. But I just got out of Midgar. A few things to note:
The backgrounds are indeed not as sharp as the old CRT images - it's my hopes that Square updates the images at some point later on. On the bright side, all of the other assets (UI, 3D models, etc...) have been updated; but their vibrancy actually looks a little out of place on the backgrounds.
Probably the most important change is that they FINALLY got rid of the load times. Though the slow transitions still remain - these could be sped up, a lot of the reason for their slowness was because loading went on behind them. Lastly, the animations are still too long - it would be nice to see a Skies of Arcadia Legends style treatment of these (shortening the animations, at least the common ones like spell casting).
My last nit-pick, the 2D controls feel a bit clunky, but this is only really an issue inside certain houses.
Overall, I'm having loads of fun with this game, as I knew I would.
Better 22 years late on Nintendo consoles than never! =D
The backgrounds are indeed not as sharp as the old CRT images - it's my hopes that Square updates the images at some point later on. On the bright side, all of the other assets (UI, 3D models, etc...) have been updated; but their vibrancy actually looks a little out of place on the backgrounds.
Probably the most important change is that they FINALLY got rid of the load times. Though the slow transitions still remain - these could be sped up, a lot of the reason for their slowness was because loading went on behind them. Lastly, the animations are still too long - it would be nice to see a Skies of Arcadia Legends style treatment of these (shortening the animations, at least the common ones like spell casting).
My last nit-pick, the 2D controls feel a bit clunky, but this is only really an issue inside certain houses.
Overall, I'm having loads of fun with this game, as I knew I would.
Better 22 years late on Nintendo consoles than never! =D
Been pretty bored with gaming lately -- spending some time playing Conan Exiles (free on PS4 this month) -- it's an OK game but not great. Probably better if you can get a private server going or just co-op with friends.
Looking forward to Days Gone and an FFT-type PC port called Fell Seal.
Looking forward to Days Gone and an FFT-type PC port called Fell Seal.
Persona 5 Royal and another JRPG exclusive finally convinced me to buy a PS4 Pro. So far I've played Tetris Effect and Spider-man. They were fun. Spider-man had some dreadful stuff in it and if it wasn't spider-man I probably wouldn't have played it, though. Some of the fights were pretty awful.
Otherwise I've been splitting my time between Grim Dawn, Anno 1800, and Division 2.
Otherwise I've been splitting my time between Grim Dawn, Anno 1800, and Division 2.
I am returning to gaming with Final Fantasy 7 tonight.
Built a new gaming PC a few weeks back, and finished Divinity Original Sin 2 on it (started on my older gaming laptop). Really enjoyed the game, and spent way too much time on it. Probably the reason I don't go back and replay many games, I do them to death the first time around.
Eric: New PC only has a RTX 2070, so nothing to get excited about :p
Started up Pillars of Eternity 2, but like when I started DOS2, just having a hard time getting into it. I think I need a faster paced game before starting another isometric RPG. Was thinking of trying out Sekiro. Anyone here give it a shot?
Also thinking about trying Pathfinder: Kingmaker, but as it's another isometric RPG, likely won't get to it until fall, if at all. Gotta do PoE2 first.
Eric: New PC only has a RTX 2070, so nothing to get excited about :p
Started up Pillars of Eternity 2, but like when I started DOS2, just having a hard time getting into it. I think I need a faster paced game before starting another isometric RPG. Was thinking of trying out Sekiro. Anyone here give it a shot?
Also thinking about trying Pathfinder: Kingmaker, but as it's another isometric RPG, likely won't get to it until fall, if at all. Gotta do PoE2 first.
Sekiro is pretty great for what it is. As a From Software game you probably know what you're going to get out of it.
Pillars of Eternity 2 is better than Kingmaker in every way except for maybe class distinction/complexity.. at least as much as I can say that without getting very far into Kingmaker (I decided to wait for more patches). In any case I'm probably going to play PoE2 a fourth time some time later this year now that it has gotten its last patch with some nice additions.
Pillars of Eternity 2 is better than Kingmaker in every way except for maybe class distinction/complexity.. at least as much as I can say that without getting very far into Kingmaker (I decided to wait for more patches). In any case I'm probably going to play PoE2 a fourth time some time later this year now that it has gotten its last patch with some nice additions.
Hitting my backlog a bit...Horizon Zero Dawn on the PS4. Not that far in but from what I played so far....excellent, well crafted game.
If it maintains quality till the end - a definite "must play" in my book.
If it maintains quality till the end - a definite "must play" in my book.
I don't yet have a PS4 (may wait until PS5), but Horizon Zero Dawn is #2 on my list of PS4 games after FF7 remake (assuming it turns out well, although I am concerned about the presentation at the moment, but I can live with a lot of those concerns quite easily).
I'm still on the 1st Nara map, but really, it's shockingly good so far. I'm not sure why I passed it up for so long. This is PS4's killer app. Glad I came back to it finally.Julius Seeker wrote: ↑Tue May 21, 2019 10:47 pmI don't yet have a PS4 (may wait until PS5), but Horizon Zero Dawn is #2 on my list of PS4 games after FF7 remake (assuming it turns out well, although I am concerned about the presentation at the moment, but I can live with a lot of those concerns quite easily).
I should probably play this then. My cousin threw it my way in January, it's sat on my PS4 Pro since. Sekiro can wait.kali o. wrote: ↑Wed May 22, 2019 2:46 pmI'm still on the 1st Nara map, but really, it's shockingly good so far. I'm not sure why I passed it up for so long. This is PS4's killer app. Glad I came back to it finally.Julius Seeker wrote: ↑Tue May 21, 2019 10:47 pmI don't yet have a PS4 (may wait until PS5), but Horizon Zero Dawn is #2 on my list of PS4 games after FF7 remake (assuming it turns out well, although I am concerned about the presentation at the moment, but I can live with a lot of those concerns quite easily).
Finally finished Horizon Zero Dawn. Very good game - well worth the cheap price.
My only criticisms are in some sense nitpicky, but also the only thing that kept the game from being a straight up classic.
1. Aloy. She was written as a bit of a Mary Sue. The odd thing here is she really didn't have to be -- there were multiple ways they could have justified not only her prowess, but her intellect & insight (her focus device, her genetic engineering, etc). But even better than that would have been if they just toned down her character to make her intellect/insight more on par with her tribal upbringing (instead, Aloy is more on par with the player). She would have been a far more compelling character and the plot would have flowed better.
2. Inventory management. It's terrible. Period.
The above aside, it was a really enjoyable game that I will probably platinum (1 outstanding trophy for the main game). It sounds like there is a definite sequel and I'll buy that day 1.
My only criticisms are in some sense nitpicky, but also the only thing that kept the game from being a straight up classic.
1. Aloy. She was written as a bit of a Mary Sue. The odd thing here is she really didn't have to be -- there were multiple ways they could have justified not only her prowess, but her intellect & insight (her focus device, her genetic engineering, etc). But even better than that would have been if they just toned down her character to make her intellect/insight more on par with her tribal upbringing (instead, Aloy is more on par with the player). She would have been a far more compelling character and the plot would have flowed better.
2. Inventory management. It's terrible. Period.
The above aside, it was a really enjoyable game that I will probably platinum (1 outstanding trophy for the main game). It sounds like there is a definite sequel and I'll buy that day 1.
Getting a lot of gaming done lately. More backlog -- jumped back into AC odyssey.
I mean...I kinda like it (playing a slutty Kassandra). But there is almost too much content, all rather unfocused and average in "fun". I know that probably sounds cool to some (it is an open world game afterall) but if you are OCD like me, the game becomes a bit of a chore.
If this is the future of the series; I hope they improve the mercenary systems at least (which feels like a poor imitation of Shadow of Mordor sorta).
I mean...I kinda like it (playing a slutty Kassandra). But there is almost too much content, all rather unfocused and average in "fun". I know that probably sounds cool to some (it is an open world game afterall) but if you are OCD like me, the game becomes a bit of a chore.
If this is the future of the series; I hope they improve the mercenary systems at least (which feels like a poor imitation of Shadow of Mordor sorta).
I believe they've made it easier since launch when I played but Odyssey was definitely a little bit of a chug at times. The 45-50 (max level at the time I assume it still is) journey was particularly annoying. In general I quite liked the game, but I hate that people gobbled down Black Flag so much so now every fucking Assassins Creed game has to have this shitty ship combat. Cannons are at least kind of cool but spears and arrows make ship combat even worse. I think the next game is vikings so they're only doubling down on ship combat and low-tech weaponry. A shame. Going to need some years to pass or to hear some really epic things about the gameplay in order to get excited enough to buy the next one.
Well, I did enjoy the combat (and theme) in Black Flag. In Odyssey...not so much. Not sure what's different.
Also managed to squeeze in marathon completion of Walking Dead Final Season. I don't know if it is possible to get a different ending...but the one I got felt like a copout. But then again, maybe this was a story that needed a little fanservice in the ending, rather than reality.
Still, enjoyed it as much as any other season...in fact, maybe it was slightly more entertaining. The learning mechanic was interesting -- though some of Aj's actions were a little odd and out of place.
Also managed to squeeze in marathon completion of Walking Dead Final Season. I don't know if it is possible to get a different ending...but the one I got felt like a copout. But then again, maybe this was a story that needed a little fanservice in the ending, rather than reality.
Still, enjoyed it as much as any other season...in fact, maybe it was slightly more entertaining. The learning mechanic was interesting -- though some of Aj's actions were a little odd and out of place.
I never finished the final season (just episode one). I looked into it and based on my save game I apparently got the most bloodthirsty version of Clementine which is kind of funny because I meant to play her as pragmatic but kind. My biggest "mistake" was
Spoiler: show
Playing a bit of Neverwinter (MMO PS4). New mod dropped and basically changes the whole game. It simplifies the game in a lotta ways -- which was needed since most MMOs get over complex and unbalanced after years of additions (especially free to play ones).
Mod 16 essentially invalidates all old loot - not surprising - but still inventivizes running old content for boons and the legacy system.
I miss some of the things they took out but I like alot of the changes. Fighter/Dreadnaught, for example, is pretty fun with the revamped block/seethe mechanic.
Game is a lot easier to jump into now for new players. Getting a 15k item level character at level 80 is realistic and quick, without spending real money.
Mod 16 essentially invalidates all old loot - not surprising - but still inventivizes running old content for boons and the legacy system.
I miss some of the things they took out but I like alot of the changes. Fighter/Dreadnaught, for example, is pretty fun with the revamped block/seethe mechanic.
Game is a lot easier to jump into now for new players. Getting a 15k item level character at level 80 is realistic and quick, without spending real money.
I've been playing a bit of CK2 on autoplay in the background. There's been a new free update that adds wonders of the world: unlike Civ games, these allow additions and features to be added.
One of the interesting things that has occurred in my game on the Iberian Peninsula, The Visigoths successfully broke free of the Caliphate, they're a cross between Christian and Islamic heresies and have become very powerful, it is the year 1100. They're the lime green Kingdom on the map owning Portugal and a chunk of Spain. I have NEVER seen the Visigoths form their own Kingdom before.
Crusader Kingdoms ACTUALLY formed. Jerusalem and Egypt. Egypt went on to conquer a significant portion of Africa. The Mali Empire is also thriving in Africa. Egypt also owns portions of Europe. I don't think I have ever seen the Abbasids (or successor states) do so badly pre-Mongol invasion without player intervention.
Eastward: Tibet has formed a HUGE Empire, the Chinese Western Protectorate owns Mongolia and India (probably unified against Tibet). Ket and Uyghur are two large Khanates which do a lot of nothing. Seljuks are similar, I am sure they did something, not sure what.
Scandinavia and East Europe/North-West Asia: There's a mess of small nations, this is the remnants of the Khazar Khanate which conquered a vast Empire during the 9th century, and it included Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland (Norway was the only free Kingdom). But then they went to war against the Carpathian Empire over territories in Germany, and lost. After a 200+ year long dominance, the whole Empire went into revolt and crumbled in about 10 years.
Also, the Byzantine Empire is HUGE. In my games, usually it follows history and they slowly decline and crumble.
One of the interesting things that has occurred in my game on the Iberian Peninsula, The Visigoths successfully broke free of the Caliphate, they're a cross between Christian and Islamic heresies and have become very powerful, it is the year 1100. They're the lime green Kingdom on the map owning Portugal and a chunk of Spain. I have NEVER seen the Visigoths form their own Kingdom before.
Crusader Kingdoms ACTUALLY formed. Jerusalem and Egypt. Egypt went on to conquer a significant portion of Africa. The Mali Empire is also thriving in Africa. Egypt also owns portions of Europe. I don't think I have ever seen the Abbasids (or successor states) do so badly pre-Mongol invasion without player intervention.
Eastward: Tibet has formed a HUGE Empire, the Chinese Western Protectorate owns Mongolia and India (probably unified against Tibet). Ket and Uyghur are two large Khanates which do a lot of nothing. Seljuks are similar, I am sure they did something, not sure what.
Scandinavia and East Europe/North-West Asia: There's a mess of small nations, this is the remnants of the Khazar Khanate which conquered a vast Empire during the 9th century, and it included Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland (Norway was the only free Kingdom). But then they went to war against the Carpathian Empire over territories in Germany, and lost. After a 200+ year long dominance, the whole Empire went into revolt and crumbled in about 10 years.
Also, the Byzantine Empire is HUGE. In my games, usually it follows history and they slowly decline and crumble.
I know Paradox is probably still raking in money from CK2 / bundles -- but I think they finally stopped making mods... So that has to mean a sequel must be in the works, right?
I smell a sequel on the horizon, CK3 should be announced in the next year or so.
Holy Fury came out in November, and it's probably their biggest expansion ever.
There have been two expansions since:
In March, Great Works - which added wonders of the world.
In May, Iron Century - which added some new features, story, and some other stuff, mostly focused on putting some more compelling content in the gap from the mid-10th to mid-11th centuries (between the Viking Age and Battle of Hastings/Crusader era)
The two updates this year clearly required nothing more than a small scripting team, a designer (and their designers also double as scripters from what I understand), producer, an engineer for oversight, and a couple of artists.
The REAL story with the latest two updates is that they were 100% free. This means that the CK2 team may actually be done with paid content.
Unless the major content team is working on some gigantic DLC (which we've heard no news of), chances are they've moved onto another project for content creation; and it would be surprising if it was anything other than CK3.
While I'm excited for CK3: because CK2 had SO much content released for it, it's probably going to be disappointing for 2-4 years =)
Also, there is no guarantee that CK3 would ever reach the heights that CK2 has reached: Sid Meier's Civilization 2, while it lacks the core improvements of later Civ games, still managed to be the most content-rich Civ game ever released; at least until Civ 5 when they began doing loads of microtransaction content. Civ 2's modding community produced multiple times more content than Civ 3 or 4 (Civ 5 may have passed it).
The one area I can see them make huge strides in is the multiplayer. CK2 is actually a great game to play multiplayer when it is actually working correctly: steps include
1. Loading the game
2. Host sends out a code (that's something like 30 digits that you CAN'T cut and paste).
3. Players join, they must select the correct characters.
4. Game starts
The whole process must be executed perfectly, because if not, and you back out of multiplayer, for some reason ALL players must close down the game, and then start from step 1. That means if a player accidentally choses the King, instead the lowly Count or Duke they SHOULD be playing, they can't back out and go back in; everyone has to close the game and restart, otherwise the game won't sync correctly.
Also, any time players need to take a piss/food break, the game left on pause for over 20 minutes becomes increasingly at risk of de-syncing. Then the WHOLE process has to be done all over again.
So, I would actually buy an earlier and more simple version of Crusader Kings if it meant that multiplayer could be done much better.
Holy Fury came out in November, and it's probably their biggest expansion ever.
There have been two expansions since:
In March, Great Works - which added wonders of the world.
In May, Iron Century - which added some new features, story, and some other stuff, mostly focused on putting some more compelling content in the gap from the mid-10th to mid-11th centuries (between the Viking Age and Battle of Hastings/Crusader era)
The two updates this year clearly required nothing more than a small scripting team, a designer (and their designers also double as scripters from what I understand), producer, an engineer for oversight, and a couple of artists.
The REAL story with the latest two updates is that they were 100% free. This means that the CK2 team may actually be done with paid content.
Unless the major content team is working on some gigantic DLC (which we've heard no news of), chances are they've moved onto another project for content creation; and it would be surprising if it was anything other than CK3.
While I'm excited for CK3: because CK2 had SO much content released for it, it's probably going to be disappointing for 2-4 years =)
Also, there is no guarantee that CK3 would ever reach the heights that CK2 has reached: Sid Meier's Civilization 2, while it lacks the core improvements of later Civ games, still managed to be the most content-rich Civ game ever released; at least until Civ 5 when they began doing loads of microtransaction content. Civ 2's modding community produced multiple times more content than Civ 3 or 4 (Civ 5 may have passed it).
The one area I can see them make huge strides in is the multiplayer. CK2 is actually a great game to play multiplayer when it is actually working correctly: steps include
1. Loading the game
2. Host sends out a code (that's something like 30 digits that you CAN'T cut and paste).
3. Players join, they must select the correct characters.
4. Game starts
The whole process must be executed perfectly, because if not, and you back out of multiplayer, for some reason ALL players must close down the game, and then start from step 1. That means if a player accidentally choses the King, instead the lowly Count or Duke they SHOULD be playing, they can't back out and go back in; everyone has to close the game and restart, otherwise the game won't sync correctly.
Also, any time players need to take a piss/food break, the game left on pause for over 20 minutes becomes increasingly at risk of de-syncing. Then the WHOLE process has to be done all over again.
So, I would actually buy an earlier and more simple version of Crusader Kings if it meant that multiplayer could be done much better.
For me, multiplayer isn't important -- I enjoy CK2 for the emergent gameplay, sandbox and rpg-elements. I'm sure it's fun, but it's low on my priority list.
I'm actually pretty hopeful CK3 will come out of the gate strong. Stellaris showed me Paradox at least has a basic idea of what makes their games fun (emergent gameplay) -- just for CK3, they need to go back to putting individuals/politics to the forefront. That is imo where stellaris failed. They went Macro (civilization focus) instead of Micro (leader focus).
I'm actually pretty hopeful CK3 will come out of the gate strong. Stellaris showed me Paradox at least has a basic idea of what makes their games fun (emergent gameplay) -- just for CK3, they need to go back to putting individuals/politics to the forefront. That is imo where stellaris failed. They went Macro (civilization focus) instead of Micro (leader focus).
The emergent gameplay (and storytelling) is what I like about it too. I don't expect anyone to play the game the way I do now. Most enjoy conquering vast Empires: me, I enjoy creating characters, giving them a little nest egg, and then having them do it all on their own; see if my dynastic people can survive and rule a Norse culture spanning through Asia, with no influence from me; if I conquered Rome and gave it to a son, made it independent, how long would it survive, or perhaps it would thrive; etc... At the same time, CK2 allows for significant tall growth now (not just wide). My last multiplayer game we played as vassals under an Emperor; basically, one of us became an Emperor, and then the other player supported an AI faction to overthrow the Emperor (and the player in charge of the Empire just surrenders).
I've been playing multiplayer CK2 again. Just two players.
Shortened my ramble below to a few things:
* Play Tall (focus on a few counties and dumping all resources into them)
* Got an Empire with as little land in it as possible, trying to shed outside provinces,
* Goal is 1 Duchy ruled by a Norse Emperor (Already am Emperor) in the early game, maximum centralization.
* Granting independence to de jure owned provinces of your religion is prohibited (so if I am King of Sweden, for example, I cannot grant independence to any Counts under me who have lands in the proper Kingdom of Sweden; unless I seize their land and give it to Christians, then I can grant independence)
* Building up a powerful bloodline-rich lineage
The Math behind my demesne size goals:
Emperor (Done): +4
Centralized: +4
Absolutism: +2
Switch back to Gavelkind *1.3
Base demesne size = 13
There is also a bonus which is 0.15*(Stewardship + 1/2 Spouse Stewardship) which factors in. For example, a character + spouse with 20 Stewardship each would total 0.15*30 = 4.5, multiply that by Gavelkind 1.3 = 5.85 (rounded down) so a total demesne of 18 (almost 19).
Most duchies don't have enough for 19 castles, so extra holding slots have to be gained via building Great Works/Wonders and prosperity events. My duchy of Upland has 17 holdings (8 of which are towns/temples by necessity, each county needs 1 of each main holding - Castle, town, temple - before duplicates can be built) leaving me with a total of 9 castles, I can get 4 more for a total of 13 via Wonder events; so I will need to hold onto some outer counties until the prosperity events start kicking in.
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We're both playing tall Norse with similar strategies.
I'm in the north playing Uppland, while she's playing Austergautland.
I had a focused strategy - also; I was playing with default equality (non-historical, but it's more fun this way because of how bloodlines work):
1. First generation Pt. 1: Take all counties in my duchy/Jarldom for myself, raid neighbours to get Viking trait. Keep an eye out for bloodlines, build Markets in core duchy.
2. First generation Pt. 2: Get to Shipbuilding tech ASAP so we can raid England for money.
3. Next generation (Ragnar): get bloodlines, raid and get wealth (Ragnar died soon)
4. Age of Vikings, my Heir did NOT have Ragnar's bloodline (since she was his sister), although he had some daughters which did: Get his daughters matrilineally married so they can expand the bloodline, get the Raider bloodline (Sea King/Queen + 100 more looted holdings - which can be done with ships + 4 looting armies)
5. Play tall, we both took about half of Sweden each (I took the top two duchies + Finland and bought a custom Kingdom, she took the tweo Southern duchies plus one of the Danish duchies and formed her own custom Kingdom). My goal was to conquer Vestergautland (De jure Sweden's last Duchy) and the Sami Kingdom to form a small Empire, but Vestergautland formed a HUGE Kingdom, so that was out of the question. Instead, I conquered Estonia and Sami to form a small custom Empire.
Here's our current map. She's going for Pomerania and Denmark to form her Empire. We each have 7-8 bloodlines accumulated, including Ragnar and Karling - breeding for positive traits, though we still haven't had the sacred triad (Attractive, Genius, Strong) but a few that have had two of those traits, plus left-handed is in our gene pool (a bad trait for most, but great for Norse since it offers a duelling advantage).
Also, if playing Norse, you can have your leader lead armies as a Hero without having to worry about maiming or death in random battle events - so in warfare (we defended against a huge 15-20 year crusade) you can put a berserk Viking Emperor at the head of an army and get TONS of events that increase Martial skill - I got up to 58, which is the highest I have ever seen in any character ever.
On the map below, it doesn't show, but the blue guy "Svithjod" owns A LOT more land, mainly in Northern France and Great Britain. Since he is a valuable ally with an extra 10,000 troops, we kept him around rather than seize his lands to form a Kingdom. Pomerania and Estonia are as good - and, I want to play tall and get rid of the Sami and Estonian Kingdom titles. The smaller your realm, the less hassle it is to be a massive douchebag tyrant and do whatever you want. The plan is to grant de jure lands to people in my court of foreign religions, and then grant them independence; to shrink things down a little in the early game; I have done the expansive Empire thing, I am less of a fan of it than
Also, one thing of interest is that great works also cause an event which increase the number of holdings in the county which they are built, which increases the ability to build tall., when I am powerful enough, I will create a few Viceroyalties (probably in distant locations rather than nearby, like in Sicily, Anatolia, and Egypt) and pump them up full of resources to expand across the world in whatever way they want while I focus on breeding superhumans. That is my idea of fun.
Bloodlines are easy to accumulate by matrilineally marrying any men who have them to people of your dynasty. You can then do a bit of inbreeding by matrilineally marrying any dynasty women with unique bloodlines in with your royal lineage. In multiplayer with women equal rights on, it's healthier and easier. You can select a woman as an heir and matrilineally marry in traits from the other dynasty, avoiding genetic issues with inbreeding.
I've been playing multiplayer CK2 again. Just two players.
Shortened my ramble below to a few things:
* Play Tall (focus on a few counties and dumping all resources into them)
* Got an Empire with as little land in it as possible, trying to shed outside provinces,
* Goal is 1 Duchy ruled by a Norse Emperor (Already am Emperor) in the early game, maximum centralization.
* Granting independence to de jure owned provinces of your religion is prohibited (so if I am King of Sweden, for example, I cannot grant independence to any Counts under me who have lands in the proper Kingdom of Sweden; unless I seize their land and give it to Christians, then I can grant independence)
* Building up a powerful bloodline-rich lineage
The Math behind my demesne size goals:
Emperor (Done): +4
Centralized: +4
Absolutism: +2
Switch back to Gavelkind *1.3
Base demesne size = 13
There is also a bonus which is 0.15*(Stewardship + 1/2 Spouse Stewardship) which factors in. For example, a character + spouse with 20 Stewardship each would total 0.15*30 = 4.5, multiply that by Gavelkind 1.3 = 5.85 (rounded down) so a total demesne of 18 (almost 19).
Most duchies don't have enough for 19 castles, so extra holding slots have to be gained via building Great Works/Wonders and prosperity events. My duchy of Upland has 17 holdings (8 of which are towns/temples by necessity, each county needs 1 of each main holding - Castle, town, temple - before duplicates can be built) leaving me with a total of 9 castles, I can get 4 more for a total of 13 via Wonder events; so I will need to hold onto some outer counties until the prosperity events start kicking in.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
We're both playing tall Norse with similar strategies.
I'm in the north playing Uppland, while she's playing Austergautland.
I had a focused strategy - also; I was playing with default equality (non-historical, but it's more fun this way because of how bloodlines work):
1. First generation Pt. 1: Take all counties in my duchy/Jarldom for myself, raid neighbours to get Viking trait. Keep an eye out for bloodlines, build Markets in core duchy.
2. First generation Pt. 2: Get to Shipbuilding tech ASAP so we can raid England for money.
3. Next generation (Ragnar): get bloodlines, raid and get wealth (Ragnar died soon)
4. Age of Vikings, my Heir did NOT have Ragnar's bloodline (since she was his sister), although he had some daughters which did: Get his daughters matrilineally married so they can expand the bloodline, get the Raider bloodline (Sea King/Queen + 100 more looted holdings - which can be done with ships + 4 looting armies)
5. Play tall, we both took about half of Sweden each (I took the top two duchies + Finland and bought a custom Kingdom, she took the tweo Southern duchies plus one of the Danish duchies and formed her own custom Kingdom). My goal was to conquer Vestergautland (De jure Sweden's last Duchy) and the Sami Kingdom to form a small Empire, but Vestergautland formed a HUGE Kingdom, so that was out of the question. Instead, I conquered Estonia and Sami to form a small custom Empire.
Here's our current map. She's going for Pomerania and Denmark to form her Empire. We each have 7-8 bloodlines accumulated, including Ragnar and Karling - breeding for positive traits, though we still haven't had the sacred triad (Attractive, Genius, Strong) but a few that have had two of those traits, plus left-handed is in our gene pool (a bad trait for most, but great for Norse since it offers a duelling advantage).
Also, if playing Norse, you can have your leader lead armies as a Hero without having to worry about maiming or death in random battle events - so in warfare (we defended against a huge 15-20 year crusade) you can put a berserk Viking Emperor at the head of an army and get TONS of events that increase Martial skill - I got up to 58, which is the highest I have ever seen in any character ever.
On the map below, it doesn't show, but the blue guy "Svithjod" owns A LOT more land, mainly in Northern France and Great Britain. Since he is a valuable ally with an extra 10,000 troops, we kept him around rather than seize his lands to form a Kingdom. Pomerania and Estonia are as good - and, I want to play tall and get rid of the Sami and Estonian Kingdom titles. The smaller your realm, the less hassle it is to be a massive douchebag tyrant and do whatever you want. The plan is to grant de jure lands to people in my court of foreign religions, and then grant them independence; to shrink things down a little in the early game; I have done the expansive Empire thing, I am less of a fan of it than
Also, one thing of interest is that great works also cause an event which increase the number of holdings in the county which they are built, which increases the ability to build tall., when I am powerful enough, I will create a few Viceroyalties (probably in distant locations rather than nearby, like in Sicily, Anatolia, and Egypt) and pump them up full of resources to expand across the world in whatever way they want while I focus on breeding superhumans. That is my idea of fun.
Bloodlines are easy to accumulate by matrilineally marrying any men who have them to people of your dynasty. You can then do a bit of inbreeding by matrilineally marrying any dynasty women with unique bloodlines in with your royal lineage. In multiplayer with women equal rights on, it's healthier and easier. You can select a woman as an heir and matrilineally marry in traits from the other dynasty, avoiding genetic issues with inbreeding.
Took a break from both Neverwinter (got all my new legendaries) and the Divinity OS 2 replay (such a good game) - and started playing Dragon Quest Builders 2. If you liked the first one, you should like this one (more of the same but more polished).
Also, my wireless adapter for my Vive arrived today. That was my biggest criticism of 1st gen real VR HMDs -- the bulky and cumbersome wires. I haven't set it up yet, but I am really hopeful it'll be as amazing as I suspect. I mean, I think the headset will still be on the heavy/bulky side, but it should be a great leap forward in the tech.
All VR is really missing is a high budget, fully immersive cinematic experience. The Exorcist Legion VR gives a sneak peek of what could be -- but we need a dev with cash to create a real fully fleshed out experience.
Also, my wireless adapter for my Vive arrived today. That was my biggest criticism of 1st gen real VR HMDs -- the bulky and cumbersome wires. I haven't set it up yet, but I am really hopeful it'll be as amazing as I suspect. I mean, I think the headset will still be on the heavy/bulky side, but it should be a great leap forward in the tech.
All VR is really missing is a high budget, fully immersive cinematic experience. The Exorcist Legion VR gives a sneak peek of what could be -- but we need a dev with cash to create a real fully fleshed out experience.