What games are you currently playing?

[Jozua B 181]

25 minutes ago, Steve said:

I've been afraid to look lately because of the insane video card prices for a while there. I didn't realize prices are down again 🤔

What are you building?

Had an RTX 3080 since launch for MSRP (got lucky), had the power supply and ram already as well, just got AMD Ryzen 9 5950x and a top tier motherboard (Gigabyte X570s Aorus Master).

It's overkill, but it will last me at least for the next 5 years 😅.

And yes you can buy a graphics card right now at almost MSRP, the processors even below MSRP!

[Steve 7,527]

On 7/20/2022 at 5:09 PM, Jozua B said:

Had an RTX 3080 since launch for MSRP (got lucky), had the power supply and ram already as well, just got AMD Ryzen 9 5950x and a top tier motherboard (Gigabyte X570s Aorus Master).

It's overkill, but it will last me at least for the next 5 years 😅.

And yes you can buy a graphics card right now at almost MSRP, the processors even below MSRP!

This news is both good and bad 

[Jozua B 181]

35 minutes ago, Steve said:

This news is both good and bad 

Good that things have come down, bad that you don't have the money atm??

[Steve 7,527]

7 hours ago, Jozua B said:

Good that things have come down, bad that you don't have the money atm??

Bad that I don’t really need a new system but I’m looking anyway 😎

[chibipoe 296]

Most frequent: FFXIV. It is the best mmo. 

But, my stack of other games is immense. Playing God of War from 2018 currently.

[Steve 7,527]

On 12/15/2022 at 7:04 PM, chibipoe said:

Most frequent: FFXIV. It is the best mmo. 

But, my stack of other games is immense. Playing God of War from 2018 currently.

I've bought games on Steam cause they were on sale and forgot I had them. It's ridiculous. The God of War games are pretty damn solid.

I've never played FFXIV 😬

[chibipoe 296]

1 hour ago, Steve said:

I've bought games on Steam cause they were on sale and forgot I had them. It's ridiculous. The God of War games are pretty damn solid.

I've never played FFXIV 😬

XIV is a lot of fun with a fantastic story, but it's a huge time investment, even with just the free trial. It's unique in being so story-centric for an mmo. You are positioned as the hero of the narrative and while there are allowances made given that everyone is 'the hero', it manages to tell a compelling narrative and create a central character despite the relative 'blank slate' ness of a pc. 

[Steve 7,527]

2 hours ago, chibipoe said:

XIV is a lot of fun with a fantastic story, but it's a huge time investment, even with just the free trial. It's unique in being so story-centric for an mmo. You are positioned as the hero of the narrative and while there are allowances made given that everyone is 'the hero', it manages to tell a compelling narrative and create a central character despite the relative 'blank slate' ness of a pc. 

It still holds up for a new player?

[chibipoe 296]

Yes! They've also made a habit of trying to keep things in-tune for people who start from the beginning when they can. Recently, they revamped the capstone dungeon sequence for the base game, adjusting the fights(in several cases making them brand new fights). Before, the entire capstone was 2 dungeons, one that ran for about 20ish minutes and the second that ran for 45. Due to players leaving new players behind, they had made it so you couldn't skip cutscenes(both dungeons were 8 player features and players who had done it before would often leave the others behind because they outgeared it even when level synced down so a new player's experience often was to enter one of them and... immediately get stuck in cutscenes non-stop and then they would come out of that... to find themselves alone and trying to catch up... before getting locked into another cutscene. Repeat til end.

Needless to say, Square didn't like that, so they picked the unskippable cutscenes for all(but adjusted rewards for xp and such to make them worthwhile for repeating players finding it in the random). They refined it a bit further by reducing the number of players and lowering the level you were synced down to, so you are down to a level that fits the dungeon and not steamrolling over the enemies. Combined with the changes to several fights, it made them a lot more engaging. The final dungeon got split into 3 parts, so you have 2 dungeons now(Castrum Meridanium, where you are outside trying to sabotage the defenses so you can get into the Praetorium, where you face the enemy commander, then you face him again while he's *spoilers*(also with 3 people at your side), before a solo fight against the true mastermind(brand new totally updated fight that used to be an 8 man slaughter due to the aforementioned outgearing.)

Additionally, they added in and have improved features letting you go in with 3 npc party members for those wanting to play by themselves for quite a few dungeons and have been expanding that feature retroactively to other expansions such as the base game and onward. You can't do *everything* solo because they do want you to socialize, but most of what you can't is not mandatory content. 

Story wise though, it's a rich tapestry and since it's been the same dedicated team(for the most part), the continuity is largely maintained across multiple expansions and the immense amount of history that you uncover. WoW, for example, has an overarching story, but is largely contained to the expansion and you aren't the main character. You're just a peon helping the npcs. (they've tried to steer away from that paradigm but the game was never built that way storytelling-wise so it never works.) WoW also is a 'here's your expansion and its story, have fun' and when that expansion is done... content from it is more or less forgotten about. WoW is always about the now, really. (It has some low key stories but its big epic stuff just... ends up falling flat. Additionally, WoW focuses a lot on your gear and you have to do a LOT of raiding and dungeons(social content) to keep yourself current. Their catch up systems are not great. Frustration with the storytelling and the fact that the game is designed to keep you playing every day, performing monotonous tasks, is what actually drove me to quit(and then scandals related to the company culture made me delete an account over 10 years old with stuff you can't get in-game any more and erase it beyond hope of recall)

XIV, on the other hand, is a lot more focused on player skill and its gear curves aren't anywhere near as steep, so catching up is easy and the developers are regularly open about the fact that they don't want you making it your whole life. If you want to take breaks between content, feel free! We encourage it! 

Anyway, I've rambled, but XIV is a truly unique experience among the mmo genre, being that it is a single player narrative wearing the trappings of an mmo like a cloak. This actually works to its advantage as far as community as well. While there's a lot of optional content, the main story being mandatory means that, regardless of what level you might be lowered down to if you join a random group, the new players will be doing the same content you've done, so everyone's got common ground(they are also strict on harassment and such, so the overall community is a great deal less toxic than WoW's. (Another thing, WoW perpetrates a faction-based system that pits players on opposing sides and the things they've encouraged over the years has genuinely made the overall playerbase a toxic unfriendly mess.)

Back to XIV, what it does give you is a story that unfolds as you go and delves into a lot of really interesting themes. And through little things like giving you dialogue options, etc, it allows you to both shape your own idea of the principal character, the Warrior of Light, while still giving what is basically a blank slate a sense of character, that the npcs around you view you as their friend and that your actions throughout the game have an impact, for good or ill. (I, and many others, have broken down in tears for how well-executed the story and plotting is. 

Lastly, yes, XIV's great and I heavily recommend it. Plus, it's free up to level 60 with no restrictions on playtime! (The restrictions are on money and trading stuff, to curb botting but nothing particularly onerous.)

[Steve 7,527]

Well, since you put it that way...

So as a soloer I'd be able to do much of the content? Is there PvP?

[Stardraigh 33]

I just acquired Ixion & Signalis.  

I kind of don't like Ixion.  I like 4x build games, but I don't really care for the RTS aspect of it.  I feel the game would be 100x better if it was turn based and wouldn't let me ignore not doing things I'm just not seeing alerts for.  I don't have the best vision so there's a lot that blurs together. You also get tutorials but you don't.  You have to go out of the play part of the game to a menu of tutorials instead of just showing me as I play. There's also the matter of logistics in the game.  It is almost impossible to reliably transfer resources between sectors in the ship.  I literally should just be able to move X qty of resources from one place to another but you can't. It's all about designating priority and hoping you don't have a remnant setting somewhere that overrides what you're trying to do. It should not be an active order to disburse resources that my ADHD mind then has to somehow remember to opt-out of. I'm over 2 hours so I can't return it.

Signalis is basically a pixel art resident evil 1/2/3 but with better camera views (front angled Top down, but with the occasional first-person view) for play style.  I like it  but it could be better. It suffers from a lot of cosmic horror media where it has to directly reference lovecraft's works & elements in needless ways.  You don't need to have things named after lovecraftian elements to go --> look here --> this is cosmic horror or cosmicism based.

[Jolien Reads 811]

I got a switch in December and am slowly getting back into games haha. I started with a lot of platformers like Mario (just finished Odyssey) and Crash Bandicoot, but now I recently got Zelda Breath of the Wild and Octopath traveller. I decided to focus on Zelda as main game for now and even though I've only been playing for 3 hours I really like it!

[A_FROG_IN_TIME 898]

I am playing a mix of Horizon Forbidden West, Blood Bowl 3, Football manager, Ghost Wire Tokyo and God of War Ragnarok.

But that is just not important at all because...

Holy Shit I have to play this when it comes out
 

 

[marissa-bailey 20]

Cyberpunk is sooo good! When it first came out, I played it four times all the way through lmao! Right now I've been playing mostly Valorant .

[chibipoe 296]

On 12/20/2022 at 9:08 PM, Steve said:

Well, since you put it that way...

So as a soloer I'd be able to do much of the content? Is there PvP?

Yes. As a soloer, you'd be able to do almost everything. Obviously, of course, there are situations where groups would be required(the most difficult content, for example). Pvp exists and they've got a pretty good variety of things you can do. Capture and hold points, escort pvp, etc.  They've been backfilling in how much stuff you can do solo with recent patches and updates, and overall, the community IS rather friendly and welcoming. Right at the moment, the things you can't do solo would tend to be 8 man encounters, or 24 man encounters, but even early on, 24 man encounters are very easy wrt margin for error, so if you enter the first one(every ten levels beginning at 50), you can just follow the group and attack things and be ok)

But anyway, yeah, you'll be able to do plenty solo. Heck, you can even decide(once introduced to it) that all you want to do is play minigames and never advance the story, if that is your desire. (some things DO require advancing the main story(consider it your gate that most content is locked behind(most, not all), but pvp unlocks for you before level cap, as does a bunch of things. 

 

Apologies for taking so long to respond!

 

Currently: Playing Metroid Prime on switch.

[Mr_Selfy 110]

On my channel I try and play as many indie horror games from itch.io or Steam - 'Sons of The Forest' has been released which is a First Person survival which looks interesting - would anyone be up for co-op with that?

@A_FROG_IN_TIME - Judas looks schweeet. Not sure if it'll recapture the 'ol BioShock feels for me though...

@marissa-bailey - I got Cyberpunk when it was initially released but with all the bugs and slow loading pop-ins, I got about half way through and DNF. Bit of a shame really - may need to go back to that with all the patches in the last year and see if there's been improvements. 

 

[A_FROG_IN_TIME 898]

2 hours ago, Mr_Selfy said:

On my channel I try and play as many indie horror games from itch.io or Steam - 'Sons of The Forest' has been released which is a First Person survival which looks interesting - would anyone be up for co-op with that?

@A_FROG_IN_TIME - Judas looks schweeet. Not sure if it'll recapture the 'ol BioShock feels for me though...

@marissa-bailey - I got Cyberpunk when it was initially released but with all the bugs and slow loading pop-ins, I got about half way through and DNF. Bit of a shame really - may need to go back to that with all the patches in the last year and see if there's been improvements. 

 

Nothing will ever match BioShock. 
I played it when it first came out and was completely blown away by it. 
I had the pleasure of hearing my partner play it a few years later, she had never played it before. She was upstairs on her PS4, I was in the lounge watching TV. Even the neighbours heard the exclamation of "YOU HAVD GOT TO BE FUCKING SHITTING ME" when she reached a certain reveal in the game... you know the one. 
"Would you Kindly?"

I need to watch your channel is there a link?

 

[Mr_Selfy 110]

Oh yeah - that was a head twisting moment. I know System Shock had a facelift and should be coming out sometime this month, so may have to give that one a whirl when it's released. 

Channel link: Horrorable - YouTube

Thanking you kindly 😉

[A_FROG_IN_TIME 898]

6 minutes ago, Mr_Selfy said:

Oh yeah - that was a head twisting moment. I know System Shock had a facelift and should be coming out sometime this month, so may have to give that one a whirl when it's released. 

Channel link: Horrorable - YouTube

Thanking you kindly 😉

youtube subscription number 27!

[marissa-bailey 20]

5 hours ago, Mr_Selfy said:

On my channel I try and play as many indie horror games from itch.io or Steam - 'Sons of The Forest' has been released which is a First Person survival which looks interesting - would anyone be up for co-op with that?

@A_FROG_IN_TIME - Judas looks schweeet. Not sure if it'll recapture the 'ol BioShock feels for me though...

@marissa-bailey - I got Cyberpunk when it was initially released but with all the bugs and slow loading pop-ins, I got about half way through and DNF. Bit of a shame really - may need to go back to that with all the patches in the last year and see if there's been improvements. 

 

I will say the bugs were AWFUL but there was just so much to do in the game that it kind of made up for it. I've heard it is way better now that they've released patches. I know, it was such a let down when it came out. I was also really looking forward to them adding a multiplayer feature and that never happened. 

[chibipoe 296]

Currently playing: Patch 6.4 of FFXIV. Also playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which is full of video game engineering sorcery. Upcoming: Final Fantasy XVI.

[Jozua B 181]

I have been rotating between The Division, WoW and Total War Warhammer 2. 

I'm hoping to play FF14 again this year to finish the Endwalker story 😉.

[chibipoe 296]

56 minutes ago, Jozua B said:

I have been rotating between The Division, WoW and Total War Warhammer 2. 

I'm hoping to play FF14 again this year to finish the Endwalker story 😉.

Endwalker is SO good and the post patch stuff has been spectacular. I'm *really* curious about what they're going to do with 7.0. Alas, gotta wait til July for hints, it seems.

[Jolien Reads 811]

Divinity original sin II! Not far in, purchased it yesterday but great so far

[A_FROG_IN_TIME 898]

We have switched to starwars battlefront 2 for our group shooter. It is the only shooter I am crap at but it keeps the MW2 haters quiet until they go to bed and we can switch.

Been back on Age of Empires 2 again.