[Khellendros]

I'll put another vote down for Morrowind. One of my favourite games of all. I got really deeply engrossed playing it (like 3pm to 3am playing sessions). There was nothing quite like it on consoles when it first came out. The actual main plot is completely forgettable, but the world building and lore is incredible, Plus the setting is so memorable - where Oblivion and Skyrim just have a more traditional fantasy setting feel to them, the island of Vvardenfell can be pretty weird - in a good way.

[Andorion]

Briar King, on 23 April 2016 - 01:10 AM, said:

Yep as I said he ll lose himself just reading all the in game books learning about everything. There's plenty of times I'd turn game on start reading and not play one bit for hrs at a time cause I was just reading.

There seem to be two manuals? One is fairly short, the other one is the length of a novel!

[Andorion]

Briar King, on 23 April 2016 - 01:48 AM, said:

Andorion, on 23 April 2016 - 01:14 AM, said:

Briar King, on 23 April 2016 - 01:10 AM, said:

Yep as I said he ll lose himself just reading all the in game books learning about everything. There's plenty of times I'd turn game on start reading and not play one bit for hrs at a time cause I was just reading.

There seem to be two manuals? One is fairly short, the other one is the length of a novel!

Yep. I get them every game. The one for the Skyrim GOTY is over 1100 pgs long! Your in for a massive treat playing Morrowind

BK, regarding the huge Morrowind GOTY manual, a lot of it seems to be maps? Surely I don't need to read it all? What portions should I read just to start and progress a bit?

And does Skyrim have a GOTY edition or a Legendary edition? This is confusing

[Mentalist]

Andorion, on 23 April 2016 - 02:26 AM, said:

Briar King, on 23 April 2016 - 01:48 AM, said:

Andorion, on 23 April 2016 - 01:14 AM, said:

Briar King, on 23 April 2016 - 01:10 AM, said:

Yep as I said he ll lose himself just reading all the in game books learning about everything. There's plenty of times I'd turn game on start reading and not play one bit for hrs at a time cause I was just reading.

There seem to be two manuals? One is fairly short, the other one is the length of a novel!

Yep. I get them every game. The one for the Skyrim GOTY is over 1100 pgs long! Your in for a massive treat playing Morrowind

BK, regarding the huge Morrowind GOTY manual, a lot of it seems to be maps? Surely I don't need to read it all? What portions should I read just to start and progress a bit?

And does Skyrim have a GOTY edition or a Legendary edition? This is confusing

Make sure to read about skills and your character's Attributes. if you plan on playing as a Mage, make sure to read about that.

Morrowind increases your skills based on what you do- if you run and jump a lot as you travel, your Acrobatics will go through the roof. If you start picking every plant, your Herbalism stat will grow, etc.
So it's kinda important to figure out just what you want to play as before you really do anything.

[WinterPhoenix]

I always loved the method of skill increase for Morrowind and Oblivion, the only issue I ever had (particularly with Oblivion as I played it a helluva lot more tbh) is that it brought out the very worst in powergamey OCD in me. Because the leveling in Oblivion can be fairly punishing if you simply level willy nilly, it always payed to be careful, but because I was being careful anyway, every single time I play the game I am like, 'well might as well get the best possible character I can' a master of all trades if you will. The thing is while some skills are piss easy to control (and thus, the best skills to pick as ones that contribute to leveling up) others are exceedingly difficult to keep a track of completely, athletics is a prime example! I mean it levels from simple movement for god sake :/

In the end I always seem to play Oblivion with a pen and paper, planning and writing down my skill ups to an exacting degree, so I always know I'm going to get max increase in 3 stats when I level up. Which basically means I nearly always end up playing it the same way, frankly I honestly start to feel uncomfortable the moment I deviate lol

I'm a bit powergamey anyhow, but I've never had it so bad in any other game

[WinterPhoenix]

Briar King, on 24 April 2016 - 02:37 AM, said:

And every time you jump or walk off a ledge(any downward motion) your Acro lvls up. The higher you fall it piles up exp. I would run and jump off roofs in Balmora at start to lvl up.

There's a great set of hills in Obivion at the bottom of which is a tavern (I forget the name, or indeed where on the map it is, it's been too long since I gave Obvlivion a good go) that is perfect for Acro levels, because you can almost choose freely exactly how far you fall, judging it accurately can get you easy ups right until the highest levels. Literally the only issue I ever had, was accidentally leveling up Athletics while I did it. In fact accidentally leveling Ath is the bane of my Oblivion experience lol

[Mentalist]

Finally got to put some solid time into Thief 3 last night.

Went exploring in the pagan tunnels. Prior to that discovered I can only have 25 water arrows at a time.

This "trying to accommodate for TPS" thang made FPS Garrett really clumsy. Making the initil approach basically linear with many un-extinguishable light sources and those floating wisps of light didn't help. Many quickloads lately I got to the actual sanctuary. Level design improves somewhat- the verticality helps it to not feel as cramped anymore.

Had to actually kill one of the Pagans, b/c monkey-paw ritual required some blood and Garrett wouldn't stab himself.

So now I got the paw, the 3 special loots, but I'm only @ 72% loot collected, a I need 90 to complete Expert. So this is where the backtracking starts.

I might just look for a LP to spot the missing stuff. Then it's probably off to fleece the Hammers.

[Maark Abbott]

More BlazBlue tonight.



I've been collecting replays of my matches against the feyting partner. It's interesting to see what works and what doesn't - when I'm playing Tager (excuse the scrubbiness, but we're neither of us particularly high level players) the general notion is that 720 will beat out most things. Turns out it won't beat out Planet Crusher.

I'm definitely getting better with Valiant Crash when playing Azrael - if I land a hit off of it I'm looking at about 3.5k raw (loop 6b four times, 6a on the last dash, then 3c, and you can meaty a Hornet Bunker if they try to neutral tech). I'm also putting more time into learning Celica, as she seems to have pretty good tools and her overall gameplan is much simpler than my main and other subs (Waifu (zoning with timed projectiles), Azrael (apply weakpoints) and Tager (get close and throw the shit out of them) respectively) - she's pretty balanced and has good tools for most situations.

[Aptorian]

I've been replaying the first Assassin's Creed game.

I've long maintained that AC1 is the best Assassin's Creed game. I had begun to wonder whether or not my memory of the game might have been tainted by nostalgia, but I am happy to say that the game is still phenomenal. Yeah, it's aged, there's been made considerable improvements, namely in animations and mechanics, but AC1 remains the best realized of the games I think.

There is a authenticity to the way the game starts, the relationships between Master and Assassin, the topics discussed, the way the characters argue. AC1 remains the only game that properly presents the hierarchy and behavior you would expect from a fanatical, ideological Assassin order. Your character isn't some Super-Assassin who runs an entire countries Assassin order, maintains a business empire, goes on business trips across the world, oversees a global spy ring, does all his intelligence gathering, does errands + runs around participating in races and games.

Altair is just a foot soldier. He has to do his own intelligence gathering as a punishment but all in all he takes his orders from superiors and reports his progress to superiors. He does his job and that it is it. I respect that character portrayal so much more than the Assassin Supermen of later games.

One thing I have noticed is that the game is a lot easier than I remember from when I played it originally. Granted, I was just getting back into video games when I played AC1 and I have played about 8 other AC games since. Navigating the city and fighting enemies is easier than I remember. It's still challenging because of the unpolished parkour and combat system but much easier than I remember. I recall being afraid of the Templar Knights that were scattered around the maps because they were so hard to fight. Now I am just walking up behind them and stabbing them or actually taking them on sword to sword.

I am looking forward to getting further into the game and seeing if the morally grey motivations of the characters persist.

This post has been edited by Apt: 29 April 2016 - 09:45 AM

[Morgoth]

The two first AC games where the only genuinely good ones in my opinion. AT that point the story telling was still fresh and interesting, and the plot actually seemed to be going somewhere.

[Aptorian]

Yeah. I really loved the conspiracy stuff. The conversations people are having about might and right is fascinating. There's a part of me, a big part, that thinks the Templars are actually the good guys in the AC series. The true believers, not the power hungry ones. The ones that are willing to make hard choices, cruel choices, knowing that in the long run, it will be better.

I just killed the surgeon Templar in the game earlier. He was hurting people, cutting into them to see how they work, drugging them, torturing them, yet his goal was to cure them. He was experimenting to find out how to cure insanity. He was basically a WW2 nazi doctor. And yet as Altair notes after he killed him... The doctor did save people. The people he treated and cured appreciated the doctor. The people he was experimenting on was the ill, the crippled, the poor, the unwanted. He was trying to help the people that the city had failed. The guy had actually some how healed mentally ill people (probably with some herbal zoloft).

Of course the man was a monster but his intentions were never evil. They were just ruthless. What would have happened if his work had continued? This is of course a cartoon scenario. In the real world, a medieval doctor wasn't going to cure mental illness, but in the Assassin's Creed universe maybe he would have. It would have cost thousands of lives but would the price had been worth it?

The scenario and the characters involved is so much better than the one dimensional villains of later games.

This post has been edited by Apt: 29 April 2016 - 01:11 PM

[Mentalist]

Only AC games I ever have any interest in trying at this point are the original (I own it on GOG), and possibly Black Flag, because open-world pirate simulator.

Beyond that, the series seems just too unwieldly for me to try to get into.

[Aptorian]

If you're playing 1 I'd recommend trying 2 or Brotherhood as well, since it's fascinating to see just how much they improved on the original game in terms of mechanics, environment design, cinematics, etc. in just 2 years.

I'd also make the unconventional recommendation of saying you should play AC: Unity. This is the game that seems to be universally panned, but it's mainly for the performance. In terms of progress I think Unity is the pennical of the series. The level of detail and splendor in Unity is just absurd. I almost feel like re-downloading Unity again, just to compare what the city of Damascus or Jerusalem looks like compared to Paris.

[Mentalist]

I'll take it under consideration, whenever I actually get to AC1.

[Tiste Simeon]

Yes Unity was beautiful. Visually stunning and the best parts were just wondering around and taking it in. But it was boring. I just couldn't get excited about it (still miles better than AC3 though.)

Syndicate, now that was fun. Truly enjoyable gameplay. I love the different ways of freeing the city, especially the child slave labour missions. I spent hours just hopping boats on the Thames and killing Templars. The only other game I had as much fun on in the series is Black Flag.

[Mentalist]

Used the holiday to make some progress in Thief 3
Ran through the next 4 missions, started the Clocktower.

Minor complaints are mounting. Why did Garrett forget how to swim? Since when is swimming insta-death? And the small levels... ugh. If they didn't have to split each mission into 2 maps, I would've been a decent game

City overlay and the faction stuff both seem like pretty pointless busywork. is too easy to max out good rep. Also, I bought a ton of equipment but I still have over 3k in money. That's prett broken.

Gonna see if I can get much further tomorrow.

[Gothos]

On topic for the Elder Scrolls: counting in availability for new players - sure, Skyrim is the better option. Overall, however, I have to throw my lot in with Morrowind as to which game offers a fuller, more immersive story and game experience. Feel free to use Skyrim as a stepping stone, but the real deal lies in that classic. Oblivion too, mind you - the game is a slight dip in quality of Elder Scrolls, but it still has its own numerous merits, chief among them being the best faction storyline ever for the Dark Brotherhood.

Assassin's Creed 1 is just as bad, boring and pointless as Assassin's Creed 2. Never bothered to play any other title of the series after these two.
I also blame these games' popularity for the butchering they did to my beloved Thief in the rebewt. It's almost like an AC reskin.

Mentalist: Thief DS is on many levels a worse game than its predecessors (still kinda superior to that modern abomination), but the game is most certainly worth overlooking the annoying things like the disappearance of rope arrows, omnipotent leaning against walls, tiny levels and crippled exploration. The Town (as it should be called) is a waste of time as you've noticed already... but I'll say - stick with it through to the end (or at least near the end). There's one mission that will make it all worth it.


As for me, last few months were either EU4, Witcher 3 and Elite: Dangerous - if I get time to play.
I did pick up HoMM3 HD - it's decent, though I guess it's better to go for the HD mod instead as it actually covers the expansions.
I played XCOM2 for a bit after release but it's really just a goddamn reskin of the first game, so fuck that. Maybe with some mods it'll be more fun. They really dropped the ball with the stealth mechanics (ok so I killed that entire patrol on offensive overwatch - WHY AM I NOT BACK IN FUCKING STEALTH, GAME?! Also, if I'm supposed to plan ambushes - WHY IS EVERY GODDAMN MISSION ON A FUCKING TIMER?!). I feel a rather wasted 50 EUR.
I've used an opportunity to get Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void for the price of one. Playing a bit of HotS campaign to see how things play out on my own.
I've had the urge to also use my Homeworld Remastered to replay Homeworld 1 instead of the mediocre 2 - may do that as well in the near future.
Of the games awaiting first launch that I just have to play - there's Alien: Isolation and Fallout 4 (a discount already? thanks, Gaben!). Got to find time for those too.

[WinterPhoenix]

I still feel that Oblivion is the best game Bethesda have ever made, Skyrim is far easier to get into, but Oblivion is demonstrably the better RPG experience, and it always felt more polished than Morrowind for me. That having been said, I'll add the caveats that I never played Morrowind half as much, still haven't ever finished the main questline and I've only ever played Bethesda games on console, so I cannot incorporate mods and such into my opinions. Oblivion with Skyrim's production values would probably be my favourite game of all time, or very close for sure. I mean sure the main questline is not really anything special, typical good/evil fair, but the wealth of fantastic sidequests and great faction quests (especially Brotherhood and Thieve's Guild) just blows Skyrim out of the water. I will have to give Morrowind another go soon, though I only have a crappy laptop, probably not capable of playing it, even as old as it is.

EDIT: I've sunk SOOOOOOO many hours of my life into HoMM3, in fact I think only Civ and perhaps Mario Kart can really come close to the hours I must've put into that. As it is, yeah I'd agree the HD Mod is far better than the the HD version on steam and such. The biggest annoyance I ever found is that after my original disk became scratched beyond repair, I only have access to the complete edition I used a friends disk to install and have kept on a USB for years. The thing is, it looses a few of the base scenarios over the original, which is annoying as hell. Myth and Legend specifcically is one that I love, in the end I found it as a standalone download on some polish site.

This post has been edited by WinterPhoenix: 02 May 2016 - 04:15 PM

[Morgoth]

HoMM3 is one of the best games ever made. I played a lot of it, a lot when I was a kid, and when I went to law school my flat mate and I played HoMM3 every hangover-day. There's a lot of depth to that game, and the graphic, the way they designed it, makes it surprisingly timeless.

Terrible balance though. A battle between Fortress and Castle, for instance, is a forgone conclusion even if the Fortress player is in a superior position.

This post has been edited by Morgoth: 03 May 2016 - 06:01 AM

[WinterPhoenix]

Morgoth, on 03 May 2016 - 05:59 AM, said:

HoMM3 is one of the best games ever made. I played a lot of it, a lot when I was a kid, and when I went to law school my flat mate and I played HoMM3 every hangover-day. There's a lot of depth to that game, and the graphic, the way they designed it, makes it surprisingly timeless.

Terrible balance though. A battle between Fortress and Castle, for instance, is a forgone conclusion even if the Fortress player is in a superior position.

Was always partial to the Rampart myself. But yeah certain dwellings were simply not good enough compared to others, Fortress and the swamp one chief among them, always hated the Tower as well, every unit was so expensive. There are fan made mods, including a whole expansion that strive to balance out the game a whole lot better than the original.