What video games have you been playing V: the return of the subtitle

[Spidernova]

What class did you take? The Sorceror packs enough power to shoot down all the low level nasties until you find your feet, though you'll have to explore a whole bunch throughout the game to keep yourself in new spells and to find trainers.
The Warrior begins with a shield with 100% physical protection, so he is a good option for a nice simple "block and punish" playstyle.

The place you're in is Firelink Shrine and forms a sort of hub for much of the game. That NPC you met generally has good ideas and advice for your current situation, though he rambles a whole bunch. Father Bowlcut in the ruined church sells priest spells. There is a secret area in the ruins that holds a mace and a holy talisman (used for casting Priest spells) if you look hard enough.

There are actually three exits from Firelink Shrine. The ghost place is New Londo and is a high level, endgame area. But at the elevators exit there are a few things of interest including a blacksmith NPC and an estoc (sort of a rapier on steroids) stashed in one of the clay jars.

Behind the church ruins is a Graveyard and the entrance to the Catacombs, a mid-level area. The Graveyard is Not A Nice Place but does have some decent loot if you're fast with your hands and feet.

The aqueduct is what you want. Yes, the hollow soldiers on it kill you in three hits, but thats the norm until you find metal armor and invest in some health. They're good training dummies for learning the combat system. Block and punish works great. Baiting out a long move, then stepping around them and back stabbing is cheeky and effective. Practice dodging under their strikes if you want. When you're a cursed immortal you can afford to take your time and make all the mistakes you can think of.

Ok, that does explain what I was going on. I was heading into the graveyard.

 

[Lohrenswald]

Not to the same degree. Kickstarter and early access releases have made more genres commercially viable, or at least got some few gems released among the dross.

I dunno, kickstarter and early access just seems like a pile of garbage

and it doesn't seem to me like there's more diversity in games now than 5 years ago or whenever dark souls came out

btw I'm still playing skyrim. It feels like I play the game unoptimally. It's taken me a long time to get some of the neater stufff I think would be better to have earlier. And I've often gotten rather badly hurt, so it seems like I'm missing something in terms of defensive play.

 

[Kyriakos]

Hm, well, it's not likely you would see dark/brooding games to this degree, without indie producers through crowdfunding.

I mean in the old days, computer software companies got games banned due to far less gore/madness (eg Harvester ). Now there are games like Downfall and Cat Lady, by a person with an eastern-european sounding surname, who named his own company as... "Harvester games" Pure win imo.

I haven't yet researched which crowdfunding site(s) i will use for my own project.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

If true, that brings Ubisoft's level of laziness to a whole new level. I'm fine with them reusing audio and basic art assets, but at least make a new map.

Given how long it took for people to realise it was the same map, I'm happy to say they put enough effort into it.

I'm actually more offended at the art assets being re-used rather than the map. The world is huge and absent the buildings/structures, it's very unlikely I'd remember much of it if I played through it. It is a very good, detailed map after all and is downright enormous.

But still, it's pretty lazy that they did this and as I've said before, I suspect all of the character models have been re-used (with different skin tones - they did this for FC3/FC4) and all of the non-extinct animal species to use essentially the exact same models as well.

 

[Snerk]

What will be announced first, Civ6 or TES6?

 

[gay_Aleks]

Civ6, obviously. TES6 will be, most likely announced at 2018-2019, while Bethesda cools off with their FO4 DLCs and what-not. Civ5 was, in comparison, released in 2010. Furthermore, XCOM2 was recently released, and while they're probably planning DLCs, as well, Firaxis probably will have more staff to develop Civ6.

 

[Daw]

TES6 must re-introduce the Morrowind spell creating system, or it's a deal breaker to me. I've been missing it so much all that time...

 

[Senethro]

TES6 must re-introduce the Morrowind spell creating system, or it's a deal breaker to me. I've been missing it so much all that time...

Except magic was bad and very difficult to make a viable mage without extensive modding. Was easier to play as a pure Enchanter and put all your favorite magic spells from all schools on shiny trinkets.

 

[Daw]

I didn't try to play as a pure mage, I admit, but I can't remember anything bad about magic there...

Anyway, my rave was specifically about the possibility the player had to create own spells by playing with Effect (what the spell does), Target (on self, on target, on area of <size>), Application (on self, on touch, at a distance of <range>), and Duration as variables.

The only limits were seemingly the player's imagination and the character's mana threshold.

I've never seen another game that would allow a player to create a spell he would never be able to cast because it's impossible to have that much mana the spell requires. It is totally impractical, I agree, but as an atmospheric feature it is really lovable. And it also facilitates and encourages creative playing.

And I'd love to see it in a future game.

 

[Snerk]

Civ6, obviously..

Obviously? Obviously???

Yeah alright I can see that.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Hey, you can't have your two cash-cows competing with each other. Give 'em time to rest, and what-not.

 

[jackelgull]

I really hope they drop the UPT from Civ5, it wasn't a good mechanic, and it unnecessarily slowed the game down. I miss being able to have more than one worker working on the same improvement.

 

[gay_Aleks]

I think, that the idea of UPT isn't bad - it's just suffering from poor execution. Had Firaxis executed it properly, with 5-units-per-tile (for an example), it wouldn't overshadow the good features that Civ5 had.

 

[Snerk]

/Queue four pages of Snerk and Tolni arguing over Iupt vs SoD.

 

[Oruc]

I've been playing Age of Decadence lately it was a pretty fun experience especially replaying as a different class/faction and watching things play out from different perspective, text heavy game though I imagine that turns off a lot of people.

First game I was mercenary hired to protect a merchant who was renting a room at the inn, he took a few guests and I ended up dozing off but my perception was high enough to be woken by a thief I chased him away and told the merchant what happened. But while I'm talking an assassin comes in the window and puts a crossbow bolt in the merchant, then i charge him and end up dying (I reloaded of course).
Next game I was the assassin, killed the mercenary and eventually ended up in bloodbath at the local imperial garrison in an attempt to stop a coup.

But I also had the choice of betraying my fellow assassins so I decided to see what that was like, I killed my fellow guildmate but the legion commander treat me like crap (because I was a disloyal backstabbing assassin) and I had to take out assassin guild on my own to prove myself (the promised backup didn't arrive). Then I was told to deal with the local lord but I managed to get them both to agree to a deal where the legion would back the lord as the new Emperor.
My mercenary on the other hand joined the Legion and took part in the coup and helped kill the Lord to secure Legion control of the town.

While when I played as a member of the Commercium I found out we were the ones who put out the hit on the merchant at the beginning and put the hit on the legion commander after finding out he had staged attacks on caravans while blaming the lord as incompetent as a pretext for the coup. This time no assassin survived while before I had managed to save some. The surviving legionaries were given the options join the lords men or die.
I could've taken an offer from the 'thieves guild' at one point (I don't remember the name but that's what they were) that they would help find out what the legion was doing and planning if I signed a document promising to help them and that they would help my advance my career, I don't know how that would play out.
This stuff continues right through the game, you have meaningful interaction with someone in one playthrough that you'll never talk too in another.

I'm wondering if I should try out the other starting points. Loremaster, thief, drifter, grifter and praetor three of those sound like they should offer quite a different experience.

 

[gay_Aleks]

/Queue four pages of Snerk and Tolni arguing over Iupt vs SoD.

Three of them would be calling each other shills.

 

[jackelgull]

I think, that the idea of UPT isn't bad - it's just suffering from poor execution. Had Firaxis executed it properly, with 5-units-per-tile (for an example), it wouldn't overshadow the good features that Civ5 had.

I don't know, there's just something supremely satisfying about building a stack of doom and smashing it into a city until either the stack breaks, or the city breaks. Also, AI can handle stacks of doom better than a limited number of units per tile, and the diminished effort and focus needed to make the stack work means that the developers may possibly focus on improving other aspects of the game.

 

[gay_Aleks]

I don't know, there's just something supremely satisfying about building a stack of doom and smashing it into a city until either the stack breaks, or the city breaks. Also, AI can handle stacks of doom better than a limited number of units per tile, and the diminished effort and focus needed to make the stack work means that the developers may possibly focus on improving other aspects of the game.

I think, that on release, Civ6 shouldn't have MP, and instead MP should be released with a DLC, if we're going that way. How much better would things be if that happened with some games...

 

[Arakhor]

Don't you mean that it should be released with MP functionality only, with SP functions as a Day 90 DLC?

 

[gay_Aleks]

Not really. Edited post to bring clarity.