Any gamers around here?

[Solitary]

A new video for the Witcher 3 was recently released. I'm super stoked:

Writer posted a YouTube video

Ter rific looking graphics! Thanks

[Nonsensei]

Anyone played the refurbished ff14? I skipped the preorder early access because I was wary of being burned. I can't seem to find any trustworthy reviews of it.

http://www.finalfantasyxiv.com/

[GrinningYMIR]

Yeah Solitary, most people who have played Mass Effect would agree that ME3 had an ending undeserving of the series, Shepard always found a way to survive, he would have found a way to live there as well. Combined with the complete nonsense of the Crucible and the Catalyst, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

I still like the series though, even been playing a complete playthrough recently.

And coincidentally enough, my original xbox red ringed the day after I beat ME3, the original version without the extended ending. I guess it was so bad my xbox lost the will to live

[Solitary]

Maybe that's why my graphic cards gave up the ghost too.    Solitary

[Jutter]

Hopefully this will be like LOD was to D2 (or at least as awesome as I remember it being). I'll still buy it like the Blizzard sheep I am, even if it ends up being another let down.

I really don't think it can be the D3 LoD. D2 was an alright game. It suffered from a lack of features and content but the foundation was there right from the beginning. All that was needed to push it from good to great was a shot in the arm with a couple new classes, a well polished new area, new items, etc. LoD fit the bill nicely.

D3's problems run much deeper. The entire economic aspect of the game is deeply flawed. The scarcity of decent items is intentionally severe so as to facilitate large RMAH sales. People wanting to experience D3 as a fully geared max level character have a choice of either farming for months and months or spending real money. This largely destroys what most appeals to a lot of dungeon crawler RPG fans - the possibility of getting a really fucking awesome drop. The chance still exists in D3, but it is much lower than either of its predecessors. Even if you get a highly valuable drop, theres a good chance it has shitty rolls. A popular weapon like Echoing Fury can roll with 1320 base DPS or as little as 680. It can roll with a socket or with increased health globe healing. And it seems like the stat rolls are skewed to generally be shitty.

Finding awesome gear is much harder and until they fix that, in a game where the primary activity is finding items, no amount of additional content and features will be enough to make the game palatable for me.

The frequency at which I find (or receive :)) items that improve on my current loadout sofar doesn't seem lower than in previous Diablo installments. Once I passed paragonlevel 10 I started finding legendaries and set-items daily, and sofar those've always sold. And earning gold that way, that I can ultimately spend on equipment geared even more towards my needs, my odds even feel improved compared to Diablo 2 (nevermind the cheats-ridden original Diablo). And I don't mind that I can't profitably solo beyond Inferno Monsterlevel 2 yet, because on Inferno at monsterlevel 2 things are mighty entertaining. And should I find gear that makes monsterlevel 2 a drag, there are 8 more monsterlevels to go.

If there's a point where the game's supposed to feel ruined to me, I'm yet to reach it.

[Sal1981]

A Beta LP by Jesse Cox of the game Shadow Warrior:

[youtube:13tdp1sp]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc1TwXiBvTA[/youtube:13tdp1sp]

It looks fun.

[Nonsensei]

Hopefully this will be like LOD was to D2 (or at least as awesome as I remember it being). I'll still buy it like the Blizzard sheep I am, even if it ends up being another let down.

I really don't think it can be the D3 LoD. D2 was an alright game. It suffered from a lack of features and content but the foundation was there right from the beginning. All that was needed to push it from good to great was a shot in the arm with a couple new classes, a well polished new area, new items, etc. LoD fit the bill nicely.

D3's problems run much deeper. The entire economic aspect of the game is deeply flawed. The scarcity of decent items is intentionally severe so as to facilitate large RMAH sales. People wanting to experience D3 as a fully geared max level character have a choice of either farming for months and months or spending real money. This largely destroys what most appeals to a lot of dungeon crawler RPG fans - the possibility of getting a really fucking awesome drop. The chance still exists in D3, but it is much lower than either of its predecessors. Even if you get a highly valuable drop, theres a good chance it has shitty rolls. A popular weapon like Echoing Fury can roll with 1320 base DPS or as little as 680. It can roll with a socket or with increased health globe healing. And it seems like the stat rolls are skewed to generally be shitty.

Finding awesome gear is much harder and until they fix that, in a game where the primary activity is finding items, no amount of additional content and features will be enough to make the game palatable for me.

The frequency at which I find (or receive :)) items that improve on my current loadout sofar doesn't seem lower than in previous Diablo installments. Once I passed paragonlevel 10 I started finding legendaries and set-items daily, and sofar those've always sold. And earning gold that way, that I can ultimately spend on equipment geared even more towards my needs, my odds even feel improved compared to Diablo 2 (nevermind the cheats-ridden original Diablo). And I don't mind that I can't profitably solo beyond Inferno Monsterlevel 2 yet, because on Inferno at monsterlevel 2 things are mighty entertaining. And should I find gear that makes monsterlevel 2 a drag, there are 8 more monsterlevels to go.

If there's a point where the game's supposed to feel ruined to me, I'm yet to reach it.

Then you've yet to reach it. My PL59 wizard reached it though. There comes a point, far earlier than PL59 where upgrades become very rare permutations of very rare items. All at once you find that nothing that drops is an upgrade for you, and the stuff you do find doesn't sell for as much as it seemed to before because your next upgrade costs 2 billion gold on the ah.

Stuff was almost as rare in D2, but the big difference was that you could do the hardest stuff in the game without the best gear in the game. Getting the best gear in D2 made you a BADASS. In D3 getting the best gear in the game makes you barely able to do the hardest stuff, and only then with great effort and patience.

There was also a much lower ratio of totally worthless items. In D3 literally 99.9% of everything that drops is utter trash. In D3 it was closer to 95%, which meant you could pretty much depend on at least one thing dropping that was at least stash worthy per run.

[Plu]

So this weekend was Ludum Dare, and although I only have 7 out of the available 48 hours available, I still managed to make a game :D

If anyone cares to try it for a few minutes and leave a rating, I'd really appreciate. (They're anonymous so just be fair :P)

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-da ... &uid=26189

[Nonsensei]

FINAL FANTASY 14 LOG

Level: 6
Time played: 1 hour 20 mins

Game is extremely basic. Only gained 2 abilities over the last 6 levels, and they are actually fairly bad. As a thaumaturge i have an ice attack, a fire attack and a lightning attack. The ice and fire attacks seem to do the same damage and stack the same buff effect with repeat casts, but for some odd reason the fire attack costs a huge amount of mana more than the ice attack. The lightning attack is a DoT that deals damage that can only be described as trivial. I am unfamiliar with the game mechanics but I am becoming worried that the most significant factor in whether or not you win a battle is your target's level in relation to your own. That would be extremely boring, trivializing things like strategy, abilities and equipment.

The questing has been mundane. The first 20 minutes of your experience with FF14 is taken up by seemingly endless cutscenes and text reading. The cutscenes and text are not very entertaining. The dialog is made for little kids. There is nothing about a greater plot in the game. It seems your primary objective is to become a badass hero. Why? Because its cool!

And to embark on that journey toward being a powerful if superfluous hero, you must complete a large series of delivery quests. It isn't until level 3 or 4 that you finally venture outside the walls of the completely safe city and actually engage in combat. Even then it is with fluffly little field animals that couldn't possibly oppose you. Blasting a bunny rabbit with flames is, apparently, the first step toward legendary heroism.

So far this game is not worth the 30 dollars I spent on it.

This post will be updated as I play more. If things don't gwet better by level 20 I will quit.

[GrinningYMIR]

How about StarCraft? Anyone here play that, and if you do what race do you pick? I prefer Terran, but I've won with zerg as well.

Haven't done much multiplayer, but if anyone wants to try I'm sure i'll have some free time after school now. First year of college so I don't know what to expect.

Except for having my ex in most of my classes, that I expected. Murhpy's law right?

[Shiranu]

I use to play SC1 & 2. Protoss & Terran were more races. Unfortunately I am on a piss poor computer for games like that, so don't play them anymore.

Warcraft 3 was always my favourite of the -Craft series though.

[Agramon]

I've never stuck with SC PvP long enough to develop the required micro skills, so I always get my ass kicked once I break out of bronze (unless I can cheese win with a marine/marauder rush).

I usually never play zerg. Something about that play style just feels... weird. /shrug

[Hydra009]

How about StarCraft? Anyone here play that, and if you do what race do you pick? I prefer Terran, but I've won with zerg as well.

Protoss ftw.  But I really only played Brood War at length.  My crowning achievement was using the map editor and a bunch of scripts, I created a 0-player game where 2v2 computer players duke it out.  All you have is a lone invulnerable Observer neutral to all computer players and you win whenever any of them do.  Wasn't the most amazing thing in the world, but it made for a nice screensaver.

But I'm not much of a fan of micro RTS (and thus not the -crafts) and Starcraft 1's unit selection limit was infuriating.

I greatly prefer RTS games with squads as opposed to lone soldiers (Dawn of War, Company of Heroes, Total War), enough AI to fight decently on their own without much micro (Sins of a Solar Empire), and failing all that, massive battles (Total War, Sins, Supreme Commander)

[Plu]

I used to play a lot of multiplayer StarCraft II, managed to get up to Diamond League for single and random team.

I always play Random because it makes for more interesting games.

[GrinningYMIR]

I need to just try multiplayer, maybe when the hard difficulty campaign stops beating me i'll do a few matches.

And I liked Dawn of war a lot, fun game but buggy. I remember one mission in particular in the original campaign where the whirlwinds wouldn't fire, they'd just sit there beeping.

Warcraft 3 was fun too, but the AI was killer in that one, took forever to beat the campaign on the upper difficulties. (Also main healed a raid guild in wow, but I stopped playing for a while in June)

In the end I just like RTS, anything from Aoe to Army men to StarCraft, I enjoy them all.

Except halo wars, I prefer using a keyboard to a joystick for RTS