Any gamers around here?

[Cavebear]

I used to play Civ2 BIMD, my favorite wonders are also the few first one you can build. Mainly the Pyramids and the Oracle.

After a few months, I discovered that other players deliberately played some games just to see how useful some units were, how useful some Wonders were, and how useful some city structures were.  Some of us can to different conclusions (some were attackers and some were builders/defenders) but there were some general conclusions.  Wonders (costing a lot of shields or gold) had great differences.   The best Wonders were ones that lasted, that provided multi-city benefits, and provided either food or science.  Oracle was not judged to be worth much.

But hey, anyone can have a favorite and if you you any of the well, they do have value.  Though, if we were competing, I would be pleased to see you building Oracle.  One exception is when you are building a weak Wonder expecting to get the ability to build a better one after a soon-to-be-discovered advance.  It can give a headstart on the good one.

[Blackleaf]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68uUeZGppXw

[Mike Cl]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68uUeZGppXw

I am teased!  Look forward!

[Hydra009]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68uUeZGppXw

Blessings of the moons upon you, traveller.

[Hydra009]

Speaking of, Skywind is coming along nicely as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf8lMMpFIDU

[Blackleaf]

Speaking of, Skywind is coming along nicely as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf8lMMpFIDU

Honestly, Skywind is the project I care more about, but it seems like it'll take significantly longer to finish. Morrowind was my first Elder Scrolls game, and I still have a fondness for it. After I finish my Skyrim playthrough, I'll probably return to Morrowind again.

[Mike Cl]

Honestly, Skywind is the project I care more about, but it seems like it'll take significantly longer to finish. Morrowind was my first Elder Scrolls game, and I still have a fondness for it. After I finish my Skyrim playthrough, I'll probably return to Morrowind again.

I'm following the progress of that myself.  And Morrowind was my first game of that type--and I still go back to in every now and again. 

[aileron]

I got it to work:

<image snipped]

As long as we're talking VMs and emulation, let's not forget MAME, VICE, and UAE. Somewhere on a planet of seven billion people someone preserved your favorite 8/16 bit game disk or ROM in one of those formats.

https://www.mamedev.org/index.php
http://vice-emu.sourceforge.net/
http://www.winuae.net/

[Hijiri Byakuren]

Been playing around in No Man's Sky: Beyond for awhile now. I actually skipped the past three updates on account of Skyrim addiction, so I'm experiencing everything from NEXT onward for the first time. And let me tell you right now, I think this game in its current state is just about everything I've ever wanted in a science fiction exploration game.

I chose to restart since many of the resources have changed, and right now I'm getting through the initial grind of base building. I still have to use my starship to get anywhere quickly, but thankfully I was able to unlock an upgrade early on that passively recharges the launch thruster, and fuel is simple enough to come by now compared to the old days. NPCs move, and you can customize your appearance at a little booth on every space station. Many quality-of-life additions have been made, such as previously-met NPCs being marked as "visited" when you mouse over them, or being able to pick what type of word you want to learn from them.

The Space Anomaly is now a multiplayer hub and contains tech merchants and team missions, as well as a customization booth and a special teleporter that can take you to the base of any other player with you in the Anomaly in addition to all the normal things teleporters do. You can only be in a session with 32 people at a time on PC (or 8 at a time on PS4), but since hundreds of people are accessing the Anomaly at any given time the place is pretty much guaranteed to be packed anytime you visit. Players can directly give items to each other now, which in some places has resulted in a rudimentary economy developing.

No Man's Sky has had player-formed "civilizations" almost since it was released. They started as groups of people wanting to catalogue certain areas of space, but as the updates keep coming they've grown into something of a proper force; the first "war" actually predates the addition of PvP combat, oddly enough. Thanks to the Anomaly allowing instant teleportation to the base of anyone present, some of these "civilizations" are bustling with almost as much activity as the Anomaly itself. Some people in the Galactic Hub have set up restaurants -like actual fucking restaurants- because another thing added in NMS Beyond was actual food.

Apparently you can also have a fleet now in addition to your freighter, but I'm not far enough in yet to even have a freighter, much less its escort. One thing I do know since it was a thing back in Atlas Rises is that once you have a freighter, you can use it as a garage for your one-man starships; also yeah, you can own more than one starship, which is nice seeing as there's quite a few different types. You've got fighters which have stats suitable for dogfighting, haulers which are slow and have a ton of cargo slots, shuttles which are sort of a compromise between those two, and explorers which use less launch fuel and have more efficient hyperdrives. There are also exotics, which are better at everything except cargo slots, of which they have the fewest.

It's been a fun ride so far, and I'm looking forward to unlocking the rest of the tools available to really experience the world of No Man's Sky.

[Mike Cl]

Been playing around in No Man's Sky: Beyond for awhile now. I actually skipped the past three updates on account of Skyrim addiction, so I'm experiencing everything from NEXT onward for the first time. And let me tell you right now, I think this game in its current state is just about everything I've ever wanted in a science fiction exploration game.

I chose to restart since many of the resources have changed, and right now I'm getting through the initial grind of base building. I still have to use my starship to get anywhere quickly, but thankfully I was able to unlock an upgrade early on that passively recharges the launch thruster, and fuel is simple enough to come by now compared to the old days. NPCs move, and you can customize your appearance at a little booth on every space station. Many quality-of-life additions have been made, such as previously-met NPCs being marked as "visited" when you mouse over them, or being able to pick what type of word you want to learn from them.

The Space Anomaly is now a multiplayer hub and contains tech merchants and team missions, as well as a customization booth and a special teleporter that can take you to the base of any other player with you in the Anomaly in addition to all the normal things teleporters do. You can only be in a session with 32 people at a time on PC (or 8 at a time on PS4), but since hundreds of people are accessing the Anomaly at any given time the place is pretty much guaranteed to be packed anytime you visit. Players can directly give items to each other now, which in some places has resulted in a rudimentary economy developing.

No Man's Sky has had player-formed "civilizations" almost since it was released. They started as groups of people wanting to catalogue certain areas of space, but as the updates keep coming they've grown into something of a proper force; the first "war" actually predates the addition of PvP combat, oddly enough. Thanks to the Anomaly allowing instant teleportation to the base of anyone present, some of these "civilizations" are bustling with almost as much activity as the Anomaly itself. Some people in the Galactic Hub have set up restaurants -like actual fucking restaurants- because another thing added in NMS Beyond was actual food.

Apparently you can also have a fleet now in addition to your freighter, but I'm not far enough in yet to even have a freighter, much less its escort. One thing I do know since it was a thing back in Atlas Rises is that once you have a freighter, you can use it as a garage for your one-man starships; also yeah, you can own more than one starship, which is nice seeing as there's quite a few different types. You've got fighters which have stats suitable for dogfighting, haulers which are slow and have a ton of cargo slots, shuttles which are sort of a compromise between those two, and explorers which use less launch fuel and have more efficient hyperdrives. There are also exotics, which are better at everything except cargo slots, of which they have the fewest.

It's been a fun ride so far, and I'm looking forward to unlocking the rest of the tools available to really experience the world of No Man's Sky.

Thanks for the review.  I've been toying around with giving this a try.  It's in my wishlist.  Does one have to play multiplayer or can one be successful solo?  I am not fond at all, of playing any game multiplayer. (A holdover from the Diablo II ladder games)  It does look good. 

[Hijiri Byakuren]

Thanks for the review.  I've been toying around with giving this a try.  It's in my wishlist.  Does one have to play multiplayer or can one be successful solo?  I am not fond at all, of playing any game multiplayer. (A holdover from the Diablo II ladder games)  It does look good. 

No Man's Sky is balanced with the assumption that you will be going solo 100% of the time that you play. Also, unless you intentionally seek people out or find yourself in one of the "civilized" star systems, you are basically never going to encounter anyone by accident. 99.99% of the time when you see another player, it's going to be inside of the Space Anomaly, because it can be accessed from anywhere.

You can turn multiplayer off, although personally I think you'd miss out on some neat moments (namely the contrast between lonely exploration and the bustling Anomaly town). There are ways to take out the danger, namely by turning off PvP so that you can neither shoot other players nor be shot at by them. You can have a multiplayer experience that entirely consists of "look, but don't touch" if you really want.

Oh and before you ask: the Anomaly is one of the game's many no-combat zones. You can't even draw your weapon, much less attack, so you're perfectly safe in there despite being surrounded by unpredictable humans. ;)

[Blackleaf]

No Man's Sky is balanced with the assumption that you will be going solo 100% of the time that you play. Also, unless you intentionally seek people out or find yourself in one of the "civilized" star systems, you are basically never going to encounter anyone by accident. 99.99% of the time when you see another player, it's going to be inside of the Space Anomaly, because it can be accessed from anywhere.

You can turn multiplayer off, although personally I think you'd miss out on some neat moments (namely the contrast between lonely exploration and the bustling Anomaly town). There are ways to take out the danger, namely by turning off PvP so that you can neither shoot other players nor be shot at by them. You can have a multiplayer experience that entirely consists of "look, but don't touch" if you really want.

Oh and before you ask: the Anomaly is one of the game's many no-combat zones. You can't even draw your weapon, much less attack, so you're perfectly safe in there despite being surrounded by unpredictable humans. ;)

I saw that the game was 50% off, and decided to get it. It's cool that they've added all this stuff with meaty free updates. A less dignified developer would have either abandoned the game after the awful launch, or charged players for DLC to make the game not suck. *Cough* EA *cough*.

[Hydra009]

Also, unless you intentionally seek people out or find yourself in one of the "civilized" star systems, you are basically never going to encounter anyone by accident.

So basically, Greenland: the game

[Hijiri Byakuren]

So basically, Greenland: the game

More like Antarctica. There are settlements, but they're either abandoned or full of penguins.

[Blackleaf]

Well, one of the main appeals of the game is the huge universe of stars and planets you can visit. If you pick a random star and go there, there's a good chance you're the first one there. I believe you can even name the planets and wildlife you discover.