What games are you playing now?

Originally Posted by sakichop
Yeah, I get that. I don’t have a problem with it going up really. It’s less than $10/ mo. Right now and if it gets to a price I find unacceptable I simply won’t renew. No biggie.

EA access is for consoles I belief. I have origin access for pc which is much cheaper, about 25 euro per year (2 euro per month?), so definitely a steal. I already cancelled it so I won't forgot by the end, but seeing there are coming some new good games on it every 2 months I might reconsider.

Originally Posted by ilm
EA access is for consoles I belief. I have origin access for pc which is much cheaper, about 25 euro per year (2 euro per month?), so definitely a steal. I already cancelled it so I won't forgot by the end, but seeing there are coming some new good games on it every 2 months I might reconsider.

I have ea premier for pc, it’s $99/yr ( in US) and currently has 138 titles to choose from.

Right that's the new thing they introduced last month. Seems the difference is that also the recent EA games will be included. It seems you will be playing anthem before anyone else

Got rid of the crashes in Skyrim - I think (crosses fingers) - and I'm having a ton of fun.

I've been very strict with mods this time - and I started over so I'm sure the save game isn't corrupted, and I've had to accept not adding anything else mid-game.

Still, I do use quite a few of the most important mods.

Ordinator is the most important one. This mod makes progression absolutely fantastic by adding 400 meaningful perks - and with Wildcat/Survival/Master seems to be a decent challenge. Well, at least until I inevitably break the power curve.

It's a bitch to balance archery in games like this. Same was true in KCD - where it's clearly overpowered under several circumstances.

Sneak tools is a fantastic addition for stealth characters, as it adds Thief-like stuff including water arrows and "slit throat" assassinations, etc.

Also, SkyUI+ImmersiveHUD is a great combination for total immersion, because you literally have no HUD unless it's relevant, and when it IS relevant - only what's necessary is visible. It's also a breeze in terms of sorting and managing your inventory. I love the feature of holding down a key to make the compass visible - because it encourages the no-HUD standard.

Convenient Horses is very involved and an amazing addition for the horse gameplay. You can do stuff like interact with NPCs while on horse, loot and harvest on horse - dismount quickly and so forth.

For visual mods, beyond the standard texture mods - I found a mod that makes plants and trees positively beautiful. Much better than SFO (sorry, vurt!) - and I'm also using the Verdant grass mod, which makes grass much more dense and realistic.

Lots of little things that all add up to make the game very pretty and immersive indeed, and it's still running like a dream.

I think I will be immersed in this for a while - and hopefully KCD will get another patch and perhaps a little more content in the next month or so. It would be a perfect game for my vacation.

Morrowind had all sorts of ways to speed up travel. My favorite was creating constant effect rings of speed and flying. Still had to deal with cliff racers…

Originally Posted by Darth Tagnan
Got rid of the crashes in Skyrim - I think (crosses fingers) - and I'm having a ton of fun.

I've been very strict with mods this time - and I started over so I'm sure the save game isn't corrupted, and I've had to accept not adding anything else mid-game.

Still, I do use quite a few of the most important mods.

Ordinator is the most important one. This mod makes progression absolutely fantastic by adding 400 meaningful perks - and with Wildcat/Survival/Master seems to be a decent challenge. Well, at least until I inevitably break the power curve.

It's a bitch to balance archery in games like this. Same was true in KCD - where it's clearly overpowered under several circumstances.

Sneak tools is a fantastic addition for stealth characters, as it adds Thief-like stuff including water arrows and "slit throat" assassinations, etc.

Also, SkyUI+ImmersiveHUD is a great combination for total immersion, because you literally have no HUD unless it's relevant, and when it IS relevant - only what's necessary is visible. It's also a breeze in terms of sorting and managing your inventory. I love the feature of holding down a key to make the compass visible - because it encourages the no-HUD standard.

Convenient Horses is very involved and an amazing addition for the horse gameplay. You can do stuff like interact with NPCs while on horse, loot and harvest on horse - dismount quickly and so forth.

For visual mods, beyond the standard texture mods - I found a mod that makes plants and trees positively beautiful. Much better than SFO (sorry, vurt!) - and I'm also using the Verdant grass mod, which makes grass much more dense and realistic.

Lots of little things that all add up to make the game very pretty and immersive indeed, and it's still running like a dream.

I think I will be immersed in this for a while - and hopefully KCD will get another patch and perhaps a little more content in the next month or so. It would be a perfect game for my vacation.

Knock it off Darth, you’re giving me the itch to fire up skyrim again and I’m trying to get through a couple seasons of madden.

Also, you must have forgotten to list your mods that make combat more like dark souls.

Originally Posted by sakichop
Knock it off Darth, you’re giving me the itch to fire up skyrim again and I’m trying to get through a couple seasons of madden.

Also, you must have forgotten to list your mods that make combat more like dark souls.

Actually, the Wildcat mod does quite a few things for melee combat. But since I always go for stealth/archery - there's not a lot of Dark Souls in my Skyrim

I mostly played Demon's Souls - though the combat seemed identical in Dark Souls, to me.

Is there a lot of difference?

A whole lot of dodging and rolling. What was it someone called it? A roller RPG? Seems pretty accurate to me

Not that Skyrim melee combat is very good at all - but the archery is better than most CRPGs. Combined with stealth and all the toys you get in Skyrim, I find combat to be satisfying - but I would never recommend it for a thorougly fine-tuned and balanced experience.

When it's a big free-roaming game - it's very hard to balance something like archery, because it's so easy to exploit ranged combat in that type of game. So, I do what I can to make it interesting. I play without any kind of cross-hair for instance

That said, combat in this type of game is secondary for me. I play Skyrim for exploration, progression and immersion. Combat is just my way of feeling my own progression - as in, my way of testing my strategy and my build.

It's been a long time since I really enjoyed fighting for the sake of it.

Kinda sad, in a way - as I sort of miss that adrenaline and stuff. I remember being a huge competitive shooter fan - and I loved games like Virtua Fighter and the like.

These days, such things bore me to death. Oh well.

Bypassing active combat by firing arrows from stealth and watching AI wander around looking for you? Doesn't sound much fun to me. To each his own.

Is there a mod which allows one to grow some balls?

I'm still playing Monster Hunter: World.

Yesterday they patched it which fixed the disconnections from multiplayer. They've also offered a fantastic compensation package, though they say is to celebrate the 10 million copies sold. (8 million of those are on consoles)

Monster Hunter: World has now shipped over 10 million copies worldwide (digital sales included) and is now the best-selling title in the franchise!
To celebrate this achievement, we're happy to announce that we are releasing a special commemorative item pack!
You can obtain this item pack when you play online and get your login bonus. Please note that you can only obtain this item pack once. If you have problems obtaining the bonus, please close the application and then try again.

■Item Pack Name
10 Million Celebration Item Pack
■Availability
Friday, August 24 until Thursday, September 6 (UTC)
■Content
Mega Barrel Bombs x 30
Ancient Potions x 15
Hard Armor Spheres x 30
Golden Eggs x 5
Gold Wyverian Prints x 2

Mega Barrel Bombs you place on the ground and set them off with damage. They're especially good when hunting Elder Dragons which you can't capture. Place them while they're sleeping because they'll do double damage. (You can carry 2)

Ancient Potions maximise your health and stamina and give you a full heal. (You can carry 1)

Hard Armor Spheres are used to upgrade your armor and give 80 upgrade points each. The basic sphere is 5.

Golden Eggs you sell for big cash.

Gold Wyverian Prints are used at the Melder to craft powerful post-game items. Extremely hard to come by!

Originally Posted by Darth Tagnan
Actually, the Wildcat mod does quite a few things for melee combat. But since I always go for stealth/archery - there's not a lot of Dark Souls in my Skyrim

I don't like Wildcat or Smilodon, too heavy. I found my holy graal with Combat Evolved plus Animal Tweak. It's just light alterations with no scripts.

I spent so many hours of my life modding my TES games, then never actually play the modded game, that I tend to only install the safest and lighter mods nowadays…

Originally Posted by Darth Tagnan
I mostly played Demon's Souls - though the combat seemed identical in Dark Souls, to me.

Is there a lot of difference?

Nope.

Originally Posted by Darth Tagnan
A whole lot of dodging and rolling.

And blocking, and parades and counter attacks, and maneuvring, and circling around, ect… I think we call that… "fighting".

Originally Posted by Darth Tagnan
A whole lot of dodging and rolling.

I knew there's still hope for you.

Originally Posted by Darth Tagnan
Not that Skyrim melee combat is very good at all - but the archery is better than most CRPGs. Combined with stealth and all the toys you get in Skyrim, I find combat to be satisfying - but I would never recommend it for a thorougly fine-tuned and balanced experience.

Combat is what I hated the most in skyrim. It felt just awkward. Swinging a sword didn't feel like it really connected to an opponent. There must be some feedback and impact. If I remember correctly (was a long time ago).

You are right about the rolling in souls-likes, but it is the timing that makes it fun. Souls-like are one extreme, there must exist some middle-ground right?

Still playing dragon age inquisition. Despite my intentions, I got side tracked by secondary stuff for too long. I just needed 5 extra power to open the next main quest location and before I knew it I was doing the astro stuff, claim some quaries en log stands, and even did some fetch quests. Time to pick up the main quest again.

I'm level 13 (I guess that's mid-game?) and so far there is really a lot to like in the game. Yes, really. Especially exploring the different locations. They are quite diverse, atmospheric, and it helps that it looks pretty. I like the combat well enough too (if people want a RtWP system I think theirs work best, although you don't really need it in DaI). Could be a great game but gets bogged down by the sheer overload on information and things to do. I minimised grinding so far, although the spawn rate should be lowered significantly. Partial respawning after every zone load is fine (barely), but one minute after I cleared a cave. Ridiculous. Fortunately, enemies are not all over the place, so I can really enjoy the environments (cfr exploring).

Originally Posted by ilm
I'm level 13 (I guess that's mid-game?) and so far there is really a lot to like in the game. Yes, really. Especially exploring the different locations. They are quite diverse, atmospheric, and it helps that it looks pretty. I like the combat well enough too (if people want a RtWP system I think theirs work best, although you don't really need it in DaI). Could be a great game but gets bogged down by the sheer overload on information and things to do. I minimised grinding so far, although the spawn rate should be lowered significantly. Partial respawning after every zone load is fine (barely), but one minute after I cleared a cave. Ridiculous. Fortunately, enemies are not all over the place, so I can really enjoy the environments (cfr exploring).

Yeah level 13 is less or more mid-game in term of level, if you do everything (actual level cap is 27, almost impossible to reach on base game). The content doesn't scale in the base game, the main quest stop at around level 18-19 (I finished it at level 19 the first time). Hissing Waste and Emprise du Lion are the only zone with content higher level than that (and then of course the DLCs).

Note that while level 13 is mid-level, the amount of XP required increase more than before level 11 but quests/kill XP don't increase as much so you start to gain level more slowly.

For the respawns, depending on the map some of them are tied to clearing "camps". Although, sometimes respawn (or despawn) happens right in your back or face. I always took that as a bug they didn't fix, seems tied to autosaving (i.e. always happens to me when the save wheel shows up in the bottom right corner).

For Power, at Inquisition Influence level 6, you'll get a war table mission called Power for a Price. Do it with any of the 3 advisors. This will add a dude called Farris the Representative to Skyhold, he sell Power if you got the money.

I've been on a bit of a nostalgia trip these last few days, so I started a Max Payne run. Played through 1 and 2, and reached a middle point in 3. Had some issues running them in ultrawide (even 3 has issues, which is weird since it's not such and old game). Anyways, they are still some of the best 3rd person shooters I've ever played. With a nice story and very likeable main character. They still hold up, and I'd dare say they're better than most shooters. The gameplay is top-notch still.

And I've started a run of Gothic 1. Haven't touched it in 10-12 years I think. And I'm shocked that I still remember most of the things in it. (of course I played it to death back in the day. it was my first serious rpg back in 2001).

And I'm also loving the support it's been getting from the community. I basically had no issues in getting it to run on ultrawide. The FOV is a bit weird, but very decent.

Man, the memories from this game. I love it. The graphics haven't aged very well, but you get over that so quickly due to nostalgia. It's beautiful. And so ahead of itself. Very sad the developers have remained quite niche, while CD Projekt have really managed to make a name for themselves.

I'll see how far it takes me. I'd love to do a full run of Gothic 1 and 2 + NOTR. But I'm afrain that will be too big of a time investment. But I'd love to be able to.

Originally Posted by danutz_plusplus
I've been on a bit of a nostalgia trip these last few days, so I started a Max Payne run. Played through 1 and 2, and reached a middle point in 3. Had some issues running them in ultrawide (even 3 has issues, which is weird since it's not such and old game). Anyways, they are still some of the best 3rd person shooters I've ever played. With a nice story and very likeable main character. They still hold up, and I'd dare say they're better than most shooters. The gameplay is top-notch still.

I did a replay of Max Payne 1&2 a few years back and still enjoyed them. I particularly like the noir style and James McCaffrey's narration. Couldn't get into the 3rd game though. It didn't feel like Max Payne to me. I should give it another shot sometime.

Are you using any mods for Gothic?

Been playing Blood almost nonstop for the last week. Build engine shooters were always dope, but something about Blood instantly gor mw hooked. The level design is excellent and one can loop back easily to the starting point, with well-placed enemies giving it some sense of tension. Caleb's one-liners never get old thpugh, and the game's self-awareness is always fun.
Finished Robin Hood: Legend of Sherwood, very good game. The level design is also well-done, and every tool you're given feels like it has a purpose. The game kinda drags in the end, but the combat is actually kinda fun, so it wasn't as bad as some other examples.

Originally Posted by JDR13
I did a replay of Max Payne 1&2 a few years back and still enjoyed them. I particularly like the noir style and James McCaffrey's narration. Couldn't get into the 3rd game though. It didn't feel like Max Payne to me. I should give it another shot sometime.

Yeah, as far as story, setting and narrative, I very much enjoy 1&2 more than 3. The only thing 3 has in its advantage is gameplay. But even that sometimes takes a nose dive. Particularly, I'm currently in the favella levels, and man are they annoying. Very much narrow, corridor levels with enemies popping up from everywhere, and are also very hard to see.

Another thing I guess I never noticed when I initially played MP3 was the absolute absurd amount of cutscenes. It's just ridiculous how many times control is taken from you the player. In general I very much like ingame cinematics, but in this case it's absolutely obvious they're implemented as filler while they load the rest of the level (you can't skip them, until the game content finishes loading)

Anyways, I'm really curious if Rockstar will ever develop a 4th Max Payne. I've love one, but in a better setting.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Are you using any mods for Gothic?

No mods per say. Meaning the core is still very much intact. What I installed was the latest official patch, then the player kit (which if I understand correctly is normally used for mods) and then the system-pack which seems to contain plenty of fixes. And with all of this installed I was shocked that I have no issues so far. The game now has support for 3440x1440 right from the menus, and seems to work perfectly. And man, what an atmosphere this game has.

Originally Posted by Winterfart
And blocking, and parades and counter attacks, and maneuvring, and circling around, ect… I think we call that… "fighting".

I was just having some fun with Souls fans. I recognise that melee combat is one of the strengths of the game. Not necessarily my idea of great combat as I prefer more active abilities or ranged combat, but it's certainly more interesting and challenging than many.

I personally think player-driven combat should be less about rolling around in general - but that's not really just a Souls thing.

I think the melee combat in KCD was much more to my liking - even if it's not perfect.

Originally Posted by ilm
Combat is what I hated the most in skyrim. It felt just awkward. Swinging a sword didn't feel like it really connected to an opponent. There must be some feedback and impact. If I remember correctly (was a long time ago).

Yeah, melee is pretty bad in Skyrim - but still better than both Morrowind and Oblivion by a mile.

You are right about the rolling in souls-likes, but it is the timing that makes it fun. Souls-like are one extreme, there must exist some middle-ground right?

Yeah, one of these days a developer will probably get it right. I like KCD melee combat, but that's exclusively first person.

Overall, I think the old Gothics and Risen 1 did it pretty well. Strange that they'd mess it up so bad later on.

But I really like a lot of active abilities - which is probably from my time playing WoW. Melee combat in most CRPGs is really boring compared to high-end raiding or PvP. Heck, even in a challenging 5-man dungeon, you sometimes get to use a ton of abilities in combat to save the team as a proper DPS - which is great fun, and much more interesting than singleplayer CRPGs with their repetitive approach.

They've toned down the amount of active abilities in the new expansions, though - but you still end up with 20+ at max level, and they're all relevant more than you'd think.

Still playing dragon age inquisition. Despite my intentions, I got side tracked by secondary stuff for too long. I just needed 5 extra power to open the next main quest location and before I knew it I was doing the astro stuff, claim some quaries en log stands, and even did some fetch quests. Time to pick up the main quest again.

I'm level 13 (I guess that's mid-game?) and so far there is really a lot to like in the game. Yes, really. Especially exploring the different locations. They are quite diverse, atmospheric, and it helps that it looks pretty. I like the combat well enough too (if people want a RtWP system I think theirs work best, although you don't really need it in DaI). Could be a great game but gets bogged down by the sheer overload on information and things to do. I minimised grinding so far, although the spawn rate should be lowered significantly. Partial respawning after every zone load is fine (barely), but one minute after I cleared a cave. Ridiculous. Fortunately, enemies are not all over the place, so I can really enjoy the environments (cfr exploring).

Yeah, I think DAI is very good indeed. It certainly has flaws - but it's nowhere near as bad as many are saying. Same goes for Andromeda - though DAI is the superior game, for sure.

Originally Posted by danutz_plusplus
No mods per say. Meaning the core is still very much intact. What I installed was the latest official patch, then the player kit (which if I understand correctly is normally used for mods) and then the system-pack which seems to contain plenty of fixes. And with all of this installed I was shocked that I have no issues so far. The game now has support for 3440x1440 right from the menus, and seems to work perfectly. And man, what an atmosphere this game has.

You should at least install ThielHater's texture patch. It makes the graphics about on par with Gothic 2 without changing anything artistically. Iirc, there's also another texture patch that's compatible with that one.