What games are you playing now?

About to dip my toes into the Avernum remakes

Otherwise, been playing Slay the Spire and Deep Sky Derelicts for roguelite cardgame goodness.

I'm flitting between games at the minute waiting for Avernum III.

I'm currently on Grim Dawn. I'm not a massive fan of arpgs but I'm enjoying it. I've rolled a soldier and at level 10 I dual classed with a nightblade, which apparently makes me a Blademaster. I don't have a clue what I'm doing with the skills. I'm currently just sinking points into Forcewave, which seems pretty great at cleaving through the mobs. Quite satisfying really.

After finishing a handful of shorter games in my backlog I am now working on Ember. I played about 14 hours of it last year before I got distracted by XCOM 2. Ember is a pretty simplistic rpg but it’s fun, has a decent enough story, and looks good. But it’s freaking hard to get back in the groove of a game you dropped halfway through. I don’t remember any lore, quests, or why I was holding onto that crappy armor in my inventory. Typically I would just start a new game but I’m not really interested in losing 14 hours of progress in this one. Would rather just power through and get it out of my backlog.

Original Sin 2 really has me hooked. Staying up too late every night, mostly unaware of the time spent.

I may have to change my vote and move OS2 up on the GotY list, although the inventory management is a big downer. Perhaps I am just getting used to its tediousness.

I get the distinct impression this game would play MUCH better on a 4k screen where all the default windows can fit without overlapping, and the mouse control buttons are much bigger and therefore less finicky.

Hey Thrasher

I'm also finally getting my teeth stuck into Divinity: Original Sin 2 and can relate to your "staying up too late" syndrome. I'm only 18 hours in, but relishing the challenge on Tactician mode. I'm testing out the theory that the game is harsh on melee builds, going for two dwarves - my main pc, Beast, Lohse and Ifan.

At first I got a bit concerned that I was running out of content in Fort Joy and was struggling to find the way forward, but after lucking out with the fight with the crocodiles, found everything opened up immediately upon discovering the teleportation gloves.

I just finished the black cat freedom quest which was a tremendous feeling. Watching that poor little fellah die every time around the Fort entrance made me determined to keep him alive at all costs. I'm probably going to explore the Hollow Marshes next as well as go back to the Fort and slowly wipe those bastard Magisters out.

My only minor complaint is that sometimes the middle mouse-camera panning can be painfully slow. Going to try binding it to a key setting and see if that helps.

I'm going with flexibility for fun and for having more options. We'll see if non min-maxing will hurt me. I've got a mix of physical and magical damage builds. 2 characters specialized in physical and a summoner who can can summon either physical or magical damage incarnate. The summoner (Fane) is also a geomancer (for poison self heals and magic damage) and necromancer (also for self heals / damage). Lohse is a hydro aero geo mage. No physical damage skills. But she's mostly for buffing / healing. Red Prince is a sword and board tank specializing in warfare, with a little geo and pyro thrown in for buffs and magical damage. Sebille is a rogue specializing in backstabbing, with a little warfare for CCs, a little necro for healing/magic damage, and polymorph for chickens and tendons. Giving everyone a teleport skill helps a lot in big battles.

You can adjust the speed of the window edge panning, which helped me a lot. Middle mouse too, perhaps. I am also about to try binding 'q and 'e to rotate, because I find the middle mouse rotation irritating with window edge panning enabled.

The animals are heartbreaking. Getting the Pet Pal skill is a must! There is a certain bear cub that actually teared me up. Turning into such softy.

I have to say nowadays I play all games on normal. Otherwise I will burnout on too long combats. Although I haven't had a challenge since doing the arena at level 3, so I would like to try to increase the difficulty, but apparently it's a one-way street to do so without mods. And I don't want to break achievements with mods or restart the game… So I am stuck on classic for now.

About to enter the maze. Still on first island. Level 7. Some hard choices to make. Kill the dragon or not? Release the necromancers or save the phylacteries?

Personally i'm waiting for one more patch before replaying divinity original sin 2

My backlog is so HUGE I doubt I will do any replays for years.

I've put aside Grim Dawn for a bit and I'm currently replaying Fallout. I usually play it off disc, this is my first go on the Steam version, so I hadn't realised that Bethesda had patched it to work on modern systems in higher resolutions and wide-screen etc - it looks pretty damn good! (In its own way ) Having a great time working my way through the game again, great fun.

Assassin's Creed Origins PS4 / PC (yes, i'm playing both.. though now i've switched completely to PC).

Never really liked this series, i've always wanted to, but it has never really clicked. Part of that is the stupid cyber/sci-fi theme which i don't care for at all.

This feels pretty much like a blend of Witcher 3 and later FarCry games - and well, ordinary AssCreed gameplay. The combat is great, really fluid and fun. I haven't played the later AssCreed to know what the differences are. I enjoy the combat far more than e.g Witcher 3. It's not Dark Souls-great but then again, nothing is really.

This is probably the best PC graphics i've seen and especially art/design wise, and the world building itself rivals Witcher 3 for me. So yes, really amazing. I guess it does help that as a kid my favorite theme was Egyptian themes in games, it has such a good blend of mystery/horror and adventure + history/fantasy to it.

Story and characters are not even close to Witcher 3 level. Quests are pretty standard too, not too much depth to anything here.

Didn't think my old PC with 980ti would play this that well, but i'm playing in 55-60FPS (1080p) and with most things on Ultra. It looks a bit more impressive than on PS4 Pro (which has slightly higher resolution - one which isn't native to my TV) and it only plays @30FPS on PS4 which is impossible to go back to after trying 60 FPS on PC..

Anyways, great game, the RPG-part is of course nothing deep either, but it does add to the gameplay. A must-play imo, if only so for watching the terrific graphics and enjoying the open world.

Completed Feros in Mass Effect and then I got distracted. Still, I enjoyed it - so I think I'll get back to it.

I had my usual MMO round, where I test out how it's going with some of the MMOs I used to play - including WoW.

They recently introduced scaling in the old zones which I've been asking for since forever - so I had to check that out. Unfortunately, they've been way too conservative about it and did it all wrong.

Sometimes, it's so staggering to me that they don't go all the way and get it right - when it's so painfully obvious what to do.

All it did was remind me how much better ESO is. Well, in my opinion.

So, I played a bit of ESO and got hooked all over again.

Once again, I have to conclude that it's by far the best modern MMO on the market. They keep adding content and quality of life features.

It's crazy how much content is in there, really.

Anyway, I will likely be playing that for a while - since it's so easy to play in shorter sessions, and I don't have much time these days.

I also tried out the latest Shroud of the Avatar build 50 for kicks, and - for the first time - I tried offline play.

It actually made me realise that much of the dreadfully crappy content I've been seeing in the game was player made. I never really thought of that - but the game is FULL of player made towns that look like some kind of circus act full of doppelganger NPCs.

For instance, one of the first towns called Soltown - is apparently partially player made. The thing is that I always used that town to guage progress and it was always complete crap.

If only I'd known it was because of player content, which not only bogs down performance a LOT - but also looks like shit - I might have given the game more of a chance.

Playing without that stuff made the world more appealing, I have to say.

While I still think it's pretty crappy - I saw some potential the for first time. Oh, not in terms of story or presentation - both of which remain abysmal.

But in terms of the elaborate skill system and particularly the dungeons and scenes. Some of it looks very old-school in a strange sort of charming way.

It has that "Dungeon Lords" appeal about it - that I know txa, at least, will appreciate

Also, they've made quite a bit of progress in terms of performance. It was actually pretty smooth for the most part. I did have to alt-tab at every scene change - because the game would bog down severely if I didn't. Strange - but I think I've had that before with other games using the horribly bad Unity engine.

Maybe it's the soundtrack that just gets me in that nostalgic mood

Anyway, I think it might be fun playing coop with friends for a bit. Just make sure to steer clear of the player made crap.

NewDArt said:

All it did was remind me how much better ESO is. Well, in my opinion.

So, I played a bit of ESO and got hooked all over again.

Once again, I have to conclude that it's by far the best modern MMO on the market. They keep adding content and quality of life features.

It's crazy how much content is in there, really.

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Im playing ESO from beta on and off with some breaks, but more I play more I think that that "lot of content" is just an illusion.
It feels really all the same, with every new DLC or big patch added: quests, which goes like "adventurer, we were attacked, please help us and kill baddies", main quest with hidden modern feminism bs, where "strong independent" woman leader ask you to run various errands to finally exterminate some daedra worshipers and lastly dungeons and raids, which are trash mobs/boss/trash mobs/boss/trash mobs/final boss. And that's it. The rest is so minor (like housing, which dont have any deeper meaning in game) and maybe something else.
It is all on same rails every time, comparing to WOW , for example, where content really varies and differ, l even didn't bought Morrowind, because there was noting, except those quests I mentioned and warden class, which is one of the worst classes for now in game at every role.
Right now im spending most of my time in Maelstrom Arena trying my chances to get "Flawless conquer" title and absolutely have no urge/will to check out Clockwork content and its quests, because I already know what it will be all about…

Zogar Sag said:

Im playing ESO from beta on and off with some breaks, but more I play more I think that that "lot of content" is just an illusion.
It feels really all the same, with every new DLC or big patch added: quests, which goes like "adventurer, we were attacked, please help us and kill baddies", main quest with hidden modern feminism bs, where "strong independent" woman leader ask you to run various errands to finally exterminate some daedra worshipers and lastly dungeons and raids, which are thrash mobs/boss/thrash mobs/boss/thrash mobs/final boss. And that's it. The rest is so minor (like housing, which dont have any deeper meaning in game) and maybe something else.
It is all on same rails every time, comparing to WOW , for example, where content really varies and differ, l even didn't bought Morrowind, because there was noting, except those quests I mentioned and warden class, which is one of the worst classes for now in game at every role.
Right now im spending most of my time in Maelstrom Arena trying my chances to get "Flawless conquer" title and absolutely have no urge/will to check out Clockwork content and its quests, because I already know what it will be all about…

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It's a convincing illusion to me, in that case

While many quests will have similar elements - I feel the way they've integrated story and dialogue is vastly superior to anything I ever saw in WoW. Same goes for the way you can actually make meaningful choices that affect entire areas in the game - and you get to decide who lives and who dies.

In my experience, quests are very different in terms of story with lots and lots of variety. But the game is so big and there's only so much you can do with fantasy themes - and obviously you will hit upon similar notes around the world.

The writing is also actually quite good - not to mention consistent.

Now, I haven't noted any particular political direction - and I think the game has a nice mixture of strong male and female characters.

Also, being a very open minded and tolerant individual - I don't mind strong female characters and I don't see them everywhere because they're somewhere.

WoW, to me, always felt like a bunch of pointless activities with no real connection to the world or the characters. Too much silly stupid shit clicking balloons or picking up potatoes.

They improved that with the latest expansions - but it's still not at all compelling to me in terms of story and "meaning".

But you can take pretty much every game with a lot of content and boil it down to "repetition" - because that's what it will feel like with a certain perspective.

I played WoW to death for 3 years. But ever since exhausting TBC at some point back in 2007 - WoW has felt incredibly repetitive and overly familiar to me. But it wasn't like that at first.

Same perspective factor goes for Fallout 4 or Skyrim - which are both "walking simulators" full of pointless repetition to a lot of detractors - where I feel they're both full of rich and varied content.

That said, I'm not really into making everything into a competition. I like many of the things WoW has to offer. For instance, I really enjoy the sheer visual variety in the massive amount of zones that game has.

It's my favorite RPG of all time in that specific way - as each and every zone feels like a distinct world in and of itself. Might not be terribly realistic - but it's great for my immersion into the atmosphere.

However, WoW is just too stuck in ancient MMO mechanics and they're not fast enough to adapt to the way things should work these days. Times have changed - and so have the expectations of a modern audience.

The way they insist on making only the latest content relevant is a GIGANTIC mistake - and that's a big reason why I won't bother playing it.

I also feel the character system and perpetual advancement in ESO is vastly superior.

I could go on about features like thousands of fully voice acted quests with quality VA, stealing, murdering, housing, viable crafting, thousands of books/journals, meaningful end-game world PvP and so on that all combine into a much richer and more lived-in world than the themepark of WoW - but what would that accomplish.

Both games are great in their own ways - and it's all down to personal preferences.

Im glad you are still excited and find so much to do and so much interesting things in ESO - maybe Im burnt out and thats why I see things how I see. I can argue about some of points you made, but I dont think it really matters.
ESO isn't bad game all in all, but still far from being great in my opinion, I found WOW's world more alive than ESOs - WOWs gameworld evolves, while ESOs is stale, nothing changes there anything, whatever you or some core personages do.

NewDArt said:

Also, being a very open minded and tolerant individual - I don't mind strong female characters and I don't see them everywhere because they're somewhere.

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Im also very openminded and tolerant, but somehow I feel this "strong female leaders" are a bit overdone in ESO lately - at least the quest sequences and places I did mostly contained those females as quest givers and whining weak men asking for help. Maybe it was just unfortunate coincidences I went through….

By the way many of WOWs early boring quests (kill 10 wolves) has changed in starting areas and I found them very interesting and fun, like protecting caravan in Barrens on the way to Crossroads and some others.

Zogar Sag said:

Im glad you are still excited and find so much to do and so much interesting things in ESO - maybe Im burnt out and thats why I see things how I see. I can argue about some of points you made, but I dont think it really matters.
ESO isn't bad game all in all, but still far from being great in my opinion, I found WOW's world more alive than ESOs - WOWs gameworld evolves, while ESOs is stale, nothing changes there anything, whatever you or some core personages do.

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Well, I had sort of the opposite experience with the world. But I also realise that we're talking about MMOs. There's no way they could significantly and permanently change the world without it being a very big deal for other players. Then it would have to be a fully dynamic sandbox - and that goes absolutely counter to the core quest-based design and so forth.

In ESO - you do a lot of stuff like liberating towns, and sometimes that means they're rebuilt and new people move into them. Of course, that's phase-based meaning other players won't see it unless they did the same thing.

That's pretty dynamic, I think - but nothing like what you can do in a singleplayer game.

I know WoW does some phasing stuff as they introduced it in one of the expansions, but since I don't play it much anymore - I haven't really seen any significant changes like in ESO.

I think of the WoW world as extremely static apart from Cataclysm - which is another thing to me.

But maybe I just haven't played it enough. My primary complaint with WoW is that all the wonderful (pre-current-expansion) content is completely irrelevant at max level.

Even with the recent scaling, that's still the case - because of how they did it.

That's a HUGE advantage of ESO - that you can truly go anywhere and do anything and gain real rewards.

I just might go back to WoW if they made sure that was possible - including all the raids and dungeons - like is the case in ESO.

ESO also has dynamic encounters like Anchors, Champions and so forth - which was only introduced in the later areas in WoW.

Im also very openminded and tolerant, but somehow I feel this "strong female leaders" are a bit overdone in ESO lately - at least the quest sequences and places I did mostly contained those females as quest givers and whining weak men asking for help. Maybe it was just unfortunate coincidences I went through….

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Maybe you're right, I just didn't notice. I think I know what you mean, and I do think many modern games and movies suffer from forced political correctness.

I guess it could be true in ESO, but I think the game has a lot of great male characters - even so.

By the way many of WOWs early boring quests (kill 10 wolves) has changed in starting areas and I found them very interesting and fun, like protecting caravan in Barrens on the way to Crossroads and some others (sorry haven't played that game for years now)

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Cataclysm made some nice changes to the starting areas, I would agree.

But I still think the actual quests are too silly too often - and I simply don't think the archaic text-based presentation of the VAST majority of quests can compete with the fully voiced quests in ESO.

While SOME of the WoW writing is actually good, like in Duskwood for instance - it's just too inconsistent and full of pop-culture references and silly for the sake of being silly stuff.

Now, that's personal preferences too, but it just doesn't work for me.

ESO, while it also has a lot of humor - is very, very consistent in tone and style. That's much more my thing.

I guess it helps that it's also steeped in lore that's been developed over nearly 30 years or so.

Yes there is this phasing quests, but they mean little in common picture. Like when you help Dominion queen and main quest ends, that's it -it has no impact on game world, same as when you banish Molag Bal, it don't change a thing - Anchors still appear and threat is still out there.
In comparison in WOW some core personages dies and others come to power, even gameworld changed due to cataclysm - I love those things and in ESO there are none of that, maybe in future... but I doubt it.

NewDArt said:

But I still think the actual quests are too silly too often - and I simply don't think the archaic text-based presentation of the VAST majority of quests can compete with the fully voiced quests in ESO.

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Yeah I agree on that, today, when we have fully voiced games, it s really hard to force yourself and read text walls for meaningless minor quest.