Gaming Thread

Dead Winter said:
So I'm playing the TESO beta, and not even TES is exempt from idiots.

"This game looks a lot like Skyrim. Is it the same world?"

I think everyone in chat publicly shamed him for about an hour.

As far as the game goes, it's not bad for an MMO. The gameplay is a lot like Guild Wars 2 meets Skyrim...that's the best way to describe it. The spell system is really fantastic and has some really cool spells, both passive and active abilities. It's skill-based as well as level-based, so although it may be considered TES-lite or Diet TES, the principles are still the same. There is no "Prot Warrior/Destro Lock" type of character creation. All your skills branch out into new skills, and which branch you choose determines how you'll play your character....not like WoW with the skills, but more like a real RPG. For instance, I could either keep my familiar and level him up to do better shit, or I could transform him into a different familiar altogether with different abilities, and I will never be able to go back to that old familiar without completely retraining. It's definitely NOT a WoW clone, but it IS definitely an MMO. You immediately know you're playing an MMO, but it doesn't seem to follow the usual trappings of MMOs and doesn't follow the standard generic formula. That said, the single-player games are of course much deeper and tailored to you personally, but if you don't utterly detest every single MMO every made (Stormo :)), then you will enjoy it if you like TES lore and storylines.

Graphically it's a feast for the eyes and is really beautiful. It runs really well on even low-end machines, as we're trying it also on my old dual core PC, and it has pretty much everything TES has as far as lore goes: Mages and Fighters guilds, classes, races, lands, cities, characters, stories, etc. The MMO tank/dps/healz "holy trinity" is completely dead in this game and non-existent. In this way it resembles GW2...however, I didn't really like GW2. It was still just a bunch of fetch quests, only you didn't have to return to turn them in. I've played for two days and every single quest is voice-acted with a cut-scene and has a direct impact on your story.

Bottom line, don't expect to have your mind blown like the first time you played Skyrim...it's still an MMO and still has the limitations every MMO has: sacrifices must be made for performance and server limitations. However, I seriously doubt this game will go F2P like SWTOR did. It seems to be doing everything right where SWTOR did everything wrong. I still play SWTOR because I love SW and the storylines, but TESO is superior in every way.
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Dude, if you could post some Dunmer/Morrowind pictures I'd be eternally grateful. The cities of Necrom and Mournhold if you're ever by them, or just some male Dunmers in general. And the Tribunal!

OR could you maybe get a picture of Alinor for me?

Gods, I'm so envious. :cry:
 
Det Som Engang Var said:
Dude, if you could post some Dunmer/Morrowind pictures I'd be eternally grateful. The cities of Necrom and Mournhold if you're ever by them, or just some male Dunmers in general. And the Tribunal!

OR could you maybe get a picture of Alinor for me?

Gods, I'm so envious. :cry:
Click to expand...

It's a closed beta, and they only allow you to play for like 36 hours or something over a weekend a month or so. I wasn't able to get anywhere big but Daggerfall, as the starting areas are quite large in any case and the leveling isn't actually very fast. You work for your levels, that's for sure. Quite a few bugs to report as well.

John, I'd say that as long as you don't mind playing an MMO, I think you'd like this one. Like I said, it's not as deep as Morrowind or its expansions (still my favorite of the series), but it's pretty damn good for an MMO. Gameplay mechanics are pretty much the same with the exception of a relatively small slotbar at the bottom of your screen. It's really and truly an exact cross between Guild Wars 2 and TES fighting gameplay. First or third person, whatever you want. You will like it I think because it deals with the entire realm of TES and that's something you're very fond of and delve into very deeply. I just want to reiterate that the writing isn't nearly as deep as the single-player games, but it's still deep enough and entertaining. It's better than all the other MMO writing, maybe except for SWTOR, but that's all SWTOR had for it was the writing.

Annalisa absolutely loves it so I'm sure we're going to get it at launch, at least a copy for her at first. If you don't have it by then, I'll write you and break everything down for you so you can decide if it's worth it. Check out some of the vids on Youtube, most notably the foreign vids; they show a lot more. The next time they open the beta to us, I'll take some screenshots and send em to you.
 
This is a pretty accurate representation of the graphics and scenery in the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xxgiu6LADA8

The way it works is you have to choose one of three clans/leagues/pacts: Ebonheart, Daggerfall, and some other I can't remember. Each "pact" has three types of races, for instance the Daggerfall was Bretons, Dunmer, and another that I don't remember. Annalisa loves Vikings and Skyrim so she chose the Ebonheart pact, which was Nords and others I don't remember. You cannot be a Nord in the Daggerfall pact because it doesn't work that way according to the lore. This is something very cool because it forces you to obey canon. You can't start as a Breton in Ebonheart, either. This doesn't mean you can't go to each others' lands, only that at the very beginning you start in yours and you have to explore later in the game to get to theirs, so it's not like Dark Age of Camelot where you can only go to each other's realms if you fight for them. I do remember, however, glancing over at her screen while we were playing and seeing what looked to be a land straight out of Morrowind; it was similar to that place in Morrowind that hosted the Thieves Guild, with all the giant mushroom houses and stuff. At the very least TESO will give you a warm fuzzy from the nostalgia. The scenery appears to have taken Morrowind, Oblivion, Daggerfall, and to a lesser extent Skyrim and put them all together (which is what they wanted to do), but it's done in an intelligent way so as to further the lore.

There is only one thing I don't really like, but I'm sure they'll change it. As of now, many quests aren't instanced. This is both good and bad: the good being that everything is more fluid and more realistic, but bad because sometimes you never even get to do anything before the quest completes itself. For instance, I had to go kill some guy in a cave along with ten other people who had the same quest. Well, being that it's not instanced, you just have to enter the area for it to count, and as soon as the first guy killed him, it completed the quest for me as well without ever even going there. You'll find that most of the time if there are lots of people, it's very easy and quick because you don't have any mobs left in your way because everyone else has killed them all and they haven't respawned yet. This will probably change, and it does have its own merits, but it kinda took away a little bit of the epicness for me.

This was my starting land as a Breton mage (which, by the way, is just as lethal as any warrior...mages fucking rule in this game):

http://elderscrollsonline.com/en/media/screenshots/571
 
Stormo I'm finally playing Neverwinter Nights 2! I know you said MOB was the apex, but does the original campaign ever get more interesting? I'm near the end of Act I. The plot and characters are atrocious.

Although so was NWN 1's original campaign, which was followed by awesome expansions.

Is Storm of Zehir any good?
 
The plot of NWN2 is a bit lackluster, that's true, but it's not as horrible as everyone makes it out to be. That said, I still stick to my guns and say the mediocre campaign is worth playing through so you can play the awesomeness that is Mask of the Betrayer. You'll be glad you did :)

As for Storm of Zehir, I liked it, but it's entirely different from the normal game. There's no "campaign" as such, and it's much more concentrated on the free-roaming and sandbox-style gameplay.
 
I fucking loved NWN2! I never finished it, actually...I need to reinstall it. It's one helluva long game and the story is quite nice, even the main story. It's very beautiful.

So I bought The Secret World from Steam the other day, since it's a Buy to Play MMO (got it for 9 bucks) with no subscription like GW2. While I'm not that impressed with the combat (it's still interesting), the story and mystery-solving part of it is awesome. It feels like a point and click RPG in places where you have to really use your noggin. There's no "Go get me 10 dildos" fetch quests; everything furthers the story. Also, the class system is amazing; there are pre-loaded classes based on skills that you can follow which equip special gear and skills once you have them, or you can just invent your own. It's like Skyrim where you can have every single skill in the game if you want because there is no skill reallocation; if you want to change direction, just start putting in your skill points into a different part of the skill wheel and you'll still have all your past skills in case you want to go back to them. It feels like a cross between State of Decay, Silent Hill, and an ARG. I chose Illuminati, but you can be Templar or Dragon.

It's a shame more MMOs don't follow this path because it's wildly entertaining. When I say puzzles and mystery solving, I don't mean Resident Evil-type puzzles or mystery solving. They have purposely added an internet browser into the game so you can research clues on the internet. I'm on one quest where I had to research St. Jerome's work in Psalm 41 and find the correct word IN LATIN to open the door. It's like some serious Indiana Jones shit. On one quest, you have to research a specific web site to get the answer to log in to a computer...BUT THE WEBSITE IS FAKE. THEY DESIGNED A WEBSITE AND KEEP THE WEBSITE UP JUST FOR THE GAME! Check it out:

http://orochi-group.com/

The depth in this game is like I've never seen in any MMO and in many RPGs.
 
Dead Winter said:
I fucking loved NWN2! I never finished it, actually...I need to reinstall it. It's one helluva long game and the story is quite nice, even the main story. It's very beautiful.

So I bought The Secret World from Steam the other day, since it's a Buy to Play MMO (got it for 9 bucks) with no subscription like GW2. While I'm not that impressed with the combat (it's still interesting), the story and mystery-solving part of it is awesome. It feels like a point and click RPG in places where you have to really use your noggin. There's no "Go get me 10 dildos" fetch quests; everything furthers the story. Also, the class system is amazing; there are pre-loaded classes based on skills that you can follow which equip special gear and skills once you have them, or you can just invent your own. It's like Skyrim where you can have every single skill in the game if you want because there is no skill reallocation; if you want to change direction, just start putting in your skill points into a different part of the skill wheel and you'll still have all your past skills in case you want to go back to them. It feels like a cross between State of Decay, Silent Hill, and an ARG. I chose Illuminati, but you can be Templar or Dragon.

It's a shame more MMOs don't follow this path because it's wildly entertaining. When I say puzzles and mystery solving, I don't mean Resident Evil-type puzzles or mystery solving. They have purposely added an internet browser into the game so you can research clues on the internet. I'm on one quest where I had to research St. Jerome's work in Psalm 41 and find the correct word IN LATIN to open the door. It's like some serious Indiana Jones shit. On one quest, you have to research a specific web site to get the answer to log in to a computer...BUT THE WEBSITE IS FAKE. THEY DESIGNED A WEBSITE AND KEEP THE WEBSITE UP JUST FOR THE GAME! Check it out:

http://orochi-group.com/

The depth in this game is like I've never seen in any MMO and in many RPGs.
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I enjoyed the hell out of The Secret World for about a month before my GF left for a job in China for 10 months. We were playing it together, but it will still be there when she gets back (probably with a ton of new content), and luckily hasn't cost me any additional money to not play it. We have one of those nice leatherbound journals where we wrote down anything that looked like it might be a clue later on, and worked on several of those maddening puzzle quests in it as well. Looking at it now out of context, it reads like the diary of a complete lunatic.
 
I don't know if any of you were fans of the old party-based adventure games in the 80s and 90s like Wizardry and Might and Magic, but if you are, you must check out the new Might and Magic game. It is totally old school, totally reminding me of the Xeen era, but modern at the same time.

You move through square panels on the map, just like the old game. You use turn-based combat just like the old games. You party is 4 players with adventurers you pick up along the way. Inventory is shared so you don't have to trade gear between members. It has many of the old sound effects from the old games, too. You'll recognize them instantly.

Best part is it's only $25 on Steam.
 
Traxan said:
I don't know if any of you were fans of the old party-based adventure games in the 80s and 90s like Wizardry and Might and Magic, but if you are, you must check out the new Might and Magic game. It is totally old school, totally reminding me of the Xeen era, but modern at the same time.

You move through square panels on the map, just like the old game. You use turn-based combat just like the old games. You party is 4 players with adventurers you pick up along the way. Inventory is shared so you don't have to trade gear between members. It has many of the old sound effects from the old games, too. You'll recognize them instantly.

Best part is it's only $25 on Steam.
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I grew up on that shit. I've been looking at M&M X, but I'm not sure I'd have time to play it before the summer. I've been trying to finish games that I've had in my backlog for years, before Feb 27th when Lords of Shadow 2 arrives, and then Dark Souls 2 on March 11th. Might also end up getting Reaper of Souls, but unsure right now.

I'll probably eventually play M&M X though. Hell, the very first M&M (2) I played, before playing the proper PC versions was on my Genesis. It was a sloppy port, but I still had a lot of fun with it anyway.
 
I get the impression that people who hate M&M X grew up on Baldur's Gate and Elder Scrolls and are not used to the game play style. You have to have played it before to appreciate it, since the grid-based movement and turn-based combat is old style.

I just got into one fight where the more damage you do and the more you attack, the harder the boss hits. The idea is to have one person tank him and the others either do defense or heal. That's completely counter to the typical style of play. Some people will hate it. Only M&M could get away with it.
 
Mask of The Betrayer, wow. What a shame it wasn't the stand alone game, this has to be the best thing "Obsidian" has done since Planescape: Torment.

The writing
The characters
The storyline
The atmosphere
The music
The suspense

Truly amazing! 10/10
 
Does anyone here like the older Resident Evil games (0-3, CV and even maybe 4) the first Dead Space, or "horror" games in general? Picked up Outlast for $10 through a Steam daily, and it's actually really fucking good. When a game is built around making you jump, and you already know ahead of time what to expect, but you jump anyway, it's done its job I think.

Dead Space had some of the best atmospheric audio last gen, and I think Outlast might be just as good in that department.

Also, don't know if anyone here (I can think of two past posters) would care, but the new Strider game will be out next week and it looks like it's going to be awesome. All of the previews have been very promising, and no one has had anything negative to say about it yet. It seems to be a blend of Strider 1/2 with a mix of "Metroidvania" styled levels, but with more of a focus on pushing forward. It's been compared quite a bit to Shadow Complex too, and IMO that's only a positive since that was one of the best XBL games ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAQbh00CcJU

You can pre-order it for $11.99 through Gamefly (uses Steam) too using these codes: FEB20OFF (US), UKFEB20OFF (Europe)
 
Every few months I think I'm done with Skyrim. Each time I stop playing for a few weeks, and then each time I end up installing more mods and just upping the difficulty with a new character.
Latest, Fiore, doesn't seem too pleased with the state of Riften. I have no idea why he was making this face.
EC37DBAD10B55EF2DBB83C5B1D9234C867F1D30E
 
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