I'm playing Grim Dawn with the expansion that was released last year. The last time I played about 2 years ago and had fun. Only made it to level 42 and then quit for some reason. Started a new character a duel gun pure DPS type, Inquistor/Demo. Having a lot of fun and learning more about the game. It is rather deep and takes time to learn all the features and character buffs. I don't know if it will have staying power, but I love these types of games. Diablo 3 is stale. That's usually my go-to ARPG.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2018 5:26 pm
by Rumpy
Xenonauts is now available for free on GOG as part of their summer sale.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2018 7:15 pm
by GreenGoo
Thanks rumpy, will check it out.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2018 10:18 pm
by Kraken
Downloading now, thanks for the heads-up.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2018 1:08 am
by Kasey Chang
Project Freedom suffers from the weird mission difficulty curve, something that seems to plague all the space games in one form or another. You're breezing through the various missions, until you suddenly hit this mission that's impossible. And it's always an "escort" mission. (Just like the "impossible" mission in the original Wing Commander, Kurasawa 2) This one is mission 15 out of 21. You're to escort a cruiser to test the portal at the enemy base. Enemy sends 20+ fighters against your 10, but your 10 doesn't kill anything, and with 20 fighters taking shots at your cruiser it only lasts maybe 30 seconds. If you are like super-human and kill like one every 3 seconds then maybe there's a chance. ARGH!
Finished, but there wasn't even an end cinematic. WTF?
ARGH! Onto the next game...
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2018 8:46 pm
by Smoove_B
Kasey Chang wrote: Sat May 19, 2018 12:39 pm
It's as if Steam just suddenly got bothered by conservative values. Nudity is no good, but violence? No problem.
It took them a few weeks, but they've declared their position:
Recently there's been a bunch of community discussion around what kind of games we're allowing onto the Steam Store. As is often the case, the discussion caused us to spend some time examining what we're doing, why we're doing it, and how we could be doing it better. Decision making in this space is particularly challenging, and one that we've really struggled with. Contrary to many assumptions, this isn't a space we've automated - humans at Valve are very involved, with groups of people looking at the contents of every controversial title submitted to us. Similarly, people have falsely assumed these decisions are heavily affected by our payment processors, or outside interest groups. Nope, it's just us grappling with a really hard problem.
...
So we ended up going back to one of the principles in the forefront of our minds when we started Steam, and more recently as we worked on Steam Direct to open up the Store to many more developers: Valve shouldn't be the ones deciding this. If you're a player, we shouldn't be choosing for you what content you can or can't buy. If you're a developer, we shouldn't be choosing what content you're allowed to create. Those choices should be yours to make. Our role should be to provide systems and tools to support your efforts to make these choices for yourself, and to help you do it in a way that makes you feel comfortable.
With that principle in mind, we've decided that the right approach is to allow everything onto the Steam Store, except for things that we decide are illegal, or straight up trolling.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2018 8:50 pm
by Kasey Chang
So that "school shooting" game is considered "straight trolling"?
I had a tweet the other day when all these self-righteous folks are all for "petition steam to not carry it". I was like "but you guys are advocating censorship". And they are like "so what? Steam has the right to not profit from it."
Guess this really clears up that question.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2018 8:58 pm
by Kasey Chang
Of Orcs and Men is not growing on me. The tactical combat is kinda painful. You have an orc and a goblin, and you sometimes have to fight multiple enemies. But this game has a "slowed-time" tactical interface where you can jump between characters and have them execute offensive, defensive, or special moves against multiple targets. And you can queue 4 commands, with the AI taking over if you have no commands for one guy.
The problem is I still don't really know what each choice in combat really does. There was one SHORT tutorial. Your "offense" attacks do more damage, but raises your "rage" and if your rage fills go you berserk and lose control of the character. Your defense attacks do little damage, like parry enemy attacks, but also doesn't raise your rage. But the interface to switch between the two was VERY awkward (why not just have ALL of them on the screen at the same time?! It's as if it's a console port with way too much complexity. When enemies come at you from 3 sides, it gets messy really quickly, esp. when enemies start to dodge or parry.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2018 1:33 am
by Max Peck
Kasey Chang wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 8:50 pm
So that "school shooting" game is considered "straight trolling"?
I had a tweet the other day when all these self-righteous folks are all for "petition steam to not carry it". I was like "but you guys are advocating censorship". And they are like "so what? Steam has the right to not profit from it."
Guess this really clears up that question.
They booted the developer/publisher of that game because they turned out to be an asset flipper that had been previously kicked off Steam.
Valve subsequently emailed the media to say it had taken action ahead of Active Shooter's scheduled 6 June release.
"This developer and publisher is, in fact, a person calling himself Ata Berdiyev, who had previously been removed last fall when he was operating as '[bc]Interactive' and 'Elusive Team'," said Valve in a statement.
"Ata is a troll, with a history of customer abuse, publishing copyrighted material, and user review manipulation.
"His subsequent return under new business names was a fact that came to light as we investigated the controversy around his upcoming title. We are not going to do business with people who act like this towards our customers or Valve.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2018 2:51 am
by Kasey Chang
I know, but Steam's clarification basically says if the same game (or same concept) was developed by a "real" developer (i.e. not that guy) It may actually end up being published. Right?
As they said, "anything goes" except "straight up trolling", but is a school shooting game "straight up trolling"?
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2018 10:54 am
by jztemple2
Kasey Chang wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 2:51 am
As they said, "anything goes" except "straight up trolling", but is a school shooting game "straight up trolling"?
If there is actual gameplay, I'd say leave it in the store. Mentally substitute evil aliens instead of school children while playing and see if it works. I think this is in the area of free speech, if people don't like the game, they don't have to buy it. It's a slippery slope when you start trying to make moral decisions on what should or should not be carried in the store. Remember that all those Nazis your avatar is gunning down in umpteen numbers of games may have families.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2018 11:01 am
by Blackhawk
I'm withholding judgment until I see what their new tools are. I'm guessing that there will be a tool that lets something like the school shooting game be voted into oblivion. It'll technically be 'on' steam, but won't ever show up in recommendations, lists, or sales. Maybe not even in search recommendations. You won't see it unless you search for it by name.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2018 12:57 pm
by pr0ner
A friend of mine helped design this World Cup related game that SBNation is hosting called Penalty Kick Assassin.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2018 1:52 pm
by wonderpug
Kasey Chang wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 2:51 am
As they said, "anything goes" except "straight up trolling", but is a school shooting game "straight up trolling"?
School Shooter sounds pretty boring if all your hero character does is secure the perimeter. Capital Shooter sounds more like the game for all audiences, some can shoot donkeys, some can shoot rhinos, some can shoot lobbyists, etc, etc.
New policy is probably because VR porn is about to "explode" with the advent of the Oculus Go. Probably looking at an upcoming explosion of ugly babies, as now two fugly people can both think they're getting it on with a hottie. I just hope they don't do it in Walmart.
J.J. Abrams’ production company Bad Robot is launching a new gaming division — and it’s being backed by arguably the biggest company in games. Simply called Bad Robot Games, the new division is being announced alongside a “strategic relationship” with Chinese internet giant Tencent. Warner Bros is also a minority investor in the new venture.
According to Bad Robot, the studio will focus exclusively on original games. “Bad Robot Games will team up with traditional game developers to create both large and indie-scale projects for mobile, PC, and console — leveraging its world-building and storytelling expertise, in-house creative directors and network of visual artists, musicians, sound designers, writers and other world-class talents,” the company explains. It’s a different arrangement than other film companies like Annapurna, which moved into games as a publisher.
.
Bad Robot previously dabbled in games and interactive experiences, but the new division appears to be a more concerted effort. It will be led by Dave Baronoff, who previously helmed the company’s gaming efforts.
The news also represents part of an ever-growing video game empire for Tencent. In addition to developing its own games — including the massively popular mobile strategy game Honor of Kings — Tencent also owns League of Legends developer Riot Games, Clash of Clans creator Supercell, and has a stake in Epic, the studio behind Fortnite and the widely used Unreal engine. In addition to leading the funding for Bad Robot Games, Tencent will also have the rights for distribution for any future titles in Asia.
No current projects have been announced yet, but it does sound like Abrams will be involved in a notable capacity. “I’m a massive games fan, and increasingly envious of the amazing tools developers get to work with, and the worlds they get to play in,” he said in a statement. “Now we are doubling down on our commitment to the space with a unique co-development approach to game making that allows us to focus on what we do best, and hopefully be a meaningful multiplier to our developer partners.”
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2018 8:36 pm
by Rumpy
I wonder if those games will all have the mystery box formula.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2018 4:08 am
by Kasey Chang
Playing Of Orcs and Men a bit more, and it's getting a bit... weird. The play strategy is, a bit counter-intuitive, and sort of makes sense. The combat strategy can be summed up as send Arkhil the Orc in there as a tank and damage sponge, taunt all enemies into attacking him. He engages "carapace" defensive stance and tries to interrupt attacks on him, and occasionally do a "round attack" (basically a 360 sweep). In the meanwhile, Styx goes after high value targets with destablize (makes their attack more easily interrupted), armor piercing (reduces their armor by 75%), and "rain of blades" (damage EVERYBODY). With this combo, I won the biggest battle yet, a knight (armor 60), 2 inquisition soldiers (armor 40), and half dozen militia (armor 15). Who'd knew that Styx ends up doing more damage? Fights before this were only of maybe 3-4 men at a time. So I was kinda surprised I won this fight. On the other hand, this is EASY mode.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2018 10:43 pm
by GreenGoo
The sole reason I haven't taken Forts or the trial version of Titan Fall 2 out for a test drive is that I barely have 150gigs free of the 3.5TB space I reserve for games (and app/patch downloads etc) and the thought of sifting through everything to see what can go is too daunting for me at the moment.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2018 11:12 pm
by Kasey Chang
Just started in Redeemer. Hahaha. This is a riot, a 2D brawler, in 2.5D perspective. You're ex-Merc hiding out in a monastery (more of a Shaolin type) in the wilderness somewhere. Some sort of mercs are attacking the place, and you have to recall your training to save the abbot and whoever's left of your monastery. You can go with weapons (axes, sticks, knives, etc.), melee (fist or kick), or even guns (pistols, shotguns, assault rifles), block, counter, etc. You can dodge, roll attack, environment attacks (throw enemies into a fire pit, hang him on a tree branch impaled, etc.), executions, so on. Your life depends on killing the enemy. There are no health packs.
Right I'm stuck on the 2nd boss. I'm sure I'll figure it out in no time.
EDIT: And that's exactly what happened. For the "heavies", you have to bash him when he's not shooting his flamer. When he's weakened, go up and hold "B" to execute. I'm in chapter 6 or 7 now. Loads of fun, as now I'm fighting muties AND some mercs.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2018 8:03 am
by Daehawk
GreenGoo wrote: Fri Jun 08, 2018 10:43 pm
The sole reason I haven't taken Forts or the trial version of Titan Fall 2 out for a test drive is that I barely have 150gigs free of the 3.5TB space I reserve for games (and app/patch downloads etc) and the thought of sifting through everything to see what can go is too daunting for me at the moment.
I see Forts is free this weekend. Might try it. Might not.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2018 4:10 pm
by ColdSteel
Well, what do you know? EA is bringing Madden back to the PC in August. About damn time.
I am stuck in Redeemer, Chapter 9, gone through part 1 of the base arleady. The problem is part 2. I ran into this tank that won't go down, ever after couple chops from a big fire axe, a couple shotgun blasts, and a couple good kicks. And I had to kill a bunch of bad guys to get to him, and I can't save before that (no checkpoint). Figure I'm stuck here for a while.
Tried to start on Sword and Fairy 6, the Chinese RPG. WTF, 13 GB for this game? The translation is atrocious, typos and bad grammar everywhere. The translator apparently never played Western RPGs or something. The choice to exit the game is not exit or quit, but "Leave". Once you choose you, you get the dialog box "quit game?" And the game did not start with "settings" that lets you change graphics and stuff. I was practically looking at a slide-show, and the game immediately throws you into a battle without explaining the mechanics. is this real-time? Pause? Command-based? Turn-based? WTF? Once you got into game the translation got a bit better. But the amount of Chinese names is sure to overwhelm westerners. And whose bright ideas is it to name the three major races in the mortal realm "Protoss", "Oak", and "Humans"? Sheesh.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 8:31 am
by Daehawk
Why do you keep torturing yourself with bad games and just buy a real game?
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 9:37 am
by Isgrimnur
Have you seen his books read thread? He's got a masochist streak.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 9:40 am
by Zarathud
Kasey Chang wrote:And whose bright ideas is it to name the three major races in the mortal realm "Protoss", "Oak", and "Humans"? Sheesh.
Oak being a misspelling of Ork?
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 11:15 am
by GreenGoo
GreenGoo wrote: Fri Jun 08, 2018 10:43 pm
The sole reason I haven't taken Forts or the trial version of Titan Fall 2 out for a test drive is that I barely have 150gigs free of the 3.5TB space I reserve for games (and app/patch downloads etc) and the thought of sifting through everything to see what can go is too daunting for me at the moment.
Done. Cleaned house last night and recovered almost a terabyte of free space. There's more cleaning that could be done, but I think that's good for now.
GreenGoo wrote: Fri Jun 08, 2018 10:43 pm
The sole reason I haven't taken Forts or the trial version of Titan Fall 2 out for a test drive is that I barely have 150gigs free of the 3.5TB space I reserve for games (and app/patch downloads etc) and the thought of sifting through everything to see what can go is too daunting for me at the moment.
Done. Cleaned house last night and recovered almost a terabyte of free space. There's more cleaning that could be done, but I think that's good for now.
I do all of my PC gaming off of a 500GB SSD. The idea of having 3.5TB of games installed... I get uncomfortable if I have 5 games installed. Of course I do have pretty fast internet so reinstalling any game when I get a hankering is generally pretty quick.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 12:12 pm
by Paingod
coopasonic wrote: Mon Jun 11, 2018 11:37 amI do all of my PC gaming off of a 500GB SSD. The idea of having 3.5TB of games installed... I get uncomfortable if I have 5 games installed. Of course I do have pretty fast internet so reinstalling any game when I get a hankering is generally pretty quick.
I wouldn't classify my internet connection as "Fast" by today's standards. It's great for Bumpkin USA, but abysmal for Metro USA. It can take an hour to download a 5GB game... nevermind a 50GB "patch"... I'd be doing that as an overnight project.
As such, I've got somewhere around 300+ games installed on my 2TB drive. I can fire most of my Steam and GOG libraries up instantly. Some MMO's and absurd patching games - PUBG - are uninstalled or not updated automatically.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 12:31 pm
by GreenGoo
It's less about speed and more about a 400 gig monthly cap. A couple of new, biggish games downloaded during prime time would put my house over the cap on a semi-regular basis. It's just easier to keep things installed than to clean up (or it was).
Games like ARK had a footprint over 100gigs. Years of my son playing Garry's Mod put that over 400 gigs. I am totally not kidding. The Garry's Mod directory was over 400 gigs.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 12:38 pm
by Blackhawk
Steam's ability to move install locations actually makes it easy. I do pretty much all of my gaming from a 500gb SSD, but I have a terabyte platter drive, too. If I download something that I decide to wait on, or if I need space on my SSD, I'll just have Steam move the game to the platter drive, then move it back when I'm ready to play. I have a really good connection (go figure) and a download cap that I've only come close to once, but it is still faster to copy a 70gb game from the platter than to re-download it in a few weeks.
Kasey Chang wrote:And whose bright ideas is it to name the three major races in the mortal realm "Protoss", "Oak", and "Humans"? Sheesh.
Oak being a misspelling of Ork?
Chinese for the three races were 人，神，獸, or men, god/deity, beast. It's POSSIBLE, but IMHO, still a bad translation overall.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 12:48 pm
by GreenGoo
Blackhawk wrote: Mon Jun 11, 2018 12:38 pm
Steam's ability to move install locations actually makes it easy. I do pretty much all of my gaming from a 500gb SSD, but I have a terabyte platter drive, too. If I download something that I decide to wait on, or if I need space on my SSD, I'll just have Steam move the game to the platter drive, then move it back when I'm ready to play. I have a really good connection (go figure) and a download cap that I've only come close to once, but it is still faster to copy a 70gb game from the platter than to re-download it in a few weeks.
I have 3 drives. A 256gig ssd for my OS, a 512 gig SSD for games that benefit from fast seek times and a 3TB drive for data and games that have little need for fast i/o.
The 2nd and 3rd drives were all but full. Being able to move data from one location to another was of benefit before I filled both drives, but that was over a year ago.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 12:49 pm
by Kasey Chang
Daehawk wrote: Mon Jun 11, 2018 8:31 am
Why do you keep torturing yourself with bad games and just buy a real game?
I'm going through my backlog. Hahahahaha.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 12:52 pm
by coopasonic
GreenGoo wrote: Mon Jun 11, 2018 12:31 pm
It's less about speed and more about a 400 gig monthly cap.
The main reason I sprung for the gigabit pipe is that it was the only option without a data cap.
GreenGoo wrote: Mon Jun 11, 2018 12:31 pm
It's less about speed and more about a 400 gig monthly cap.
The main reason I sprung for the gigabit pipe is that it was the only option without a data cap.
Well cable is my only real option at the moment and they are already selling me 150mbps which I rarely see, so I'd be paying mostly for removing the cap, and after some eyeballing it math, it turns out paying the overages on occasion is less expensive on a year by year basis than jumping to the no cap level. If I thought I'd get more speed or even a more stable connection I'd probably go for it. I certainly considered it a number of times.
tl;dr Removing the cap would get me more "up to" speed, but little to no actual increase in speed, and the extra data isn't worth it if I manage my data a little.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 2:35 pm
by Daehawk
I have 3 drives. A 256gig ssd for my OS, a 512 gig SSD for games that benefit from fast seek times and a 3TB drive for data and games that have little need for fast i/o.
The 2nd and 3rd drives were all but full. Being able to move data from one location to another was of benefit before I filled both drives, but that was over a year ago.
Thats sorta me..same SSDs same use but my two other drives are old storage mechanical drives which used to be my game drives. I have found over time that a 500gb SSD is not big enough to hold all the games I want it to at once. I delete a lot all the time.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2018 5:19 am
by Kasey Chang
Getting into Technomancer, which is related to Mars: War Logs, albeit kinda sequel. So far, I'm just running around inside the city of Abundance, doing Fedex quests. The game doesn't quite give you arrows to your objectives. But it *does* give you some non-combat options like charm, lockpick, and so on IF you did add some points to those attributes. Right now, I feel more like a cop with a tilted moral compass and secret agenda than a technomancer.
EDIT: Crap, I did the build all wrong, didn't concentrate on a single thing, spread it all around. Darn it.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2018 8:06 am
by MonkeyFinger
Something I don't see myself saying. Ever.
LordMortis wrote: Mon Jun 11, 2018 6:41 pm
I scaled back to Nightmare.
<waves happily from back down around the Normal / Easy border> Pulled from the Templar Battleforce discussion so as to not pollute it.
Re: PC Gaming Randomness
Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2018 8:25 am
by LordMortis
MonkeyFinger wrote: Tue Jun 12, 2018 8:06 am
Something I don't see myself saying. Ever.
LordMortis wrote: Mon Jun 11, 2018 6:41 pm
I scaled back to Nightmare.
<waves happily from back down around the Normal / Easy border> Pulled from the Templar Battleforce discussion so as to not pollute it.
I started there but the game felt wrong. I felt disconnected.
Capital Shooter sounds more like the game for all audiences, some can shoot donkeys, some can shoot rhinos, some can shoot lobbyists, etc, etc. 
Probably looking at an upcoming explosion of ugly babies, as now two fugly people can both think they're getting it on with a hottie. I just hope they don't do it in Walmart. 
