hfm

Still playing Starfield when I get a chance to play something, I think I'm getting close to finishing it. Was going through the recent history and noticed Grim Dawn being mentioned. Saw that it is on sale on Steam for $4.99 until Sep 9! That game should run on a potato basically so anyone that has even a remote interest in ARPG Diablo-like games should definitely pick that up it's a fantastic ARPG. Plus they are releasing a new expansion for it, Fangs of Asterkarn, in 2025. It's great to see this game is still being heavily supported by them with patches and expansions. I'm definitely going to do a brand new full game run when that exp drops.

Now that patch 7 dropped for BG3 I'm going to pick that back up next as I had set it aside somewhere in Act I thinking I'd play it with my other but that isn't happening any time soon so going to jump back in that. 

I started it back up again now that they've released some patches and I'm digging it all over again. The only aspect I still don't like is fact that most of the randomly generated locations are a lot like.. if you've seen like two or three of them you've seen them all. I have quite literally seen THE SAME EXACT structure on more than one planet/moon. It was a sizable factory with multiple buildings. Aside from that I do run into the odd more novel location on a planet. I've been doing a lot of running around scanning all the stuff on every planet I land on. lol.  Some of the quests are pretty good. I'm really getting into it this time I'll probably just finish it off and see how many planets I can scan until I just can't take that anymore. Right now I'm just trying to get to the point where I can start flying Class B ships.

In the main quest I'm at the point where something pivotal happens at the Lodge+Eye.. it's getting pretty interesting.

On 5/1/2023 at 1:51 AM, cucubits said:

I'm hoping there are at least a few of you closer to my age around here who remember the original System Shock. It was unlike anything at that time. Fans of fps - space - futuristic - survival - horror like games are the intended audience.

 

Random browsing of upcoming games got me to it now, haven't even seen a trailer but I lowkey knew about this. As of now, it's planned to come out in exactly one month from now (May 30). Very excited!

 

 

Finally got a chance to start this. They did such a great job on it. 10/10. I as well played the original when it released. Truly a game changer, nothing else was like it and it basically along with UU series kicked off the whole immersive FPS/RPG genre.. then perfected in System Shock 2 and Deus Ex. Such a fantastic series of games.

On 1/21/2024 at 3:30 PM, jaybee83 said:

omg SO looking forward to this! especially since Machinegames also made the Wolfenstein series which im a total sucker for. watching that trailer i recognized their style right away. perfect combo with the Indy franchise! 😍

Agree. Really dug all the new Wolfensteins. Machine Games pulled off quite possibly one of the most bonkers series of events ever to grace a video game. Can't wait for this.

Been a while. Trying to remember what I've played recently. Uncharted 4 Legacy of Thieves Collection. Installed Fallout 4 with a texture mod was playing that again for a bit. Got back into Starfield since that patch dropped, been digging it. The planets are generally somewhat repetitive and barren except the odd thing that I find that is more novel but ignoring that the rest is good.

On 11/27/2023 at 4:25 AM, serpro69 said:

Tried Diablo 4 over the "free weekend". Must say I'm quite disappointed and can really see why the game has so many negative reviews. It's still kind of fun if you like the genre, but I'm just not getting the proper Diablo feeling out of it. But for the price they're asking for it, even during discounts... not worth it IMO.

 

Also tried out Grim Dawn (quite similar game to Diablo), which immediately felt way more thought out and interesting, despite being like 6 years old now, or smth.

D4 was good enough for a one run playthrough, which is typically how I play Diablo.. Run it once and then play it again a bit down the line after expansion..

Grim Dawn is fantastic, they are still pumping out patches and there's an expansion coming. I had backed that when they were crowdfunding on their own site before kickstarter was a thing. 100% due to how great Titan Quest was. Good to see they are still making it happen.

Path of Exile 2 also looks like it's going to be good.

On 11/27/2023 at 10:23 AM, jaybee83 said:

 

omg sooooooo looking forward to TQ 2! 

Gonna be good.

On 8/20/2023 at 1:02 PM, TreeTopsRanch said:

Would that be the Elder Scrolls edition?

Yeah... the full name of the game is "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim" Enhanced Edition (Anniversary Edition these days I guess..)

On 9/24/2023 at 3:03 AM, ryan said:

Skyrim??

Yeah hah

On 10/21/2023 at 2:04 PM, ryan said:

Its a good game, not great. who cares if it has flaws all games do except rdr2. I think if you don't like starfield in 2023 there are not many games you will like. not many 10/10 games, heck even forza motorsport was a flop, terrible experience with it. I have never hated a racing game. 

lol rdr2 has flaws.. or i wouldn't have uninstalled it after 35 hours to free up SSD space...  i'll probably eventually get back to it, just got bored of it for some reason.. I definitely liked the first one better.

Played BG3 somewhat early into Act 1. Set it aside for Starfield, played that for a bit.. just set that aside for AC:Mirage. I'll be finishing AC:M and then maybe jump back to BG3. I'll finish that and do another CP2077 run with all the new patches. By the time I get those done we'll have a bunch of Starfield patches out probably and then I'll finish that.

On 10/7/2023 at 12:01 PM, ryan said:

@hfm @cucubits are you guys close to beating starfield and what would you rate it now that you have logged significant time playing.

 

im just starting and have only logged 25 hours id give it a 7/10 but I do like it just wish the graphics were better it is 2023 and wish their was more immersion like more detailed side missions.

Nowhere near close. It'll probably take me a while as I stopped playing it for AC:M which will also probably take me a while as I played it yesterday for maybe 30 minutes and I probably won't get back to it till next week.

EDIT:

I think it's a fine game. Typical Bethesda. Not my favorite so far by them but worth the price. I really don't care much about the base building and ship building so some of the work of upgrading things is knocking it down a peg because I don't feel like spending my time on the grind and drudgery of building things and gathering materials. But it seems so far I've gotten away without too much fuss except for my ship (I got a unique one from a quest) isn't up to the task of beating one of the quests i'm on where the final test is taking down like 4-5 ships at once. I'm kind of waiting on that one to get enough credits to just buy a better ship, I first have to kill enough other ships to upgrade my pilot skill. I MIGHT be able to just straight upgrade it with better Class compnents once I do that as well so we'll see. So kind of stuck a little bit in that drudgery corner and kind of ignoring that angle. Hopefully I keep just finding good enough gear to not have to go through the monotony of using the various workstations to upgrade. I've basically completely ignored all of that right now hopefully I can keep it that way.

I really rather liked the more straightforward approach to the crafting in FO4, it's expanded and more nuanced here and I don't care about it much. If I'm forced into it I'll probably just quit playing it as I really don't feel like interacting with that part of the game. If it's a sign of things to come for ES6 it's not looking good. We'll see I don't think I've played enough Starfield to have a final verdict, but every time I see one of the 5-6 stations for upgrade/research laying around I roll my eyes and sigh..

I was largely able to ignore all that in FO4 except for setting up a simple trade network for barebones storage sharing and using the two simple stations to upgrade things (worktstation and power armor repair bay).. but I was already at about max capacity with crafting and resource management with that as I don't find it that fun. I'd rather they just allowed something simpler here. We'll see. If I can play it by just straight up buying and doing simple upgrading instead of dealing with all the base building and different types of crafting tables I'll be good. If not.. well.. it'll gather dust. 

On 9/30/2023 at 3:49 PM, cucubits said:

 

Talk to her, select the option to trade stuff and see the button assignments there, you need to switch to your inventory, the select the gun you want to give her and press trade, I think it's "E". Then you need to switch back to her inventory and with that weapon selected, one button will have the "equip" option, I think "B", not sure. Don't forget to give her at lease one round of ammo for that particular gun.

 

It really isn't straight forward... took me a while and a few tries to figure this out.

 

I gave her one of those guns with a lot of laser lights coming out of it, not sure what's it called. Insane fire rate. She mows down everything now, I rarely have to do any serious work while she's around.

This is pretty much how it worked in Skyrim as well including Bows and which arrow type you wanted them to use.

8 hours ago, ryan said:

I booted up the game and im in the mission with the bandits that are giving the farmer a hard time. beat the bugs pretty easily now im low on ammo and am facing like 8 guys in a camp, no idea what to do i have to spend like 3000 on med packs and 2000 on weapons each mission and i only get like 5000 credit for the task, how are you supposed to progress. Sarah doesn't have a weapon and I have no idea how to give her a weapon. this is frustrating. if you new to rpgs i suggest you read a few tuts

There are so many med packs and so much ammo to loot I don't think I've ever gotten close to running out of any of it. Maybe be a little more methodical with combat perhaps you are getting hit too much and wasting ammo?

dupe post

7 hours ago, cucubits said:

 

I'm starting to think this is going to be quantity over quality. As much as I'd like this to not be the case, it's beginning to feel a bit repetitive: new mission - loading screen travel to another landing spot, run 200m, kill some baddies, maybe explore a base, press a button, loading screen travel back to quest giver. This exact pattern is repeating for most side quests so far.

 

A few major faction questlines are indeed more varied but I don't think there are too many of those (so far I only found the Terrormorph story and the pirates). Wondering what other bigger factions are there and how to not miss important side storylines without reading online...

 

The main story so far is running around talking to new recruitable npcs and gathering artefacts.

 

This pretty much describes their previous games as well. Fast travel straight to something once you actually find it for the first time.. etc.. etc.. 

On 9/13/2023 at 2:20 PM, MELOCODI said:

Not too bad, hehe)

I can randomly get 2-digit low times, but just posting a single click isn't enough you have to keep going and see your average.  Notice it says "Click to keep going" ..

I just happened upon another terrormorph variant randomly attacking some small scientific base I walked to. So they are out there. 🙂

On 8/20/2023 at 1:02 PM, TreeTopsRanch said:

Would that be the Elder Scrolls edition?

Elder Scrolls edition of what?

Definitely gets better when you get out into traveling systems. I feel like I still haven't scratched the surface yet. Some of the most fun things are some of the side stuff or finding something just landing on a random planet. The ship traveling and combat isn't too bad it's pretty conveniently implemented without too much fuss. The part I'm a little annoyed with is cargo, guess I'm going to have to break down and build a base or something I usually don't really want to get into building things. I'll see how it goes. I basically just did the bare minimum in FO4 just to get the network going for resources to repair/upgrade power armor.  I feel like I'll probably have to build a base to upgrade my stuff and store resources. 

As far as the loading screens, when a load happens it seems to go really quickly not too much of a bother.

I've also been enjoying it. I don't really care what others are saying negatively, just going to keep playing it till I get bored of it.

My chars are Level 3 in BG3. It's going to take an eternity to finish. And to think we also have Starfield and the CP2077 expansion dropping in the next couple months.

On 8/9/2023 at 3:34 PM, TreeTopsRanch said:

Dell Laptop G7-17-7790

2.60 gigahertz Intel Core i7-9750H

16198 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060

Win 10

I think @ryan already mentioned it but you can't really go wrong with Skyrim: Enhanced Edition. It's a huge sprawling adventure and should run OK on a 2060. It has pretty fair difficulty level slider so you can get your bearings on easy mode and maybe tick it up a notch once you get used to it. Here's a small "Let's Play" video for the beginning of the game.

As far as where to purchase them. I'm going to probably go a little sideways from the typical "Install Steam" reco and just say you might want to get GamePass for PC and install the XBox app and use that. It would give you a rather large collection of games so you can install a wide variety of games and figure out what floats your boat. You can't really go wrong for $1 for the first month and $9.99/mo after that. Skyrim is one of the games included.. the list is pretty massive and I can't think of a better way to try a junkload of games for a pretty reasonable price. $111 for an entire year is pretty cheap considering that's less than two new AAA games outright ($60 each typically).

https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game-pass/pc-game-pass

I would also buy yourself an XBox controller, most games work great with one. It's pretty much the standard controller for PC. You don't have to get it from Microsoft but this is the one to get.

https://www.xbox.com/en-US/accessories/controllers/xbox-wireless-controller

What are the specs of your computer? CPU, GPU etc.. this might matter...

On 7/14/2023 at 1:29 PM, TreeTopsRanch said:

Can anyone recommend a good came for older guys? Not a shoot-up game if possible. Just want something that is engaging and to increase my brain power before dementia sets in. 😁

What was the last game you played that you liked?

7 hours ago, ryan said:

yeah I was blown away when I first saw it, I heard its using a form of pre rendered trickery but who cares if it looks this impressive. would be nice if UE5.1 was the engine used for GTA VI. and with water physics like above video. 

It's definitely real time. I just think the physicality of the water is still not quite realistic. It looks a little like gelatin, I think that's just because of the "granularity" they can achieve with the simulation where it's not at the scale of atoms obviously. Too much math. What is there is very impressive though, just need more computation capability.

It's also something very different to create a demo like this versus implementing it in a functioning and playable game with all the other systems existing. Remains to be seen where it will get implemented. Might just be a factor of how important is it to the gameplay versus the existing tricks that are probably use much less system resources. If the water is just environment dressing it might not be worth it. If it actually has some important gameplay impact they might do it. You could really say the same thing about RT, it looks fantastic and also makes engineering/art easier since you are not spending time baking out fake lighting and things "just work".  I think we may see it in the next 5-10 years for sure if it's this far along already.

On 6/21/2023 at 4:26 AM, ryan said:

check out this, nothing comes close to this

 

 

This is dope. The consistency still looks off but it's very impressive. Can't wait to see what improvements will be iterated in 5-10 years.