The "Currently Playing..." Topic

Edit history:

Opium: 2015-05-14 11:27:32 am

2015-05-14 11:12:38 am

downloading Axiom Verge on steam now. yayness!

Why won't it recognize my ps3 controller? Shit.

Da Dood

2015-05-14 11:43:04 am

Dood Trigger™

Finished Shattered Soldier with the real ending. Amazing game. I will definitely be playing this often. :)

Anyone played Lords of Shadow 2? I'll probably start tonight.

Edit history:

Opium: 2015-05-14 02:16:21 pm

Opium: 2015-05-14 02:15:42 pm

2015-05-14 12:12:57 pm

yay problem solved

I've played AV for about an hour but I have to get back to work. So far I'm absolutely loving it. The controls feel great. I love using the lock feature to stand in place while aiming diagonally, and I also love the way crouch works. You only crouch while down is pressed, then automatically stand back up once you let go. You can also walk while crouching, although much slower than normal. I do need to experiment on weapons switching because I'm not too crazy about the current setup I have. I sure have a lot of weapons for only having played for an hour. I wonder if there's just a crazy amount of weapons in the game, or they give them all to you quickly for some reason. I'm hoping it's the former.

Toozin

2015-05-14 08:56:24 pm

Not impossible

just highly unlikely

I have played LoS2. I liked it, but it gets some justified hate. Mostly for the stealth sections, which are both bad mechanically and bad conceptually because you are motherfucking Dracula tip toeing around. My biggest beef though is with the map, which is technically an open Metroid-like map with lots of potential for backtracking and exploration, but it has no real flow and the actual map you look at is pretty much worthless. I actively avoided exploring because otherwise I'd just get lost.

But the combat is fun.

Da Dood

2015-05-15 12:35:52 am

Dood Trigger™

Zobek's bodyguard looks badass! O_O Wish I was playing as him, haha.

Just left City of the Damned in LoS2, or at least I think that's what I'm supposed to do now. Got the Chaos Power and found the warp room. The map in this game is quite confusing... despite the ability to backtrack, the level design seems pretty linear. But I just have no idea where I am in relation to previous areas most of the time. Pretty much gave up exploring anywhere that isn't the immediate vicinity.

They keep alternating between Castlevania and what looks like the set of Eraserhead in color. The industry areas are extremely disappointing. So many interesting possibilities with an immortal dude in our time and they just have Dracula infiltrate some generic factory/lab. The rat stealth is hilarious in the sense that it doesn't fit at all. I'm glad the stealth hasn't been as frustrating as I heard, at least. I mean, it is frustrating conceptually because it is freaking Dracula there afraid of some dumb guard, but gameplay-wise it's no big deal.

I'm having a good time so far, more than I thought I would. Probably wouldn't have played all of that in one sitting if I wasn't enjoying it. The game does fix some of the stuff I hated about LoS1, mainly the camera (although it is far from perfect, you can actually sort of control it here...). Platforming is now super automated and free, they might as well just play a cutscene. I'm not complaining there. And the boss fights I've done were pretty cool.

I still have trouble adjusting to the controls, ever since LoS1. I don't know what is it about them, they feel so unintuitive to me. I know people can get really good at this game, so it must be my fault... but to be fair, the combat has been pretty simple (playing on Lords of Shadow difficulty).

How long is the game, by the way?

Zobek's bodyguard looks badass! O_O Wish I was playing as him, haha.

Just left City of the Damned in LoS2, or at least I think that's what I'm supposed to do now. Got the Chaos Power and found the warp room. The map in this game is quite confusing... despite the ability to backtrack, the level design seems pretty linear. But I just have no idea where I am in relation to previous areas most of the time. Pretty much gave up exploring anywhere that isn't the immediate vicinity.

They keep alternating between Castlevania and what looks like the set of Eraserhead in color. The industry areas are extremely disappointing. So many interesting possibilities with an immortal dude in our time and they just have Dracula infiltrate some generic factory/lab. The rat stealth is hilarious in the sense that it doesn't fit at all. I'm glad the stealth hasn't been as frustrating as I heard, at least. I mean, it is frustrating conceptually because it is freaking Dracula there afraid of some dumb guard, but gameplay-wise it's no big deal.

I'm having a good time so far, more than I thought I would. Probably wouldn't have played all of that in one sitting if I wasn't enjoying it. The game does fix some of the stuff I hated about LoS1, mainly the camera (although it is far from perfect, you can actually sort of control it here...). Platforming is now super automated and free, they might as well just play a cutscene. I'm not complaining there. And the boss fights I've done were pretty cool.

I still have trouble adjusting to the controls, ever since LoS1. I don't know what is it about them, they feel so unintuitive to me. I know people can get really good at this game, so it must be my fault... but to be fair, the combat has been pretty simple (playing on Lords of Shadow difficulty).

How long is the game, by the way?

Toozin

2015-05-15 04:28:20 am

Not impossible

just highly unlikely

I don't remember exactly how long in hours. It's about as long as the first if you don't go item hunting I think.

It sounds like your opinion matches mine pretty much exactly.

Toozin

2015-05-15 04:38:59 am

Not impossible

just highly unlikely

One thing I adore though: if you check the options menu, you'll see a toggle to turn quick time events on or off, and it's defaulted to off. That's just a beautiful thing.

Da Dood

2015-05-15 09:31:26 am

Dood Trigger™

Thanks, man. Yep, being able to turn off QTEs is a beauty.

Made it to Carmilla's Lair.

Damn those commando enemies. I don't know how to fight them. It just sucks to bring out the Chaos weapon only because of a shield (and those guys sure like to hover out of reach mid-combo). First time I used the OP dragon transformation was in one of those fights. I wonder if that does anything to bosses...?

Train set piece wasn't all that bad, but I got screwed because I had one hair of health on that roof part where you dodge the lights. Pretty much had to do that section perfectly. Admittedly I didn't try using the healing item, but at the same time I thought that was too BS to waste on.

2015-05-15 03:56:16 pm

Club 27 Goals

So WoW is at an all time low for subscription count right now, they already lost 4 nil subs and down to 6 million total, so the girlfriend and I got back into it recently. However I log in yesterday to see I have a six month ban on my account for exploiting. Turns out blizzard banned over 150K ACTIVE accounts two days ago if they had any sort of history of using a bot (I used a bot to level up my fiahing because it fucking sucks to level up because all you do is click one button and wait 5 seconds then click again).

The sad part is since this ban is so massive, and only hit currently active accounts, this has caused entire guilds to fall apart. The game already had very inactive players so guilds we tree just barely holding together with ten active raiders, so if only two people got hit by this ban in their raiding set up then that means the entire guild can't raid, which is now causing even more people together quit the game.

It's theorized that the reason blizzard waited this long is because they just recently lost a law suit against the company that makes this bitting software a couple days ago, and did this together spite them.

And just to give some perspective previously to this blizzard has previously only given seventy two hour bans to first time bot abusers, as long as they weren't exploiting the economy. This time it's 6 months.

The real sad part is this doesn't even hurt the people that bot for a living. They'll just buy ten more accounts again and carry on, this only hurts the active players that used bots to get through the most tedious parts of the game but still actively played with friends and we're a benefit to the economy.

Blizzard fucked up.

So WoW is at an all time low for subscription count right now, they already lost 4 nil subs and down to 6 million total, so the girlfriend and I got back into it recently. However I log in yesterday to see I have a six month ban on my account for exploiting. Turns out blizzard banned over 150K ACTIVE accounts two days ago if they had any sort of history of using a bot (I used a bot to level up my fiahing because it fucking sucks to level up because all you do is click one button and wait 5 seconds then click again).

The sad part is since this ban is so massive, and only hit currently active accounts, this has caused entire guilds to fall apart. The game already had very inactive players so guilds we tree just barely holding together with ten active raiders, so if only two people got hit by this ban in their raiding set up then that means the entire guild can't raid, which is now causing even more people together quit the game.

It's theorized that the reason blizzard waited this long is because they just recently lost a law suit against the company that makes this bitting software a couple days ago, and did this together spite them.

And just to give some perspective previously to this blizzard has previously only given seventy two hour bans to first time bot abusers, as long as they weren't exploiting the economy. This time it's 6 months.

The real sad part is this doesn't even hurt the people that bot for a living. They'll just buy ten more accounts again and carry on, this only hurts the active players that used bots to get through the most tedious parts of the game but still actively played with friends and we're a benefit to the economy.

Blizzard fucked up.

2015-05-15 04:00:15 pm

I agree that does sound like a bad plan.

2015-05-15 04:04:15 pm

red chamber dream

they're not at an all-time low unless they launched with more than 6 million subs ;)

Edit history:

arkarian: 2015-05-15 04:05:44 pm

2015-05-15 04:05:28 pm

red chamber dream

at any rate, activision blizzard is well known for their anti-consumer business practices spanning years and years, so i'm not surprised by any of that and i'm a little puzzled if anyone else is either

2015-05-15 04:07:39 pm

red chamber dream

i'm certainly not giving them more money after the diablo iii fiasco

2015-05-15 04:59:14 pm

Club 27 Goals

Quote from arkarian:

they're not at an all-time low unless they launched with more than 6 million subs ;)

oh yeah true haha. Okay the lowest it's ever been in the last like, 8 years.

Quote from arkarian:

i'm certainly not giving them more money after the diablo iii fiasco

sad part is, they've pretty much fixed that completely now but people aren't really willing to give it a chance. RoS eliminated the auction houses, and added so much to the game. There's actually seasons now, and each new season they add more gear sets and types and have new leader boards, etc etc. D3 has really turned pretty great now, but its launch was so horrible that nobody really cares that much now.

Edit history:

arkarian: 2015-05-15 05:01:30 pm

arkarian: 2015-05-15 05:00:59 pm

2015-05-15 05:00:47 pm

red chamber dream

oh i'm well aware diii is great now. i would play it if they weren't asking for another $40. i already paid you $60 blizzard. fix the game for free and i'll play it, you idiots.

as it stands now, i've still only gone through that game exactly once, on normal. haven't touched it since.

2015-05-15 05:03:14 pm

Club 27 Goals

yeah for sure. I'm honestly surprised at this point they haven't just bundled it in with the main game. It is on sale frequently down to about $15 from what I saw, but it's not so much the price tag, but more of the fact that they expect people to pay for a glorified patch on top of new content.

To be fair though they did retroactively fix a lot of the problems with vanilla D3, even if you played it again right now you'd get more enjoyment out of the base game. The expansion just adds the posibility to level up to 70, and add a new character type.

2015-05-15 05:04:59 pm

Club 27 Goals

damn, little sister's birthday and still haven't figured out what to get her.

Guess I'll stop by kmart on the way over and just pick up some kinda minecraft and/or my little pony thing, since that's what the kids are into these days.

Back in the day we had GI Joes and transformers. Now it's just minecraft.

2015-05-15 05:06:23 pm

red chamber dream

the expansion also adds another act, right? that would be pretty key to me getting back into the game. vanilla diii was way too short, and frankly kind of boring.

2015-05-15 05:11:36 pm

Club 27 Goals

part of the problem of the way vanilla d3 worked is you had to run through on normal first, then unlock the next tier, then the next, etc. So it didn't actually become a challenge or "fun" until the third clear through.

The way it works now is you can change the difficulty at quite literally any time you want, without any consequence.

They do add another act with the expansion, but it's the same length as the others from what I can tell. I forget if they let you play the Adventure mode in vanilla, which is pretty much the heart of the game now. You go through completely quests at different places in the game, and get rift keys. You use these rift keys to go into a Rift and kill tons of mobs until the rift guardian shows up, kill him, then you get a Keystone. The Keystone starts as a trial keystone, you go back into the rift, and kill as many mobs as you can. The better you do, the higher the level of the keystone is. THEN you use that keystone to go back into the rift, and you're timed. You have to complete the rift and kill the rift guardian before the timer runs out. If you succeed, you get to level up the keystone to make it higher and try again on a higher difficulty. This is where leaderboards come in.

And of course needless to say these rifts drop crazy good loot too when you kill the boss, and exclusive legendary gems (which you can also level up by completing the rift).

part of the problem of the way vanilla d3 worked is you had to run through on normal first, then unlock the next tier, then the next, etc. So it didn't actually become a challenge or "fun" until the third clear through.

The way it works now is you can change the difficulty at quite literally any time you want, without any consequence.

They do add another act with the expansion, but it's the same length as the others from what I can tell. I forget if they let you play the Adventure mode in vanilla, which is pretty much the heart of the game now. You go through completely quests at different places in the game, and get rift keys. You use these rift keys to go into a Rift and kill tons of mobs until the rift guardian shows up, kill him, then you get a Keystone. The Keystone starts as a trial keystone, you go back into the rift, and kill as many mobs as you can. The better you do, the higher the level of the keystone is.  THEN you use that keystone to go back into the rift, and you're timed. You have to complete the rift and kill the rift guardian before the timer runs out. If you succeed, you get to level up the keystone to make it higher and try again on a higher difficulty. This is where leaderboards come in.

And of course needless to say these rifts drop crazy good loot too when you kill the boss, and exclusive legendary gems (which you can also level up by completing the rift).

2015-05-15 05:12:08 pm

Club 27 Goals

honestly the only time I know of people completing the story mode now is when they do it for the achievement to beat all 5 acts under 1 hour.

2015-05-15 05:27:51 pm

Still loving Axiom Verge. I die a lot, but I don't care. It's fun as hell. The music and atmosphere are intense.

I have no idea why the min hardware requirements say my pc can't handle it. It runs just fine.

2015-05-15 05:30:10 pm

red chamber dream

the min reqs do say your computer can handle it. we already went over that :P

2015-05-15 05:31:14 pm

red chamber dream

poision oh wow, i had no clue they introduced another mode