The obligatory 'What are you currently playing?' thread

[Scott Tortorice]

Trust me, glove and gun paint graphics at lowish settings should be the least of your worries in an FPS game. Take it from me ;p

Yeah. Especially the BF4 crowd which seems really hardcore...especially in a hardcore mode game. Still, BF4 has some real nice graphics on high (and I can only imagine what ultra looks like!). It is the first game in a long time where I actually found myself admiring the detail that went into the graphics. But like you said: in a FPS, you really don't have the time to admire the thread count of your gloves. Still, pretty darn impressive at times. I might still find a way to up the texture to high again. I really need to replace my dated GPU, but the sad truth is that only BF4 taxes my system. Most of the other games I play can comfortably run on my last GPU! How far we have fallen....

Same here. School started and I've been spending most of my time trying to keep track of my classwork which has been a pain in the butt! I rented a book from B&N but UPS decided my address wasn't good and immediately resent the item to B&N!!! :freak::blab::bite:ers!!!! I have spent most of my time with let's plays going on in the background covering games like Distant Worlds Universe, Rome II Total War, Star Trek Online, and some other odds and ends.

DW is definitely on my Christmas list. I loved the time I had with my review copies, so I know the latest package is going to be worth the investment. I see Rome 2 came out with the Emperor Edition recently, so I need to reinstall it and try it again. This is the LAST time, though. If Rome 2 fails again, as it has every time I have installed it since release, it is going into the dead games pile.

The Brits put up stiff defense at the farm. Imperial Glory.

When I first saw that screenshot I thought it was from the new Scourge of War!

 

[Gen_Electric]

Path of Exile, if you liked Diablo; you'll like this game. It's free, no pay to win; no 'gold'. They pay you with scrolls and such you use in game. This is a Templar build about to make a pile of bones.

 

[kawaiku]

Watching a walkthrough of Halo: Combat Evolved with no commentary and I have to say I really love the lines the NPC marines use. I have forgotten how fun they were. Cocky, friendly, and confident. It really makes you realize that despite the recent beating the humans received at the previous battle (Reach, I think it was). Very optimistic folks they were.

 

[kawaiku]

Good lord. Some of the people I watch playing let's plays and walkthroughs on Youtube are total idiots... especially in strategy games. One guy left his melee units standing about while the AI walked up a rifle unit right up them and shot them to death. Meanwhile he doesn't clear out a few rear areas and lets his units just stand there getting shot by the garrison units and wonders why later on, that they are being killed or cannot resupply at those villages :argh: He's playing Cossacks 2 and keeps making really strange blunders and then yells at his guys for getting wiped out. Seriously man.. .wtf?? Some players I ...just shouldn't post on Youtube and then call their stuff walkthroughs and let's plays and act like know-it alls and pretend they are good at the games... sheesh.

 

[Scott Tortorice]

Good lord. Some of the people I watch playing let's plays and walkthroughs on Youtube are total idiots... especially in strategy games. One guy left his melee units standing about while the AI walked up a rifle unit right up them and shot them to death. Meanwhile he doesn't clear out a few rear areas and lets his units just stand there getting shot by the garrison units and wonders why later on, that they are being killed or cannot resupply at those villages :argh: He's playing Cossacks 2 and keeps making really strange blunders and then yells at his guys for getting wiped out. Seriously man.. .wtf?? Some players I ...just shouldn't post on Youtube and then call their stuff walkthroughs and let's plays and act like know-it alls and pretend they are good at the games... sheesh.

Yeah, I have seen a few LPs where I wanted to put my fist through the screen and help the guy play the game. If you listen to some successful radio hosts, such as Hannity or Levin, they all say the same thing about doing a broadcast: you need to do you prep work. If you think you can just flip on a microphone and start talking, you are going to wind up with an awful show. Some of these LP guys need to learn that lesson. I recently watched on LP where the guy began his show by acknowledging that he had NEVER played the game before! As you can expect, a large part of the show involved him getting confused, saying "I don't understand why I can't do X," and wondering what the hotkey was for function X. Oh, and also lots of "dead air" where he would stop talking as he wrestled with some aspect of the game. Those parts were thrilling. I was ready to pull my hair out by the time the LP ended. Why anyone would do a LP while being totally unfamiliar with a game just makes no sense to me. :laugh:

 

[kawaiku]

Most I follow on Youtube are fairly competent gamers and can fill the air with no issues. Some are down right amazing and others just pretty good at explaining things. I've watched quite a few play a game for the first time more or less after a quick off-screen practice with the controls and do just fine. I think some of it has to do with being patient and knowing how to talk things out while your doing something. The worst was watching someone play Zelda: Skyward Sword on the Wii and he was just effing up left and right. Meanwhile, he was stating that this was a complete walkthrough and yet he was MISSING. SO. MANY. THINGS. People were raging in the comments section in each video. It was hilarious. It ironically, turned me onto another guy who not only completely completed the game, but had great commentary alongside of it discussing the history of Zelda, gameplay mechanics, and other things. Also, another issue is not making playlists or leaving messages for followers if you have to take a leave of absence and people are waiting for the next video.

I currently follow 32 people who do let's plays and walkthrough (some with commentary and others without it).

 

[Dr Zaius]

Loaded up the latest version of Eve Online.

Slinks away in shame...

 

[Gen_Electric]

Loaded up the latest version of Eve Online.

Slinks away in shame...

Lol, is it that bad? I have a 30 day code I was thinking of using around the holidays.

 

[Scott Tortorice]

Loaded up the latest version of Eve Online.

Slinks away in shame...

Enjoy it while you can. In three days Elite launches....

[video=youtube_share;8s11iSqywU4]http://youtu.be/8s11iSqywU4[/video]

BTW: Saw this in the recent Elite newsletter. I am interested in seeing how this plays out:

The Rise of Crimson State


Even though the story itself has not started, the simulation elements of the galaxy are now live. This is where we track the aggregated effects of players’ actions on the galaxy, and systems respond accordingly. Commanders have wasted no time using it for their own ends…


There have been some interesting goings on in the Lugh system, which was a peaceful, Federally controlled system until last week.


Then orfeboy started acting as agent provocateur for the Crimson State Group:


"Over the centuries those who could moved to the Lugh system to be closer to their point of attention and an underground following has grown over the centuries into now what is a sizable minority faction in this system.


Always persecuted and hunted in the past they have established themselves now as a force within the system where each and every right they posses had to be fought and worked for. But they will accept repression no more.


Now we want what is rightfully ours! The worship of the great God Lugh will no longer be oppressed and we will have dominance in this sector and eject the oppressive Federation out of this system declaring an independent Lugh!


We call on all ships for support.
Come to Lugh. Only do missions for the 'Crimson State Group'
We need guns and weapons to gather forces for our uprising.
Our numbers are few but our resolve steadfast!
We will not fail.
We cannot fail.
We MUST not fail!"


With the help of many others, his campaign has seen Crimson State’s influence rise in the system from being a minor faction to such an extent that at the time of writing the system is on the brink of civil war.


It’s also interesting to see the differing motivations for people joining in – some are up for the crusade, whilst others are very definitely taking the opportunity to make some healthy profits!


In the same way that market prices are influenced by your every individual trade contributing to supply and demand market forces, the powerbase of factions and ultimately the destiny of systems (and even – with a bit more effort - volumes of space) is determined by your every individual action contributing to the balance of power.


The events in Lugh happened with NO intervention from anyone at Frontier. Player-influenced narrative like this does, however, provide a fantastic foundation to, or supplement of, our ability to play ‘Gamesmaster’ by creating a wider response, perhaps by one of the superpowers responding to a concerted attack across many systems.


Once the story starts you will be able to influence that too - using the dynamic mechanisms seen at work over the past few days.

 

[Scott Tortorice]

Been playing Shadowrun Returns so I can finally move on to Dragonfall before the third campaign is released. I love that game. The setting, the artwork, the story. The only area where it lacks is the combat (incredibly). Even on hard the AI is little more than braindead fodder. On the plus side, it makes your team of runners seem like real bad sons of guns that kill all opposition without breaking a sweat. :ar15: On the bad side, it makes the game something less than challenging for anyone who has ever played a tactical game before.

So, that flaw usually drives me to my other favorite cyberpunk game of all time: Frozen Synapse. What a difference in difficulty! Fights in FS are always fast and brutal, with victory often coming by the skin of your teeth and a lot of luck. Really, this is they way combat in SRR should have been, especially seeing how your runners are not supposed to be professional military / corporate security but petty criminal types. Oh well. I hope Dragonfall proves more challenging.

Anyway, here is a vid of my last mission in Frozen Synapse. I needed to escort Nix, your in-game boss, across the map to a meeting while keeping enemy ambushers at bay. Fortunately for Nix, my single sniper proved to be a one man army!

(BTW: I had to manually capture this video because YouTube was giving me problems with a straight upload from the game file, hence the manual turn advancement)

[video=youtube_share;n2l7JTlfNFQ]http://youtu.be/n2l7JTlfNFQ[/video]

Victory!

My favorite part was when I deliberately used my shotgunner as a distraction. :halo: But for him acting as a clay pigeon, Nix would have been shot right after his bodyguard was taken down. It also helped that this was a dark match where the AI couldn't see where we were unless they had LoS. That saved the team in the final few seconds.

I really need to finish the base campaign in Frozen Synapse so I can move on to the Red campaign, followed by the new(ish) Prime campaign (really, just the re-imagined campaign from the original, but I want to see it anyway ) . BTW: the FS campaign is also just as interesting as the one in SRR. It is more high level stuff - revolutionary politics, media conglomerates, and so on - but it also has a lot of personality and interesting story twists.

 

[Paul_RS]

First posting in this area, I think?

Over the festive season I upgraded my graphics card to a GTX980, from a GTX680. Tried ARMA3, just as bad a frame-rate. After a gazillion tweaks I squeezed around an extra 5-10FPS. I struggle to believe there are players out there claiming 60-90 FPS with a hundred players on server.... :upset: Dropping the image quality has no real discernible effect and sometimes makes things worse. Very poor optimisation IMHO.

Also revisited IL2 Cliffs of Dover. Cinematic quality. tweaked my settings following a guide on the ATAG website and achieved a credible 60FPS (probably more but my monitor refresh rate is 59Hz) for smaller dogfights, dropping to 20-25 on some of the larger encounters. Super large scenarios (100+) drags everything to its knees :upset:

Also took delivery of 'War in the West' from matrix games. The hardback manual is to die for. Still need to get into this, although have played some War in the East scenarios. Mind boggling detail, truly mind boggling..... :smoke:

Paul

 

[Scott Tortorice]

Hey Paul,

Yeah, I don't think I've seen you around here recently. Congrats on the new graphics card! I've been meaning to upgrade mine but I just haven't had the inclination as, with the exception of BF4, most of the games I am playing don't demand much from my stock GPU.

I had my fun with Arma 2, but never bothered with A3. I didn't really see why BI needed to remake the game so quickly. And once they started releasing the main campaign in chapters, I lost interest quickly. Didn't like the sound of that.

Hope to see you around these PC gaming parts more frequently!

 

[Dr Zaius]

Sounds like you might be CPU limited rather than GPU limited. Or perhaps it's a memory bottleneck.

just guessing.

 

[Paul_RS]

Sounds like you might be CPU limited rather than GPU limited. Or perhaps it's a memory bottleneck.

just guessing.

Possibly, I have an Intel i7-2600 running at 3.4Ghz, that I overclocked by 30%. not the latest but no slouch. I can run Shogun II at 'extreme' without any noticeable lag and 1 setting notch down is totally lag free.

As one poster noted on Sim HQ during a discussion on Cliffs of Dover frame rates ' That's the very reason that flight sims like IL2 and BoB 2 will be played for years to come' . Massed formations and, particularly, the historical campaign in BoB 2 remains second to none for historical immersion for the battle of Britain. :smoke:

 

[Scott Tortorice]

Victory!

[video=youtube_share;yqx5nLd7SnI]http://youtu.be/yqx5nLd7SnI[/video]

My shotgunner was reckless, but it paid off in the end. But not for him.

 

[Scott Tortorice]

Well, Elite: Dangerous really got me into a sci-fi mood again. I've benched that game while I await the next expansion later this month (fingers crossed), and have now moved on to Endless Space. I think this is the first time I played the game since purchasing the Disharmony expansion late last year. The game does feel better to me, but that could just be because I haven't played it in a long while. I am still miffed at Amplitude for dropping this title so quickly so they could work on the fantasy variant (which I must check out one day). Endless Space deserves at least one more expansion. :angry: But whatever....

 

[shunwick]

Had the day off yesterday and spent a lot of time slobbing Euro Truck Simulator 2 with the new Scandinavian expansion. This game is much more fun than it has any right to be. Curious ....

Best wishes,
Steve

 

[Scott Tortorice]

Had the day off yesterday and spent a lot of time slobbing Euro Truck Simulator 2 with the new Scandinavian expansion. This game is much more fun than it has any right to be. Curious ....

Best wishes,
Steve

Yeah, I saw that advertised on Steam. I've heard so much good stuff about it that I was almost tempted....

I wonder if they will ever do an American version?

 

[shunwick]

Yeah, I saw that advertised on Steam. I've heard so much good stuff about it that I was almost tempted....

I wonder if they will ever do an American version?

Scott, they are working on American Truck Simulator at the moment. It is eagerly awaited but arrival date as yet unknown.

Best wishes,
Steve

 

[kawaiku]

Yeah, I saw that advertised on Steam. I've heard so much good stuff about it that I was almost tempted....

I wonder if they will ever do an American version?

It was stupidly popular for a little while and was breaking the top sellers list if I recall correctly. I had always wondered how well it modeled the locations you were trucking around in. And interesting that they're doing an American version. Hopefully they have the intellect to NOT do it in the San Francisco Bay Area or LA in California. You'd be stuck in traffic 80-90% of the time.