I'd go so far to say that these guys potentially missed out on creating a new franchise entirely. If anything, the LotR stuff just bogs it down.
The problem with creating a new franchise is that you have to build everything up, either during gameplay (good, but tricky) or during non-gameplay (generally non-interactive and boring). And it inevitably gets compared to LotR and griped about.
The problem with using an existing franchise is that the fan base will gripe about it.
M-e:SoM hopefully sets a trend where the gameplay is more important than correctly rendering the number of folds of banana leaf around a piece of lembas bread.
I finished reading The Hobbit y yesterday. Was off sick from work and completely and utterly got lost in Bilbos adventure. Don't think I've ever r read a book so quickly! On to the Lord of the Rings!
Aww mate you're in for a treat of a lifetime. I have very fond memories of reading LoTR over a summer an extremely long time ago as an impressionable 13 year old. Good times...
Well, could play a bit more. The problem is that I keep getting sidetracked because I can't go past a slave camp and NOT free them and I'm like "hey, there's an Artifact nearby I should get it so I don't have to backtrack" and then "Oh look, a captain, might as well kill him"... and so by the time I notice I've gone half the map in the other direction.
Also, found my first really tough enemy. Something or other the Guardian, which was in a red side mission I found. He's armored to the gills, comes with a squad of other armored guys, is tough as hell, and to make it worse other captains kept joining the battle until I died. After the fourth attempt, where we reached four captains consecutively joining in a single battle, I decided to come back later when I have better stuff. Or an Oliphant.
Well, could play a bit more. The problem is that I keep getting sidetracked because I can't go past a slave camp and NOT free them and I'm like "hey, there's an Artifact nearby I should get it so I don't have to backtrack" and then "Oh look, a captain, might as well kill him"... and so by the time I notice I've gone half the map in the other direction.
Also, found my first really tough enemy. Something or other the Guardian, which was in a red side mission I found. He's armored to the gills, comes with a squad of other armored guys, is tough as hell, and to make it worse other captains kept joining the battle until I died. After the fourth attempt, where we reached four captains consecutively joining in a single battle, I decided to come back later when I have better stuff. Or an Oliphant.
Yeah, the hardest thing for me is to focus on the main quests to unlock the skill progression. I'm the kind of player who spent 100 hours in Morrowind before getting 10% into the main quest line.
Picked this up earlier today. Already had my first yakety sax experience.
Get a mission that gives me a chance to kill a captain. I engage and quickly kill him due to a stealth finisher weakness. As I mop up his guard detail, another captain appears and starts fighting me.
His only real weakness is combat finishers so I'm plugging away when two more captains show up. Both are spear throwers and I have no intel on them. One has poisoned spears.
Original captain demonstrates that he has a suplex move that takes me down to almost dead from full health. I run, manage to find an herb to heal, and shoot open a caragor cage. Caragor takes out the originally targetted captain. I wind up having to flee again because poisoned spears really hurt.
I heal, come back, and eventually take down one of the captains. Not the one with poison though. It takes two or three cycles of retreat, heal, pick off guards with stealth before whittling down his health more. As he's about to die, a "killed" captain pops back up and into the fight. I think he might have been the spear thrower I had just killed. I manage to take out the poison spear captain, heal up, and then take out the reappearing captain.
Said captain has reappeared again since then. He tends to go down in between the hit numbers I need for a real finisher.
I finished reading The Hobbit y yesterday. Was off sick from work and completely and utterly got lost in Bilbos adventure. Don't think I've ever r read a book so quickly! On to the Lord of the Rings!
Aww mate you're in for a treat of a lifetime. I have very fond memories of reading LoTR over a summer an extremely long time ago as an impressionable 13 year old. Good times...
If you've watched the movies, you might find the book drags on and on a certain points. (Bombadil, I'm looking at you). And if you thought the ending of RotK went on waaay too long, well, the book makes it longer. But it's a fun read, and I suggest reading some of the Appendices when you're finished.
I finished reading The Hobbit y yesterday. Was off sick from work and completely and utterly got lost in Bilbos adventure. Don't think I've ever r read a book so quickly! On to the Lord of the Rings!
Aww mate you're in for a treat of a lifetime. I have very fond memories of reading LoTR over a summer an extremely long time ago as an impressionable 13 year old. Good times...
If you've watched the movies, you might find the book drags on and on a certain points. (Bombadil, I'm looking at you). And if you thought the ending of RotK went on waaay too long, well, the book makes it longer. But it's a fun read, and I suggest reading some of the Appendices when you're finished.
Yeah, but the RotK book has the Battle of the Shire, which the movie omits.
I finished reading The Hobbit y yesterday. Was off sick from work and completely and utterly got lost in Bilbos adventure. Don't think I've ever r read a book so quickly! On to the Lord of the Rings!
Aww mate you're in for a treat of a lifetime. I have very fond memories of reading LoTR over a summer an extremely long time ago as an impressionable 13 year old. Good times...
If you've watched the movies, you might find the book drags on and on a certain points. (Bombadil, I'm looking at you). And if you thought the ending of RotK went on waaay too long, well, the book makes it longer. But it's a fun read, and I suggest reading some of the Appendices when you're finished.
My only suggestion is to skip the intro/whatever information dump Tolkien starts the book off with. It can be fascinating world building material but you should already have a decent grasp on the setting and want to get to the story itself.
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited October 2014
tom bombadil was amazing and i was really disappointed that he wasn't in the movie
bombadil for lyfe
also i recommend you skip nothing
not a single word
read it all
you may need to take a break (i took a break)
but read every word
and don't read it when you aren't in the mood for something effortful. dont skim the thing and half read. if you want to do that pick up an easier book to read
you read tolkien when you are alert
he's like a really good action game
the more effort you put in, the more you get out
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
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KupotheAvengerDestroyer of Cakeand other deserts.Registered Userregular
What's the difference between gathering some intel from a normal grunt vs. the guys with the green icons above their heads?
Fighting the Talons in glorious combat. My legendary enchanted blade locks up with one of the foul Talons and the game dramatically zooms in to highlight this clash. The armored scum goes to spit his vitriol at me when a god damn flailing and on fire Uruk stumbles into the scene, absolutely losing his shit for the duration of the mini-cutscene.
I could not fucking stop laughing and had to pause the game while I collected myself. Shit like that is why I love video games.
In related news, this game is really, surprisingly, great. This is the first one where I've run through and picked up all the incidental collectibles because the devs actually bothered to make them interesting instead of just an OCD trap like they are in other games. The historical tidbits with the artifacts were great, the completed picture was neat, even finishing up the combat challenges for your weapons ended up having a payoff beyond just making money. I never once felt like I was wasting my time while doing these things either.
If I have a single complaint it's that
The payoff for branding the warchiefs was kinda lame. I was expecting an army because the game flat out tells you you're getting an army and instead I just had a few big orcs. I suspect that this was entirely due to hardware limitations and I can understand it because of that, but they should have stopped trying to refer to what you'd get as an "army."
Outside of that one really minor gripe I had a fucking blast from start to finish.
The game is good, but it really needed a third act/area after the first two, where you have to put everything you've learned to use.
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
On a whim, I decided to murder all my nemesii. Now I think I'm going to dominate the entire roster on both maps. Anyone know how to make the game fill in roster gaps where's there's a dead Orc, but no one ever fills the spot?
On a whim, I decided to murder all my nemesii. Now I think I'm going to dominate the entire roster on both maps. Anyone know how to make the game fill in roster gaps where's there's a dead Orc, but no one ever fills the spot?
The spot doesn't get filled no matter how much time passes? I guess the orc survived and there's a high chance of you running into him again while branding everyone else.
Well, finally took down that Targog or whatever the Guardian. Stupid immunity to everything and constant reinforcements. Is there any trick to the big shield guys that push you away when you try to vault them?
Hey guys, so, you all know that the hunters and archers, or any other uruk that chucks things, that shit can hit and kill uruks between the two of you. Nice way to thin the ranks.
Did you know, should the uruk that ate the attack for you survive, he is most displeased with his former ally?
I was fighting a captain who got mad I was dealing with his cronies, and threw an axe at me. I saw it peg a random uruk in the back, assume he was dead, and finished the mooks I was fighting, only to turn around and see random uruk beathing the shit out of the captain that pegged him.
Well, finally took down that Targog or whatever the Guardian. Stupid immunity to everything and constant reinforcements. Is there any trick to the big shield guys that push you away when you try to vault them?
Sometimes dudes will just have a weakness you have to exploit. When I was playing this, I had one guy who was immune to melee combat, finishers, stealth attacks, and ranged, and called reinforcements.
He had a weakness to burning so basically I had to lure him near a fire, blow it up on him, and he was immediately in the green so i could melt his brain.
Well, finally took down that Targog or whatever the Guardian. Stupid immunity to everything and constant reinforcements. Is there any trick to the big shield guys that push you away when you try to vault them?
Once you've got the special ability upgrades, you can give yourself basically unlimited execution, ranged or stealth attacks, and I don't think your target can be immune to all of those.
Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
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NEO|PhyteThey follow the stars, bound together.Strands in a braid till the end.Registered Userregular
Well, finally took down that Targog or whatever the Guardian. Stupid immunity to everything and constant reinforcements. Is there any trick to the big shield guys that push you away when you try to vault them?
Once you've got the special ability upgrades, you can give yourself basically unlimited execution, ranged or stealth attacks, and I don't think your target can be immune to all of those.
Yes they can. If they are, they will have a fear of some kind, which you have to trigger to make their immunities go away.
It was that somehow, from within the derelict-horror, they had learned a way to see inside an ugly, broken thing... And take away its pain.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
Well, finally took down that Targog or whatever the Guardian. Stupid immunity to everything and constant reinforcements. Is there any trick to the big shield guys that push you away when you try to vault them?
Once you've got the special ability upgrades, you can give yourself basically unlimited execution, ranged or stealth attacks, and I don't think your target can be immune to all of those.
Yes they can. If they are, they will have a fear of some kind, which you have to trigger to make their immunities go away.
I think I had one with all immunities and only a fear of Graugs, in an area with no Graugs.
However, there is no immunity to combat drain, so what I did for those guys was to shoot a mook 5 times, combat drain the boss (which gave me back elf shot), repeat.
Jephery on
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Actually I'm pretty sure if they have immunity to combat finishers then combat drain won't work. I know i had at least one that I could not combat drain.
Oh, I guess I must have just led him around into explosions then.
Guys I killed so many orcs they all blend together in my mind.
Only problem with explosions is Hate Of Burns though.
Jephery on
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
It really must suck to be an orc captain with a weakness to stealth finishers. I've lost count of how many captains I've met by landing an aerial brutalize on them or rush stabbing them when they rounded the corner on my murder bush in the area. At least the guys with a fatal ranged weakness at least get looked at in the eyes briefly before dying.
Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
This one guy I built up from Level 5, when he was just a plucky little fellow who was afraid of the tiniest fires. Now he's a Level 20 Legendary Warchief!
I'm so proud! My little boy is all grown up!
I think I have been playing this game too much...
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FreiA French Prometheus UnboundDeadwoodRegistered Userregular
What happens to Talion's body when he dies? Does it dissolve? Does it just stay there? I don't really like to think of what the uruks get up to with it if it stays.
What happens to Talion's body when he dies? Does it dissolve? Does it just stay there? I don't really like to think of what the uruks get up to with it if it stays.
Design idea: a warchief whose armor features multiple Talion-heads impaled on spikes. Like, you know the warchief armor with skulls impaled? That, with Talion heads.
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
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RoshinMy backlog can be seen from spaceSwedenRegistered Userregular
I wish there was an option for persistent corpses. Sure, it would eventually melt my computer, but I want to see the corpses Tallion leave behind pile up.
What happens to Talion's body when he dies? Does it dissolve? Does it just stay there? I don't really like to think of what the uruks get up to with it if it stays.
Design idea: a warchief whose armor features multiple Talion-heads impaled on spikes. Like, you know the warchief armor with skulls impaled? That, with Talion heads.
I'm almost positive I heard a random uruk talking about his buddy, who has a bunch of Talion's faces as trophies.
I am not making this up.
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RoshinMy backlog can be seen from spaceSwedenRegistered Userregular
Look at these cool new runes I got, Gronk! Look at them!
+6
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KupotheAvengerDestroyer of Cakeand other deserts.Registered Userregular
Guys, I'm having trouble with this goddamned black captain. I've shot, stabbed, burned and mauled this bastard and he's come back with armor plating, missing half his face and with enough ability buffs that make him damn near impossible to kill. He also is armed with a poisoned crossbow and calls in reinforcements when attacked. Any suggestions?
Guys, I'm having trouble with this goddamned black captain. I've shot, stabbed, burned and mauled this bastard and he's come back with armor plating, missing half his face and with enough ability buffs that make him damn near impossible to kill. He also is armed with a poisoned crossbow and calls in reinforcements when attacked. Any suggestions?
Posts
The problem with using an existing franchise is that the fan base will gripe about it.
M-e:SoM hopefully sets a trend where the gameplay is more important than correctly rendering the number of folds of banana leaf around a piece of lembas bread.
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
Aww mate you're in for a treat of a lifetime. I have very fond memories of reading LoTR over a summer an extremely long time ago as an impressionable 13 year old. Good times...
Shitty Tumblr:lighthouse1138.tumblr.com
Also, found my first really tough enemy. Something or other the Guardian, which was in a red side mission I found. He's armored to the gills, comes with a squad of other armored guys, is tough as hell, and to make it worse other captains kept joining the battle until I died. After the fourth attempt, where we reached four captains consecutively joining in a single battle, I decided to come back later when I have better stuff. Or an Oliphant.
Yeah, the hardest thing for me is to focus on the main quests to unlock the skill progression. I'm the kind of player who spent 100 hours in Morrowind before getting 10% into the main quest line.
Get a mission that gives me a chance to kill a captain. I engage and quickly kill him due to a stealth finisher weakness. As I mop up his guard detail, another captain appears and starts fighting me.
His only real weakness is combat finishers so I'm plugging away when two more captains show up. Both are spear throwers and I have no intel on them. One has poisoned spears.
Original captain demonstrates that he has a suplex move that takes me down to almost dead from full health. I run, manage to find an herb to heal, and shoot open a caragor cage. Caragor takes out the originally targetted captain. I wind up having to flee again because poisoned spears really hurt.
I heal, come back, and eventually take down one of the captains. Not the one with poison though. It takes two or three cycles of retreat, heal, pick off guards with stealth before whittling down his health more. As he's about to die, a "killed" captain pops back up and into the fight. I think he might have been the spear thrower I had just killed. I manage to take out the poison spear captain, heal up, and then take out the reappearing captain.
Said captain has reappeared again since then. He tends to go down in between the hit numbers I need for a real finisher.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/531749148270154201/E4AE2C535BC5DD7540821157F502C51695773774/
Wound up lighting him on fire several times while mind controlled orcs wailed on him.
If you've watched the movies, you might find the book drags on and on a certain points. (Bombadil, I'm looking at you). And if you thought the ending of RotK went on waaay too long, well, the book makes it longer. But it's a fun read, and I suggest reading some of the Appendices when you're finished.
WoW
Dear Satan.....
Yeah, but the RotK book has the Battle of the Shire, which the movie omits.
The even foretell it in fellowship when Frodo meets Galadriel. I was bummed it was cut.
My only suggestion is to skip the intro/whatever information dump Tolkien starts the book off with. It can be fascinating world building material but you should already have a decent grasp on the setting and want to get to the story itself.
bombadil for lyfe
also i recommend you skip nothing
not a single word
read it all
you may need to take a break (i took a break)
but read every word
and don't read it when you aren't in the mood for something effortful. dont skim the thing and half read. if you want to do that pick up an easier book to read
you read tolkien when you are alert
he's like a really good action game
the more effort you put in, the more you get out
Battlenet: Judgement#1243
psn: KupoZero
Normal grunts only tell you the name, appearance, where to find a Captain. Basic stuff.
Intel/green icon grunts tell you the strengths/weaknesses/quirks etc of a Captain. Real intel.
I could not fucking stop laughing and had to pause the game while I collected myself. Shit like that is why I love video games.
In related news, this game is really, surprisingly, great. This is the first one where I've run through and picked up all the incidental collectibles because the devs actually bothered to make them interesting instead of just an OCD trap like they are in other games. The historical tidbits with the artifacts were great, the completed picture was neat, even finishing up the combat challenges for your weapons ended up having a payoff beyond just making money. I never once felt like I was wasting my time while doing these things either.
If I have a single complaint it's that
Outside of that one really minor gripe I had a fucking blast from start to finish.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
The spot doesn't get filled no matter how much time passes? I guess the orc survived and there's a high chance of you running into him again while branding everyone else.
Did you know, should the uruk that ate the attack for you survive, he is most displeased with his former ally?
I was fighting a captain who got mad I was dealing with his cronies, and threw an axe at me. I saw it peg a random uruk in the back, assume he was dead, and finished the mooks I was fighting, only to turn around and see random uruk beathing the shit out of the captain that pegged him.
Sometimes dudes will just have a weakness you have to exploit. When I was playing this, I had one guy who was immune to melee combat, finishers, stealth attacks, and ranged, and called reinforcements.
He had a weakness to burning so basically I had to lure him near a fire, blow it up on him, and he was immediately in the green so i could melt his brain.
Once you've got the special ability upgrades, you can give yourself basically unlimited execution, ranged or stealth attacks, and I don't think your target can be immune to all of those.
Yes they can. If they are, they will have a fear of some kind, which you have to trigger to make their immunities go away.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
I think I had one with all immunities and only a fear of Graugs, in an area with no Graugs.
However, there is no immunity to combat drain, so what I did for those guys was to shoot a mook 5 times, combat drain the boss (which gave me back elf shot), repeat.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Guys I killed so many orcs they all blend together in my mind.
Only problem with explosions is Hate Of Burns though.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
edit WRONG FREAKING THREAD. I am so out of it today
He also has a Hatred of Pain, so he enrages every time I hit him and constantly regenned. That also meant he never turned green
I got fortunate the third time I went after him. He did his "surrender on his knees" thing and I finally got him.
Now he rampages around the land, executing and dueling Captains higher levels than him.
Keep on keepin' on you crazy bastard.
xbl - HowYouGetAnts
steam - WeAreAllGeth
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
I'm so proud! My little boy is all grown up!
I think I have been playing this game too much...
I'm almost positive I heard a random uruk talking about his buddy, who has a bunch of Talion's faces as trophies.
I am not making this up.
Look at these cool new runes I got, Gronk! Look at them!
Battlenet: Judgement#1243
psn: KupoZero
Did you get intel on him? Does he fear anything?