I didn't love Krater at the time. I remember it feeling 'empty' but I can't recall exactly.
Overall there aren't a ton of cyberpunk RPGs, possibly because it's a tough setting to pull off well. There are a ton of smaller games with cyberpunk aesthetics though.
Invisible Inc is a roguelike-ish tactical isometric game about corp on corp violence.
Heat Signature is about being a spaceship burglar. Very focused on system interactions.
VA-11 Hall-A is a game about being a bartender in a cyberpunk space, VN'ish.
Citizen Sleeper is a cyberpunk RPG that's text-heavy and about time pressure.
VICTORIA 3 is out in an hour or so and reviews have been quite strong for what is almost surely Paradox's driest game series (or the one that was most in need of the "next-generation" pass that PDX's games are getting on their new development engine). Having played a little bit of V2 in prep for V3, the improvements in accessibility look even greater than the leap from CK2 to CK3 (the later of which really got me sold on grand strategy games; so glad I gave CK3 a real chance).
Isn't Cyberpunk supposedly in a not completely on fire state now?
Other than a bunch of NPC's t-posing, it never really was on PC (relative to other CDPR releases). I think I had less than five gameplay halting bugs in my playtime. Consoles though, absolutely, and something they (CDPR executives) should be made to remember until they are out of the company (or out of creatives way).
. . .if you're looking to jump in, should wait until the story DLC is released next year.
It's a cute little potion-maker/shop management sim with deck building and light relationship mechanics. Sounds like a nice, relaxing time, right?
Hah. No. You fool. Potionomics is a ruthless time management game that requires you min/max your business to the absolute hilt if you want to stand a chance. There's a tournament every ten days, and if you don't win it's Game Over for you. So you'd better put your nose to that grindstone.
Or at least, at first, because this game has some seriously bad pacing. Yes, early on it can be a nail-biter because you need a lot and have nothing. But later on, you'll just be faffing about because you've already got everything you need and now there's a bunch of empty time to fill.
I did enjoy my time with it. The alchemy is OK. The deck building is fun. The characters are neat. It's just that, as a game, it could use some balancing. And some QoL improvements like adding filters to the shop interface.
Yes, I learned this to my sorrow. I didn't actually read this post before diving in.
I expected it to be a little more Stardew Valley-style forgiving, but NO. It also didn't do a very good job of telling you just HOW to make sure you have the required quality potions for the tournament.
Send Mint out adventuring and invest in Baptiste's expeditions. They'll bring you back ingredients, which you can feed to Quinn to unlock them for purchase.
Also, invest in the cauldron that can hold the most magimins, because a potion's quality is determined by how many magimins it's got.
Oh yeah, I had done all that. But I’d made some “common x,y,z” potions early on and rested on my laurels thinking I was all set. I went into the tourney super rich, but my competition potions weren’t valuable enough (same problem Steel Angel encountered).
Second time through I knew what I had to do and smashed it.
I think I finished like one game of victoria 2 as Prussia way back in the day which basically ended with me intentionally going communist because I got tired of my capitalists building ridiculous stuff like luxury furniture factories that never got any imported wood while I had plenty of actual raw materials that would never run out they just let get cashed out on the world market.
So, on Thursday, starting at 5:30 PM and going until I'm too tired to continue (usually 10-11), I'll be playing several rando itch.io horror games and then eventually will be playing Darkwood.
Why am I telling you this?
Because I will be streaming the entire thing, and my friends will be on discord making fun of my pants-wetting the entire time. Please feel free to join me. Link is in my sig below.
Zavianuniversal peace sounds better than forever warRegistered Userregular
VIctoria 3 looks awesome, but the HOI4 fallout mod Old World Blues just got updated to support the latest patch/DLC so I reinstalled it and started playing as Super Mutant New Reno gangsters
apparently my friend has a demo for the game they've been solo deving for like 3 years in this scary games fest going on right now. I played a very basic gameplay demo a couple of years back so excited to see how it's grown since.
I don't know if it's cool to pitch or not so I'll just say "try all of the spooky demos because everyone is a winner!"
As long as it's not on Kickstarter, feel free to link it. You might just be helping someone find their new favourite game!
It’s heartworm. It’s a retro ps1 style silent hill esque game. I haven’t played the new demo yet but the new art I’ve seen so far has been gorgeous.
VICTORIA 3 is out in an hour or so and reviews have been quite strong for what is almost surely Paradox's driest game series (or the one that was most in need of the "next-generation" pass that PDX's games are getting on their new development engine). Having played a little bit of V2 in prep for V3, the improvements in accessibility look even greater than the leap from CK2 to CK3 (the later of which really got me sold on grand strategy games; so glad I gave CK3 a real chance).
I want to give Victoria 3 a shot, but I just can't figure out which country I'd like to play first.
Though I should probably play the tutorial first.
0
Zavianuniversal peace sounds better than forever warRegistered Userregular
VICTORIA 3 is out in an hour or so and reviews have been quite strong for what is almost surely Paradox's driest game series (or the one that was most in need of the "next-generation" pass that PDX's games are getting on their new development engine). Having played a little bit of V2 in prep for V3, the improvements in accessibility look even greater than the leap from CK2 to CK3 (the later of which really got me sold on grand strategy games; so glad I gave CK3 a real chance).
I want to give Victoria 3 a shot, but I just can't figure out which country I'd like to play first.
Though I should probably play the tutorial first.
I think they have recommended starts, sort of like with CK3
(I don't have Vic 3 myself though, just watched some dev streams)
VICTORIA 3 is out in an hour or so and reviews have been quite strong for what is almost surely Paradox's driest game series (or the one that was most in need of the "next-generation" pass that PDX's games are getting on their new development engine). Having played a little bit of V2 in prep for V3, the improvements in accessibility look even greater than the leap from CK2 to CK3 (the later of which really got me sold on grand strategy games; so glad I gave CK3 a real chance).
I want to give Victoria 3 a shot, but I just can't figure out which country I'd like to play first.
Though I should probably play the tutorial first.
I started with Sweden. The "Learn Me The Game" nations are: Sweden, Chile, Belgium and Cape Colony. Sweden seemed the most natural as I think Cape Colony is a part of another nation, Chile is looking to move towards a church state and I don't know anything about Belgium, but that region just looks a bit too spicy to me.
. . .the music and aesthetic so far are top notch (though I hope we get some audio flavor packs as this is all very European), but it's the presentation that is super slick here. This easily is beating CK3 in terms of "ease of use" (and CK3 was already easy to use).
Yeah Sweden is classically a good start country in Victoria because its isolated enough you are probably not going to be rolled over, has some expansion potential (in the old games there was some potential to politically unify Scandinavia) and is small enough not to be overwhelming but large enough that becoming a great power isn’t impossible.
No biggie though, I mean if you want to play Dark Souls online all you have to do is *checks notes* spend $40 buying a bad "remaster" of a game you already own.
Wait, you're telling me the $40 bad remaster is still broken?
Yeah Sweden is classically a good start country in Victoria because its isolated enough you are probably not going to be rolled over, has some expansion potential (in the old games there was some potential to politically unify Scandinavia) and is small enough not to be overwhelming but large enough that becoming a great power isn’t impossible.
Maybe, but the Sweden tutorial could use some work. "Here are some buttons, have a look at them", "Here's how you build buildings", "Can you figure out how to improve this one building's profitability?", "Now grow your GDP by an additional 2M".
No biggie though, I mean if you want to play Dark Souls online all you have to do is *checks notes* spend $40 buying a bad "remaster" of a game you already own.
Wait, you're telling me the $40 bad remaster is still broken?
Geeze From, get your shit together already.
Are you saying I cannot replay this game? Even offline?
I think I finished like one game of victoria 2 as Prussia way back in the day which basically ended with me intentionally going communist because I got tired of my capitalists building ridiculous stuff like luxury furniture factories that never got any imported wood while I had plenty of actual raw materials that would never run out they just let get cashed out on the world market.
It's almost like there's some socio-political commentary buried in there somewhere.
Are you saying I cannot replay this game? Even offline?
You can replay it offline, but you'll be missing out on a major component of the game. Other players can't be summoned into your game (which means no invasions, but it also means no co-op). You won't get any messages either (so you'll just have to pretend that you see a message that says "try jumping" whenever you get near a ledge).
Normally I wouldn't care much since I got my fill of DS gameplay years ago and have no real desire to revisit it, but the sheer level of inept bumbling by Namco/From with the situation just astounds me.
We're so sorry you can't play DS online. If you're looking for an online experience, why not try Elden Ring? After all, that's where we've pushed our playerbase, uh, I mean, that's where they are now.
Zavianuniversal peace sounds better than forever warRegistered Userregular
I need to idle more games for card sales; anyone know if there's a way to figure out which games in your Steam library have the most valuable cards besides manually checking each one on the market?
You know for as much as the multi-player is touted as a major component of From games, wherever people talk about them it feels like it rarely comes up. Difficulty, world building, enemy design, lore, etc always pop, but I feel like I never hear tales of invaders/messages. At best it's a story of jolly cooperation, which is important, but infrequent.
This is merely my observation as someone who only ever had multi-player for the original demon souls since it didn't require a psn subscription at the time. So n of 1 and all.
McMoogle on
+4
Zavianuniversal peace sounds better than forever warRegistered Userregular
You know for as much as the multi-player is touted as a major component of From games, wherever people talk about them it feels like it rarely comes up. Difficulty, world building, enemy design, lore, etc always pop, but I feel like I never hear tales of invaders/messages. At best it's a story of jolly cooperation, which is important, but infrequently.
This is merely my observation as someone who only ever had multi-player for the original demon souls since it didn't require a psn subscription at the time. So n of 1 and all.
I get through almost all souls game boss fights by summoning a player to help me. I pretty much never engage with the PvP/invasion mechanics at all
Now that I have a rig that can run it, I'm kind of sad.
But the multiplayer was a major component advertised in the game, and Dave they screwed up and nerfed it
To be accurate, Dark Souls Prepare to Die multiplayer is off and not coming back because it had a security flaw that opened up players to unauthorized remote code execution. A service being shut down with prejudice and staying down until the vulnerability is fixed and validated is the right way to handle it. Even to the level of keeping it off permanently if it cannot be fixed.
I don't think the public will know if it's possible for it to be fixed for the ten years old Dark Souls edition at all. Or if it's possible to fix but "too expensive" for a ROI approver to give the go-ahead. Or if it's possible to fix it with some expected amount of coding-hours but it's just been brushed off.
I'll probably try Victoria 3 but I had a love/hate relationship with 1 and 2, which reviews seem to point to will continue in 3. Essentially I love most of the systems; but I'm too much of a war monger and I dislike that the war systems are so bad the only viable alternative is to really never go to war, no matter what. So they're great for people that like chill economy builders but not so much for conflict.
The messages are a pretty big game component. For every 50 dumb messages there are 2-3 that are critically valuable information. And that's without mentioning the invisible bridges and paths that are 100x easier to navigate when you can see a bunch of floating messages in the sky.
There are a few side-quests outcomes that can't happen without engaging multiplayer at all. Not to mention some shortcuts to bosses.
The messages are a pretty big game component. For every 50 dumb messages there are 2-3 that are critically valuable information. And that's without mentioning the invisible bridges and paths that are 100x easier to navigate when you can see a bunch of floating messages in the sky.
There are a few side-quests outcomes that can't happen without engaging multiplayer at all. Not to mention some shortcuts to bosses.
luckily with Elden Ring they added groups so you only really see messages from the groups you've added, I added PA and a reddit one which cut down on the dumb message spam a ton and instead were almost always helpful tips with a handful of joke/memes
There seems to be a pretty active PvP community for the Souls games. Dunno how big it is proportionate to the playerbase as a whole, I assume not terribly large since the games have never really had a convenient way to engage in competitive PvP. But it still seems to be pretty big, not hard to run into content talking about it, and there seems to be pretty well developed metas for the games.
Myself I spend a ton of time getting myself summoned when I play those games. Lets you safely learn fights and levels, earn souls, and learn tricks and secrets.
There's also actually series of co-op let's plays for the souls games that I've been following that've developed a thing where the fans try and invade the let's players whenever they're recording an episode, and that's been a blast.
You know for as much as the multi-player is touted as a major component of From games, wherever people talk about them it feels like it rarely comes up. Difficulty, world building, enemy design, lore, etc always pop, but I feel like I never hear tales of invaders/messages. At best it's a story of jolly cooperation, which is important, but infrequent.
This is merely my observation as someone who only ever had multi-player for the original demon souls since it didn't require a psn subscription at the time. So n of 1 and all.
The multiplayer features are things that serve to highlight the other stuff but don't necessarily draw attention to themselves. The messages specifically point a lot of people to aspects of level design that many might not notice such as hidden areas or items. They also contribute to a certain feel the designers were after that players often aren't aware of: The devs wanted to evoke the days of being kids and sharing tips/rumors about a video game everyone was playing before the advent of looking up stuff online outside of the game. That's not a small thing even outside of the hints of nostalgia. As people talking about video games on a forum, it's easy to overlook the vast amount of video game players that won't look outside of a game for information and expect the game itself to be a self-contained experience without needing to do homework. Any end-game MMO player can tell you that there are a lot of those people around and the Souls series message system is one of the more well designed attempts to handle that issue in a mostly single player experience that didn't really need to address it.
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Yeehaw
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
I really have to go back to Krater - I got it forever ago and it was fine. Maybe it got patched?
@cB557 , I played the hell out of Prey. Immersive sims are my other favourite genre of things! It's great!
Might dip into GotG @Spoit , thanks for the reminder.
Goodreads
SF&F Reviews blog
Overall there aren't a ton of cyberpunk RPGs, possibly because it's a tough setting to pull off well. There are a ton of smaller games with cyberpunk aesthetics though.
Invisible Inc is a roguelike-ish tactical isometric game about corp on corp violence.
Heat Signature is about being a spaceship burglar. Very focused on system interactions.
VA-11 Hall-A is a game about being a bartender in a cyberpunk space, VN'ish.
Citizen Sleeper is a cyberpunk RPG that's text-heavy and about time pressure.
Bah, only available if you own the base game. Which currently has a discount. Whelp. Fine. Got'd.
I don’t know if this fits the bill exactly, but have you tried Cloudpunk?
Other than a bunch of NPC's t-posing, it never really was on PC (relative to other CDPR releases). I think I had less than five gameplay halting bugs in my playtime. Consoles though, absolutely, and something they (CDPR executives) should be made to remember until they are out of the company (or out of creatives way).
. . .if you're looking to jump in, should wait until the story DLC is released next year.
Oh yeah, I had done all that. But I’d made some “common x,y,z” potions early on and rested on my laurels thinking I was all set. I went into the tourney super rich, but my competition potions weren’t valuable enough (same problem Steel Angel encountered).
Second time through I knew what I had to do and smashed it.
Twitch: akThera
Steam: Thera
I think I finished like one game of victoria 2 as Prussia way back in the day which basically ended with me intentionally going communist because I got tired of my capitalists building ridiculous stuff like luxury furniture factories that never got any imported wood while I had plenty of actual raw materials that would never run out they just let get cashed out on the world market.
Why am I telling you this?
Because I will be streaming the entire thing, and my friends will be on discord making fun of my pants-wetting the entire time. Please feel free to join me. Link is in my sig below.
damn you, paradox grand strategy time sinks!
It’s heartworm. It’s a retro ps1 style silent hill esque game. I haven’t played the new demo yet but the new art I’ve seen so far has been gorgeous.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1257030/Heartworm/
I want to give Victoria 3 a shot, but I just can't figure out which country I'd like to play first.
Though I should probably play the tutorial first.
I think they have recommended starts, sort of like with CK3
(I don't have Vic 3 myself though, just watched some dev streams)
EDIT: here are the four recommended starts:
I started with Sweden. The "Learn Me The Game" nations are: Sweden, Chile, Belgium and Cape Colony. Sweden seemed the most natural as I think Cape Colony is a part of another nation, Chile is looking to move towards a church state and I don't know anything about Belgium, but that region just looks a bit too spicy to me.
. . .the music and aesthetic so far are top notch (though I hope we get some audio flavor packs as this is all very European), but it's the presentation that is super slick here. This easily is beating CK3 in terms of "ease of use" (and CK3 was already easy to use).
nothing really jumps out at me though (heh)
No biggie though, I mean if you want to play Dark Souls online all you have to do is *checks notes* spend $40 buying a bad "remaster" of a game you already own.
Wait, you're telling me the $40 bad remaster is still broken?
Geeze From, get your shit together already.
Maybe, but the Sweden tutorial could use some work. "Here are some buttons, have a look at them", "Here's how you build buildings", "Can you figure out how to improve this one building's profitability?", "Now grow your GDP by an additional 2M".
You know, there are some steps missing there.
Are you saying I cannot replay this game? Even offline?
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
It's almost like there's some socio-political commentary buried in there somewhere.
Steam | XBL
You can replay it offline, but you'll be missing out on a major component of the game. Other players can't be summoned into your game (which means no invasions, but it also means no co-op). You won't get any messages either (so you'll just have to pretend that you see a message that says "try jumping" whenever you get near a ledge).
Normally I wouldn't care much since I got my fill of DS gameplay years ago and have no real desire to revisit it, but the sheer level of inept bumbling by Namco/From with the situation just astounds me.
Do I /need/ any new games? Of course not.
But... but... sale...
But the multiplayer was a major component advertised in the game, and Dave they screwed up and nerfed it
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
This is merely my observation as someone who only ever had multi-player for the original demon souls since it didn't require a psn subscription at the time. So n of 1 and all.
I get through almost all souls game boss fights by summoning a player to help me. I pretty much never engage with the PvP/invasion mechanics at all
To be accurate, Dark Souls Prepare to Die multiplayer is off and not coming back because it had a security flaw that opened up players to unauthorized remote code execution. A service being shut down with prejudice and staying down until the vulnerability is fixed and validated is the right way to handle it. Even to the level of keeping it off permanently if it cannot be fixed.
I don't think the public will know if it's possible for it to be fixed for the ten years old Dark Souls edition at all. Or if it's possible to fix but "too expensive" for a ROI approver to give the go-ahead. Or if it's possible to fix it with some expected amount of coding-hours but it's just been brushed off.
There are a few side-quests outcomes that can't happen without engaging multiplayer at all. Not to mention some shortcuts to bosses.
luckily with Elden Ring they added groups so you only really see messages from the groups you've added, I added PA and a reddit one which cut down on the dumb message spam a ton and instead were almost always helpful tips with a handful of joke/memes
Myself I spend a ton of time getting myself summoned when I play those games. Lets you safely learn fights and levels, earn souls, and learn tricks and secrets.
There's also actually series of co-op let's plays for the souls games that I've been following that've developed a thing where the fans try and invade the let's players whenever they're recording an episode, and that's been a blast.
The multiplayer features are things that serve to highlight the other stuff but don't necessarily draw attention to themselves. The messages specifically point a lot of people to aspects of level design that many might not notice such as hidden areas or items. They also contribute to a certain feel the designers were after that players often aren't aware of: The devs wanted to evoke the days of being kids and sharing tips/rumors about a video game everyone was playing before the advent of looking up stuff online outside of the game. That's not a small thing even outside of the hints of nostalgia. As people talking about video games on a forum, it's easy to overlook the vast amount of video game players that won't look outside of a game for information and expect the game itself to be a self-contained experience without needing to do homework. Any end-game MMO player can tell you that there are a lot of those people around and the Souls series message system is one of the more well designed attempts to handle that issue in a mostly single player experience that didn't really need to address it.
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Look at these 20% discounts!
Listen kid, come back when you're over 60%.
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