Started in on Octopath Traveler 2. Seems solid so far, definitely feels a lot like the original in a lot of ways. The stories I've touched so far seem pretty solid. Did the Thief and Hunter so far, working on the Apothecary right now. Gonna push from there to the Merchant and Warrior if possible, picking up whatever people are on the way. After that I'll sweep back through and pick up everyone else I missed. Guess I don't really know how well the writing will be for all the stories. The intros so far are solid but they do feel like little self contained things so far. Maybe they'll open up a bit after the introduction chapters for everyone.
So, the stories are mostly self-contained. There's commentary from other party members in side scenes. If you miss any of it (for instance, not having the corresponding party member for given dialog with you at the time), you can view it again in the journal anyways. There's also some scenes that can pop up between party members in taverns.
There are some side stories involving multiple party members (they're split into designated pairs so there's four of these), which are a nice addition from the first game, but I wish there was more of them.
Started in on Octopath Traveler 2. Seems solid so far, definitely feels a lot like the original in a lot of ways. The stories I've touched so far seem pretty solid. Did the Thief and Hunter so far, working on the Apothecary right now. Gonna push from there to the Merchant and Warrior if possible, picking up whatever people are on the way. After that I'll sweep back through and pick up everyone else I missed. Guess I don't really know how well the writing will be for all the stories. The intros so far are solid but they do feel like little self contained things so far. Maybe they'll open up a bit after the introduction chapters for everyone.
The biggest complaint I saw about the first one was how none of the characters in the party interacted with each other so I hope they improved on that
Started in on Octopath Traveler 2. Seems solid so far, definitely feels a lot like the original in a lot of ways. The stories I've touched so far seem pretty solid. Did the Thief and Hunter so far, working on the Apothecary right now. Gonna push from there to the Merchant and Warrior if possible, picking up whatever people are on the way. After that I'll sweep back through and pick up everyone else I missed. Guess I don't really know how well the writing will be for all the stories. The intros so far are solid but they do feel like little self contained things so far. Maybe they'll open up a bit after the introduction chapters for everyone.
The biggest complaint I saw about the first one was how none of the characters in the party interacted with each other so I hope they improved on that
I've always found this fascinating because I've played a lot of SaGa games and their derivatives (of which Octopath is very much one) for many many years now and the concept of "collect a bunch of dudes but only your main character has a story and the rest are aesthetic party filler" is so ingrained into most of them that I've just always figured that's how these games just are and never really thought about it.
It's a very valid criticism though.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
One of my small goals for 2023 was to complete six games. Which won't do squat for my backlog, but will at least allow me to feel like I'm completing something. Since my oldest son saw fit to gift me the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition collection on Steam for Christmas, I figured I'd start there, with ME1, which remains the only game in the Mass Effect series that I've ever previously played.
So two weeks into March, and I finally finished my ME1 playthrough (with FemShep, because Jennifer Hale VO, of course). I'd played through ME1 years ago on a borrowed Xbox 360, but save for the who lives/dies choice on Virimire, and a vague sense of frustration with aiming and driving using a 360 controller I really didn't recall much (which is true about pretty much everything I played between about 2007 and 2011. I'm looking at you, Final Fantasy IX. Severe sleep debt from 2, then 3, then 4 little kids in the house and consistent 60-hour work weeks did a number on my short term memory from that timeframe).
So anyway, despite this technically being a replay, it worked out almost like a first playthrough. KBAM definitely solved my aiming frustrations (my Infiltrator was absolutely lethal with a sniper rifle or pistol pretty much out of the box), the Mako wasn't that bad, and I suspect I ended up making most of the same choices this time around as I did the first time, simply because the whole Paragon/Renegade system favors my internal character preference that is best described on the D&D alignment chart as Chaotic Good.
This was also the first time I got to experience the Bring Down the Sky and Pinnacle Station DLC (thanks modders!), so that was pretty cool. Overall the game feels like it has aged really well, and continues to be an enjoyable, good looking RPG, particularly the Legendary remaster.
Now to find something short in my backlog to playthrough in the next couple of weeks to get my overall goal back on track before I dive into ME2.
Now to find something short in my backlog to playthrough in the next couple of weeks to get my overall goal back on track before I dive into ME2.
That exact thing was what got me back gaming on a more regular cadence, and not burning out. I rarely ever finished 30+ hour games because I just burned out on them. Now I try to alternate a long game and a short game, and I finished waaaay more games last year because of it.
I’ve found it helpful with really long games to take breaks and either try to play a 10-15 hour smaller game or a non-narrative game in the middle to avoid burnout. Like I am playing through assassins creed valhalla now and after doing a region or two I will play a game of civ 6, or right now I am running through Icewind dale (which is about a 15 hour affair for me I can finish in less than a week). But then I try to make it a point to go back to the long game so I don’t “forget” my progress.
If I didn’t take breaks I just don’t think I would have the patience to do any really long games ever.
I’ve found it helpful with really long games to take breaks and either try to play a 10-15 hour smaller game or a non-narrative game in the middle to avoid burnout. Like I am playing through assassins creed valhalla now and after doing a region or two I will play a game of civ 6, or right now I am running through Icewind dale (which is about a 15 hour affair for me I can finish in less than a week). But then I try to make it a point to go back to the long game so I don’t “forget” my progress.
If I didn’t take breaks I just don’t think I would have the patience to do any really long games ever.
I've kind of been doing that too, as I'm slowly working through getting all the story branches on Langrisser I on my PS5. That's one of those nice games where if I don't want to park myself at my desk and game on my PC for a while, a quick 20-30 minute battle chapter in my comfy chair in the living room still lets me feel like I did a little gaming that day.
Is there any fast way to list all your cards for sale? Its pain to do when you have a bunch.
There's some browser extensions that could help (Enhanced Steam has some quick sell options) but you'll not maximize your money and you'll still need to approve all the bullshit through the Steam app.
Is there any fast way to list all your cards for sale? Its pain to do when you have a bunch.
Yeah doing the quick math on how much a person's time is worth, selling steam cards is pretty much a loser no matter who you are. You are better off doing literally anything else for money.
Is there any fast way to list all your cards for sale? Its pain to do when you have a bunch.
Yeah doing the quick math on how much a person's time is worth, selling steam cards is pretty much a loser no matter who you are. You are better off doing literally anything else for money.
So a quick question, lenovo has their last gen 7i laptops on sale for $1899 before tax right now, it looks like they have an i712800hx, a 3070 ti laptop version with 8gb, 1tb ssd and 16gb ram.
I haven’t kept up with laptop specs at all but my power supply died on my old one a couple of days ago and it’s probably not worth fixing. Is this pretty future proof as a gaming system? It looks like the next steps up I can find would be in the $500-1000 dollar range more expensive, and even those don’t even have a 16gb video card.
I figure the system ram and ssd can be upgraded if needed, mainly wondering about the video card and cpu.
Depends on your definition of "future proof". The CPU/GPU would likely serve you well for a good while, I'd think. I'd look and see if the RAM & storage are upgradeable because those look like the first bottlenecks you'll likely run into.
My nearly six-year-old gaming laptop (still my daily driver) has the same amount of RAM - with room to grow to 32GB - and over three times as much storage currently with an empty NVME slot still available (currently running two NVMEs and an SSHD), but it can afford the space as it's a huge heavy pre-MaxQ chonker of a machine.
Looks like it has a free m2 pcie ssd slot, there are two SO-DIMM slots for ram, filled with 8gb sticks, so they would have to be replaced but aren’t soldered to the board or anything so iy should be good in that respect.
So a quick question, lenovo has their last gen 7i laptops on sale for $1899 before tax right now, it looks like they have an i712800hx, a 3070 ti laptop version with 8gb, 1tb ssd and 16gb ram.
I haven’t kept up with laptop specs at all but my power supply died on my old one a couple of days ago and it’s probably not worth fixing. Is this pretty future proof as a gaming system? It looks like the next steps up I can find would be in the $500-1000 dollar range more expensive, and even those don’t even have a 16gb video card.
I figure the system ram and ssd can be upgraded if needed, mainly wondering about the video card and cpu.
For laptop video cards, dropping one tier more or less gives you an idea of the desktop cards: for example, that 3070Ti would be similar to a desktop 3060Ti.
I'm currently running a laptop with a 3060 (Tieless) and depending on the game it's fine for 1440p, but more often than not I have to tweak some settings already to keep it nice.
Yeah, I have heard some complaints that the 4070 laptop version is a sidegrade at best to the 3070ti though, and 4080 machines with 12gb ram still seem to running in the $2800+ zone (as do 3080 tis).
Edit:
There also seems to be a version of the same laptop for just 200 more that has 32gb ram, a 2tb ssd, an ati ryzen 9 6800hx and an amd radeon rx 6850m xt with 12gb ram. I don’t know enough about AMD stuff to compare though.
I like the concept of the Cobra Kai TV show more than the execution, but it does have the bully from the first movie explaining its events: https://youtu.be/WZxhX_nOoiQ?t=11
Corsini on
Steam Badger A greasemonkey script for better gifting and peering
So a quick question, lenovo has their last gen 7i laptops on sale for $1899 before tax right now, it looks like they have an i712800hx, a 3070 ti laptop version with 8gb, 1tb ssd and 16gb ram.
I haven’t kept up with laptop specs at all but my power supply died on my old one a couple of days ago and it’s probably not worth fixing. Is this pretty future proof as a gaming system? It looks like the next steps up I can find would be in the $500-1000 dollar range more expensive, and even those don’t even have a 16gb video card.
I figure the system ram and ssd can be upgraded if needed, mainly wondering about the video card and cpu.
For laptop video cards, dropping one tier more or less gives you an idea of the desktop cards: for example, that 3070Ti would be similar to a desktop 3060Ti.
I'm currently running a laptop with a 3060 (Tieless) and depending on the game it's fine for 1440p, but more often than not I have to tweak some settings already to keep it nice.
Mine has a GTX 1080, and while I haven't thrown anything massively demanding at it since about Cyberpunk 2077, it still holds its own if I'm judicious with settings. Ultra-everything at 4K and 120fps (for example) is an incredibly expensive proposition, doubly so in laptops, and so just going in with realistic compromises in mind can save you a boatload of money while still giving you a good experience.
I have discovered that fighting raiders
shooting out the cores of their junk power armor
killing everyone, taking said power armor back to my base
re tooling the parts on the power armor exoskeleton stolen from raiders
wearing the new power armor with raider exeskeleton
I like the concept of the Cobra Kai TV show more than the execution, but it does have the bully from the first movie explaining its events: https://youtu.be/WZxhX_nOoiQ?t=11
Cobra Kai is the greatest thing to come out of the streaming era. If we ever send another Voyager with a Golden Record to space, it must include Cobra Kai in its entirety.
So a quick question, lenovo has their last gen 7i laptops on sale for $1899 before tax right now, it looks like they have an i712800hx, a 3070 ti laptop version with 8gb, 1tb ssd and 16gb ram.
I haven’t kept up with laptop specs at all but my power supply died on my old one a couple of days ago and it’s probably not worth fixing. Is this pretty future proof as a gaming system? It looks like the next steps up I can find would be in the $500-1000 dollar range more expensive, and even those don’t even have a 16gb video card.
I figure the system ram and ssd can be upgraded if needed, mainly wondering about the video card and cpu.
For laptop video cards, dropping one tier more or less gives you an idea of the desktop cards: for example, that 3070Ti would be similar to a desktop 3060Ti.
I'm currently running a laptop with a 3060 (Tieless) and depending on the game it's fine for 1440p, but more often than not I have to tweak some settings already to keep it nice.
Mine has a GTX 1080, and while I haven't thrown anything massively demanding at it since about Cyberpunk 2077, it still holds its own if I'm judicious with settings. Ultra-everything at 4K and 120fps (for example) is an incredibly expensive proposition, doubly so in laptops, and so just going in with realistic compromises in mind can save you a boatload of money while still giving you a good experience.
Yeah looked around at the options, it looks like the big question now is do I want to spring for the $1900 legion I7 with an i7 and 3070 ti mobile or get either an alienware m16 or legion i7 with an i9 and 4080 mobile for around $2700. I did figure out the power supply wasn’t dead the charger port was just being funky so with some judicious use of electrical tape my old laptop (which also has a 1080) is back to being largely functional.
Which means I could maybe wait a couple of months to build up money or something for the current gen model and hope for the price to drop a bit? I don’t know.
I don't see current gen ones (specially towards the top range) dropping much, at least on the nVidia side. It's an expensive die and that plus greed doesn't make for the best options.
Also be wary that 4000 laptop series are severely cut down compared to desktop (and sometimes even to previous gen.)
Yeah it looked like from reviews people were saying to avoid anything below a 4080 in favor of a 3070 ti or 3080 ti and that the 4090 was a waste of money, so 4080 or bust as far as the 4000 mobile series goes.
Edit: fuck it yolo found a legion 8th gen with 4080 mobile 12gb and 32 gb ram for 2600 sold.
I like the concept of the Cobra Kai TV show more than the execution, but it does have the bully from the first movie explaining its events: https://youtu.be/WZxhX_nOoiQ?t=11
Cobra Kai is the greatest thing to come out of the streaming era. If we ever send another Voyager with a Golden Record to space, it must include Cobra Kai in its entirety.
I'm in the middle of S3 and the show has been going off since the end of season 1, but I don't care, it's a fun ride. And like I said of the game, it's stupid fun
It's amazing the the whole show seems to have grown from a running How I Met Your Mother Barney Stinson gag.
Golden YakBurnished BovineThe sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered Userregular
Bought Soulstice a month ago when it was on sale - forgot about it. Tried to return it but the time elapsed.
And I'm glad it did! I started playing it, and it's really a very well made Devil May Cry-esque game.
There's some neat combat mechanics enabled by your Ghost Sister who haunts you - she does all the blocking for you, so you can counter enemies without stopping whatever combo you're pulling off, plus there's kind've an Ikaruga thing where some enemies are ghostly and can only be hit while within her Blue Ghost Field, while some are magic and can only be damaged within her Red Ghost Field, and you have to swap between them. Plus she's got this huge sprawling skill tree with upgrades to her abilities, and you can turn them on or off to affect the main character's special attacks. That's on top of the main character having 8 weapons with their own combos and proficiencies against all the different enemy types.
So if you want a Devil May Cry game and have cried out all your current devils, I recommend it.
Welcome to the Kingdom of Haricot.
Years ago, the land took to the sky, becoming a mysterious series of floating islands, where the power-hungry Church of Aloe now rules with an iron fist.
Enter Vernal, A young woman bent on finding her estranged father. With the help of some abnormal martial prowess and an amnesiac automaton named Chervil, She'll need to make her way across this mysterious land if she wants to satisfy her need for revenge, and the truth.
Take control of Vernal in this beautiful pixel art Metroidvania. Unravel the secrets of her past and the mysteries of Haricot as you battle your way through this broken kingdom.
This just released yesterday and if any of y'all like Metroidvanias with some fun looking combat this probably has you covered.
Anyone played The Last Spell and have thoughts? I've been waffling on it as a work from home game, seems like it might be pretty solid with the character leveling and building leveling etc.
I played it for a few hours. I did 2 runs on the first non-tutorial map.
First run I scraped to the boss and got 1 phase down, second time I had a plan but didn't have nearly as good drops so I didn't have the dps and died just after hitting the last phase.
It is really well made. It has a lot of upgrades that make runs easier over time. You're meant to lose each map a few times before you win.
Then it adds difficulty modifiers to the same maps.
But it's also kinda slow and samey. You are killing a lot of zombies, a few at a time, kiting. You only have limited mana reset so you can't spam your good abilities.
A run is like 2.5h long.
Posts
Which one?
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
So, the stories are mostly self-contained. There's commentary from other party members in side scenes. If you miss any of it (for instance, not having the corresponding party member for given dialog with you at the time), you can view it again in the journal anyways. There's also some scenes that can pop up between party members in taverns.
There are some side stories involving multiple party members (they're split into designated pairs so there's four of these), which are a nice addition from the first game, but I wish there was more of them.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Perposefully deliberate.
I mean, damn, heart ripping
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
The biggest complaint I saw about the first one was how none of the characters in the party interacted with each other so I hope they improved on that
Cobra Kai is stupid 90s beat em up fun
Steam ID: Good Life
I feel like playing an isometric rpg.
Play one of the many rpgs in my backlog I haven’t played or didn’t finish?
nah.
Play Icewind dale again for the 4th time with a different mix of mod npcs?
Sure.
@Shade is a monster.
But not wrong... this /was/ top of my wishlist and /is/ now top of the backlog. That premise is just irresistible.
Thanks!
I've always found this fascinating because I've played a lot of SaGa games and their derivatives (of which Octopath is very much one) for many many years now and the concept of "collect a bunch of dudes but only your main character has a story and the rest are aesthetic party filler" is so ingrained into most of them that I've just always figured that's how these games just are and never really thought about it.
It's a very valid criticism though.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
So two weeks into March, and I finally finished my ME1 playthrough (with FemShep, because Jennifer Hale VO, of course). I'd played through ME1 years ago on a borrowed Xbox 360, but save for the who lives/dies choice on Virimire, and a vague sense of frustration with aiming and driving using a 360 controller I really didn't recall much (which is true about pretty much everything I played between about 2007 and 2011. I'm looking at you, Final Fantasy IX. Severe sleep debt from 2, then 3, then 4 little kids in the house and consistent 60-hour work weeks did a number on my short term memory from that timeframe).
So anyway, despite this technically being a replay, it worked out almost like a first playthrough. KBAM definitely solved my aiming frustrations (my Infiltrator was absolutely lethal with a sniper rifle or pistol pretty much out of the box), the Mako wasn't that bad, and I suspect I ended up making most of the same choices this time around as I did the first time, simply because the whole Paragon/Renegade system favors my internal character preference that is best described on the D&D alignment chart as Chaotic Good.
This was also the first time I got to experience the Bring Down the Sky and Pinnacle Station DLC (thanks modders!), so that was pretty cool. Overall the game feels like it has aged really well, and continues to be an enjoyable, good looking RPG, particularly the Legendary remaster.
Now to find something short in my backlog to playthrough in the next couple of weeks to get my overall goal back on track before I dive into ME2.
Contributing writer at Marooner's Rock
Twitch broadcasting! Currently playing through Wing Commander II
Pinny Lanyard
That exact thing was what got me back gaming on a more regular cadence, and not burning out. I rarely ever finished 30+ hour games because I just burned out on them. Now I try to alternate a long game and a short game, and I finished waaaay more games last year because of it.
If I didn’t take breaks I just don’t think I would have the patience to do any really long games ever.
Reached the golden sea
By the time i fast traveled out, piper and I had lost most our power armor, kill 2 legendaries, several glowing enemies, and 4 deathclaws.
Did you know they have a special non fatal combat animation?
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
Thanks @Morkath for Asterix& Obelix XXL 2!
I've kind of been doing that too, as I'm slowly working through getting all the story branches on Langrisser I on my PS5. That's one of those nice games where if I don't want to park myself at my desk and game on my PC for a while, a quick 20-30 minute battle chapter in my comfy chair in the living room still lets me feel like I did a little gaming that day.
Contributing writer at Marooner's Rock
Twitch broadcasting! Currently playing through Wing Commander II
Pinny Lanyard
By Belisama!
Steam | XBL
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius
There's some browser extensions that could help (Enhanced Steam has some quick sell options) but you'll not maximize your money and you'll still need to approve all the bullshit through the Steam app.
Yeah doing the quick math on how much a person's time is worth, selling steam cards is pretty much a loser no matter who you are. You are better off doing literally anything else for money.
(Bring back the old "winky" emoticon!)
Steam | XBL
I haven’t kept up with laptop specs at all but my power supply died on my old one a couple of days ago and it’s probably not worth fixing. Is this pretty future proof as a gaming system? It looks like the next steps up I can find would be in the $500-1000 dollar range more expensive, and even those don’t even have a 16gb video card.
I figure the system ram and ssd can be upgraded if needed, mainly wondering about the video card and cpu.
My nearly six-year-old gaming laptop (still my daily driver) has the same amount of RAM - with room to grow to 32GB - and over three times as much storage currently with an empty NVME slot still available (currently running two NVMEs and an SSHD), but it can afford the space as it's a huge heavy pre-MaxQ chonker of a machine.
Steam | XBL
For laptop video cards, dropping one tier more or less gives you an idea of the desktop cards: for example, that 3070Ti would be similar to a desktop 3060Ti.
I'm currently running a laptop with a 3060 (Tieless) and depending on the game it's fine for 1440p, but more often than not I have to tweak some settings already to keep it nice.
Edit:
There also seems to be a version of the same laptop for just 200 more that has 32gb ram, a 2tb ssd, an ati ryzen 9 6800hx and an amd radeon rx 6850m xt with 12gb ram. I don’t know enough about AMD stuff to compare though.
I like the concept of the Cobra Kai TV show more than the execution, but it does have the bully from the first movie explaining its events:
Steam Badger A greasemonkey script for better gifting and peering
Mine has a GTX 1080, and while I haven't thrown anything massively demanding at it since about Cyberpunk 2077, it still holds its own if I'm judicious with settings. Ultra-everything at 4K and 120fps (for example) is an incredibly expensive proposition, doubly so in laptops, and so just going in with realistic compromises in mind can save you a boatload of money while still giving you a good experience.
Steam | XBL
shooting out the cores of their junk power armor
killing everyone, taking said power armor back to my base
re tooling the parts on the power armor exoskeleton stolen from raiders
wearing the new power armor with raider exeskeleton
counts as stealing in fallout 4
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
Cobra Kai is the greatest thing to come out of the streaming era. If we ever send another Voyager with a Golden Record to space, it must include Cobra Kai in its entirety.
Yeah looked around at the options, it looks like the big question now is do I want to spring for the $1900 legion I7 with an i7 and 3070 ti mobile or get either an alienware m16 or legion i7 with an i9 and 4080 mobile for around $2700. I did figure out the power supply wasn’t dead the charger port was just being funky so with some judicious use of electrical tape my old laptop (which also has a 1080) is back to being largely functional.
Which means I could maybe wait a couple of months to build up money or something for the current gen model and hope for the price to drop a bit? I don’t know.
Also be wary that 4000 laptop series are severely cut down compared to desktop (and sometimes even to previous gen.)
Edit: fuck it yolo found a legion 8th gen with 4080 mobile 12gb and 32 gb ram for 2600 sold.
I'm in the middle of S3 and the show has been going off since the end of season 1, but I don't care, it's a fun ride. And like I said of the game, it's stupid fun
It's amazing the the whole show seems to have grown from a running How I Met Your Mother Barney Stinson gag.
Steam ID: Good Life
And I'm glad it did! I started playing it, and it's really a very well made Devil May Cry-esque game.
There's some neat combat mechanics enabled by your Ghost Sister who haunts you - she does all the blocking for you, so you can counter enemies without stopping whatever combo you're pulling off, plus there's kind've an Ikaruga thing where some enemies are ghostly and can only be hit while within her Blue Ghost Field, while some are magic and can only be damaged within her Red Ghost Field, and you have to swap between them. Plus she's got this huge sprawling skill tree with upgrades to her abilities, and you can turn them on or off to affect the main character's special attacks. That's on top of the main character having 8 weapons with their own combos and proficiencies against all the different enemy types.
So if you want a Devil May Cry game and have cried out all your current devils, I recommend it.
Also it's basically Claymore.
This just released yesterday and if any of y'all like Metroidvanias with some fun looking combat this probably has you covered.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
SniperGuyGaming on PSN / SniperGuy710 on Xbone Live
First run I scraped to the boss and got 1 phase down, second time I had a plan but didn't have nearly as good drops so I didn't have the dps and died just after hitting the last phase.
It is really well made. It has a lot of upgrades that make runs easier over time. You're meant to lose each map a few times before you win.
Then it adds difficulty modifiers to the same maps.
But it's also kinda slow and samey. You are killing a lot of zombies, a few at a time, kiting. You only have limited mana reset so you can't spam your good abilities.
A run is like 2.5h long.
.....better gaming than hollywood
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534