Video Games

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Fri Apr 05, 2013 3:21 am

There's gonna be a new Age of Wonders game this year, maybe

http://www.shacknews.com/article/78518/ ... -3-preview

crasskris · Post by **crasskris** » Fri Apr 05, 2013 9:17 pm

Richard Garriots Kickstarter project Shroud of the Avatar recently signed on Tracy Hickman (of Dragonlance fame) as a Lead Story Designer. And they presented it in a way that implies they are actually proud of that:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/por ... sts/429043

Does being a roleplayer and an author actually qualify you for writing for a single-player-CRPG?
And who is on the team to keep both of these raging egos in check? Who could?

Edit: For some men the razor is a natural enemy. I get now why his Wikipedia picture still has facial hair.

Juton · Post by **Juton** » Fri Apr 05, 2013 9:56 pm

crasskris wrote:Richard Garriots Kickstarter project Shroud of the Avatar recently signed on Tracy Hickman (of Dragonlance fame) as a Lead Story Designer. And they presented it in a way that implies they are actually proud of that:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/por ... sts/429043

Does being a roleplayer and an author actually qualify you for writing for a single-player-CRPG?
And who is on the team to keep both of these raging egos in check? Who could?

Edit: For some men the razor is a natural enemy. I get now why his Wikipedia picture still has facial hair.

Every time I see the name Hickman I reflexively think gully dwarves. Not a good omen.

As for being an fantasy author and writing for cRPGs, Betrayal at Krondor is still an incredible game after 20 years. Raymond E. Feist wrote part of it, so having a dead tree author isn't an indicator of imminent failure.

Archmage Joda · Post by **Archmage Joda** » Fri Apr 05, 2013 10:32 pm

In my opinion, the real selling point there is that if they reach a certain goal, then Spoony will get a chance to lambast "Lord British".

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Sat Apr 06, 2013 10:29 am

Juton wrote:As for being an fantasy author and writing for cRPGs, Betrayal at Krondor is still an incredible game after 20 years.

Too bad it has a fuck-you ending.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Apr 06, 2013 12:24 pm

Avoraciopoctules wrote:There's gonna be a new Age of Wonders game this year, maybe

http://www.shacknews.com/article/78518/ ... -3-preview

All of the traditional races are back: Humans, Dwarves, High Elves, Orcs, Draconians and Goblins, with others races possible through post-release content.

It sounds like the author hasn't actually played Age of Wonders. Part of the appeal of that game is that it had literally a dozen races. And that's if we don't count the fact that the Draconians and Tigrans were brought in to replace the Lizards and Azracs in Age of Wonders II.

-Username17

K · Post by K » Sat Apr 06, 2013 4:18 pm

Good Old Games is running a sale of all DnD games and expansions right now, with the discount getting deeper the more games you buy.

So all ten games with all expansions are only $21 (save 80% on normal Gog.com discount prices).

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Sun Apr 07, 2013 4:26 am

Thanks, K. It looks like it counts games you already bought for the purposes of the discount. I picked up the 6 I didn't already have for like 13 bucks, and that included NWN2.

Count Arioch the 28th · Sun Apr 07, 2013 10:21 am

If anyone is on steam I'm on there as Ctarioch28. Just got Borderlands 2 on sale.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Mon Apr 08, 2013 2:30 am

http://indiegames.com/2013/04/visual_no ... ate_s.html

I really liked Analogue, so I'm looking forward to the sequel.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Thu Apr 11, 2013 2:49 pm

Dark Souls 2 Gameplay reveal:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wbtf3ng6kGk

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Apr 13, 2013 4:30 am

I beat God of War 3 this week. I'll review if someone really wants me to.

I've also picked Borderlands 2 back up. I'm doing true vault hunter mode.

See, I got lucky on my first playthrough, and got a sniper rifle that has +65% weapon damage and +180% critical damage. The weapon (level 29) had 2495 base damage.

But with those bonuses...it would do 20k damage on a headshot. If I was playing as the assassin and cloaked and got all the damage bonuses, that'd go up to 50k+ damage on a headshot.

This new one is level 43. It has identical bonuses, but the base damage is over 14,000.

I don't know how much that works out to.

SlyJohnny · Post by **SlyJohnny** » Sat Apr 13, 2013 4:47 am

When you say "base damage", what do you mean? I thought the listed damage actually included the weapon's inherent damage mods? As in, the 2495 damage is the number for after the mod was applied.

You'll get a different (likely higher) number when you actually shoot someone with it, due to class mods and the enemy you're firing at and damage type and a ton of other factors.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Apr 13, 2013 5:42 am

I thought so, too, but now I sorta doubt it. The listed damage is 2495. If I don't headshot, it does, like, 7,000 damage.

The weapn has no damage type, and while I am set up for sniping with Zero, there's not much that actually gives extras.

But yeah. I know what he's using when I hit level 43.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sat Apr 13, 2013 9:09 pm

Bioshock Infinite.

The ending wasn't terribly confusing, it just sucked.

I found the gameplay acceptable, but some of the enemies were just too fucking sturdy and the direct damage powers lacked punch.

Archmage Joda · Post by **Archmage Joda** » Sat Apr 13, 2013 9:12 pm

So, if I may ask, why did the ending of Bioshock Infinite suck? Tell me via PM, if you don't care to post it here.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sat Apr 13, 2013 10:06 pm

Well, short version:

The girl you come to Columbia to rescue gets mastery over time, space, and alternate realities, turns out to be the main character's daughter, or actually the daughter of an alternate version of the main character because he doesn't remember having a daughter until he suddenly does an alternate-self merge, and the main villain was another alternate version.

With the unlimited power at her disposal, the girl decides to eliminate the main villain by killing the main character before the point of divergence and also before the girl was born. This results in the entire game never happening, and the city it was mostly set in never being built in any reality. I should think an infinite number of people who can move themselves and others to alternate realities could come up with a better plan. Like murdering the evil version five seconds after the point of divergence. But instead we, uh, obliterate a literally infinite number of alternate realities because 50% of them contain evil guy.

Also, the time-travel and alternate realities stuff is internally inconsistent, operating in two mutually incompatible ways in the same goddamn cutscene, because the way killing the main character happened is impossible in any set of time-travel physics in which that method would help.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sat Apr 13, 2013 11:14 pm

My take on the "brilliant twist ending" of bioshock infinite.

If you are going to do a brilliant plot twist post endless star wars jokes it had better NOT involve "I am your father!" unless it is REALLY smart about it. Smarter than this one was.

Similarly "it retroactively never happened" is one of the worst twists of time travel.

Also infinite Elizabeth's solution to her problem was indeed pretty terrible.

Also they dropped enough hints that I was starting from about 1/3rd of the way through going "Oh great, don't let the ending be "I am your father I AM COMSTOCK!"...come on more subtle twist...". This is something I see a lot of and have come to consider a "Shock plot twist... for American Audiences only".

Also... if you are telling a story in the game and want a brilliant ending. Do NOT do the "brilliant ending" in a 20+ minute cut-scene on rails made of solid god damn exposition with no interaction at all. The equivalent in a movie would be a character sitting down on a chair and explaining the entire movie and it's twist end with a story instead of showing you the action.

On that point... there was talk of "real choices" etc... no there fucking weren't, this game/story was linear as all hell.

Though there is the thing where Comstock knew the future somehow. I'm not sure that was properly explained. That could be a loose end where comstock is actually the version of Booker who saw it all and who Elizabeth herself drowned for a more intelligent twist for the additional DLC content a bunch of suckers have already bought into... but... I suspect its just me missing like half an audio log in mid (fairly dull) combat or alternatively flat out sloppy bullshit in the story.

But as for the game itself. I'm siding with Total biscuit. The story is pretty good. The setting is brilliant, the art is great. But the game play is pretty sucky. The weapons are boring, the fights are often a chore, the vigors are terrible, the 2 gun limit is pointlessly annoying and worsens the boring gun and boring fight issues (as does the somewhat limited salts bar). The skylines are sort of cool... but frankly there just plain aren't enough of them by a very long shot. Oh and too much scripting hurts the game play in various ways.

All in all its a game that might be better watched rather than played.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sun Apr 14, 2013 12:02 am

Bioshock infinite:

Credit where it's due--Comstock called himself a prophet because he was seeing possible futures with the Tear Machine and then Elizabeth. There's an audio-diary where one of the Luteces says that Comstock doesn't understand that what you see in a tear is -not- a guaranteed future--it's just a possible future.

I wasn't too terribly surprised about Booker and Comstock being the same guy, although for a while I thought the Songbird would turn out to be a penitent Booker who'd failed, or something.

I liked the gameplay. Didn't like a lot of the story.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Wed Apr 17, 2013 5:15 am

http://indiegames.com/2013/04/pc_demo_k ... _-_2d.html

The demo is kinda fun, not sure if I'll back the game or not though.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Fri Apr 19, 2013 12:10 am

Bethesda is not making any more Skyrim DLC.

Which means that they're not adding anything meaningful regarding the Thalmor. Fuck.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Fri Apr 19, 2013 2:19 am

In good news, though, that does mean that they can now make what may be Fallout 4, which is said to be set in Boston, which is so fucking awesome it gives me a boner.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Apr 19, 2013 9:11 am

The Timing to announce a game set in bombed out boston would be a bit bad right now i guess . .

Istred · Post by **Istred** » Fri Apr 19, 2013 12:19 pm

Darth Rabbitt wrote:Which means that they're not adding anything meaningful regarding the Thalmor. Fuck.

Eh, the Thalmor always striked me as something they'd leave for another game. Not that there is much to do with them after the Civil War ends...

Stahlseele wrote:The Timing to announce a game set in bombed out boston would be a bit bad right now i guess . .

Who said they'd announce it now? IIRC they don't usually announce their own projects right after saying they stop working on the previous one.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Fri Apr 19, 2013 12:52 pm

Yeah, they usually wait awhile before they reveal what game they're working on, often because they're still in early development. We probably won't find out which game they're working on until sometime next year.

The Gaming Den

Video Games

Richard Garriot and Tracy Hickman

Re: Richard Garriot and Tracy Hickman

Re: Richard Garriot and Tracy Hickman