Video Games

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Fri Jun 29, 2012 11:34 pm

I grabbed the Sword of Islam expansion pack/DLC for CKII, and started up a couple of playthroughs as Islamic factions. They've really done an amazing job with it. Playing an Islamic faction almost feels like a different game. Now, I do suspect there's been a good deal of "Every muslim nation ever was the 1400s Ottomans" flanderization, but it is at least interesting.

The big change is that Islamic characters can get up to three "secondary wives" in their harem. There's a prestige hit for not having at least two, and under some circumstances (A spanish emirate had it but the Fatimid Caliphate did not) a prestige benefit for having three. Only the primary wife effects stats, and only the first marriage gives prestige, with the secondaries mostly providing excessive quantities of children. Unlike for Christian factions, this is a bad thing, thanks to the star mechanic, decadence score.

Islamic dynasties get a Decadence percentage rating that gives benefits for being lower than 25 and penalties for being higher, mainly increasingly outlandish alterations for income and troop morale. It goes down for being really serious about Ramadan, handing out titles to dynasty members, and sieges and battles. It goes up from having adult male children who have insufficient personal holdings cluttering up the place, as well as some events. So, basically, if you don't want it to climb through the roof, you need to either aggressively prune your male relatives or you need to essentially be in a constant state of war.

Unfortunately, Islamic factions are locked to a single succession law, where the strongest male child inherits automatically, and don't have any possibility for elaborate marriage claim shenanigans due to the succession law restrictions. So there's really nothing to do with female children, especially since matrilineal marriage is impossible and more than likely you won't get prestige for marrying them off. Now, the vastly increased difficulty of getting claims is more than compensated for by the fact that you can just declare war on anyone you damn well feel like for literally no reason if you're caliph, and if you're not you can declare war on anyone who owns a province that borders you, plus holy wars tend to work out better and you can pretty much do them constantly, allowing you to fill the Decadence score's endless hunger for ever more titles to give to your excess of male relatives, which the harem will give you entirely too many of.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Jun 29, 2012 11:52 pm

So I was looking through silly Flash games to just kill some time, and discovered some old (NSFW) favourites, which raises a question.

Frank, have you ever been contracted as a pornography-collector for a magazine? How about for aliens or a king?

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 11:46 pm

Off and on for the past week, I've been working on an idea I had in Xbox Minecraft. Today, I can say I've made noticeable progress.

I wanted to hollow out a mountain for a house.

So I finished up the main space and started the interior galleries yesterday. Today, I made more progress on the galleries and put in a skylight.

I haven't bothered to count exactly, but it looks like ~40 vertical blocks of open interior. And then four galleries/layers inside so far. I've added in staircases, and begun decorating. I even found lava, so I took the time to pour myself a gate to the Nether.

Side note, if anyone else has the Xbox version, try out Gargamel as a world seed.

Ted the Flayer · Post by **Ted the Flayer** » Fri Jul 06, 2012 1:42 am

I beat the Skyrim DLC the other night. I don't think the DLC takes into account that one might have a level 60+ character with a dragonbone warhammer that was smithed out the ass and armor with Fortify Two-Handed out the ass. I killed him right the fuck to death in one hit.

However, I did like that...

I actually had the chance to hide and backstab the last boss, which is how I killed him in one hit, triple damage power attack with a base weapon damage of 250? Yes please! I say that's good because my other character is a stealthy character, and it annoyed the fuck out of me that the game never gave me the chance to sneak up on "boss" encounters, they'd automatically detect me and start jabbering at me. It was anitclimactic on my higher level than the highest level mob that spawns character, but that would have been satisfying as fuck with my level 40 something assassin...

Edit: According to the calculator I was looking at, I did 1,875 before any damage reduction. Yikes! Then again, my assassin that's 20 levels lower could have been doing a bit about 5,500 before damage reduction, so I suppose that's a moot point, heh.

Dragonbone weapons are neat, but not a huge deal. I like that you have a chance to become a werewolf again if you got it cured previously. The perks for being a vampire lord or werewolf is a nice touch, and the fact that you gain special perks by eating people instead of spending your limited amount of perks in-game is a very nice touch. I find myself liking the crossbows more than I expected I would. The best crossbow with exploding bolts packs more punch than the new dragonbone bows plus dragonbone arrows. They take forever for a second shot, but that doesn't bother me too much. My vampire assassin pretty much kills everything in one arrow anyway, and my werewolf dark knight uses it as an introduction (although it's pretty handy to punch out sleeping draugr). Plus, the crossbow just SEEMS punchier and more satisfying to shoot from my perspective. I went from not giving two monkey craps about crossbows to loving the things.

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 4:51 am

I've got some Scorched Keys in TF2 but no more scorched crates. Anybody want to trade? Optionally, if you have scorched crates maybe we can make a deal.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 12:05 pm

By obscure and mysterious means, and I suspect because they are starting to deliberately leak keys all over the place I've gotten a Smite closed beta key.

It's a pretty solid fuck you to League of Legends.

I support that message.

On the plus side it has ok graphics, the 3rd person angle thing is just fantastic, almost everything is a skill shot, dodging is awesome thanks to 3rd person, the character design even on a visual level is much more unified and awesome (except for the Great Sage Equal of (clown) Heaven

), jungling is better/not so much of a thing. Game play is highly focused on interacting directly with enemies, and so forth.

On the somewhat negative side...

The game is being pushed on a similar free to play model as LoL, and the developer is the one behind Tribes Ascend, the free to play model of which is sadly largely "fuck you spend money or no useful guns for the next 400 games".

The way they have it set up is you play maybe I dunno, guessing at the escalating experience cost for player levels, maybe 100 games? During which you "level up" (the CURRENT benefit of which is exclusively that you get bonus points towards buying new gods with each level up). So basically you get 5 gods for free when you start then you level up to 30 and get 5 more gods with that every 10-30 games or something and then you end up on just earning standard match points and never buy another god again unless you spend money or a month of your free time.

Exact final model will be ??? but probably that. So yeah. And Tribes Ascend pricing (of all sorts) is fucking insane so who knows if it will be worth it.

Now if as an developer with FPS experience they MAKE MORE FUCKING MAPS the game might just be very awesome indeed.

Blasted · Post by **Blasted** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 10:12 pm

TBH I'm not that interested in smite,
devoted as I have been to LoL, DotA2 is more interesting,
None of the things that are supposed to make smite better have any attraction to me. Skill shots especially, as if I'm stuck using US servers, skill shots are their way of saying "Don't bother".

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 10:49 pm

Ah. But you may or may not be stuck using US servers.

The Smite Beta is on US servers. Now I am in Australia and that poses lag issues. Though honestly. Smites been pretty good. (my standards HAVE degraded thanks to Diablo 3, stupid ass of a game that is with its in built mechanics that LOOK like lag even if you had 0 lag).

But, again, Smite is developed by a company with FPS experience and another game out there (public beta?). And that means A) as an FPS company they are, one hopes, a little more inclined to believe in lag and B) Tribes Ascend seemed to have actual Australian servers the last I vaguely recall.

And sorry. No. Skill shots ARE awesome, auto targeting is dull and annoying, and 3rd person view makes that more the case and more CLEARLY the case.

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Fri Jul 13, 2012 3:57 am

So I've been playing Baldur's Gate II with my trusty drow (aka recolored normal elf) wizard. (Ish). Anyway, I just got to the mind flayer cave and Aerie got killed like 5 times. What's the limit to the number of times an NPC can be killed off and still romance you?

On the plus side, Viconia has gate.

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Fri Jul 13, 2012 7:53 pm

CapnTthePirateG wrote:So I've been playing Baldur's Gate II with my trusty drow (aka recolored normal elf) wizard. (Ish). Anyway, I just got to the mind flayer cave and Aerie got killed like 5 times. What's the limit to the number of times an NPC can be killed off and still romance you?

On the plus side, Viconia has gate.

I think that, in the base game, if an NPC you're romancing gets killed, the romance script gets reset. For some reason, though, I'm pretty sure that Jaheira's script doesn't reset, though. Dunno why.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Jul 14, 2012 8:49 pm

Well, fuck. My Xbox is screwing up.

Either it's overheating and it needs attention from tech support, or the laser's messing up and it needs attention from tech support. Either way, looks like I'm calling Microsoft.

I'm glad it's still under warranty, though.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Jul 15, 2012 12:18 pm

"Suck it, Wolverine!"
http://videos.gulli.com/video/9550/Dead ... Videospiel

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Mon Jul 16, 2012 10:15 pm

Two interesting (or not) gaming tidbits:

1: I've been playing tons and tons of LoL. It is a great game. I have many friends I play with; add me sometime if you wish to play (IGN: Surgo).
2: Steam sale is on.

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Tue Jul 17, 2012 8:10 am

Is anyone here playing World of Tanks? It can be bit grindy, but early tanks tend to be a lot of fun, and there's something intoxicating about driving around a giant fucking tank.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue Jul 17, 2012 11:57 pm

Sadly, it's all Tier X Tanks where it's at <.<
I like the smaller ones myself, i get way more fun out of them, and usually more kills too . .

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 6:50 am

I love my M2 so much it's not even funny. I'm still really bad at the game, but I used to play during beta before they took away all my tanks, so I'm re-learning pretty quickly.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Jul 20, 2012 2:40 am

King's Quest 6. I remembered the game and went looking.

Found the Lord of the Dead challenge scene. Some of the voice acting is goofy but...damn.

Ye. Gods.

Summary: To get the game's good ending, not only do you have to defeat the villain and rescue the princess, you have to stop the war the villain brewed up and bring back the souls of the princess's wrongfully murdered parents.

To do the last, you have to go to the Land of the Dead (while still alive), navigate its hazards (and play "Shinbone connected to the legbone" on a xylophone), and at last, throw down the gauntlet to the Lord of the Dead and challenge him for the dead King and Queen.

Way earlier on, you resolve a Beauty and the Beast story, and Beast gives you a magic mirror--the one mercy of his curse. It showed him as he really was on the inside.

With that in mind, here's something I hadn't thought of in years, before yesterday, something pretty retro and pretty awesome.

Juton · Post by **Juton** » Fri Jul 20, 2012 4:12 am

Korgan0 wrote:Is anyone here playing World of Tanks? It can be bit grindy, but early tanks tend to be a lot of fun, and there's something intoxicating about driving around a giant fucking tank.

I really enjoy it. I find the best thing to do is play tank companies, you play on a team and every one has T6 or T8 tanks. If you get in a good company you'll win more than you lose by a lot so you don't have to worry about grinding for credits.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Jul 21, 2012 10:44 pm

So, SRO the SR MMO went kickstarter too . . . And nothing but Questions and Trouble for all of us who donated Money via PayPal already it seems . .
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/196 ... run-online

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Sat Jul 21, 2012 11:18 pm

Maxus wrote:

King's Quest 6. I remembered the game and went looking.

Found the Lord of the Dead challenge scene. Some of the voice acting is goofy but...damn.

Ye. Gods.

Summary: To get the game's good ending, not only do you have to defeat the villain and rescue the princess, you have to stop the war the villain brewed up and bring back the souls of the princess's wrongfully murdered parents.

To do the last, you have to go to the Land of the Dead (while still alive), navigate its hazards (and play "Shinbone connected to the legbone" on a xylophone), and at last, throw down the gauntlet to the Lord of the Dead and challenge him for the dead King and Queen.

Way earlier on, you resolve a Beauty and the Beast story, and Beast gives you a magic mirror--the one mercy of his curse. It showed him as he really was on the inside.

With that in mind, here's something I hadn't thought of in years, before yesterday, something pretty retro and pretty awesome.

Now I kind of regret my initial exposure to KQ6 coming entirely through Retsupurae. I was laughing throughout that scene, but the concept is pretty cool.

I don't regret watching the Retsupurae, though. That was a hilarious series:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL ... ature=plcp

zeruslord · Post by **zeruslord** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 4:29 am

So, I picked up WH40K:SPEHSSMEHREEN in the Steam sale and played through it last week. Although it claims to be a third person shooter, it's really somewhere between that and a God of War style action game.

The singleplayer does a really good job of getting the feel of the setting right. For the most part, the guard seem properly in awe of the marines, starting from their first line (my lords! you have saved us!). You really do play like a fluff space marine - there's hordes of orks, and the generic ones don't really pose much of a threat at all. Once nobs, rocket launchers, and heavily armored ones with power weapons start showing up, it gets a lot more challenging, but you can still take any one of them out pretty easily; the problem is managing health, armor, and overall number of greenskins trying to kill you at any one moment. The Chaos Space Marines are quite well done, and really give you the feeling that you are fighting a dark mirror of yourself. It also gets the grimdark humor of the setting right, with a wonderfully calm British lady doing PA announcements about about quotas, understaffing in factories, the current disaster, and the need for corpse removal teams at your nearest evacuation shelter.

However, it feels kinda unfinished. There's a few places that really look like they should have set pieces and don't. It's pretty close to the stereotypical corridor shooter, with no real strategic choices to make beyond "do I want a meltagun or a lascannon right now". It would also have been nice to get more of a grand tour of the universe - at the very least, eldar and tyranids should have shown up, even if they didn't get the full set of units from tabletop. There aren't any vehicle sections, either, just a shooting gallery while manning a gun on a plane. What there is is well-executed, but...

There's a co-op multiplayer, which is alright, but not as good as the singleplayer, and 8v8 multiplayer, which is lots of fun. There's not any story to the co-op, as far as I can tell, just a bunch of orks that need killed. You're a bunch worse than the singleplayer character, who has a fury meter and mode which heals and increases damage while active, 4 weapons rather than 2 or 3, and a bunch of perks cherrypicked from all three classes, rather than two from your class. The difficulty ramps up really quickly, and they start dumping some of the tougher enemies from singleplayer at you by the dozen. Both modes are class based, with devastator, tactical, and assault marines, and a reasonable weapons variety for each of them. There's a couple things in versus that are a little bullshit (one hit kill thunder hammers and meltaguns, balanced with range limitations) but get exacerbated greatly if there's any lag at all. The competitive multiplayer could have used more of a TF2 approach to map design - each map put together for one or two modes, rather than 4 maps that get used in all of CTF, capture points, and deathmatch.

There's two big DLCs that add maps or modes, a dozen DLC skins, and two DLC weapons, which might be pay to win. The Dreadnought DLC adds a new multiplayer mode, with a king-of-the-hill point that, once captured, respawns one of the capturers as a dreadnought, and then lets the team with the dreadnought start capturing points, one open at a time. When the dreadnought is killed, the center point becomes open again and the two teams fight for it again. It's pretty fun, although how well you do depends very heavily on the guy in dreadnought - if you capture only one point, the team that kills the dread gets more points towards victory than you do for the capture. It also adds three maps, two of which play well in dread and regular capture, and one of which only really works well in dread (too much of a sniper's paradise otherwise). The other big DLC I don't have, but it adds another three versus maps and a new co-op map.

Overall, it's quite good but frustratingly flawed - the same people could have made a much better game if they had more time and money to do it. It's worth getting at $30 if you enjoy the setting and liked Halo, and the dreadnought DLC is well worth the ten bucks IMO.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 5:00 am

I got it for 20 bucks at Gamestop.

I largely agree, though I gave multiplayer a pass.

I -did- like the variety in the weapons, though once I got the Melta and the Lascannon, I stuck with them for the rest of the game. The Melta is insanely good for crowded fights--made the Warboss fight pretty much one-on-one.

It's also substantially easier when you have an idea of what's coming up. A friend came over one Saturday and played through the game in pretty much one sitting. My contribution was largely "Watch out high and on your left, there's some rocket launchers up there."

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Jul 27, 2012 1:11 pm

So, what is the Den thinking about SRO?

And as for WH40K: Such a Pity that WH40K Dark Millenium Online has been basically canceled in favor of Dark Millenium Offline . . I'd really have liked an MMORPG in the WH40K Universe ._.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Fri Jul 27, 2012 8:47 pm

Stahlseele wrote:So, what is the Den thinking about SRO?

And as for WH40K: Such a Pity that WH40K Dark Millenium Online has been basically canceled in favor of Dark Millenium Offline . . I'd really have liked an MMORPG in the WH40K Universe ._.

I don't think it would have gone well. Several interviews during development were pretty clear that they were going to copy WoW's quest and leveling mechanics pretty much verbatim, because they saw it as the only way to be successful. Even though WoW is still most of the market, those mechanics are fucking old, and ill-suited to the 40k universe.

Their plans for 'factions' were even worse, as they were just going to lump everyone together into Imperium/eldar vs orks/chaos, which is blatantly fucking stupid, plus the problems of balancing classes- you can't exactly have a level 1 guardsman and a level 1 marine and make it meaningful in any way at all.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Jul 27, 2012 9:13 pm

yeah, you are probably right . .