What are you playing?

[Mr. Z]

Portal. Bought Portal 1 & 2 yesterday. I'm finishing Portal 1 today, and in the meanwhile, I'm downloading Portal 2 in the background. A friend of mine is also going to buy Portal 2, so we'll be able to play together.

[the duke of nuke]

DF updated, so, yeah.

Awesome. Expect a Caln Elcarie update soon...ish.

[Wattmann]

DF updated, so, yeah.

Awesome. Expect a Caln Elcarie update soon...ish.

Haha!


On a different note, CRUSADER KINGS BE OUT!
So gonna buy.

[cybrxkhan]

Is anybody playing Kingdoms of Amalur? What did you think about it and its conworlding? According to the reviews it seems to be an extremely solid - but not necessarily spectacular - game, although I'm getting Tolkien/D&D-clone vibes from it in terms of its conworlding, so probably nothing on par with the Elder Scrolls... yet.

(Although the fact that they go around saying the game's lore has 10000 years of history kind of turns me off, not because of that in and of itself but because it's supposed to be some kind of achievement or something to have quality over quantity. Not to mention we have more elves.)

[Wattmann]

(Although the fact that they go around saying the game's lore has 10000 years of history kind of turns me off, not because of that in and of itself but because it's supposed to be some kind of achievement or something to have quality over quantity. Not to mention we have more elves.)

10k is a Number To Run Away From Fast - dates such as "Earth in 2200!" and other things that are like "XX00(000)"

[Bristel]

I was playing Jamestown a few days ago. It's a nice shooter that I got for cheap because I donated to the Humble Bundle package.

Seems fair to give to charity while getting a few pretty cool games. World of Goo is especially nice and relaxing, which I need sometimes.

[Nortaneous]

I was playing Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, but I fucking hit the wrong key and deleted my savefile. (I have a savestate from a few levels back when I was arena-grinding, though.)

[Nortaneous]

Oh, no, wait, I forgot, the levels between where I was and where the savestate was are just the ones where Cormag gets promoted and sweeps everything singlehandedly.

[Foolster41]

New computer so my games I couldn't play before, Half-life 2, STALKER, Skyrim, Minecraft and Cortex Command. . I have other games I'm getting that I may play in the future too. Smorgasboard!

[the duke of nuke]

Work on Caln Elcarië proceeds apace, notwithstanding the many bugs in the new DF release... I guess playtesting will have to wait a bit.

But still, playtesting!

[Torco]

Is anybody playing Kingdoms of Amalur? What did you think about it and its conworlding? According to the reviews it seems to be an extremely solid - but not necessarily spectacular - game, although I'm getting Tolkien/D&D-clone vibes from it in terms of its conworlding, so probably nothing on par with the Elder Scrolls... yet.

(Although the fact that they go around saying the game's lore has 10000 years of history kind of turns me off, not because of that in and of itself but because it's supposed to be some kind of achievement or something to have quality over quantity. Not to mention we have more elves.)

It's solid as a game, meaning mechanics, graphics design [though cartoonish "serious" games bother me personally], balancing, animation and controls are all proficiently developed. Voice acting sometimes sucks, but then again so it does in most games. As for the conworlding, I haven't seen any, and I've got some 12 hours of game. don't get me wrong, there's factions and funny names for elves, but the world as a whole feels like little more than celtic mythology crossed over with standard high fantasy, plus heavily influenced by mmorpgs. In fact, the whole thing has, for me at least, a one-man-mmorpgy feel to it.

Factions are just random factions. the "honorable warriors, called warsorn, because they're sworn to war, sworn by honor, to war, which is what warriors do, with honor, and war.", the "mysterious fae, who are misterious, like they're a mystery, and they're fae, like faeries, and they are the only thing that actually resembles elves in modern fantasy, but we have other playable races that we decide to call elves. ladi-sodding-da". Then there's the "kingdoms of the mortal races" who fight against the "mysterious fae". I'm sure there's history, and politics, and stuff, but the way the world has been presented to me thus far, it feels as empty and meaningless as a megaman game.

[cybrxkhan]

Is anybody playing Kingdoms of Amalur? What did you think about it and its conworlding? According to the reviews it seems to be an extremely solid - but not necessarily spectacular - game, although I'm getting Tolkien/D&D-clone vibes from it in terms of its conworlding, so probably nothing on par with the Elder Scrolls... yet.

(Although the fact that they go around saying the game's lore has 10000 years of history kind of turns me off, not because of that in and of itself but because it's supposed to be some kind of achievement or something to have quality over quantity. Not to mention we have more elves.)

It's solid as a game, meaning mechanics, graphics design [though cartoonish "serious" games bother me personally], balancing, animation and controls are all proficiently developed. Voice acting sometimes sucks, but then again so it does in most games. As for the conworlding, I haven't seen any, and I've got some 12 hours of game. don't get me wrong, there's factions and funny names for elves, but the world as a whole feels like little more than celtic mythology crossed over with standard high fantasy, plus heavily influenced by mmorpgs. In fact, the whole thing has, for me at least, a one-man-mmorpgy feel to it.

Factions are just random factions. the "honorable warriors, called warsorn, because they're sworn to war, sworn by honor, to war, which is what warriors do, with honor, and war.", the "mysterious fae, who are misterious, like they're a mystery, and they're fae, like faeries, and they are the only thing that actually resembles elves in modern fantasy, but we have other playable races that we decide to call elves. ladi-sodding-da". Then there's the "kingdoms of the mortal races" who fight against the "mysterious fae". I'm sure there's history, and politics, and stuff, but the way the world has been presented to me thus far, it feels as empty and meaningless as a megaman game.

Apparently they had some lore up on the website, a lot of it, actually, but I kind of phased out after reading about the Dark Elves, or, rather, just-more-rehashing-of-Dark-Elves. Gah. After Morrowind I now hold everything else to impossible standards in terms of conworlding. I didn't want to get impressions of the conworld from reviewers and gamers, since... they don't go through it for the conworld. They all say stuff like "Cool! It has 10000 Years of lore, that's so much!" but I know that doesn't say much at all.

[Torco]

yeah there's lore, but I've only seen it in the form of "lorestones" lying around, with little audiobites like "{name}, learner of knowledge, enthraller of princesses, great warrior, he's so extensively awesome. may return from {name} and bring back the {name}" or the such.

Incidentally, one of the games with best conworlds, better than the elder scrolls series [not a bigger conworld, but a more awesome, more integrated, more organic, fantastic and certainly immersive ones] was Lands of Lore, guardians of destiny. yeah, it had lorestones, but they were video lorestones with music, and the lore they gave you made you know more about the world, and that knowledge was relatable. For example, you would find yourself in like a lost ruin underground, and a stone would show a couple of guys doing the ritual that sank the city that is now the ruins.

In essence, KoA fails at show don't tell. it tells. and tells. and tells.

[cybrxkhan]

In essence, KoA fails at show don't tell. it tells. and tells. and tells.

I tried the demo a while back, and I already sensed that just by seeing the opening cinematic. I didn't retain much from it (and not in a good way), and all I recalled was some evil dark guy laughing evily and some demonic hordes. The Elder Scrolls III-V, on the other hand, all thrust you right into the world without really explaining everything right away (with varying degrees of success - but all more or less working), and yet even through the few events in the opening tutorials, you get some idea of how the world works, for instance: the nominal authority of the Imperial military in Morrowind over everyone else as you step out of their prison; the uncertainty at the vague, impending apocalypse of Oblivion as forewarned by the emperor as he is attacked by some random assassins you never seen before; or even skewing most player's biases against the Imperial Legion in Skyrim because they try to execute you. Actually there was a pretty interesting online article about how Morrowind introduces the world to the player (here). Of course TES isn't always perfect with the show and tell (especially with Morrowind's text dumps), but any of the three - even the most "generic," Oblivion - do a much better job at showing the "omg doom is coming" aspect of the story within the first few minutes than Reckoning.

[Torco]

that's a nice article, actually.

reckoning, however, does have good points. it has a much more dynamic combat system, an interesting leveling and skill thingie, though the whole "reset your attributes" cheapens the whole game experience, since your character is nothing, literally nothing, but a vessel for experience points. It's fast, it's gorgeous, especially the landscapes... it's not an rpg at all, actually, it's just an adventure god of war thing with a leveling mechanic and loads and loads of irrelevant dialogue options.

[I mean seriously, I have like ten dialogue options in each conversation and, somehow, I care about none of them enough to punch them, and I'm the guy who walked through morrowind for hours. i'm the guy who beat chronno trigger five times]

okay, i can't find good things about this game. the... the gnomes are cool!

[Bristel]

Minecraft 1.2 is coming out tomorrow, but I won't update until all of my favorite server's plugins are updated too.

[cybrxkhan]

that's a nice article, actually.

reckoning, however, does have good points. it has a much more dynamic combat system, an interesting leveling and skill thingie, though the whole "reset your attributes" cheapens the whole game experience, since your character is nothing, literally nothing, but a vessel for experience points. It's fast, it's gorgeous, especially the landscapes... it's not an rpg at all, actually, it's just an adventure god of war thing with a leveling mechanic and loads and loads of irrelevant dialogue options.

[I mean seriously, I have like ten dialogue options in each conversation and, somehow, I care about none of them enough to punch them, and I'm the guy who walked through morrowind for hours. i'm the guy who beat chronno trigger five times]

okay, i can't find good things about this game. the... the gnomes are cool!

But, I wonder, can the gnomes compete with freaking Mesopotamian Steampunk Dwarf-Elves who may or may not have ascended to godhood in their attempt to be awesome?

I guess maybe if I'm bored I'll buy it later when the price goes down (really down). But yeah, in comparison to TES, even the first few minutes already solidified my opinion. I can really see how Morrowind, despite it's text-dumping, manages to get a lot of information out without overwhelming me when it comes to the quests. Actually most of the text dumps aren't really essential, but the stuff you do have to read - the bare minimum for the quests, say, even these by themselves already give me a good idea of what the world is like. For instance right now I'm going through the House Redoran questline, and I'm already getting a sense of what the Redoran are like - sort of like the idealized Samurai, great warriors with some lavish code of honor, yet others scoff at them for being cowards and/or stupid/silly or something. And in fact they are kind of cowards/stupid to some degree. Like the time I had to rescue one of the councillor's sons from the archmaster who was holding him hostage. Made me think the archmaster guy was kind of a prick, and here he's supposed to be honorable and blah blah blah and he's also a cheater or something. And all this just from your average kidnapping sidequest.

[Torco]

I'm playing Katawa Shoujo, an open source visual novel developped by 4chan users about a school for disabled kids. It's more a story than a game, but it's a prety decent narrative: funny and sweet, and at times even emotional. I recommend it.

[Bristel]

I'm playing Katawa Shoujo, an open source visual novel developped by 4chan users about a school for disabled kids. It's more a story than a game, but it's a prety decent narrative: funny and sweet, and at times even emotional. I recommend it.

The forum group I hang out with is obsessed with Katawa Shoujo, but I don't think I'd be able to play it on my computer, so I haven't played it.

[Shm Jay]

I just saw something today that said that the total play area of Minecraft, 32,000,000,000 × 32,000,000,000 whatevers, is about the area of Earth's orbit.

[Bristel]

I just saw something today that said that the total play area of Minecraft, 32,000,000,000 × 32,000,000,000 whatevers, is about the area of Earth's orbit.

Practical surface area is 4,080,576,000 km2 I think.

[Torco]

I'm playing Katawa Shoujo, an open source visual novel developped by 4chan users about a school for disabled kids. It's more a story than a game, but it's a prety decent narrative: funny and sweet, and at times even emotional. I recommend it.

The forum group I hang out with is obsessed with Katawa Shoujo, but I don't think I'd be able to play it on my computer, so I haven't played it.

how could you not run it? a damn android phone could run it. hell, a SNES could run it, in principle.

[Torco]

Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI

fucking AWESOME

[Bristel]

I'm playing Katawa Shoujo, an open source visual novel developped by 4chan users about a school for disabled kids. It's more a story than a game, but it's a prety decent narrative: funny and sweet, and at times even emotional. I recommend it.

The forum group I hang out with is obsessed with Katawa Shoujo, but I don't think I'd be able to play it on my computer, so I haven't played it.

how could you not run it? a damn android phone could run it. hell, a SNES could run it, in principle.

I dunno.

I just torrented it, so I'll try it out tonight.

[Foolster41]

Portal 2 is awesome. I just started playing it for first time today. I've been messing around a little with garrysmod and playing some left4dead2.