[Game Chat] V: In The Year 20XX AD...

[Inconspicularity]

It's actually pretty immersive. Even on my old computer at 5 fps on min settings, walking through the desert with my radio turned on was pretty damn cool. It's also got decent combat and some really cool stuff hidden where you wouldn't think to look. It was my first Bethesda game but luckily I didn't run into too many game-breaking bugs.I had a funny one where the model for bullet wounds were somehow replaced with wolves, meaning I had a gun that shot wolves.

On the pc version, you can spawn in an ubergun for the people who don't really care about hardware progression and just want a cool sandbox.

[Superfrequency]

Just realized the PC is actually a better bet since all 360 games seem to assume you have a 50" HD TV and all of the text is inexcusably small.

I do not own a 50" HD TV.

[forkinyoureye]

360 rel: am I the only one who refuses to pay a blanket subscription fee just for the privilege of online gaming (something I'm already paying for)

I don't give a shit how expensive the servers are. If your competitors can offer online gaming for free, fuck you.

That was actually my main reasoning behind getting a PS3 instead of an 360. I just don't want to blow sixty bucks a year on that when I could buy a new game for that money. Besides, the 360 doesn't have all that many exclusives I really want to play, as opposed to the PS3's inFamous, Uncharted, and Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. Dear god I can't wait for that last one. The first two Sly games were pretty much my two all time favorite PS2 games. Sly 3 ended up being really fun when I picked up the Sly Collection, too.

[Superfrequency]

I cannot let my collection go without Dead Rising. I just won't be buying Xbox Live Gold.

[Hanky Panky]

I imagine Microsoft could probably offer xbox live for free now and it wouldn't be a significant loss at all. The real reason why they continue to charge, I think, is because they charged for Live with the original xbox, when online gaming was new to consoles and flash drives were still measured in mb instead of gb. And now people are used to it so they don't think twice about having to pay. It's just the xbox way. Which is stupid because it means people aren't thinking at all.

[-Benedict]

I had a funny one where the model for bullet wounds were somehow replaced with wolves, meaning I had a gun that shot wolves.

are you like
are you fuckin' kidding me because
that's the best glitch ever

[forkinyoureye]

are you like
are you fuckin' kidding me because
that's the best glitch ever

Sure as hell beats out the 1.03 bug for Skyrim.

[Milskidasith]

Pretty sure Dwarf Fortress still has, like, the top 50 best glitches of all time locked down. You can't compete with melting in the rain, acclimating to lava by burning off all your fat slowly so you could swim through it without effect, ubercarp, Dwarven Atom Smashers, and basically everything else insane about Dwarf Fortress.

[Hanky Panky]

Oh fuck, there's talk of a sequel to The World Ends with You!

[Chirijiradin]

Yes.

Hell Yes.

HELL FUCKING YES.

TWEWY is easily the only reason I still have a DS, I freaking LOVE that game. So now that they're (HOPEFULLY) getting a sequel, I am going to freak out for a bit.

[Jacquerel]

Would the sequel be on 3DS

[Hanky Panky]

This is cause enough to go fanboy apeshit, I believe.
Edit: I would assume it would be on the 3DS, but there's no details telling what system it'll be on, as of yet. Really, there's no details of it much other than Nomura saying that he wanted to give Rhyme vocals in Kingom Hearts 3DS because it was in best interests for the future of the TWEWY series.

Here's the link:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news...y-Get-a-Sequel

[ndoto]

I sincerely hope we hear some more news on the potential of a TWEWY sequel, because that would be completely fantastic and it would mean new TWEWY music. Takeharu Ishimoto is a fantastic composer.

On a different note, did anyone else try the TERA open beta over the weekend? I gave it a shot without really much idea of what to expect other than the whole "more action-based combat" thing, and I actually had a surprisingly good time with it. I also tried the Diablo 3 open beta during the weekend and it was fun but the change from skill trees to completely linear skill-ups bothers me. I like things that offer lots of customization, but it seems like D3 actually took some of that away (which I guess shouldn't surprise me since that's what Blizzard seems to be doing with WoW nowadays as well).

[Milskidasith]

There's more customization in D3 than there is in D2 (differing skill choices, even if switching is relatively painless, and much more varied gear options). Hell, there's probably more customization in the open beta for D3 than there is in the entirety of D2. The latter is probably somewhat exaggerating, but the sheer limits on both your gear options and skills in D2 actually made it have a very powerful illusion of choice without much besides "Do I want to be suboptimal? Y/N?)

[Not The Author]

I also tried the Diablo 3 open beta during the weekend and it was fun but the change from skill trees to completely linear skill-ups bothers me. I like things that offer lots of customization, but it seems like D3 actually took some of that away (which I guess shouldn't surprise me since that's what Blizzard seems to be doing with WoW nowadays as well).

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "completely linear skill-ups." Could you clarify? I have a rebuttal but I'd like to be clear on what it is I'm rebutting.

Diablo 3 was on the whole p. great, and while I have the apparently-unpopular opinion wherein the Witch Doctor is my least favorite class (he just doesn't kill shit as quickly or in an as-viscerally-satisfying way as the other classes for me) I am quite looking forward to its release. Hit me up in the Diablo Thread and we can have opinion fights :>

[Jacquerel]

I liked the Tera beta alright but not enough to actually pay for it
Guild Wars 2 looks far more promising and has the advantage of not having a subscription cost, I'll be playing the beta for that next weekend

And I loved Diablo 3's beta too
So many spiders

[Superfrequency]

The real reason why they continue to charge, I think, is because they charged for Live with the original xbox, when online gaming was new to consoles and flash drives were still measured in mb instead of gb.

It wasn't all that new. The Dreamcast had it at launch three years earlier. For free.

[Toast]

Hey guys, there were remakes of Final Fantasy Legends 2 and 3 that were never ported outside of Japan. It also turns out that they were not actually Final Fantasy games but were just given the names to cash in on sales.
The game has one of the most interesting stat systems in any rpg.
The stats of each party member is calculated based off of the race. Humans gain stats by using items. Mutants work similarly to humans, but grow slower, and will sometimes gain spells instead of stat upgrades. Robots don't gain stats, but instead get to wear absurd amounts of equipment and armor, and also get stat increases from all weapons currently equipped. Monsters can eat the meat of monsters beaten in combat and become other monsters, not necessarily the same as the one defeated. I think it works by adding or subtracting a number based on the type of monster eaten. Monsters can not use any equipment.

There is no reason to give robots any armor other than gloves. All armor gives the same boost based on tier. Bronze gloves and bronze plate give the same boost. The humanoid races can only equip one from each category. So they have a set of helm, boots, gloves, and plate. Gloves are the cheapest item, and robots can wear multiple items of the same slot. So you give them ~four gloves and ~four weapons. You proceed to win the game.

[weirdguy]

that sounds like crystal chronicles, but instead of going "well, they're pretty much going to end up at the same place at level 99 except for one race because we unintentionally screwed them over at that point" they actually made everybody different

course, if that system is heavily unbalanced anyway i guess it's not much better

but it totally makes sense that robots can wear any kind of armor they want because they are literally made out of armor

anyway if you're looking for that old school diablo feel with a fresh coat of paint (as in, massive sphere grid) you may want to give path of exile a shot later when it is actually open to the public for free

[Superfrequency]

There is a cat lady named Ms. Fortune in Toonstruck

Skullgirls is so unoriginal man

[Karhs12]

Pretty sure Dwarf Fortress still has, like, the top 50 best glitches of all time locked down. You can't compete with melting in the rain, acclimating to lava by burning off all your fat slowly so you could swim through it without effect, ubercarp, Dwarven Atom Smashers, and basically everything else insane about Dwarf Fortress.

Fluffy. Wamblers.

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To those of you going "wat" right now, fluffy wamblers are small animals. Some guy was being chased by a bronze colossus when he disturbed a group of them. HE picked one up and threw it.
"The spinning live fluffy wambler strikes the Bronze Colossus in the head. The severed part sails off cleanly in an arc!
That's right, the wambler struck a METAL FUCKING GIANT with such force that the giant's head was knocked clean off and the wambler SURVIVED.

[Reako]

Ahhh, FFL2/SaGa2. A fairly simple game, but it was an RPG for the Gameboy, which was mostly unheard of for the time. Though I didn't have trouble til a certain terrifying boss. Why was it terrifying? If you played the first Final Fantasy, you should recognize it immediately

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[ndoto]

There's more customization in D3 than there is in D2 (differing skill choices, even if switching is relatively painless, and much more varied gear options). Hell, there's probably more customization in the open beta for D3 than there is in the entirety of D2. The latter is probably somewhat exaggerating, but the sheer limits on both your gear options and skills in D2 actually made it have a very powerful illusion of choice without much besides "Do I want to be suboptimal? Y/N?)

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "completely linear skill-ups." Could you clarify? I have a rebuttal but I'd like to be clear on what it is I'm rebutting.

Diablo 3 was on the whole p. great, and while I have the apparently-unpopular opinion wherein the Witch Doctor is my least favorite class (he just doesn't kill shit as quickly or in an as-viscerally-satisfying way as the other classes for me) I am quite looking forward to its release. Hit me up in the Diablo Thread and we can have opinion fights :>

(Hi, NTA! )

I do completely agree that D3 has D2 beat in terms of gear and gear customization. I also thought that the addition of the salvage/crafting system was fantastic and I love that it's random enchants. I will definitely get a lot of fun out of that! I should've been more specific that I was talking just about skills. I really liked D2's skill trees, basically; I like being given that freedom of choice to, say, choose this defensive skill and that defensive skill but also this support skill, etc. When I mentioned "completely linear skill-ups" what I meant was that I just find the system of "you learn A skill/rune at X level, then B skill/rune at Y level, then C skill/rune at Z level" to feel a lot less satisfying than being given the points and allowing me to choose what to put them into.

I guess I should preface all of this by specifying that I'm also one of those dummies who really doesn't care about "suboptimal builds" because I would put my skill points into whatever looked neat rather than building in a recommended way. I did the same thing in WoW, when they still allowed you to do stuff like that. It was just more fun for me that way, so I guess I'm looking at D2 the same way in that respect.

Basically my assertion comes down to, D2 felt to me like I was building character progression by choosing the talents I wanted, whereas D3 feels like I am being told, "You can have this one" even if it isn't a skill that I would particularly want. I guess the intent of doing it that way, combined with the system of "you have a primary attack, a secondary attack and 4 skill slots and you have to pick and choose what you want to take into battle with you because you can't use others unless you swap them out", is supposed to allow you to gradually build up a pool of skills and attacks to be able to choose from and essentially being able to switch to a more situational "build" if you know it would be more beneficial. If you are trying to make sure your character is well-prepared to be the best they're gonna be all the time, I can see how D3's systems better allow for that. I guess I'm just gonna miss dicking around with the talent trees.

Brief Edit: I've been poking around online and reading things that other people have written and I'm getting the impression that I am just a big weirdo for being the only Diablo player who never cared about optimal builds.

[Milskidasith]

The choices in skill points and attributes was an illusion. If you don't care about suboptimality, I don't see how this system is problematic, especially because suboptimal characters can't even access all the content. It's a hard thing to quantify, but I think "letting everybody access all content without having to redo everything" is better than "letting everybody fuck their character up horribly with the illusion of choice."

As for being the only one: You aren't! But basically everybody who actually hit endgame stuff (which requires optimization to be effective) recognized that skill points and attribute points were basically an illusion with no real choice. There's a lot of people complaining, honestly, but DIII will still sell absurdly fast, because the number of people who only cared about pressing the "place a skill point here, because this calculator says it is actually effective" button was rather low.

[ndoto]

Yeah, I can completely understand the issue of permanence. To be honest, I sunk way more hours into D1 than I ever did D2, and - just like with WoW - enjoyed playing lots and lots of characters up to, say, level 20 as opposed to playing one character and making it all the way to the endgame. I have never beaten D2, and in reading all of the stuff about D2's skill and stat systems as a result of this conversation, I understand now that it was not simply a matter of players collectively deciding "this is the best build and anything else is dumb because you aren't doing max damage" but really that certain stat-ups and skill nodes were genuinely flawed to the point of uselessness especially toward the end.

I can completely understand why Blizz chose to go the route they did with D3, as a result - less skills that mean more - and maybe the skill progression will feel more natural and make more sense when I play the full game. Perhaps it's silly to think this, but if Blizzard wanted players to have access to all abilities and allow them to swap them out to allow them to play around without forcing permanence on them, though, I still believe they could've done this through a smaller and more concentrated skill tree that would've still afforded players the choice between, say, choosing between getting Hungering Arrow or Entangling Shot first; they'd end up with both a few levels later anyway, but they could choose which out of the two they felt would be more important to have first. Since they'd end up getting both in time, maybe that could still be written off as only being the illusion of choice, though.

Jumping onto the theoretical train here for a moment: do you think it could have been possible for them to have included actual, balanced skill trees with meaningful choices that allowed you to customize your character without putting you in danger of permanently your character handicapped and making the endgame unwinnable? Or do you think that the flaws of the skill trees are inherent to the very system itself?