It's still weird to me that people haven't played this game! :) Glad you're going to finally experience it. The plot between the first and second is definitely related. There's some larger mysterious plot going on that we have bits and pieces of. But overall you don't need to have played the first game to follow this one. If you want to catch up on plot, here's a link. It was kinda light on plot (Half-Life 2 has way more plot) so I'm surprised there's this much: http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/Half-Life_storyline
Follow-up: Does this event cover episodes 1 and 2 as well? They're much shorter and can be completed in a few hours.
I haven't ever played any Half-Life game, that is until I started the demo recently. I decided to join the event, even if I only play the demo. I might be tempted to get the game (and all related content). I'm not sure yet, I'll have to play the demo more as I only spent a little bit of time with it so far.
Thanks for the link! I haven't played the first one, so I'll have to read through that to get caught up. I don't know what episode 1 and 2 are about, but I'm open to including them.
Those are just sequels to hl2. And are absolutely amazing.
Cool, I'm good adding them then. I'll update the description.
Think of them like standalone DLC. There were supposed to be three of them, but ... well, Valve can't seem to count to three.
Greg if you decide you want to play the full game let me know, i've got an extra copy of The Orange Box I got as a trade for a Steam Holiday Card.
My first question is how are people going to play the game this time? I have the Orange Box on PS3 and Half-life 2 on PC. I thought the PS3 version was quite good but will more than likely hit the PC this time.
I'll be playing it on PC, as soon as I get the mod downloaded. I'd like to experience the updated textures and whatnot :).
Thanks, Jon, you're awesome! I can't decide whether to accept or decline, yet I kind of feel like I shouldn't pass it up. =) I still haven't played the demo for a while. I got side tracked by the Diablo III: Reaper of Souls event. Now that it's over, I'm disappointed because it's over, but still playing it. I got my Monk up to level 86 and beat the game (and Ros) on Torment II. I did die once by Malthael. I just created a new character, a Witch Doctor. Anyway, I figured I'd start playing the HL2 demo again once this event got under way.
Well, if you do let me know.
I am playing it on PC too. They have a controller setting as well as the standard keyboard and mouse. Originally I played the Orange Box on PS3 but prefer the keyboard and mouse this time around. That said, I was streaming it to my TV earlier to play on the couch and it was a fine controller experience, I am more effective with key/mouse though 
Ah and if anyone didn't know, you need to start your game in the Half-life update mod you can't pick it up after you have a save in the regular game. I started in the regular game as the mod was downloading and unless I move the save(which I won't do because I am lazy and the game still looks incredible).
That said, the game looks incredible and is buttery smooth and 60fps maxed out on my monitor. Older tech games still look and play well and come with the bonus of great frame rates
I'm thinking I should take you up on the offer. I might as well not pass up a free game, especially one that's as popular as Half-Life 2. I had friends that were playing it during its release, but my PC at the time didn't meet some of the system requirements. I think that would be a cool idea because I can then fully participate in this event. =)
The PS3 Orange Box wasn't great. The 360 version was way better. Once you get to the final areas it starts dragging in a major way on PS3. The problems were more apparent in TF2 and Portal, but Half-Life 2 suffered as well. This was back when Valve said the PS3 was essentially worthless, and farmed out the development of the Orange Box on PS3 to a third-party, before eventually integrating Steam into the PS3 version of Portal 2. :)
I played The orange Bix all the all the way through on PS3 and beyond some audio crackling thought it was fine. Portal, in my experience ran the best out of the lot. I went to try TF2 the other day and the servers weren't up, which isn't surprising.
EA published Half-life 2 and I think they ported it.
Looks like Valve and Sierra published the game and EA distributed versions of it.
With that if you have the PC copy play that, it's far superior.
Yeah they did the port job on it. TF2 had the launch content and nothing else. The 360 version kept growing with the 360 version for a while, but the PS3 version never got any of that new content.
When I got to the area moving into the final boss fight in HL2, where it's really hazy/smoky, my framerate dropped to like 2fps, and it wasn't much better during the actual boss fight. There were pretty bad framerate issues throughout the game, but nothing gamebreaking until you try to fight the boss with really bad stuttering.
Greg, I sent over the game on Steam.
So I just got to Black Mesa East after the chopper fight and I figured that is a pretty good place to rest for a bit.
I forgot how great Half-life 2 is at establishing the dystopian future tone. It's like a totally depressing future but one that's so compelling I wouldn't mind going to. That said, the Combine REALLY like burning people alive. As I continue on with the game there are torched corpses scattered here and there
A few hours in, just entered Ravenholm. The first time I played through the HL2 games was on XBox 360, and, though playing on the PC now, I'm sticking with the 360 controller. The smoother, sweeping motion of the controller, I think, allows for a more cinematic experience. Definitely not optimized for a controller, and the default configuration is frustrating at times (how do you equip a grenade?).
I forgot how much of a maze this game is to run through. Level design is stellar, but it's a pretty simple formula: run through extensively long corridors, shoot some stuff, (load screen), solve a puzzle, maybe swim a little, (load screen), awkwardly drive a hover-boat through extensively long hover-boat-sized corridors, (load screen)... Then I remember that this game is over 10 years old(!), and it still looks amazing, the writing is solid, voice acting is spot on. It's that attention to detail that elevates Half-Life 2 to the classic that it is.
I want to talk some about the actual story, but I'll wait until I know more people have started and at least gotten to Ravenholm.
As if i needed an excuse to play this game again! I've been a huge fan of the franchise since the very beginning. I still have all the original discs for Half-Life, Opposing Force, and Blue Shift from my old Windows '98 computer.
The first time i played these games was on PC, several years ago. I played Half-Life 2 shortly after Episode 1 came out, so i played the two back to back and i remember how frustrated I was waiting for Episode 2... Now I will actually be playing through on Orange Box for 360 for the first time. I'll be deciding whether I like playing with keyboard or controller better.
@scrypt: I think waiting until people are starting up Ravenholm is a good time to talk story. I haven't started that yet, I don't really want to go there any more...
I think this is an easter egg to the then unreleased Portal game. I could be reaching I suppose smile
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=418540770
Oh and as an aside, the Linux port of Half-life 2 is superb. I'd say it's on par with or better than the Windows one. Valve did a great job, I might continue playing the game on Linux to the end.
I am now downloading the game thanks to Jon. I played the demo a bit more recently. I got to an interrogation room where a couple of friendlies helped me get out the back door. I climbed over some stuff and went to the plaza. From there, I wasn't sure what to do, but many paths were blocked. I think I ended up going into a bathroom and the demo seemed to point me to another part of the game. This time, I had weapons and there were a few creepy looking monsters to kill. I exploded some fuel tanks (or something) and didn't know where to go from there.
After I get the bundle installed, I'll check out the mod Travis shared and get that installed, too. Then I'll jump in.
That's funny, @jdodson. I took that same screenshot of the "Portal Wars," and wondered the same thing.
I'm kind of in the same boat with Ravenholm. It's not a happy place. In fact, all this talk of portals has me longing to hear GlaDOS coyly belittle me while I put her in her place...with science.
I'm a little over an hour in so far. I decided not to install the graphics update to get the total "2004" experience. I gotta say though once I turned all the graphics settings up everything looks pretty darn good. And of course since I'm running a fairly modern PC I get a perfectly smooth frame rate. Awwwww yeah.
Other than reading up about the storyline in Half-Life 1 I went into this knowing pretty much nothing about the game, so I was kind of surprised to run into some physics based puzzle elements. :) I was expecting a straight forward FPS experience.
Oh, and those barnacle things are really creepy and gross. I felt pretty clever when I decided to try rolling an explosive barrel into a group of them and, not only did my plan work, but I earned an achievement for it as well. Score!
I'm still very early in the game but so far I'm liking it a lot!
This game really does hold up. I think a lot of modern gaming has a lot to owe to hl2. And if you guys ever want one of the hardest gaming experiences of your life try hl1 . haha . but hl2 is so great and short enough to enthrall. Mp is great too. A lot of the mp mods are great. Install man classics where I come from.
I've made it out of the mine, which is passed Ravenholm, it seems. It's cool that you kind of have to figure out where to go and how to get there with a few snags along the way. Some how, it seems, most of this is a bit intuitive. By the way, Ravenholm was the second part of the demo. Anyway, I seem to love the crowbar, I tend to use it a lot. I'm kind of stuck where I am now as there are snipers above me. I found out how to take out one of them, but the next is where I'm at. I'm sure I'll figure something out.
To answer your questions about "Portal wars," the game released in 2004. The game that inspired Valve to make Portal, Narbacular Drop, didn't release until 2005. In fact, they hired the developers of Narbacular Drop to make Portal!
So it's a nice coincidence but not an intentional easter egg.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narbacular_Drop
More info. It's actually a pretty good game for what it is. Not much there, but you can see the Portal concepts.
That's where they got the idea for the actual portal mechanic, but I thought Valve had been working on the story of the game prior to approaching the NB team?
It looks like the story came after after the Narbacular Drop team joined up, and the tie-in to HL2 was chosen since they could save money by reusing assets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal_(video_game)#Concept
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2010/03/10/opening-the-portal-exploring-portal-s-creation-and-its-ties-to-half-life-2.aspx
Right on. Thanks for the clarification! :)
Wow, think about how different the game could have been if it had more money. I'm really glad they had the restrictions on them, because the final was a masterpiece for what it was, and it led into Portal 2, which I wouldn't want to be any different.
Often, restrictions and adversity can make the end result pretty special. OBLIGATORY Star Wars comparison.
Absolutely. The things Lucas managed to pull off on ping pong tables is amazing. The things he pulled off with green screen and millions of dollars are not as compelling.
All I can think now is, "I thought I'd never..." Such as, I thought I'd never get passed those snipers. I thought I'd never take out that first gunship (aim red cursor at it to guide rocket). I thought I'd never get my buggy flipped right-side up (use "special g weapon"). Some times I thought I was stuck, but managed to figure out how to progress. Like I said before, the game seems a bit intuitive. At one point, I wasn't sure how to get passed a barrier, but used the "special g weapon" to push a heavy transport to break the power line. At another barrier, I found out that I could get under the bridge and make my way to the other side, pull a plug with the "special g weapon," and then head back to get my buggy through. Also, I thought I'd never find that third car battery to get that one gate open. Anyway, I'm done with the buggy, I made it to my destination and now have to go on foot.
I like that the game auto saves. There are really only a couple of "issues," which are hardly issues, that I've found. When the terrain, or whatever, is shaking, the graphics get kind of odd looking, it's not smooth. I noticed this at the beginning on the train and while crossing under the bridge (previously mentioned). Loading between areas takes a few seconds or so. I am playing the "update" mod.
You keep saying "special g weapon." Did they call it that at any point? I always just thought it was the gravity gun.
No, I just called it that hoping to avoid spoiling the game for anyone, although I may have with my last comment. I'm in City 17 now.
Well, I'm done, at least with Half-Life 2 Update. Next is Episode 1, 2, and Lost Coast. I thought that was Michelle Forbes as Dr. Judith Mossman. I think I first saw her in Star Trek: The Next Generation. I saw her again in Battlestar Galactica.
Mossman REALLY sounds like Michelle Forbes and... yep according to the ol' Internet she did play her.
http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/Michelle_Forbes
She has a really unique voice.
Ravenholm is spooky! Glad that's over with. A few questions about that reverend: What is he living off of? Raven meat? Head crabs? I suppose he could take trips out to the city at some point for a Combine burger, but if that's the case, why continue to go back to Ravenholm? Not that I don't appreciate his help and weaponry. Maybe he's the last survivor of what went down there, or he feels responsible in some way? Also, he seems to be the only person in the game who doesn't know who Gordon Freeman is!
I've switched over to the keyboard/mouse configuration. Much easier to play that way. I'm surprised they didn't to a proper implementing of the Xbox 360 controller, especially after releasing the Orange Box on that console.
Michelle Forbes is sci-fi royalty. Next Gen, Battlestar, Orphan Black. She was incredible in The Killing, but that's not sci-fi.
The 360 controller works ok for most things, but it certainly does NOT work well with driving controls.
I liked the guy in Ravenholm, he had a cool name, hehehe. I thought I'd never make it out of the Sand Traps, either. I have had to consult a walkthrough a few times. Anyway, Episode One complete.
Well i'm sad to say that i'll be out of the running until i can find a new copy of Orange Box, or get the game running on my laptop. For those of you who follow me on twitter, (Jon), you can see the issues i'm facing with what I call "HL2: Disco Edition". There is an error on the disc and my 360 will not process the active graphics, which makes the game nearly unplayable.
Well guys. Am I first across the finish line? Also about narbacular drop a cool story. Those guys were presenting their game at an event for their school. And the dudes from valve literally walked up, and pulled the plug on all their stuff so no one else could see and offered them all jobs on the spot.
I don't know how true that is. But I heard it in an interview with them.
I just finished Episode Two. Did you finish the game and the extra stuff, rettisawesome?
Dang, I'm lagging way behind everyone, lol. I'm still on the run from the Combine trying to get to... uh... well actually I don't really remember. I just know I'm suppose to be heading somewhere and I'm being chased, heh. I just recently got a hold of an airboat type vehicle and been driving that around for awhile. Part of the reason I'm not very far is I've been doing a lot of exploring around and kind of taking my time with it.
Nah. Just hl2. Been farting around on Gary's mod now. Remembered how great all that stuff is.
It's funny that you mention Gary's Mod because while I was playing HL2, my son kept saying that it's like Gary's Mod. He ended up watching me play at times and even offering some help.
Lost Coast was very brief. In fact, it is essentially a tech demo. I did run the video stress test and it said my frame rate was about 291 fps. Info Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Life_2:_Lost_Coast
Yeah it's a demo for bloom lighting I think.
From wikipedia: "Lost Coast serves as a technology demonstration, specifically showcasing the high-dynamic-range rendering implemented in the Source engine. The level was designed with a variety of appropriate environments to emphasize these effects."
Ah hdr
Relevant: today's Zero Punctuation is a review of Half Life 2: Update.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/10098-Half-Life-2-Update-Retro-Review?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=videos
I'm kind of late to party but I'll try and catch up. I'm halfway through Ravenholm. I forgot what a masterclass in level design it is. I love how the game just drops you straight into a horror film. It almost feels like a seperate game. I wish more horror games could achieve what this one level does.
It's been a while since I last played Half-Life 2 and I'm having a blast.
Welcome to the club, dannytron! You nailed it with what you said about level design, which I think is one of the greatest aspects of the game. I mentioned, twice, that the game seems pretty intuitive and that certainly points at level design. I think it was definitely designed well in a way that getting through it was some what obvious. I did get stuck a few times and referred to a guide, but otherwise I found the game mostly easy to traverse. It wasn't always extremely obvious what to do or how to progress, but in many cases it certainly makes the player think a bit. So, I think aspect of it was certainly done well.
I love how the game just drops you straight into a horror film. It almost feels like a seperate game.
So true. There is very little in the way of cheap shocks in this level. It's more a deeper feeling of lonlely terror, that maybe your character could be trapped here, joining the soulless masses, if he doesn't follow the voice of a slightly crazed preacher. In fact, just by putting a preacher in that role adds a gravity of the supernatural to the whole situation that might not otherwise be felt. Brilliant!
Yeah the horror doesn't feel cheap at all. It has an almost serene and tranquil quality about it as if your fate is inevitable. Then the pastor shows up. And to keep running with the religious metaphor I really like how the ground around you is on fire and you literally have to ascend from the flames toward the pastor and salvation. It may not have been intentional but it certainly feels that way.
Saw this recently on Reddit. Gordon Freeman playing w a headcrab.
https://i.imgur.com/J0BmL1R.gif
Horrifying, and yet adorable!
Hello fellow Cheeful Ghosters! Thanks for another great games club! Our HL2 event is over but our Guild Wars 2 is still on going. I've heard some rumors floating around that Terraria 1.3 is planned for a June release, so I'm going to hold off on announcing our next games club until later this May. If Terraria comes out I know we'll be setting up a server and we'll all be busy with that. If no official release date is announced then we'll fire up Last of Us for June. :D
Thanks again everyone!
WBS TALK TO US ABOUT SHIELD.
Also yeah, it was nice seeing other people's reactions to this classic. :)
I was glad to join and glad to play a seemingly classic and obviously very popular game.
Terraria 1.3 is expected in June, although officially I only saw that a June release was their goal. Hopefully soon they'll give us a release date or just release it. I found out about it in late November and have been eagerly awaiting its arrival ever since (like a kid waiting for Christmas again). I'm still playing Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls and the way I'm playing might hold me until then. If not, Terraria 1.3 will get my immediate and primary focus. =)
Since it's already May and Terraria 1.3 is expected in June, I think it's safe to go ahead and start another Games Club month, but that's just my opinion. I don't know anything about Last of Us, except I only recognize the title.
Travis: GOSH I ALREADY DID COMMENT ON AGENTS OF SHIELD! YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!
Greg: The Guild Wars 2 games club is still ongoing through May, so I figured the next Games club would start in June. Depending on what news we get from the Terraria camp will determine if we start Last of Us in June or if we start up our next Terraria server. :) In either case, we'll get to both Terraria 1.3 and Last of Us eventually.
I'm Namwen.9075!
OK all, I've raised enough money to create the guild. It's called Cheerful Ghost and the tag is [CG].
Just as a reminder, if you bought the collectors edition, you get some items that let you increase guild influence. You certainly don't *have* to spend those on the Cheerful Ghost guild, but it will help us create the guild stash and treasure halls, and all the other awesome stuff we can build to give us more storage, magic find, luck, combat skill increases, etc.
The guild stuff seems pretty deep. Go figure, it's in the title, right? But this seems much more useful than guilds in other games.
Joined the Guild, thanks Travis. I'll apply my Guild exp boosts to it.
If anyone wants to add me my account is "jdodson.5831"
Looks like I'm Taion.4056. If there's any way to send me an invite to the guild feel free to do so. I will probably be on later tonight around 8 or 9 pm PDT.
Yep, I already invited you before even updating the post. Assuming you didn't change your name since last year.
Logged in for a little while last night. I'm now a level 7 warrior, woo! I gotta say that starting armor I got as part of the digital version looks pretty damn awesome. I'm going to be very sad when I eventually have to retire it. It looks like there's a way to change the appearance of your gear but it costs some kind of special currency.
I forgot about the random real world events that happen. Those are a lot more fun to use for leveling up than the usual fetch quests. :)
Something cool I noticed is that my level scaled to whatever area I was in. After hitting level 7 I back tracked to the farm area outside the town to make sure I didn't miss any quests, and my level was automatically adjusted to a lower level. That's awesome! Too many MMO's make it a pain in the ass to try and play with friends if you're different levels. This game seems like they have that figured out.
That's one of my favorite things. Even in Final Fantasy XI, where you had level sync, it was a pain to use it because you wouldn't skill up properly. In GW2 it's easy peasy to knock your level down and play with whomever you want.
I remember when Level sync came out and it was awesome for any jobs that had already hit the cap of 75 (if that dates when I quit the game, heh heh) and didn't need to skill up anything. You could earn merit points while helping new players and friends level their jobs! But it definitely was not great. Not only would you not skill up your weapons but if your equipped gear didn't match your capped level it got nerfed BAD. Still, at least FFXI tried. :)
Anyone think they'll be on GW2 tonight? I'd love to meet up with some other peeps.
Oh and I used my guild influence boost thingy for our guild. So, you know, YOU'RE WELCOME. Gimmie a guild vault now. :P
I'll be on tonight. Like 9pm or will you be on earlier?
The problem is the three hour difference here. You guys sign on right as I'm leaving. We always have weekends!
Just to add-- I love that this game rewards exploration. I find myself just wandering around cities to see everything and complete the map.
Yeah, this time difference thing just isn't working out. We're really gonna need you to move to move to the west coast. That'd be great...
http://memecrunch.com/meme/2U9U5/that-d-be-great/image.jpg?w=526&c=1
The only other MMO i've ever played I can really compare this to is Lord of the Rings Online and the very small bit of WoW i've played. I finally made it to a bigger town and learned two professions Tailoring and Cooking. Not really sure what cooking gives you but I have started collecting some supplies to craft a nice pair of shoes.
I don't see the comparison to WoW. I was bored with WoW after a couple of hours, but this has had me hooked from the beginning. I was somewhat impressed with LotR Online but never enough to stick with it.
I love the impromptu parties. Earlier today I ran through a few areas with a group of two other people and myself, and there was no official party ever formed, we just happened to be running the same stuff. It's incredibly verstatile.
I was just mentioning the only other MMOs I've played. I never really went deep with WOW starter either.
I've only teamed up with people during random encounters. A few times people's buffed me, but due to the extra stuff I got when Instarted I've been OP since the start.
Played a bit more tonight and I am now a level 14 Necromancer and I just sunk a few skill points into pets. So far the game blends a nice balance of not too hard yet challenging enough. With that, there are(at this point) a ton of things to do. Unlock skill points, discover Vistas, explore areas, unlock new waypoints and complete the story line.
The Storyline took me to this huge hub town inside a Cube I don't quite remember the name of. I can gate there easily enough and to other areas. I imagine you all can too and we might be able to group up that way? I am in Metrica Providence because that's where my race is out of. Where are you all from?
That cube town is Rata Sum, the home city for the Asura. That's where your "home" instance is that you can tinker with. Metrica Province is the starter area for the Asura, you'll barely go there after a bit. My main character is an Asura Elementalist, I've got him up to level 53.
I also have a Human Ranger, that's the one I'm playing with Katie. We're level 27 I think.
Here's the thing. There's a Trading Post in the game where you can buy and sell stuff with other players. I haven't had the need to do that except once when I accidentally salvaged my main kickass weapon. For a free-to-play game, the incentive to purchase items is pretty low.
The content is staggering. I love that you get experience for every little thing you do in this game. It encourages you to play how you want to play. I haven't even touched crafting, for example, but that's a good way to churn through a few levels.
Oh BTW, the guild bank is up. The patch a few days ago screwed up a ton of stuff, including build progress, so it stalled for a few days. 50 slots of sharable space so far. It will take quite some time to build up enough rep to upgrade it.
Nice. If you want to ditch any Chef materials feel free. I am building up stock so I can max level. I am going to make so many balls of dough.
The game seems to be very Trading Company focused. At least if you want to craft you do. I am rising in the ranks of Tailoring and I needed to buy a ton of the gear to level up for it. It's not so bad as you can buy items through the trading company but if you wanted to farm mats its way more difficult than in other MMOs. At least certain mats for Tailor like the base mats you need to build everything with. For instance I tried to farm Jute Scraps from areas where the Wiki said you could farm them and I found 2 in a few hours. You need 126 to level up Novice Tailoring. You can buy them through the Trading Company but right now they are a silver and a few copper!
Yeah I've sold a lot of jute scraps :)
I don't know how neither Jon nor I had mentioned the amazing score yet. Jeremy Soule is one of the best game composers practicing right now.
I deposited some cooking supplies for you. :D
Thanks, that helps. The hardest thing I am trying to find is peppercorn, that stuff sells for 5 silver a piece!
Anyways, I just unlocked everything in Metrica Providence and I am on my way to the next area Brisbane Wildlands. You can go east to the Caledon Forest but it's the same level as Metrica and I am a higher level than that. Unless there is some compelling reason why I should go there beyond just unlocking everything, which is pretty darn fun.
I am now a level 20 Necromancer and the game is getting pretty enjoyable. Curious what levels y'all are, what areas and what you are focusing on?
I'm 58 or 59 on my Elementalist, and you can't really focus on one area at that point because you don't level with the content the way you do in earlier areas, so I'm jumping around a few of the 50's areas.
And yeah, Caledon Forest is the starter area outside the Sylvari's home city. Caledon and Metrica both spill into Brisbane for level 15 or 20. Maybe 15-25?
Dungeons unlock at level 30 I think, but so far I haven't touched them. I did start crafting a bit though. Do you get anything useful doing novice cooking? As a jeweler and artificer you don't get anything useful at all until later on. I'll probably do cooking on my ranger, it seems like it would fit.
I haven't started the grind process for cooking yet because I don't have all the supplies to max level it yet. I know that's odd but then i'd have to figure out what I unlocked and keep track and that seems like a waste.
Tailoring doesn't seem as useful as it seemed BUT I did get a few upgrades from it. I imagine at the absolute max level you can get some cool stuff from it but so far, not much more than you can find by fighting stuff.
I have a question for you! In Guild Wars 2, are you battling against other guilds? Is that optional? I remember when I played Ragnorak Online with local friends, we had our own guild and we did fight other guilds at times. I think that was at least once a week.
I'm not even sure you *can* battle other guilds. I mean I guess you could get a PvP group together within your guild, but I haven't come across it.
I haven't seen anything about that yet. If it's possible we'd have to be a higher guild level.
That's cool. The name of the game seems to make my question irrelevant, but I thought I'd still ask. This also leads me to what I'm seriously considering posting in the forums. =)
Is anyone else who's playing this at or near level 40, about to start their chosen order's questline, and chose the Vigil?
Katie and I did this together, I chose the Vigil, and she chose the Priory. I did the start of her order's questline with her and it has bugged mine out so that now I'm stuck with the Priory. I already did the Priory on my other character and would prefer not to do it again!
From what I've read, if I join someone who's in the Vigil for their first couple of quests it will get mine back on track.
I'm nowhere near that level, I'm still romping around at level 14. :P
I played for a bit last night, but I spent most of that time tweaking the controls. I'm not sure why, but the controls for this game bug me. They're standard MMO controls, but this game feels like it wants to be played more like an Action RPG than a standard MMO, and the default controls are terrible for that. Still, this is just a minor complaint and I am still really enjoying the game.
Speaking of which, anyone think they'll be on tonight? I would love to hop and and play with some peeps.
Depends on what you mean by "tonight." My tonight and you west coasters' nights seem to be very different :)
Fair enough. :P
It'll be after 8pm PDT. Probably closer to 8:30 or 9.
I'd love to join you all but I am very sick.
Hopefully catch you all again sometime. :sleep:
Feel better Jon!
Drugs help.
AreaNet name: Scrypt.5270
Let's get it ooon....~
How large is the download? I'll make sure to friend everyone as soon as it's installed.
It's pretty big. 30ish gigs? I can't remember exactly. It's no GTA V but it's big.
75% off! $15 for the Collector's Edition! Whoa!!! Anyway, I'm GregoPeck.6304 and I'm downloading now.
Nice! I'm Taion.4056 on there. I'll try and log on later tonight and see if you guys are on. :D
I agree with Jon, Travis, we need to move to the West Coast, we don't belong here. Jake's already trying to get me to move to California. So, Jon, find us some housing! Hahaha.
That's cool Tim, it's going to take some time to download, so it might be a day or two until I'm there. I'm hoping it will be easy to find you and the others and join the guild. I'm sure at least one of you can add us easily and make that process easier for us. I'm looking forward to playing because of how many of us are going to be there (even if we're not all there at the same time).
I added you both. It'll show up as me "following" you until you also add me. See you inside!
Added all of you except for Tim, it said you didn't exist.
"...it said you didn't exist."
Well, I didn't see that one coming. To be honest, though, "Tim" always seemed a little too good to be true.
Are you guys running GW2 through the Steam interface? If not, are you using something else for in-game chat, or just sticking with text chat?
I didn't even think about it on Steam. I just went from the website and got it from there, so it has it's own client. I only used chat once to say "welcome" to someone, so I guess it was just text chat.
Guild Wars 2 isn't available through Steam, but you can add it to your Steam library as a non-Steam game, and utilize the Steam overly while you're playing. I do this with all of my games, mostly just to keep them organized in one place.
When I play GW2 I try and run it through Steam for the overlay.
Cool, I knew you could add non-Steam games to it, so I added GW2. =)
I hadn't bothered, just use the in-game /whisper
WBS, you said hello and then immediately signed off apparently. lol
Anyway, hi!
It was not immediately. I waited an appropriately long time before going and watching Daredevil instead, lol.
Daredevil is so GOOD! I'm really hoping for an Age of Ultron cameo of some sort, even if it's just a mention from one of the Avengers about "that lawyer in Hell's Kitchen."
I have three characters up to level 10 - Guardian, Ranger, and Thief - and I can't decide which one to continue leveling as a primary. Is there a class in particular that would better benefit our group? I would be glad to start another class if we are already full up on the three I've mentioned.
That's awesome, scrypt! I'm juggling games at the moment. I'm trying to finish Diablo III: Reaper of Souls Campaign Mode with my Wizard (currently in Act V). GTAV (I pre-ordered) is going to be available tonight at 7PM (EST). Anyway, back to GW2, I created a Guardian, I think I'm just under or around level 10 and I'm currently at a story point. I have to deliver medical supplies to the bar tender. I'm still wondering when and how to join the guild.
Scrypt, why not all three? :)
I don't think you really need to balance a party the way you do in some games, so really it's just whatever you like.
I'm not sure what level you first unlock the guild stuff, but I've sent you both an invite. You can chat to anyone online with /guild
I'm still very much a n00b in this game, but so far there does not seem to be a usual tank/healer/DPS party dynamic in GW2. So I think you should be able to pick any class you want and be fine. :)
I'm level 12. I'm also noting that for the very first time (that I've noticed), this game puts my PC to work. When I play, I notice that the internal fans are running much more than usual, it's usually quite quiet. I played this morning and noticed it, so I checked my Alienware Thermal Controller and the fans were indeed running faster than usual, although not at full strength. My internal PC temp was 37 degrees Celsius, which is about 98 degrees Fahrenheit. Still, that seems much cooler than my old PC use to run. Right now (after playing Diablo 3) the temperature is 33 degress Celcius my fans are running minimally, the hard drive is the fastest one running and that's only at 33%. Where as in GW2, my hard drive fan was running just above 50%. My PCI fan is at 18% now, this morning with GW2, it was closer to 50%.
As for the guild, I assumed that once you got passed a certain point in your character's story, the game would tell you about guilds. I wish I had more inventory space as I'm often filling it up. I seem to have equipped all the bags it will let me. I've sold some things on the market, but need to go collect the coins from that. Also, with the "junk" stuff, I see that collecting pieces works towards an achievement, but do we need to keep them in order to complete that? I'm also wondering if I should destroy some of the items I got that I can't use on my character like Primeval armor.
You'll get bigger bags later. Don't forget that you have a bank you can store stuff in.
You don't need to keep the junk for the achievement, just sell them to a vendor.
Thanks for the invite, Travis. I used the guild influence item I had from buying the collector's edition. I also got another similar item (for a smaller amount of influence) that I also used. So, I believe I added 4,300 to our guild influence. I also used my bank for storage, thanks for the tip.
Jon, I sent you some food crafting materials, berries and butter, I believe. I would have had more for you, but I ended up selling them previously since I ran out of inventory space and didn't realize I could use my bank to store items.
Hmmm... That kind of sucks that there isn't an emphasis on class dynamics. I enjoy playing support/healer or DPS roles. I'm sure it all works out. I just notice that combat in certain situations, even early on, can be spontaneously overwhelming and chaotic, and as a result, I've died more than I expected. Playing more and becoming familiar with the rhythm of things will help to fix that, I hope.
I died a few times as well. There was an area I was supposed to go to and I thought it was through a bandit lair and they ended up killing me a few times. I finally looked at the map and realized I could go around it and up a hill. I have a healing ability now that I can use. I also once mistakenly took on a larger boar. I usually choose warrior classes and I almost did for this character, but a guardian looked similar and there were a couple of reasons why I went with it instead. My name, "Gregory," supposedly means "guardian" and also, the description mentioned a "fierce loyalty to allies," so I thought it fit.
Thanks Greg, that will help quite a bit!
I think there are some intentionally overwhelming areas to start with, to get you into the swing of things. Even when you're leveled higher than the enemies, they can sometimes swarm you. Bandit hideouts are notorious for this!
As a Necromancer I don't get swarmed much as I focus on pets and can summon 4 right now. If enemies get close I always back off and have my minions take them on as I pick them off from the edges. It's a fun class but doesn't do much damage with attacks.
That sounds like my Witch Doctor on Diablo 3, Jon. I have 3 or 4 Zombie Dogs and a Gargantuan Zombie. I got so used to having them that I felt kind of lonely without them when I played next as a Wizard.
Anyway, if you're still working on Cooking, then I'll be glad to send you any related materials I find. I'm not sure about crafting yet nor what I may end up getting into. I've already mined some ore because I found some picks and an ore deposit. I can also harvest things, I think. I have a few tools, actually.
Crafting, if you follow a guide, is pretty easy and cheap to level up so you can start actually making money with it. Apparently the only one you can really make money from is cooking, so good choice on that Jon!
Yeah, it looks like cooking is one of the more interesting because food gives you status effects that last for a time. Seems pretty useful to cook up some stuff for your team that could really help you out.
I am also a Tailor and that's pretty good too BUT not quite as useful as cooking as the gear you find replaces what you make pretty quickly.
I've been playing more in the mornings before my son goes to school. Right now I'm in Divinity's Reach and exploring the city since my marker keeps changing to either an unexplored vista or some other local place. That's also a good way to get some EXP.
One thing I'm not liking, is the platforming. Seriously, it sucks. I like exploring in massive worlds just as much as the next wood-elf-plant-creature thief, but if you're going to put platforming in the game, especially as a means of completing certain tasks, then, by all means, polish it up a bit. It's a minor complaint, since it hasn't really happened too often, yet.
It's a nice big beautiful world, though, and for the cost of entry, it's a satisfying experience. However, it does make me want to go back to WoW. I won't do that (although, if I could afford it, I might), but it makes me want to.
WoW is the best MMO of all time right(Everquest)? At least it's the reigning champ so yeah, makes sense it's might be better for that. I like the classes and abilities better in WoW. Plus I have more attachment to Warcraft than the stuff in GW2.
What I played of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn was really impressive, and might be a contender for my time, but again with the subscription... The fact that I paid $15 for an MMO of this caliber, and am not required to pay anything else, is pretty damn cool.
Scrypt, you mean having to jump from one place or platform to another? I ran into that in Divinity's Reach trying to reach some vistas. There were a couple or a few of them that I didn't figure out on my own and instead referred to a YouTube video.
I've never played WoW, but I know I could play for free up to level 20. I've played FFXI, but not XIV: A Real Reborn. I wish FFXI would go Free To Play so I can actually use the expansions I have (I won Wings of the Goddess from the wiki). I was tempted to play XIV: ARR, one of my friends plays it, but I haven't yet. I can afford to pay the subscription, but I knew that there would be a month or two I was sure I wasn't going to be playing it. That is June and maybe July as Terraria is expected to be updated to 1.3 in June.
I haven't played GW2 very much. It's ok, but definitely a steal at $15 for the Collector's Edition (the sale we participated in). One thing I wish for in the game is being able to automatically target an enemy. Sometimes I seem to have trouble selecting one to perform an attack on it. That may be an aspect of the game I don't know about and my targeting skills (IRL, "In Real Life") may get better with a bit more practice.
In contrast to FFXI, I like the easier co-op play, how every fight or battle can be joined by other players who also can get EXP and loot. That is, without having to form a party and also without others stealing your loot, the latter an issue I had with Ragnarok Online.
I agree the platforming is a little sub-par. The controls in general I feel could use some tweaking.
I love that anyone can participate in events on the fly. It makes it a lot more fun than repeating "Kill 10 rats" style quests over and over again, even if the basic mechanics are the same. :)
You definitely get a lot more experience from doing the events, which, as you say, Tim, is a refreshing change from the norm. At some points, though, I've noticed that it just leads to waypoint spamming. By that, I mean, someone from the chat will call out an event near a waypoint, everyone teleports to that waypoint, rushes the event, then waits for the next event call-out in the chat. Rinse, repeat. It got to the point that I was bouncing all over the map in a matter of minutes, chasing down events. Even though it costs 8 copper, or whatever the fee is for teleporting, that's not significant when it comes to amassing experience. However, it felt like I was cheating the game somehow. You would think they would have implemented some sort of "teleport sickness" to prevent frequent map hopping.
@GregoPeck, you can target the closest enemy by hitting the Tab key. This is how I usually initiate a fight. I thought I remember seeing something in the settings menu that allowed for automatic target on attack, or something to that effect. I'll have to check it out when I'm back online.
I can't imagine ever preferring WoW to anything, but it's obviously popular for a reason. Every now and then I'll play a few hours of WoW to see what all the fuss is about and never care anything about my character or the gameplay. It just feels like a major chore, and having played a ton of Final Fantasy XI, if I think something feels like more of a chore than that game, I must *really* mean it, lol
As for the platforming, holding in right-click allows you to free-look, then it just controls like a third person shooter. It only took about the amount of time that it takes to finish up the vistas in the home area (Divinity's Reach, The Grove, Rata Sum, etc) and the level 1-15 zone to really get the hang of it. I still get frustrated with the more advanced jumping puzzles but they're meant to be tricky.
As for waypoint spamming (you probably saw me doing some of that earlier in Caledon) you only ever really see that happening when that area's events are one of the daily achievements. "Caledon Forest Event Completer" was one of today's, so you saw a ton, but if you went to Queensdale you would have barely seen any of it unless one of the world bosses was about to spawn. Since everyone is trying to get those events for the daily it can be tricky to get to any before they're already over, so waypoint spamming in the chat is a helpful way for everyone to get a chance at the events.
Autotargeting: I just hit 1, and it targets the closest enemy. I must have that setting ticked. You can then tab through them or just double click them to switch.
Thanks for the tips, Travis, and Scrypt. I haven't looked at the control configuration and I don't recall the game telling me about Tab. I'll give those things a try. I know 1 is the first skill/ability, which is my primary attack. I just got used to clicking or holding down the left mouse to attack an enemy.
I noticed the daily achievements listed, but I haven't tried to accomplish them. I've been in Queensdale this whole time pretty much and what you said, Travis, makes sense because I don't think I've seen any teleport spamming. I also don't pay much attention to the chat.
WoW was my first MMO experience, so it holds a special place for me. It might not be the be-all, end-all of that genre, but it does a much better job of engaging the player than GW2, and I find it more aesthetically pleasing. The environments in GW2 have a tendency to look chaotic and the levels poorly designed, whereas WoW is almost meticulous in both regards. Lore is a big part of it, too. Blizzard has a ton of it with Warcraft. Guild Wars will get there, I'm sure.
And the platforming: it's not that I can't or don't know how to do it (I've completely cleared the Caledon Forest), I just feel like the mechanics make it so the platforming seems tacked on and unpolished. The difficulty of the platform puzzle isn't because it's "tricky" per se, rather because the mechanics are not designed for it. Playing tennis with fish instead of rackets might also be tricky, but it's probably not as fun. Not without some form of drug, at least ;).
Ah yeah, I see what you mean about the platforming mechanics, but I feel like I might be the only person who doesn't have any issues with them or the controls in general. It seems like it should be a mess but it just kinda makes sense to me, somehow. Lol.
Oh and the reason I mentioned holding in right click as you are platforming is that I didn't realize that for a long time. After starting to hold in right click the platforming mechanics just feel like a basic platformer to me.
Like I said, it's a minor complaint. Thankfully (for me), the platforming stuff isn't a big part of the game.
I've been critiquing the negatives, so I'll mention some of the things I love about this game. The event system is really good. I'm not aware of too many other games that do this, with the exception of Destiny, and I'm now feeling that Bungie totally got the idea from Guild Wars 2, which would make me even more sad about Destiny. Seeing everyone come in on an event and act as an instant PUG (pick up group), allowing you develop a strategy based on the moment, adding buffs to your allies, using crowd control effects... it's a lot of fun!
I'm loving the Thief class, especially with weapon swapping from sword and dagger to bow and arrow. There are still some things that the game should be explaining better (Traits, for one, and when they become relevant, before purchasing more than a handful from your trainer...), but overall I feel it working out for me. Allowing color customization of armor is really awesome, something that I wish were available in every game that uses armor.
The fact that there are no mounts in this game kinda bummed me out at first, but I've grown used to the teleport system. Having both wouldn't make sense. I'm hoping there are better ways of acquiring pets/toys? besides paying cash money for them. One of the things I loved about WoW was the luck of farming for a pet. I love random epic drops!
Oh don't purchase traits from the trainer until late game. You can find them in the world by completing certain events or visiting certain places, so you'll be wasting skill points buying traits early on.
And (I think) most mini's can be found in black lion chests if nowhere else. I know I've gotten a few at random, not sure where.
Speaking of Black Lion Chests, where does one find keys to open? I looked on the black market, or whatever, and couldn't find any there.
You get keys as rewards for various things, story quests (which start at level 10 I think), map completion, etc.
You can also buy them on the gem store but screw that.
Ahh. I've been ignoring my story quest. Should probably get on that!
The story quest is one of my favorite parts of the game actually. The first 30 levels are race specific, and the questions you answer during character creation shape the story. Then you pick your order, and 40 and 50 are about your order and which lesser race you choose to help. Then level 60 shit goes down and you start working toward the culmination of things that I won't mention in case of spoilers, but it's pretty awesome. The level 80 story quests are my favorite, culminating in a dungeon.
Speaking of Black Lion chest keys -- Some people have perfected the quickest way to level 10 so they can do the story quest and get black lion chest keys. New character -> race to level 10 -> quickest path through level 10 story quests -> black lion chest key GET -> delete character -> repeat.
There were a few things I learned in my game play this morning that I thought I'd share. I found out that the Golem Banker is only available for two weeks of game play and afterwards is safe to destroy. That helped me save some inventory space. I also found out that you can click on options in the inventory screen and use "compact" to move everything together starting from the top. This helped me empty one of my leather bags. I was then able to drag a larger leather bag to one of the tabs on the left of a leather bag that I emptied. This helped increase my inventory space a bit.
I made it to a new area in the game, after Queensdale. I may be getting used to the controls. My problem has been that I often click on enemies to fight them, which isn't always effective when other players are fighting those enemies, too. Today I tried simply pressing the 1 key instead of clicking when other characters were near. I think I've tried the Tab key, but haven't really spent much time playing with that.
One of the reasons why I'm glad I reached a new area was because Trading Post merchants and other merchants were nearby. This made it easy for me to collect the money I received from all of the stuff I've sold so far. It also helped me sell my junk items.
I've been giving Jon my cooking materials since he said he's working on that type of crafting. I haven't started crafting yet and I'm thinking of selling the crafting materials I've been obtaining. If any of you want some crafting materials let me know what kind you want and I will gladly send them to you.
"I've been giving Jon my cooking materials since he said he's working on that type of crafting."
Thanks for that Greg. I haven't been playing much of GW2 lately due to being busy so I mostly have time for Hearthstone.
This officially ended today, but I just expanded it for a couple of days for closing comments about the game.
As I'm sure you can tell, I love this game :)
Currently I have a level 80 elementalist and ranger, a level 33 guardian, a level 29 mesmer, and a level 11 engineer. When I decided to start crafting everything I made more characters (that I will definitely play, they aren't just crafting alts) so I could get all the professions. I've gotten all 8 crafting professions to master (level 400), and two to 500. Six of them can go to 500, all but jeweler and chef-- basically the ones you can make ascended gear with. Most of the experience on my mesmer and engineer come from crafting-- on a fresh character, mastering two crafts gets you 25 levels of experience. The trip from 400-500 gets you another three.
Lately I've really enjoyed the world boss train. Every few minutes a new major boss event spawns in the world, and you get killer loot and experience if you need that. Tequatl the Sunless is the best. It actually requires strategy and isn't just cheaply hard.
So yeah, I love this game. I definitely got my $15 worth. What do you all think?
I haven't played as much as you have. I can't remember, at the moment, what level my character is. I was playing in the mornings before Vinny went to school, but I think it's been a while since I last played. I think I like it. It's an ok game. There are things about it I like and many things that I haven't explored yet, like crafting. I think I'd play it more, but I've been doing some serious Diablo III gaming lately. That will end soon though, at least by time Terraria updates!
I'm thinking we can continue to comment on this event even after it's "over." I'd certainly like to continue talking about it as I play more. So, I definitely want and need a place for that.
Comment #92 Wow! Anyway, I just thought I'd suggest extending this event until the end of the month. I've finished my Diablo goal, which was to get through campaign mode with each class and each gender. So, I need something to fill in the time until Terraria 1.3. So, I might start playing GW2 more soon.
I haven't been able to play for the past month or so, but what I did play, I really enjoyed. The last thing I was doing before I stopped was trying to just explore everywhere, unlocking as many teleport points as possible. The environments are beautiful! My favorite thing about Guild Wars 2, so far, has to be the public event system (they do it so much better than Destiny), and the fact that you can play without a subscription. I've gotten well over $15 worth of fun out of this game, and I'm looking forward to playing more, whenever I get to see my computer again :).
Yeah sure, I'll extend it if people are interested :)
Scrypt, when do you get back to your PC again anyway?
I should be back "home" by July 16th. I'm trying to plan a little trip into New York before I leave, but I don't know if that will happen. I guess I'm prolonging my exodus in hopes that it will ;).
Sorry, Jon, but you've got plenty of in-game mail from me. The good news is that I've begun to sell a bunch of my stuff, like crafting materials I can't use. So, hopefully I can manage my inventory better. I don't know anything about crafting, but I still gather ingredients. I may have to figure that out. I'm constantly seeing things in the world to harvest like plants, trees, or rocks to mine.
A few notes: I found out how to repair gear. Those merchants are kind of hard to find sometimes. I don't often use waypoints, I tend to travel on foot mostly. I usually use them when I die and need to revive some where. Some times the game is really calm and peaceful. I like that other players can join together and battle enemies, helping each other, without having to form a party.
Sometimes this game reminds me of Oblivion, Final Fantasy X, and FFXIII. One voice actor sounds like the guy who played Ject in FFX, but I don't see his name in the GW2 credits. A female centaur also sounded like a female in Oblivion.
You can stash crafting ingredients in your material storage, you don't have to keep them in your bank. Just click the gear at the top of your inventory and click "deposit materials."
You can't do that from your bank though, you have to have the materials in your main inventory.
To FURTHER clarify, you can right click any material, wherever you have it, and choose to deposit that particular material. In order to deposit all that you have, you have to have them in your inventory.
Ah yeah, I keep forgetting about that bank. I'm not sure how to access it either.
I found out how to access it: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Account_vault
How did you get to level 20 with the basic bags you get and without using your bank or material storage? Your inventory must be a mess! lol
"Sorry, Jon, but you've got plenty of in-game mail from me."
Thanks, just picked it up today!
It was a mess, but I've sold, salvaged, and sent Jon things.
Yeah depositing those materials will help :)
You're welcome, Jon. Now that I have my inventory management under control for the moment, I'll probably send you less frequent messages. I'll save what I find and hold on to it for a time so that I don't send you as many messages. So they might come in less frequency, but might contain more. =) The game said you hadn't been on in a few weeks, so I thought I'd send you that previous warning.
I'm still getting used to combat and using my skills.
WHATEVER YOU DO GREG DON'T STOP SENDING ME FREE SHIT!
Once you get to level 30 or 40 and can handle more world bosses than the few you can get in the starter areas you can start churning gold fast. It gets even better when you're getting level 80 gear from them. Katie and I got about 5 gold each for maybe 45 minutes of playing tonight. At that point, you can buy all the materials you want!
So you could get all the money you need to level up Tailoring, for instance, in about 4 days. If you want to go this route. It's the cheapest way to level it but doesn't give much return.
http://gw2crafts.net/tailor.html
I sent you some more! Haha One of the things seems to be special, it's a dye.
I found a banker, as I journey on foot between my current quest places. I used the skins I had stored and stored more of the original equipment that I can't seem to salvage (yet?) or sell. There are a couple of other random boosts and things in there now.
I like that you can quickly and easily sell items using the Trading Post. Sure, you have to find a Black Lion Trading Post merchant to collect your earnings, but I still often sell items quickly using the TP. I haven't bought any items from them, though. I have bought some harvesting materials and need to buy more. That's one way I keep coming up with good to send to Jon.
I figured that other guild member was Katie! Anyway, I haven't been paying attention to currency. I haven't really used it very much yet and I'm still earning by selling with the TP. I am level 30 now, I'm currently working on a character story quest.
Finding a TP or bank is easy. Each are available by fast-traveling back to the closest city, and the teleport costs are negligible. There's a waypoint to teleport to close to the bank/TP in every city, and Lion's Arch has quite a few waypoints next to the various banks/TPs spread about the city.
Alternatively, even if you aren't interested in PvP, if you click the PvP icon in the top left row of icons (it's the one with two swords I think) and go to the PvP lobby, after a brief training intro (on your first time only, of course) you are put into the lobby. There's a merchant, Trading Post, and bank very close to where you enter.
You can then exit the PvP lobby and get back to right where you were in normal mode. That's better than just using waypoints in many ways since it puts you back *exactly* where you were.
There's also a handy gate to Lion's Arch straight from the PvP lobby, so that's a free teleport to Lion's Arch basically, with one more loading screen.
And if you're worried that people can fight you in the lobby-- they can't. You have to go through other menus or other locations for actual combat.
Off the topic of currency and trading for a sec-- not sure how much everyone keeps up with news on GW2 but in the next content update (soon) Lion's Arch is getting rebuilt! You may have noticed that it's kinda destroyed. The first season of the living story (before our time in the game) destroyed the city, leaving it in rubble in many places. You may have *also* noticed that with a patch about three weeks ago, there's a lot of new construction going on. They're finally fixing it! In the next content patch everything will be fixed, and many areas will be significantly changed and some are being added.
Alright, I'll get this discussion started. I've played through the game probably 4 or 5 times before, but it's been awhile. I decided to start over after I realized I picked a couple feats on my character I didn't want because I had forgotten what everything was, lol. Now on my second character, I just wrapped up everything on Taris and landed on Dantooine.
I've decided to go as a Scout and I'm focusing on dual wielding melee (later I'll use a double-bladed light saber) weapons. As far as skills go, I'm just trying to keep Persuasion and Awareness maxed, and putting any extra points into Computer or Demolition. One thing I like about the Scout class is you get the Implant feats for free, and I find the implants are pretty useful. :)
I'm not sure what characters I'm going to use in my part. I usually use Bastilla and either Carth or HK-47 because he's hilarious. I want to use different characters this time around though. Any recommendations from anyone?
On a side note, this is my first time playing this on PC as I own it on Xbox also. I was surprised that this game doesn't have any kind of controller support what-so-ever. The keyboard/mouse controls are fine, but I really was hoping to use my Xbox 360 controller. I was also annoyed to find there was a pretty bad bug in the game that made the main character immobile, which required me to switch to my second character in order to move around. This one I Googled and it looks like it is a problem with one of the graphics settings. Once I turned ON v-sync the issue seems to have gone away.
Oh, and I also had forgotten how whiney Carth is in the beggining of the game. Seriously dude, I get it, you have trust issues, but please shut up about them. :P
If anyone has trouble getting this older game going on newer hardware:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=362478411
OK so I installed this and started playing it. A few thoughts.
The UI doesn't really hold up well and seems a bit clunky. I don't think this is simply because it's an older game, I think the PC menus are designed poorly. Does it look or operate better on XBox?
I am playing it on my Mac and it's a bit laggy. It's not terrible, but i'd expect a pretty butter smooth experience from such an old game on really new hardware.
That said, I have enjoyed the game so far and understand why people herald it as the best Star Wars game. It seems like BioWare were real fans of the series and did what they could to make it authentic. One thing that I noticed was that in the game there are "Sith Troopers" and "Sith Warriors." This makes sense and if EP IV-VI is your guide that would be how i'd have done it.
Oh and WBS i'd go a bit easy on Carth, his planet was firebombed into submission by the Sith and takes some personal responsibility for it. All in all, his regret seems understandable.
That said, I do have some questions and am not sure how to proceed because I am not sure what kind of RPG this is.
Should I be buying armor and weapon upgrades or stick to what drops?
OK so I just installed the PC version and transferred over my Mac save. Apparently I can't run everything on the highest setting on a high resolution on the Mac, the game suffers. Still strange for such an old game.
A few other things I've noted in this game.
Only Jedi use Lightsabers but everyone and everyone uses swords. Find this amusing.
Yeah I noticed it's not quite "butter smooth" on my modern PC also. The UI is a bit clunky, and it's almost the exact same menu as the Xbox version. Actually I think I had an easier time playing on Xbox, which is another reason I wish there was controller support. Still, it's a very minor difference and it wasn't hard to transition to keyboard and mouse.
After playing on the PC I've noticed things are much better.
The controls don't feel right at all with a keyboard and mouse. It's disconcerting. I've never played a game that controls like it, and I can't seem to get my muscle memory to adapt.
I use WASD to move around and click on things to make it work. It's kind of like Neverwinter Nights and I don't mind it but you can't jump or anything, which is strange.
Games from this era of BioWare were all turn based RPGs. It looks like NWN, Jade Empire and KOTOR play similarly to this.
Oh and if you are wondering why the score is so great, it's because it was written by Jeremy Soule.
Jon: Sorry I didn't see your question about armor/weapons. Ummm, money is kinda hard to come by in this game, and if you explore around on Taris you'll probably find plenty of armor and weapons to get you by for now. Eventually you'll want to buy better gear for your team though. Also keep an eye out for gear that can be upgraded.
Honestly. I've played this game through more than 20 times. And i cant remember buying anything. sometimes id buy stimpacks. or other consumables. i think there are a few good items you can buy. but they will be quickly replaced with other stuff you find.
also i flipped this game on my xbox just to remember. and crap. still great. UI is fine on xbox. only played on pc once but dont remember an issue. also yes this game is basically a starwars version of Dungeons and Dragons. It directly ports the famous D20 system. even right down to the attributes and feats system.
still a great game. still a 10/10.
also epic stroyline. nothing has made me feel more BA than this ending.
I'll post more as a i get more into it.
Oh WBS- i've always gotten a few chuckles playing with t3-m4 and it kind of makes me feel like luke skywalker at times, bickering with artoo. canderous was always my favorite though i think. hearing his stories about the mandolorian war is so awesome (plus he becomes mandalore which is BA). i also like jolee as he is the quigon jinn of this game.
The game tone is really becoming something I enjoy. So far the story has been good and the play control I really don't mind. I still think the menus are a bit strange, but nothing to complain about.
I am exploring around Undercity and it's been quite a bit of fun. I haven't purchased any items and you do seem to get enough stuff from drops and such, that said, I don't have a full set of armor yet.
Canderous is cool as a character, but I don't think I've used him in any of my times through the game. Maybe I'll include him this time! Currently I'm heavily leaning towards Juhani and maybe T3 or Mission. Jolee is awesome too, but I've used him before. :D
I don't remember where all the best gear comes from, but I do remember there are some shops on Dantooine with some nice stuff, but I think it is really expensive for you when you first get there, lol. Still, if you only use gear you find you should be pretty well equipped.
Tax return came through earlier than expected. Installing now. It's been a while since I've played so I'm gonna have trouble distinguishing between this and Kotor 2 until I get it installed and started.
I'm currently planning on Going scout for dual wield so I can use two sabers. I prefer 2 over the double blade as I can add different effects to each. HK-47 and Jolee were my go to party members. That may change this time, and I'm trying to approach this play through like I did the first time I played. Very little planned, adapt as I go. Next play through will be more about stat management and planning.
I haven't allocated any stats yet. At what level do you start doing that?
I misspoke. I meant feat allocation, and that is done differently by class. Stats auto upgrade with your class level. This might help: http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_Knights_of_the_Old_Republic/Classes
Not to be confused with Attributes, like STR or DEX, which you do pick when you first make your character. You also gain one attribute point to distribute every few levels. :)
So I just remembered one of my favorite parts of this game. Near the beginning, there's a quest to get to the lower city of the first planet by either getting a sith armor set or by getting authorization papers. I just walked up to the guard, put my disguise on in front of him, and headed down. Not the brightest crayon, are you sith guard?
Look man, that Sith Trooper has a very simple job description: If they have the uniform or the proper papers, let 'em through. The Sith are not an organization known for treating their employees very well. He probably doesn't get paid enough to care. You got the uniform? Yeah, sure, go on through.
Fair enough.
So I wrapped up the Dantooine quest line last night and I'm able to travel to different planets now. First thing I noticed was a new space station orbiting Yavin that was not in my Xbox version! Looks like it's just a shop to sell high end equipment, which is cool. I looked the station up on-line and apparently you can get it for the Xbox version if you have an Xbox live account, which I never did. :P
Also, speaking of this new shop with all this expensive gear... I forgot how poor you are in this game if you want to go light side. Seriously, every light side option is like "no no, I don't need a reward!" or "Here poor person, take this money... plus an extra 200!" My Jedi is turning out more morally gray than I planned just because I want some damn money once in awhile.
I didn't get to play much over the weekend, but I did jump on for a little bit last night and wrapped up Tattooine. I'm definitely becoming a more morally gray Jedi as I go. I still save hostages and (usually) pick the nice dialogue options, but there have been several times I've had the option of negotiating my way out of a fight, and decided it was a lot easier and more fun to just stab them in the face. Surprisingly this doesn't always earn me dark side points. :P
I'm curious how everyone else is progressing. Are you going light or dark? Do you have a preference on which order to do the planets?
I'm doing quests on Dantooine at the moment. Butbag McButts (yes that is my character name) has gone from a scout to a guardian. I'm going light side as usual, mostly because the light side powers get so cheap. Force heal for days!
Hey weird names fit the Star Wars universe. I mean there's a guy named Elan Sleazebaggano in the freakin' canon.
I know your team is probably limited at the moment since you're still on Dantooine, but who are you using for your other two characters? I've decided to keep Juhani, but I've rotated out the third member a couple times now.
Juhani hasn't joined my party yet. On Dantooine, I've had Canderous and Bastila, but I'm going to put Mission in soon for her security abilities in the ruin. I think there's stuff there that security will help.
I just got the Wookee and Blue woman person and just got past the Rancor. So far I dig the game but it's hard balancing working on the site and publishing Rubicon and playing the game. I've really enjoyed the game so far, the turn based mechanics are fun and I don't find it as hard as I thought it would be.
That said, my Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm game I started before I began KoTOR is calling me back and that's a ton of fun.
One thing that's nice about Kotor is you can save anywhere (assuming you remember to save often, lol). So it's actually pretty easy to pick up and play in short intervals. The quest journal isn't the best, but it's usually enough to jog your memory on what you were doing.
As far as my own progress goes, after Tatooine I decided to head to Kashyyyk. I wrapped up Kashyyyk pretty quick, but I think I that's partly because I accidentally skipped a few side quests in the process. Oops.
Jon: It's funny you mentioned Star Craft 2. I just ordered a pair of copies for me and the wife. :)
Wings of Liberty is pretty darn cool. The single player is well done and the multiplayer is great too. Did you just get Wings or Heart of the Swarm?
We just got the base game (wings).
I just entered the Sand People Enclave. 15 hours in. Still trying to decide where to head to next once I'm done with Tatooine.
A couple of thoughts on the different versions of this game. I bought the iPad version for kicks when it was on sale a while back. I'm sure it's no surprise that the controls are wonky and uncomfortable. Only played a couple of hours before I switched to the Xbox version. Xbox has always been my preferred version due to the use of a gamepad and being able to chill on the couch. But since I don't have an original Xbox anymore I had to play on 360 and the emulation is pretty buggy. Major frame rate issues especially during battles. After about 6 hours I had to call it quits and go with PC. I noticed some lag on PC but after turning the grass off in the graphics settings the frame rate is smooth.
First off, welcome to the discussion Dannytron! Thanks for the input on the different versions, you win the "I tried 'em all" award for this game club session. 
Right now I'm torn between which version I like better: Xbox or PC. If the PC version had native controller support it'd be a no brainer. Also I haven't experimented with Mods for the PC version so that could be a tipping point as well.
I picked Kashyyyk as my next planet because I knew there was a recruitable character there, so I picked it for purely practical reasons.
On a side note, the month is about to wrap up but it looks like a lot of people (myself included) still have a ways to go to finish up the game. I'm thinking I'm going to extend the event out another couple of weeks so everyone has more time to play through and discuss the game. Does that sound good to everyone?
I think extending the event is a good way to do. I am going to head back after I finish up Heart of the Swarm and would like to continue talking about it.
I'm not playing it, but I have played it about halfway through and am enjoying hearing your experiences so yes, please extend the event for my entertainment. You are my dancing monkeys.
Things have been busy at Castle Slim lately, so I haven't gotten to play much lately. I pretty much just landed on Manaan and started the questline to get into the sith camp. How's everyone else progressing?
After finally getting the game working on my system, I put in a solid 5 hours without leaving Taris. But then I died during the invasion of the Black Vulkar base. It was the last fight, I think, in the garage, for the swoop bike flux-capacitor-thingy. I was momentarily depressed, because I forgot where my last save would take me (I think it was back in the sewers somewhere). So thankful for autosaves these days!
One thing that I really appreciate with this game, is the overall linearity of the quest directives. Contrasting that, I've been playing through Dragon Age Inquisition, off and on since January, and the story/stories there are so dense and plentiful, that it's difficult at times to keep it all together. It's one of the reasons I love the Dragon Age series, but KotOR lets you play within those story elements one chunk at a time. You can chose what planet you want to go to, but once you're there, your focus is specific to that area, which can be refreshing. I don't know if that makes sense. I guess, I (and I'm sure others are like this) get overwhelmed, sometimes, at the openness of some games. Where there is so much in the game that could be done, I'll spend hours with friends in GTA 4, trying to launch a car into space by means of a glitched piece of playground equipment.
I am impressed with how the gameplay and story have held up over time. It helps to imagine the graphics are on par with the Clone War animated series. Playing with keyboard and mouse is weird, but felt more and more natural after a few hours. My character is female, as they tend to be. Meryl Silverburgh, because it's the first name that came to mind. I am trying to play stealthily, though, so that gravity isn't entirely lost :).
I know "linear" is kind of a bad word in gaming, but it's not always a bad thing. I agree with you that it's nice to have each planet kind of have it's own quest line with a beginning and an end. That was one thing that was kind of hard for me when playing something like Oblivion. I kept getting so side tracked running side quests that I never really advanced the main story, lol.
You said you're playing a stealth character, does that mean you went Scoundrel? I remember from a previous play through that later on your Sneak attack skill can help you lay down some huge damage numbers once you learn some force abilities that let you stun enemies, but that making it through Taris was pretty tough. How has your play-through been so far?
I picked the Scout class, but have been building toward a more stealthier character. I haven't been very subtle in my movements, yet. Mostly run in hacking and slashing (preferring blades over blasters), with the occasional grenade (sooo stealthy!). I'm also trying to build my Persuade skill. I seem to remember that helping a lot when I first played the game.
What does everyone think of the camera controls, being locked to horizontal pan only? Do you find it beneficial at all to the combat, or general gameplay, sequences?
Scout is what I picked too. I love the free implant feats you pick up, as some of the implants you get later in the game are really good. The camera controls are weird, but I've never felt like it hindered me in any way.
There's not a lot of reasons to use stealth on Taris unless you feel like avoiding combat, but that means you'll be missing out on a lot of XP. Persuade opens up a lot of dialogue options though, so the earlier you build that up the better.
Awh man. I forgot how much I love the ending. Some of the mist epic dialogue of all time between you and malek. Still gives me that tingle. Haha It reminded me that this game is what made me love writing stories and putting story and character first in my game preferences.
I know what you mean, Rettisawesome. I just finished it a couple of days ago. The ending gets me every time I play this game. Did you go light or dark?
haha. this time i just went straight light side. i've played through so many times that i flipped a coin... i even did a female so i could romance carth. thinking about blasting through kotor 2 now. despite how many times i've plyed that one. there are still a few different bits that i've missed.
also. this has reminded me how bummed i am that they scrapped kotor 3 to devote resources to the old republic.... and the storylines that they were hinting at were awesome! they get back to the story of the main character in kotor1 (kotor2 focuses on a different character the Jedi Exile) and i think was supposed to feature more of the other characters coming back. carth. canderous as mandalore. man. I was excited. probably one of the only games i would purchase on release day. i dont think there are any other games that mean more to me in terms of my development as a gamer and nerd. i always loved star wars. but this was my first taste of the EU. although i suppose i plaid outcast and jedi academy before this.but still.
lol "plaid" obviously meant played.
Dang, I'm lagging behind everyone now! I wrapped up Manaan so I only have Korriban left as far as the main planets go. I hate Manaan, so I kinda took a little time off before tackling it. Now that it's out of the way I am looking forward to wrapping up the game. :D I think I've settled on the team of Jolee and Juhani. I usually don't pick three Jedi characters, but we're kicking so much butt right now. :P Jolee loads up our team with buffs and Juhani and I just slaughter everything with Master Force Speed and Flurry.
We're a bit lacking in skills though. My character (I went scout > jedi sentinel) is the only one who is specializing in anything really. I took a modest bonus to Int, so I get 3 skill points each level up. I originally was leveling Awareness, Persuasion and Computer skill, but I ended up switching Computer Skill for Demolition so I could recover mines when I turn around and sell.
I'm currently half way through the Leviathan, so, you know, I'm about to get the MIND BLOWING PLOT TWIST.
I didn't make much progress in the game last night. I mostly fiddled with this program I downloaded (Xpadder) to map keyboard and mouse input to a controller. It actually worked really well! I still need to tweak the settings to get everything working.
Xpadder is great for games where it works. Oblivion was released for Xbox 360 and PS3, yet the PC version has no gamepad support, and Xpadder doesn't work well at all for it. It's maddening. I mean yes, I prefer the keyboard and mouse, but sometimes you just want to lean back and play.
Well our first official games club is about to wrap up. While I'm not sure I'll finish the game by the 14th, it seems like everyone else is probably done with the game so I'm going to let the event officially conclude, unless there are any objections. :)
What did everyone think of the Games Club? Is this something you'd like to see more of?
I liked it. Although I didn't participate much. Gave me a reason to play a great game again. And talk about it.
What game were you thinking of next if you do again?
I'm not sure. Any suggestions?
I plan on playing through Kotor 2 on my own after I finish up this one, but I don't know if I want to make the next Game Club game another RPG. One game I was considering was The Last of Of Us. I kind of want something that's multi-platform and has been out for awhile so that as many people as possible can play along.
Last of us is good. I just finished that one a few weeks ago for the first time. Was pretty bummed at first about the linear storyline. But I realized I finished the whole game before I thought about it once. So kind of a moot point.
I'd have to think of some non RPG ideas.
I could definitely do Last Of Us. I started it but only got a short way through it before getting distracted by something else.
Not sure what i'd recommend for a next game. I have been pretty busy working on the site and as such haven't had a ton of time for any serious gaming beyond a handful of Issac.
That said, reading and taking part in this game club has been fun. I'll lurk for the next one, whichever you do.
KoTOR is a really great game, I can see why it's on so many peoples best of lists.
I'm in the same boat as @rettisawesome. I love this idea, even though I didn't participate much.
Last of Us would be cool. Never finished that one, either. Other games I'd vote for:
Dishonored
Legend of Grimmrock
Warhammer 40K: Space Marine
Myst
Beyond Good & Evil
Mirror's Edge
Papers, Please
Remember Me
Ico
Or something along those lines ;)
It would be cool if we could play something that's new to everyone. Maybe come up with a short list to last us a few months/cycles? Can we do a poll on the site?
I thought of beyond good and evil as well. Such a great game.
Here's some I've thought of.
Shadow of the colossus
Freelancer
Gothic
Half life 2
Hitman blood money
Mark of the ninja
Mass effect
Mount and blade warband
Nexus the Jupiter incidebt
Morrowind (probably my first pick. But trying not to be lame)
The wolf among us
Company of heroes
Warhammer 40k dawn of war
Any metal gear solid
A huge unhelpful list. But all games are great. And a joy to play when you have others to talk about it with. Also a variety of genre.
I can answer any questions about any of them if someone needs.
Dawn of war 2 is what I meant.
Sounds like Last of Us would be a good pick, based on everyone's comments. I also like the idea of Half-life 2, since that's one I own but haven't played yet. :P
Papers, Please could be a great conversation piece.
I think I know why Morrowind is your first pick, Rett. :P That would be pretty convienent for you, I don't blame you for recommending that, lol. P.S. Did you want to post about your play-through on CG? I bet the community would find that interesting too. Morrowind might be a little too big for something like this. I briefly considered Skyrim. It's not a requirement that everyone (or even anyone) complete the game we're playing for the games club, but it would be nice if it's at lest possible to finish in a month or two, lol.
I've heard a lot of great things about Beyond Good and Evil, I'd be open to that. It's on GOG.com for $10, so that's not bad. I'd be open to that.
I know Jon has posted polls on here before. I'll ask him about setting up something. In the mean time keep posting suggestions!
lol yeah tim. well this whole thing i got in the works with morrowind has just really rekindled my passion for that game. and i've been playing it a ton recently to get into the right headspace. it really is the best in the elder scrolls series. and i love talking to people who are just sort of tapping into its wealth of gameplay for the first time. or at least coming to understand its depth for the first time. i love skyrim. and have logged more hours in oblivion than any other game. but morrowind.... man! so great. and wiith the trove of mods out for it now. the gameplay never ends.
and yeah i think i will probably make some posts here about our play throughs and all that stuff when the time comes. things are still coming downt he pipes. im trying to convice my buddy lee to make an account over here too. but he doesnt even have a facebook. so its like herding cats.
i think hl2 would be a great choice. there is a reason that it is one of the best games from the previous decade. and does not take long to complete.
but idk.
Half-life 2? Speaking if games I totally want to replay. I had a friend that went through it recently and he said it was just as strong now as it was.
I"m casting my vote for HL2. It isn't new to me, not by a long shot. I've probably played it 5 times, most recently last year, maybe? But I'd love to replay it.
So far the rising titles seem to be:
Last of Us
Half-Life 2
Beyond Good & Evil
I'd love to go back and play Mass Effect again. Such a great game. Shadow of the Colossus is one of those that I never finished, but desperately need to.
Any of these work for me. What if we narrow the list to 3-5 games, poll it, and see who comes out victorious?
Or if we're all in agreement on those three, just draw lots for which goes first and we have the year planned out! :)
Five. Those five.
I started Mass Effect but didn't get very far. That might be a good pick later on down the line, for this next game I'm leaning towards not picking another RPG just to add some variety. If the games club becomes a regular thing, there will be plenty of RPG's we'll go through just because, as a genre, I feel like RPG's are kind of perfect for an event like this.
I've been wanting to play Shadow of the Colossus for awhile now. I'd be ok putting that on the poll.
Sotc would be my vote first then. Got the ps3 redux so sweet. Probably in my top 5. So perfect. Beaten it no joke 20 times. Cuz I heard about this secret garden that you need to beat and repeat several times to get your grip meter big enough to climb there.... Still haven't .
But I would love to see the little things people discover. Maybe compare time trials stuff etc. Would be fun
Sweet. So, let's go with these four:
Last of Us
Shadow of the Colossus
Half-Life 2
Beyond Good & Evil
If we want to only pick the next game, head to this link and vote! http://goo.gl/qO87UO
If we want to rank these and set the next 4 games for the year, I'll volunteer to sort. Private message me here on the site with your list ranking the above games from 1-4, 1 being your first pick, etc. I can tally and sort, and post results below.
Or, I suppose you could just post your picks in order here in the comments, if we want to be all open about it ;)
Voted
Last of Us and Half-Life 2 are neck and neck. Are @vdogmr25 and @dannytron still with us?
Dannytron is around here somewhere. I'll text him and tell him to come vote.
I'm thinking we should also make a post on the main page and see if anyone else wants to vote for the next game too.
I vote for Half-LIfe 2. It's been a while since I last played.
Give me a second, I'll post on the main page.
BTW, I totally claimed the area under the lake :)
Since you're going under the lake, I guess I'll go next to it. :)
I built my base a little wider than I usually do, so to kind of off set that I built it a little further away from the starting area than usual as well. Should be plenty of room for everyone else.
Two quick suggestions though: Can we get a piggy bank in the starting house? I tried to place one earlier, but it disappeared and told me the region is locked. >.> Second, when we start building NPC housing, let's built up this time. On our last server once we turned on hard mode wraiths and similar mobs kept killing off NPC's by passing through the ground.
Hey guys just wanted you to know, I might not have a ton of time to play this. I wish I did, but I don't think I do.
Second. Mind if I share this with some local game groups to see if others are interested in joining in?
I've approved everyone. See you in game!
And WBS, I was thinking the same, like next to the starter hut or something.
As requested, piggy bank and safe added to the starter hut.
Also, I've added everyone who's started so far as users. When you sign in, go into chat and type /login terraria2014
Yes, everyone's password is terraria2014. You can change that when you sign in with /password
If you see that you can't do some things that you would like to do, let me know.
I should also add, it's not only allowed, but suggested, that you have another world to pillage while playing on the server. There's no way we're all going to be able to find a red balloon in the floating islands, for example.
Hopefully, I'll join soon. I'm sorry I haven't started yet. I've been playing Red Alert 3 and am trying to finish up the Empire's missions. I think there are a few missions left, I might be done with the game soon, although these missions don't seem to be getting any easier.
What kind of pillaging do you refer to, Travis? Chests and pots? I remember the other CG worlds had unbroken pots by the time I downloaded them, do you guys leave pots unbroken?
Pots regenerate randomly, so pots aren't the problem. The problem is with the really rare loot, like floating island items. I've also found looting our old CG server worlds is a pretty easy way to get some stuff. :)
I started a rough outline of the new NPC housing, but would love to hear everyone's thoughts/input before going forward. here's what i have so far: http://imgur.com/QgIhIh5.
Currently, the stairs are set up so as not to interfere while running in either direction. I may have to take out the bottom set of stairs though to keep mobs out. Zombies were jumping up to the top level while I was working on it. :\
I didn't count how wide the structure is but it is an even number so dividing up the living areas should be easy.
Ok, I got in, but briefly. It said something about the area being locked and I'd have to login to make changes. It also said to type /help for a list of commands, but I was able to do that once, but not sure how. Sorry, I'm new to Terraria multiplayer, I don't know how to chat or use commands, I'm trying to look up that info. I've created a character called "CG GregoPeck."
Read my comment earlier about logging in. You shouldn't be restricted from anything but modifying the starter hut. I did that just so that exploding things couldn't take it out. But logging in gets you a few cool things that the TShock mod adds, like teleporting, sending fireworks to people, and other fun/useful things.
Also, WBS, I think the zombies will stay out in general. One other thing that may help, zombies don't use ropes. If it becomes a problem we can use those.
I like what you've started, I'll help build it in that direction as well. Full disclosure, I'll probably grab a ton of stuff from other worlds/characters to build the NPC housing, but nothing non-aesthetic that would give us any edge over where we currently are.
Travis, I'm sorry that I forgot about that comment you wrote with the necessary information. Thanks for reminding me.
No sweat :)
Hey, just so you all know, earlier I found two goblin tinkerers tied up. They both showed up at home. I rebooted the server, and then there were three in town. I killed off two of them by spawning zombies on them, but you may find more of them and they may duplicate themselves.
http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/572275839879185027/D010E696968DCF43B6B669AA3DFED1D5445003EF/
Take a look of my screenshot I took tonight as Travis was riding a big bunny!
That's quite the fish costume he has also. The balloon he's holding is a nice touch too.
http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/i-VjNBJwp/0/1050x10000/i-VjNBJwp-1050x10000.jpg
It's Minecraft, but I figured y'all would get a kick out of it :)
The balloon is the cloud in a balloon. Accessories are now visible, if you want them to be. But yeah, a sad looking fish holding a balloon is pretty amusinc.
When do you guys want to pop open hardmode?
Well, I'm ready! I've been feeling like there's not much for me to do other than the fishing quests. Aside from that, I made a long path along the lava at the bottom to the left. Characters can get all the way to the left side without falling into lava, until the very edge where a pool is open. I did something like this in my own world the first time I played the game, except that I had both sides covered, with a minor exception at the ends to drop in a Voodoo Doll. This way, you have plenty of room to fight the Wall without falling into lava. I'd like to complete my work on the right side, but I've run out of materials, so I'll have to get more dirt, stone, mud, ash, etc. to continue.
I did go to my own world to grab a Murasama (for Night's Edge) and an Enchanted Boomerang (for Flamarang). One or two of us could take out the Wall. There are plenty of Voodoo Doll's in Tim's Hell house.
Uhm... Tim and I did the path to the right for fighting the wall. We didn't see a path either way so we did that. You can run the whole way with no worry about jumping so you don't get stuck. I know that's killed me a few times.
Cool, I noticed the beginnings of a path to the right when I created the one to the left. I worked on it and then noticed that someone else did, too.
I finally started playing with mine carts. I don't know why it took me this long, they're super fun. We now have a quick way back to the sacrificial altar after fighting the wall of flesh. :)
I'm good for hardmode. Do you guys think you'll be on tonight?
What time do you think you'll be on?
Yeah if we get started by 10 Eastern/ 7 Central I'm game. Made us a bunch of potions! We'll be well-buffed. I was out sick today so I've been fishing lava for the fish needed for inferno potions. Didn't quite get three full stacks. I also made ironskin, regeneration, and bowl of soup. They're all in the chest in the hell house.
Oh also, Greg, I found a Muramasa in the dungeon. There were still quite a few locked chests in there.
Cool, perhaps Jon can use that one.
There were more locked chests? Man, that was a really rich dungeon this time around. I probably unlocked a good dozen or more chests when I explored it (I left a lot of the chests un-looted, because I either didn't need or already had the item) and there were a lot of chests already opened by the time I got there.
As far as tonight goes, I probably won't be able to get on before 8pm pacific, and even then I might be a little late depending on how quickly I get some errands done earlier today. So if you want to do the WoF tonight you can start without me I'm if you need to. I'm OK with that. :)
We defeated the WoF quite a few times together. We stored some loot in a new box at "home." I'll probably play more, just going to look up stuff to get and make. I'll keep an eye open for you and, if you want, we can go up against the WoF.
I came here to saw what Greg said. If you need a pwnhammer we got you covered. Take 10!
Oh and I believe Travis only destroyed one demon altar. So, that would mean we can/should destroy two more if I am correct.
No, we should destroy many more. There are three tiers of hardmode ore that altars/hearts will seed the world with, so if you destroy three you get some of all three, BUT the more we destroy the more there will be to mine.
I destroyed five last night, so including the one you destroyed that should be six total so far. It shouldn't be hard to find more though.
I've destroyed probably 8 or 9 today. The more the merrier!
Also, after going around looking for altars, I mined up enough for what I need and built a mechanical boss arena to the right of town. /warp arena
Tested it out, it works well. I confess to stealing heart/star statues from our previous world.
HOW DARE YOU BRING ITEMS FROM PREVIOUS WORLDS no actually I think we all have brought some stuff over. I brought over a few ease-of-use things and some appropriate leveled gear. I am also going to warn you that I plan to bring over my ankh shield now that we're in hardmode, 'cause I have no interest in harvesting all those items again, lol.
Yes, I'll agree with that. That thing is a pain to put together.
Ha, I've been storing items for that shield. Oh, I haz Rainbow Brick, so I'm expanding my home by adding an additional floor. I have found some Chlorophyte, but I need some Hallowed Bars for a Drax. I'm not sure I'm ready to fight the new bosses alone, presently. I do have the new pink armor set and am looking for Titanium. I'm also look for Life Fruit, and am thinking of collecting those in my own world. I'm not sure if they respawn. The only things I really got from that one and brought to this one were the Murasama and Enchanted Boomerang. I have stored some sets or pieces crafted with most of the new ore, so feel free to pick some of those up if you want them.
They do respawn. Plus, I found enough to fill me up to 500 in a pretty small range. There are plenty of them.
When I'm on lately, Greg and I are the only ones around so I'm not sure what all you guys have seen. I have popped open the Lihzhard Temple and cleaned out all the traps. There's a chest next to the Golem altar thingie with power cells to summon him. I'm planning on making an arena for him as well, but nothing so cheap as the last one (where basically you just watch him die). Then I might also make an arena for moon events with traps and such. I still haven't seen the end of the frost moon. You can set holidays with Tshock, so I can force it to be halloween or Christmas when we're ready to start farming up stuff for the moon events.
I have my Turtle Armor and with it I defeated Plantera and the Temple boss. I have also crafted a Golden Shower. =) I pretty much finished my additional floor with rainbow brick and block. I got some more, so I may expand later. I need to go to the Dungeon and fight the Paladin so I can get his shield. I'm also farming Ankh Shield materials.
I liked the arena you guys set up on one of the old CG worlds for the Frost and Pumpkin moon events. I thought it was helpful, even though I didn't manage to complete it. I'm sure with two or three of us, it'll be sweet.
I haven't been getting on until late because apparently my 1 year old hates sleep lately. I actually haven't done too much since we popped hardmode. I've upgraded to the middle tier hardmode armor (the pink ore, I forget what it's called) and that's about it. I started to dig out a tunnel to the temple, only to realize you had set a warp point there (DOH). I explored the temple for awhile and managed to get two power cells as drops, but I'm not really equipped for fighting in there yet, and died right as I reached the golem room.
I'm very much looking forward to trying out the frost/pumpkin moon events with you guys, but i definitely need to improve my gear before I'll be ready for that.
There's a new "home" chest that has some of the latest gear and ore that I've stored. Help yourself to what you find there. I noticed that someone dug a tunnel to the temple. I've found all the Chlorophyte I need for now and the jungle is huge, so it shouldn't be too hard to get more. I've also stored some Ectoplasm, which I haven't used yet. Again, help yourself. There are also random things I've stored in chests in the jungle, so feel free to check those if you need some Life Fruit.
I think we could clean those chests out a bit. Nobody will ever need a shackle. And if you do need one, just play at night for five minutes :)
Yeah, I've done some cleaning, maybe not much.
I raided the chests last night, so thanks for leaving me nice gear upgrades. :P
Paired with a particularly bountiful Solar Eclipse I now have a Terra blade and possibly arthritis in my right index finger (so... much... clicking...)
I still gotta craft up some better accessories and I'd like to upgrade my armor another tier or two before doing any kind of special moon events, but now that it's the weekend I should be able to play some more and should get caught up pretty quick. :)
You're very welcome. I'm always glad when someone can use something I've stored in those chests. I think I forgot about the Terra Blade, so thanks for reminding me. I'm using a Godly Possessed Hatchet now. I still have my True Night's Edge. I've picked up a couple of other weapons and spells I've held on to.
Kudos to whomever wired up my teleporter to the goldfish, king, piranha, and bird statues. I was so confused as to why a random NPC was showing up whenever I teleported in.
It wasn't me.
What did we wire up in Jon's house last time? I can't remember.
It was his bunny statue. During a blood moon I flooded his house with corrupted bunnies, but he never came up to the surface to see it. :P
Hey Travis, I wanted to let you know that I believe I accidentally got a lever from your home. WBS & I were fighting The Destroyer. We didn't see the souls drop and thought it was underground, beneath the arena, and therefore in or around your manor. As I went down to investigate, I noticed you put up a lever on one of your bottom doors to the right. I activated it, but it seems it got in my inventory. So, I have stored it in a chest for you. Warp to the arena. It's in the first chest to the left.
I haven't done much on our server lately. I'm at a point to where I'm not sure what to do other than reforging my accessories and fishing. I decided to create yet another new world and another new character. I think your manor inspired me a bit to work on something similar on my own. I've already built a large shelter for me and NPCs. I've also created a trophy room to store my trophies, banners, armors, etc. I found out how you created the CG4 letters and number. I had never crafted the thing that lets you make them before. Now I'm thinking of moving it away from my main crafting area so I don't have to scroll through a bunch of letters and numbers.
Anyway, I just wanted to let you know about the lever.
HOW DARE YOU STEAL MY LEVER nah that's ok. Thanks for storing it.
Also, if you did get it from my house, I can't find where it came from. So no harm done! :)
You're welcome. I believe it was attached to a door on the bottom right side of your manor. If you go above ground, above your house, go to the right, and then follow the mine cart rail down and to the left, you'll come across a door that has a lever on the inside, but not the outside. The one I found was on the outside. I don't even know how to use levers or wiring, but it's something I might so experiment with in my own new world since my huge building is sitting between two pools of water. I intend to make a bridge so that most enemies can't get near my building. I had placed the outside doors on the second level of my building, but had to add platforms so that I could jump up there and get it. Unfortunately, zombies were able to do the same, so I removed them. Luckily, I have a grappling hook now, so I can get up there and they can't get it.
Greg and Tim, if you could pop in to the server at some point and do one of the various things that froze you for no apparent reason, I might finally be able to get to the bottom of it. I talked to the clanforge support team, awesome support by the way, and had then add the freezecheck plugin to their tshock arsenal. It should now tell you why you're getting frozen and that might help to figure out exactly what was going on. Greg, I don't think you've had this issue for a while, but Tim you mentioned it was happening last night so there's obviously something still going on.
I played for awhile today and froze once while fighting duke fishron (and a TERRIBLE time I might add). Not sure why. I was using a Flairon and it happened when I tried to switch to my Golden Shower to debuff him again. Otherwise I can't seem to trigger a freeze effect reliably.
I did get frozen several times later while doing a Frost Moon event, but uhhh... there's a good chance that was happening because of the ice queen. :P
Hey folks, I've saved the world file from the server and I'm now sharing it with you so you can play it whenever you want, and loot the everyone else's stuff. :)
https://mega.co.nz/#!vRoTwLKB!AGNT60Kr0JUoDbTUsUWy0OZdRXUpE5MbhUN-Dhhm_Dg
Awesome! Thanks, Travis! I miss gaming with you guys!
I've seen this here for a while but I just checked out the video. That's a brilliant idea if it works. Definitely on my watch list.
It does work. The presser I have contains bots, which are pretty smart. That said, it's meant to be played with friends.
The games I am planning to get during this Steam sale are.
Magicite, Broforce(still early access, but maybe it's ok), Dishonored(+ all DLC) & Farcry 3(+all DLC).
:godmode:
Dishonored is interesting. I was interested in that game but had forgotten about it.
Depending on if Watch Dogs goes on sale, I really want to get that game, but I don't want to spend much.
And I am waiting for Transistor to go on sale to pick up as well.
I really enjoyed what I played of Dishonored on console. Picked it up on Steam a while ago and feels just as good, if not better. You'll probably be reminded a bit of Bioshock while playing, with more stealth options. Beautiful game, too.
There are a few games in the $10-$15 range that I'm hoping drop to the basement, like Secrets of Raetikon, Ikaruga, Syder Arcade, Final Fantasy III. Beyond that, maybe Might & Magic X - Legacy, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and/or Dark Souls II, if the prices are right. That could change entirely, depending on what enticing thing the Steam Sale presents.
Awesome video about the sale circulating around the internet.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=yr2GdRBDOmU
DON'T GO BELOW 60%!
Maybe Spintires, Civilization 5, Goat Simulator, Borderlands and Borderlands 2, Kerbal Space Program, South Park: The Stick of Truth, MAGIX Music Maker 2014 Premium, Assassin's Creed IV... all posibilities
Adym-- You gotta get Borderlands if you haven't played them. They're both fantastic. There's a certain charm the first has that I don't get in the second, but the game mechanics and pacing are improved in the second one.
AC4 is one of the best in the series. Tons of fun.
Yeah, I can't put my thumb on it with BL2 either. It's fine, but much less interesting even though it's seemingly improved in nearly every respect.
I'm falling further and further behind with the AC series as they crank out games like wild, ninja rabbits. Revelations is my hang-up. I suppose I could rush through it, but I like finding all the secrets. The idea of spending 60+ hours in this game gives me a headache. Maybe it's Ezio. I think I'm done with him, as a character. He just doesn't interest me anymore. But I have to push through, because I really want to get to AC3, and 4, and Unity, and fuck-all (I suppose that includes Liberation). If they end up tying the Watch Dogs and AC universes to some substantial end, and keep continuing each individual series, I'll hate Ubisoft forever.
Black Flag looks kind of interesting.
AND it's started and Steam is down... :godmode:
"Remember, it's an adventure, but it's not your adventure. It's your money's adventure. It will bravely travel in small amounts through the vastness of the internet, and, while you'll never see it again, you will receive a game to forever remind you of its journey."
There wasn't anything I wanted for sale when I checked at about 10:02 lol.
Go Team Blue! I hope a bunch of other people craft their badges, because I probably won't lol
I might pickup the Far Cry franchise pack. It's $15 for all the games.
http://store.steampowered.com/sub/46028/
Not sure it could get much better than that.
It begins.
Divinity: Original Sin looks like a fun Co-op RPG. If I can find that on a steep discount I'd like to pick that up for me and the wifey. :)
Borderlands is awesome! I think I may be in the minority here when I say I actually do like the second game better than the first in nearly every way. The ONLY thing I didn't like in the second game is that not all characters have their own method of ammo regen. In the first game everyone could either find an infinite ammo gun or get a class mod that allowed ammo regen for at least one gun type. In BL2 only the Gunzerker can do that. But really it's a pretty minor thing and every other aspect of the game is improved over the first.
I can be difficult to see all the games on sale, but if you go here http://steamdb.info/sales/ it lists them all. You can fliter to Games/DLC/Guides/etc Only, and sort by Discount percent, Price and Savings. Super handy.
4965 items on sale right now lol
Should we keep track of our loot here? So far I've picked up:
I'm on team pink. I feel like Steve Buscemi in Reservoir Dogs now.
Jon, our Team Purple isn't doing so hot...
TEAM PURPLE!
Nabbed the Far Cry Franchise collection for $15. So much game...
That's a nice take!
Suck it Team Pink! Jon, your Franchise purchase just put us in second place!
I don't think we'll catch Adym and Team Blue. Can they finish, though??
This is the Steam Olympics!! http://youtu.be/jp77WTBLYCA
Not sure how many more games I plan to buy. I just got 4 games and am pretty happy with the Witcher 2(the intro was pretty fun as is the normal game so far. Witcher 2 is very Game of Thrones like).
That said, I might not be able to hold out on getting Broforce.
Just picked up an interesting game called They Breath for $0.61. So far I'm holding onto my money.
Whoa, whoa.
$0.61? Damn. Big spender.
FIRST WORLD ADyM
I don't know anything about web domains/internet traffic, but sometimes I can get onto store.steampowered.com at work, and sometimes it's blocked (https://bpb.opendns.com/a/store.steampowered.com/), because my company blocks all opendns websites. I've noticed that the site is blocked when I would imagine it's busier (like right now with new sale items). Is there some sort of switch Steam makes depending on internet traffic to the site?
With so much focus on badges, card price demand seems to have gone up. I looked through most of the cards I'd need to complete sets of games I've played, and the cheapest card I could find was .09, but most were at least .10. That doesn't sound like much but at lot of you guys have plenty of cards that you could put in the marketplace and make around .08 each (again, not much, but when you sell a bunch of cards, it adds up)
Just thought I'd put that out there for anyone who cares :)
For whatever reason, I feel compelled to hang on to my cards. What I should do is list my remaining Summer Sale cards, which have been averaging $.50 each, and those are going like hotcakes. It's interesting, too, that Valve has implemented a new interface, just for these cards. Before, you had to constantly refresh the page to try to find a decent price, and grab before someone else could. Now, you simply place an order at the desired price, and when one becomes available, it gets sent to you. Pretty crazy!
I have all my cards from the 2013 sale, curious what those are going for.
Looks like those are around 8 and 9 cents. I'd be interested to know if those actually worked toward badges anymore.
I'm a little bit confused on which badges people are going for too. Is it just badges from this summer's sale's cards, or any badge from any game's cards?
I just traded a 2014 sale card with Tungsten for The Orange Box.
10/10 would trade again.
For the contest of teams, Summer Sale badges earn 10 points, while other game badges earn 1 point. Foil badges are 10x the point value in each catagory. I'm not seeing to much of an increase in regular card prices, maybe a few cents here and there, but the Summer 2014 cards are quite high, though not as high as they were yesterday.
@jdodson, that's quite a trade!
Wait, Jon, you didn't already have the Orange Box?
I have Half-Life 2 & Portal on Steam. I never owned the rest on Steam BUT I have The Orange Box on PS3(where I originally played all the games the first time).
That said, I think i'll hold on to it to give to someone. The only things I need are the Ep1 and Ep2 to round out my Steam collection for HL2.
You guys lucked out with team purple. The team switcher items for purple are going for like $35
You can do that?! I'll switch teams for $35. Holy knight!
Ahh, you have to still have your token intact to sell it. Booo!
Token?
I thought it was a token, but I guess they automatically assign you to a team when you craft a Summer badge, so I don't know how people are acquiring tokens to sell.
You can get them at random from crafting badges.
A couple more games. I've bought Ducktales and ORION: Dino Horde
I'll have to download ORION again, give it another try. I was severely disappointed in the initial release, deleted it, and forgot about it, but it looks like they've change some things. Looks like they may have gravitated more toward their original ideas.
Adym, Duck Tales is short but it feels just like the NES version. Tons of fun.
I've only played a few mins of it, and totally love it all over again!
It also seems like a proper episode of the Cartoon, which is great.
I've Never Heard Of That Game
... Well If It's A Game
Amnesia - A Machine For Pigs Is On My Whish List, It's An Indie Horror Game Made By The Creators Of Amnesia - The Dark Descent, It Focuses On One Of The Best Horror Stories Ever Written, And It Takes Place 60 Years Into The Future
I've bought The Walking Dead: Season 2, The Wolf Among Us, and Jazzpunk so far. I *may* just have a thing for adventure games. :)
That said, I haven't started playing any of those yet as all my recent video game play time has gone into Wildstar (which, by the way, is not on the site's game list). That's not a Steam game, though, so I'll discontinue this off-topic chatter.
Jazzpunk looks really interesting. You'll have to let us know how it plays, when you get around to it.
Just added Wildstar to the game list, by the way (which also looks amazing. Is it the WoW killer everyone thought it would be?)
Wow, I hadn't heard of Wildstar, but that looks amazing!
Just picked up an interesting looking game called The Political Machine 2012. It'll be a bit dated, but I love political simulations. You play as a presidential candidate trying to win enough electoral votes to win the presidency. Either an actual candidate, or your own creation. Can't wait to dive into this one and geek out on politics!
That's a great game idea, hope it is fun!
Jazzpunk was on my wishlist for awhile, so I'm glad I could finally get it cheap. I may end up playing that one before the other two I bought because the others still have unreleased episodes. We'll see.
Wildstar is incredible. I don't really know if I can type to its WoW-killerliness, but I do know that I'm having a blast so far. The main thing that keeps me interested in MMORPGs is being able to play with my friends, so I imagine I'll continue to play it as long as a good portion of my friends are playing. This, of course, does not preclude me playing other games.
In other news, it looks like the my team (Blue) is winning today. I don't know how it all works, but the system looks rigged to me -- each day one color end up way ahead of all the others. It's probably explained on the site somewhere, but I guess I'm not too worried about it.
As it's just about 10, and the new day is about to start, it's somewhat amusing to watch the team points at the beginning of the day. It's like watching a horse race lol. I accidentally stumbled upon it yesterday and thought I'd pass along the amusement to y'all :)
It is interesting to watch, and I've wondered the same thing, jaelte. I wonder if it has anything to do with time zones. Maybe while the other teams are sleeping, the waking team has the initial advantage?
Here's a really interesting article about Team White and Valve's efforts to disrupt them
http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/06/24/how-the-internet-tried-to-rig-the-steam-summer-sale-and-how-valve-is-trying-to-stop-them/
So today I decided to try and play the Team Token Market today like a stock day trader. I bought a Green Team Token for $1.50 and now am attempting to sell it for $2.00 (meaning I'll actually get $1.75). Right now it is hovering in the around $1.80. I might be stuck with a useless token at the end of the sale, or make an easy $0.50 lol.
Boom! Just sold it for $2! Easy money man lol (I meant make an easy $0.25 in my last comment)
If you could do that a few hundred times in a day you could quit your job.
Thanks for posting that article, Adym. I thought something fishy was going on.
If any of you are looking for a last minute, cheap game to pick up, I highly, highly recommend The Fall. A cool blend of something like Limbo and The Swapper, with a top-tier Sci-fi story, fully voice acted. Almost a crime to get it for the sale price.
You talked me into it.
Yeah, I think i'm gonna pass. My list of amazing games is already stacked pretty high right now.
That said, maybe at some point!
Oh and it looks like we have 13 hours left of the sale and they are bringing back some of the really great deals. Terraria for $1.99? Crazy great deal.
Yep. Going to get this on drop day.
http://www.pcgamer.com/previews/wolfenstein-the-new-order-hands-on-loud-violent-and-utterly-idiosyncratic/#null
Really nice review of the press beta: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5RAs9BJ-bLU
I'm so torn! I have credit at GameStop from trade-ins, enough to get one or two games (AAA + indie). More than a few good ones coming out in May. I've been putting of Reaper because of it. It's a toss-up right now between Watch Dogs and Wolfenstein. The fact that Wolfenstein is causing me to reconsider getting Watch Dogs says something. Then there's Transistor, and I've been interested to try out Killer is Dead, which is on sale on Steam right now. Decisions, decisions.
I hear you. I don't have much interest in Watch Dogs myself so the choice between that and Wolf is pretty easy :D
As to Reaper or not, I am incredibly biased. :D
hmmm... Joystiq deals has it on sale for $49.99
https://deals.joystiq.com/sales/wolfenstein-the-new-order-pc-pre-order-doom-beta-for-pc
That's a great deal. It's reduced price and you get a Steam key too...
Ha, and I just got around to preordering yesterday. I guess I should have waited a day.
pre-loading it now on Steam. It's 40 gigs. Holy shit.
I hope this game is awesome.
I'm glad I cleaned up my Steam hard drive the other day. I have 100 gb free out of a 1TB. I probably need to clean it some more.
If I get a few more games like this i'll need to get a larger hard drive! Then again, I could clean up some old games I don't play much as well. I think we'll be in a new age when a game cracks 100G. Which may very well be the next Elder Scrolls game.
I did a very, very stupid thing yesterday, and am suffering the consequence now. Clean wipe and install of everything :(.
Wow. Well, sometimes you need to do that. Good luck and hope you had backups of the important stuff!
Oh dear. I'm almost afraid to ask, but I must: What was the very stupid thing?
Yeah, I kind of what to know too but I don't want to "dwell on the pain" in whatever way it turned out to be bad. 
Would you knowingly stick your hand into a box of poisonous spiders? I did the internet equivalent. I downloaded an untrustworthy .exe, and then ran it. I can't explain it. The only excuse I can muster is that I've only been in a PC environment for two years (all Mac, prior), and my brain had a moment of "Well, it's not like it can kill my system." It can, kids. It can.
Oh man. Yeah, that happened to my wife a bit ago. It looked like an update for Firefox and it exploded the computer. I was able to beat it into submission but WOW it exploded with spyware in seconds.
Windows really is a cesspool security wise.
PS The New Order is fun. Lot's to say about it and i'll save it for the roundtable/future review.
Excellent! Glad you're enjoying it, and can't wait to hear the good news :)
Did you pick it up scrypt? I wasn't sure how that turned out.
I haven't decided yet. Watch Dogs was the whole reason I got a Ps4, so to change gears at this point would be tough. However, Wolfenstein seems to have the power to do that.
You got a PS4? Awesome. I've heard Wolfenstein: New Order is awesome on the PS4 so you have great options in getting it. I can't say which you'd prefer.
That said, I really have been loving the shit out of Wolfenstein. I hope they release DLC for this one because i'd love more of it.
I've had one since launch. I haven't been playing it because... well, there hasn't been much to play on it. Watch Dogs was supposed to be included in the bundle I pre-ordered, but delayed, and now it's finally coming out. I might wait until both have been out for a week, to get a general consensus. Your vote for Wolfenstein means a lot :)
This game is incredible. I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't played it, or haven't gotten far enough into the game yet, but one of the most over-the-top things ever just happened and it made me realize that The New Order balances absolute insanity and excess with poignancy on the head of a pin, and doesn't seem to ever lose the balance. I'm just blown away. Not done yet, I'm not even sure how far through I am. I'm intentionally avoiding walkthroughs or anything like that.
But seriously, over 7 hours in I can't recommend this enough. If it was over now it would be $60 well-spent.
Goddamnit, Travis. I was 80/20 in favor of Watch Dogs. Is it worth going into debt $60?
Nevermind. I did it. I hate you both. (Not really. I love you!)
Haha, I hope you dig it.
It's a great game. One of the most satisfying games of the last bit. Not finished with it yet, kind of want to take my time.
My wife and I will probably jump right into Act V with my Monk and her Wizard or Monk, then come back to the Crusader later. I'm looking forward to the new content more than the new class. In fact, out of all the new mechanics and things, the new act is what I'm most looking forward to. I've been clicking my way around the same 4 acts for far too long. I guess we'll get at least one physical collectors edition.
At this point in the process, I can't see any good reason to pick up the game right now.
Oh and I will definitely be making an all-crusader event shortly after launch. Unless someone beats me to it.
Unsure if I am going Crusader right away. I want to experience the new rad of the Crusader and how the game plays with loot 2.0 and the improved mechanics. Let you know when I make up my mind BUT either way i'd love a "all crusaders" event. :D
Let me know where you plan on pre-ordering it from. I want to get it from Best Buy as it's the closest to my house and I can just walk in and pick it up on launch day.
I will probably do the same. I don't like Best Buy but I like them more than Gamestop.
They seem fine for an electronic super store, but I hear you. Hopefully we can pre-order it soon.
Thought this was fun. I think the Alien US President would be a good addition to the game. Seriously. It wouldn't maybe fit in with the world lore but it would be a fun class.
http://m.ign.com/articles/2010/12/22/rejected-diablo-iii-classes
For anyone that joins up in the future, they just dropped the info on the full Collectors Edition and what's included.
http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/1853
I am nearly certain when this drops I am going to start a Crusader and head into Sanctuary from the start. Since i've only ever gotten to Hell with my main character i've only beaten the game a handful of times. So I am not upset to play the main story again and in fact I just played D3 the other day and was wanting to do it all over again.
I am digging the idea of starting over with the Crusader because not only will I get the new loot system from the start but also the full Crusader dialog options and how that feels. Unsure if ill roll a man or woman Crusader and if Blizzard showed off what she looked like that might help me out a bit.
I am so fan-boying it right now and I know for many that might seem odd as D3 was a let down, but for what it was I like the game quite a bit and can't wait to check out the new stuff.
D3 was never a letdown for me. Blizzard handled some things questionably but I always had tons of fun. I got way more out of it than I ever expected.
And yeah, I'm making myself wait until the release to dive back in. It's getting harder and harder.
Totally, it's only a little under two months...
I know! I keep hoping I'll get that email from Blizzard inviting me into the beta. The PTR for the new stuff that isn't included in RoS is nice though. I love the changes they're making.
Yeah, I can't wait. I wonder how many more expansions they are going to do? If they are all as awesome as RoS I don't think i'd mind a couple.
I don't know. Traditionally Diablo games have just had the one expansion but I would be surprised if that sticks for D3.
True, but D2 expansion contained two characters and this one is one. I mean thats not a great metric, but i'd personally dig a few more acts and characters.
You also have to look at Starcraft. It got one expansion, but Starcraft 2 is getting two. I think the gaming world is moving toward more acceptance of expansions and DLC so I expect Blizzard would want to take advantage of that.
What I'm most looking forward to is the loot changes. With the AH shutting down, they've got a lot to do to keep up with loot demands.
From what I've heard the PC version is going to be very similar to the console version which had great loot drops. In fact when you completed quests you got some pretty great loot geared for your character so hopefully that makes it to PC too.
I'd also live to get controller support for PC but they have said that might not ever come.
Yes Loot 2.0 is a big focus in the PTR. I think it's even better than the console version. I imagine that I will never miss the auction house on my way to level 70, but the endgame stuff is where it gets harder.
If you don't mind waiting for another massive download, I recommend checking out the PTR. It's a nice peek at what's coming and you can mess around and take chances without worrying about it affecting your main character.
Yeah, I might do that, thanks Travis.
They are adding two more pre-order incentives. If you don't digitally pre-order, you still get the goods if you register your key before March 31st. I appreciate Blizz doing the right thing for people that pre-order outside Battle.net.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/13032539
Okay, fine. I'm in :)
As it is, I haven't played since we all played back in the mid 2013's. Will I be completely outmatched for Reaper?
I don't know how the difficulty curve will be adjusted for Reaper, if at all. Since the curve went perfectly between Act 4 Normal - Act 1 Nightmare, I'm not sure where Reaper will fit in.
So, you're saying I should play more Diablo III. :)
Always!
I hear the 2.0 patch is coming soon. It was supposed to be out today but there were issues. Awesome of them to push that out early, if it actually happens.
> As it is, I haven't played since we all played back in the mid 2013's. Will I be completely outmatched for Reaper?
They have taken some tips from the console version to adjust the difficulty. So, if the game is too hard you can turn it down and if too easy, turn it up.
http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/1907
After playing the update I have the impression Reaper is actually done. Oh well, so much new stuff with this update.
" Yeah, I would say that's it. I would call Adventure Mode the primary feature of the expansion. That said, I think Act V is our best act, so we did take everything we learned there. And you do have to kill Malthael once with one character before Adventure Mode is unlocked. But knowing that you don't have to play story mode over and over again allows people to relax and just enjoy Act V for what it is; and they may or may not come back to it after that, but they don't have to. It doesn't feel as onerous to sit through those things."
Seems like you have to beat Ep. V before Adventure mode is unlocked. I'll play Ep. V first but why the unlock? I don't know how I feel about that.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/02/28/diablo-iii-interview-lead-designers-reflect-on-their-mistakes-look-ahead-to-reaper-of-souls/
It does seem weird that they would require that. I mean it doesn't change my plans at all. Act V and the Crusader are the two things I want to check out first, but I'm not sure why they'd lock that down.
To make the game feel larger? Or maybe there is some story element in Act V that makes adventure mode unlocking make more sense.
In that interview Blizz did say that the expansion primarily hangs on adventure mode.
Whoa, this weekend only, they are handing out 100% XP boost.
http://us.battle.net//d3/en/blog/13407841
I'm joining this event purely for the discussion. That's about as far away from home as I can get without leaving the country or going to Alaska or Hawaii so I won't be able to attend but I will be there "in spirit" as they say.
I'm going to try and go! I have a bridal show I'm going to with the fiance, but after that I hope to swing by!
Look forward to it.
jdodson
Timogorgon
AdamPFarnsworth
Azurephile
dannytron
rettisawesome
scrypt
Zach_Foster
caffo
vdogmr25
Blue_Element
hardeyez
Nemo_King
http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/05/07/fallout-4-rumor-puts-reveal-at-bethesdas-press-conference
The rumormill in full swing!
That would be a pretty cool thing to see. I've heard it might be in Boston?
That's the rumor. There were hints at it involving MIT from one or two quests in Fallout 3, and apparently some people from Bethesda were scouting out MIT and taking pictures a while back.
THIS IS KIND OF A BIG DEAL
https://fallout.bethsoft.com/
10AM EST tomorrow.
Nice. Can't wait to hear more!
Wow the trailer looks amazing. I can't wait to hear more on the 14th.
That does look really cool!
I wonder when it's supposed to be released. Is it going to be on the PC at the same time as the consoles? It looks cool, though!
I would imagine they'd all drop at the same time. We will hopefully get a release date at the E3 conference.
"No chance of Fallout 4 on XBox 360 or PS3" http://www.gamespot.com/articles/no-chance-of-fallout-4-on-xbox-360-or-ps3/1100-6427876/
Yeah that sucks on the one hand, but on the other hand it means they're pushing themselves past previous games.
Right. They had some deep issues with Fallout and Skyrim on the PS3 that really delivered a pretty poor experience, hopefully in increasing the spec requirements they can avoid that with F4.
Bethesda at 6:30PM PDT, today. Head on over to http://www.e3expo.com/takeover for more info including the E3 schedule.
Updated the event to reflect the real time. I should be watching then! :+1+
I THOUGHT THEY WERE GUNNA TALK ABOUT ANOTHER MARYO WHATS ALL THIS FALL OUT?
Whut? No new Maryo, they're talking about some game called fall out? WTF? LOL
So games we should hear about tonight. FALL OUT, Doom 4 and i've heard rumors about Dishonored 2.
I hope they talk about re-releasing Fallout 3 for modern systems. It's a somewhat buggy PC experience and I'd buy a enhanced edition.
http://www.gamespot.com/fallout-4/