Borderlands

Greg I'm not sure you're talking about the right games here. Borderlands 4 hasn't even been announced or discussed yet, Borderlands 3 just released recently. So when you say BL3 is you're favorite, maybe you're talking about 2?

Panzer Dragoon Remake (got it ordered) and Animal Crossing.

It's good that you are starting with Borderlands because firstly, it's great and secondly Borderlands 2 adds some mechanics that make it a bit harder to come back and enjoy the first game. Nothing major, but nice quality of life improvements that make Borderlands 2 that much better for it. Personally I enjoy the gameplay focus on the first game over the story and dialog focus on the second. The story is pretty engaging and funny the first time but becomes less so the more times you go through the game. I really hope Borderlands 3 does something that allows you to play the game without dialog or something.

That said, the original Borderlands is a really contained game that provides a nice length campaign that, to me, never felt overlong. I play it mostly on the PS3 and the game shined on that system but still holds up very well on PC. I've always dreamed they'd bring the Mac port to Steam and also port it to Linux but that doesn't seem to likely at this point.

Anyways, glad you are enjoying the game and I look forward to more of your thoughts on it.

Yeah what Jon says is absolutely true. Overall, I remember the first game more fondly. It had more charm somehow. It was rough around the edges but I liked that. The setting, overall, is more appealing.

But Borderlands 2 ramps up the polish, a better written story, more humor (perhaps too much at times), an incredibly charismatic villain, and most importantly tons of balance and mechanics changes that really make it better. Weapon skill leveling is gone, perks are in. Gunplay feels more impactful.

Borderlands 2 is the better game, definitely, but it misses some piece of magic from the first game that I can't quite quantify.

By "those areas" I assume you're talking about DLC missions? Each mission should tell you what level it's geared toward, and the DLC ones will reset every few levels if you ignore them. So, there's really no wrong time once you reach the first threshold for them. Each one has a different initial level target I think. It's been a while so I can't remember.

I'd play the DLC after you are done with the main game campaign. You can do it whenever, but I believe the DLC story wise happens after the main storyline.

That's a good point. For the most part it doesn't matter but there's one key part of one DLC that wouldn't make a lot of sense if you haven't gotten to a certain point in the main game.

That's vague as hell, but I don't want to spoil things.

That's like saying you should watch the Star Wars prequels before the original trilogy!

Definitely go in release order. The Pre-Sequel kinda assumes you know things that happened in BL2 in a sense. It actually takes place *after* BL2 in a sense, since there are characters from BL2 telling the story. You'll spoil plot points in BL2 by playing The Pre-Sequel first.

Borderlands => Borderlands DLC => Borderlands 2 => Borderlands The Pre-Sequel.

That said, I still have yet to play the Borderlands DLC, finish up Borderlands 2(I am very close) and then the Pre-Sequel. I have games for ages.

Cool! What did you think of completing the base game? What did you think of the ending?

Ah, I forgot about finding claptraps to get backpack upgrades. I kinda like that more than spending that secondary currency on them in BL2.

Not all the way through, no. But I tried all of them for a few hours but Lilith was my jam.

I beat the game with Lilith too. Roland was also pretty fun.

Moxxi's DLC is a very different kind of expansion since it's just an arena. It's fun but not like the others.

I guess by Crawmerax you mean the General Knoxx DLC? If so, yeah you got the best ones done. Although I was getting quite annoyed with Claptrap by the end of the Robot Revolution DLC, I still enjoyed it. Zombie Island is the best I think.

I think I ended up kinda cheesing Crawmerax. It doesn't give you good enough loot to punish yourself with it unless you're on your second (or higher) playthrough.

Gaige's skill tree is tons of fun to experiment with. It looks like you put way more thought into it than I do! :)

Also Greg, your header image broke!

Weird. I wonder what's breaking it on my end!

Occasionally the avatar images break for some reason(not sure why though). All of them are simple links back to whatever service the person selected.

I meant the post's embed image. It was gone for me for an hour or so but then it was fine.

I downloaded the tool to convert to Steam, but I can't get any further in the process because the first step is to verify your disk, but I assume it also requires you to put in a product code later? But it may be so long into the game's life that they don't really mind if you share it with your friends.

At any rate, scrypt, yeah it seems like you have to have the game disk. Maybe, if it does key verification later, you can use someone else's disk with your key? Who knows...

FINAL COMMENT in this chain, sorry for spamming up the place: based on comments on that Steam topic, it does seem that it requires a key after verifying the disk.

So it seems. It's apparently getting hammered right now though, some people are reporting some issues connecting.

Here's something to think about. When the Witcher 2 released, the version that showed up on The Pirate Bay wasn't the DRM-free version from gog.com that would have been trivial to pirate, it was the Steam version with the SecuROM cracked out. People in that scene were just used to doing it that way. That's how trivial it is to crack. DRM only screws with paying customers who want to play fair, having to have the disc in to play, or in some cases having to keep a constant internet connection to the publisher's servers. But if you have to have DRM, Steamworks DRM is the least obtrusive of all of them I've seen. You just have to have Steam open and occasionally connect it to the internet. I suppose Origin is the same way.

> My point is that pirates will pirate, they won't purchase.

That's not entirely true. Netflix won over a lot of pirates because there was finally a better product than piracy. Many people chose to pirate the first Assassin's Creed game on PC because of the draconian DRM. Plus it isn't unheard of to pirate a game as a demo and buy it later, but that example is the exception rather than the rule.

Ugh, you watched the Spike Lee remake? I've heard it's at best OK if you haven't seen the original, and atrocious if you have.

Also, Half-Life 3 could be free-to-play if they gave Gordon tons of hats to wear. It seems to have worked for TF2.

Well, now *I* have a desire for cinnamon rolls, so thanks. :)

Video explaining the game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smFJaRWwvRs

Like you I have some doubts too. That said, all they need to do it make it awesome and I guess the formula is pretty well established. The game could suck but if the mechanics are right, it should still be a fun game.

Odd thing, they are only releasing on ps3, 360 and PC. My thought it this might just be using the BL2 tech and skipping by the PS4 and XBox One? Odd to see a release not target them.

Interview with Randy about why this isn't Bl3:

http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/04/09/borderlands-the-pre-sequel-qa-randy-pitchford-on-why-this-isnt-borderlands-3-and-how-he-loves-to-play-on-pc/

@Travis yeah I'm not either. That said, I see almost no value in getting a new console. My PC is just so damn great.

Wait... I mean, a traditional console... I want a Steam Machine.

GABEN FORGIVE!!!

I need to get Maya to max level fast so I can be done with her when Gaige comes out. This is quickly becoming the most interesting class.

Multiplayer should be fun on day 1. Hundreds of 4-mech parties.

While we're on the topic of classes, does anyone else have zero interest in the commando?

It seems everyone who isn't me is obsessed with MLP ;)

But awesome that she's dropping today! Can't wait.

OK, can I just say... The mechromancer is awesome. That is all.