This is a "start from scratch" server, so please bring your new characters in. If you want, bring in some early armor like copper, tin, cactus, or pumpkin, to get a bit of a leg up. There will be chests with starter...
I'm an Engineer and built the video game community Cheerful Ghost and text based mini-MMO Tale of the White Wyvern.
jdodson has been a part of 10 events
This is a "start from scratch" server, so please bring your new characters in. If you want, bring in some early armor like copper, tin, cactus, or pumpkin, to get a bit of a leg up. There will be chests with starter...
"... Read All Bethesda will be at Quakecon this year and present event more information about Fallout 4, new Doom and Elder Scrolls Online on July 24th starting at 1pm streaming live on Twitch. Join up and add the event to your calendar and chat here about your thoughts on what's presented.
"Fallout 4
Fans in attendance will have the opportunity to join Bethesda Game Studios’ Game Director, Todd Howard, for an exclusive QuakeCon presentation of Fallout 4 – taking place on the Ventrilo Main Stage on Friday, July 24th at 1pm.
DOOM
On Saturday, July 25th at 3pm, join members of id Software’s development team as they take the Ventrilo Main Stage for a special panel discussion on their upcoming first-person shooter, DOOM.
The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited | Imperial City and Beyond
Developers from ZeniMax Online Studios will be on hand to share what’s next for The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited. Come see what to expect next for the game with on the Ventrilo Main Stage on Friday, July 24th at 4:30pm."
http://www.bethblog.com/category/quakecon/
http://www.twitch.tv/bethesda
Users signed up:
Why'd this get canceled?
Because there was no live stream of it. Just the in person presentation.
Ah damn. Oh well
Terraria 1.3 is out! To celebrate, join us for the fifth Cheerful Ghost Terraria server!
IMPORTANT NOTE: This server is limited to 8 players, so please leave a comment below when you're in, to claim your... Read All THIS EVENT IS COMPLETE. Thanks for playing, everyone. New event coming soon.
Terraria 1.3 is out! To celebrate, join us for the fifth Cheerful Ghost Terraria server!
IMPORTANT NOTE: This server is limited to 8 players, so please leave a comment below when you're in, to claim your spot. If we don't hear from you, we'll bump you out to let someone else in. We don't have any way to see a log of everyone who signed into the server, and names in-game may not match up with names here, so if you don't respond here you may get kicked even if you've joined the server.
This is a "start from scratch" server, so please bring your new characters in. A few of us have been testing things out so if you want to bring in some armor and weapons from early game (like silver-tier or earlier) that's fine. Plenty of people will be around to help you out if you need it. Also, any decorative or vanity items are fine, just don't bring in things that will give your character an edge. That said, you're allowed and encouraged to have your own map that you farm as well while you're playing with us, since there are some items that are difficult or impossible to find enough of in one world (red balloon, for instance).
Rules:
1. Be excellent to each other! We're all here to have fun, so treat each other with respect and don't mess with other people's things unless you're given permission to do so. This probably goes without saying with everyone here, but there it is :)
2. Leave at least 3 or 4 tiles between the ground and your build so people can run through town easily without having to jump over houses or open a ton of doors.
3. Build your own place away from the NPC housing and the starter house (which also serves as the guide's house) so that the NPCs aren't easily killed during events, invasions, etc. The NPCs can defend themselves now, but they're pretty bad at it.
Other than that, just read the signs to the left and right of you when you come in. The starter goodies and group storage are back, but revamped a bit. There are basic crafting tools available in the starter house to get you going as well.
Cheerful Ghost 5 normal world, complete: https://mega.nz/#!HNYXiIgS!VIqHgXkBRw3GDIwMkOKJY3X27QYfWM8gXZX8ELNMxUQ
Users signed up:
First thing to hammer out: there's still some disagreement about normal vs. expert. MOST of the changes from Expert mode come later in hardmode but not all. Expert mode has to be chosen upon map creation. We simply must try Expert mode, so there are two options:
1. Start in Expert mode and deal with the higher difficulty from the beginning. Farm in other worlds if need be.
2. Get our exploration done in a normal world, then switch to an Expert mode map later.
That said, it's possible TShock or world editors could allow you to change that later, but we don't know what kind of effects that might have.
Does anyone have a link that describes what Expert mode does?
My vote is to just roll with expert. :) I think we will be fine. Plus if we really get into a bind we can pull plenty of gear/resources from other characters of we absolutely need to.
The patch notes you posted explain what Expert does, here's that section.
https://i.imgur.com/BiI3qX1.png
I'm watching a stream on Twitch, it looks like expert mode is harder even from the beginning, but at least so far not incredibly.
That's the one!
=) I thought I'd share that link for anyone else who was interested.
So, as far as the server goes, I guess we'll have to pay attention to TShock's site to see when the new version will be available. Here's a notice at the top of the page of their site: "TShock for Terraria 1.3 has not been released. The TShock Team will start reverse engineering and building the updated ServerAPI for Terraria 1.3 at 1:01pm EST on June 30th, 2015. When the update has been released, this notice will be disabled. No plugin updates will be approved until API version 1.18 is released, and plugin updates that ensure compatibility with 4.3 before 1.18 will be deleted." https://tshock.co/xf/index.php
I've been watching Pedguin's stream (http://www.twitch.tv/pedguin) and he made a good point: we should start with a normal world first since we'll be fighting bosses and events we've never fought before, and it would be nice to get those mechanics down before we introduce new ones.
I'm kinda torn on what to do! :)
It would be nice if there was a switch in the game rather than having it at world generation.
So I'm watching this guy, a pro streamer who has played the hell out of this, and these boss fights look really freakin' hard. I vote we start easy.
DEAR GOD NORMAL PLZ!!!!!!
I'm thinking normal, and hopefully by the time we're ready for expert, TEdit will have updated so that we can use it on 1.3 worlds. Then, I can just grab our town and pop it into a new world, and we can get through the content fast to get to the hard shit.
If you don't see Steam downloading the update, exit Steam completely and reload it. It will update right away. Game on!!
Greg and WBS, you OK with the normal -> expert plan?
Start out with normal and then go expert? If so, yeah, I'm in.
I popped into our old world just to mess around. Immediately I got a solar eclipse, then a martian invasion. I think the martian invasion was kicked to the backburner because of the solar eclipse. The event is harder now, with new enemies, one that nearly killed me a few times but drops 5 gold, and I fought it probably 10 times in the eclipse.
Also, yo-yos are amazing.
I thought I'd take a look at the multiplayer options. You can select "Join via IP" or "Join via Steam." I clicked the latter and it was if I hit Shift-Tab. I didn't see any Terraria world joining options there. Perhaps there is or will be more info online.
We've been blessed with the perfect spot for the guide's house (our initial CG welcome house) and the NPC apartments. The default spawn point is up on top of a "tunnel" through a hill that sometimes happens on world spawn.
I think I might know what you're talking about. You mean, on top of a hill that's pretty much hollow on the inside, easily able to walk through? That's what I built my mega house on. I've done it this way before, I think it's one of the best ways to keep NPCs safe. However, it seems they can defend themselves now.
Yep, that's exactly what I mean. It's nice! And yeah I saw the guide fighting a slime. He at least *tries* to defend himself.
My Guide moved in, but then went outside and thus fell off the hill, so he was underneath the house for a while. At night, I stayed inside where it was safe. He was outside under the house taking out zombies. Later, he moved back in, after I had exited the game for a bit and came back to it. I'm kind of surprised at how quickly I built my mega house. It's 5 stories high with 5 rooms on each floor. There are 21 NPC rooms with 4 extra without tables or chairs.
So far, even after only playing for an hour or so, there are plenty of changes to talk about. One difference I see from the mobile version is that on there your character has a bit of an aura, which makes it easy to see in the dark without torchers. On the PC version, you don't have that. Anyway, it doesn't seem as though NPC portraits appear in their room now unless you click on the "Housing" button to the right near your equipment in the menu. I think that might make housing look a little cleaner.
Access Camera Mode on the menu in-game near where your equipment is (to the right). Play with it. If you go into Windowed Mode, you can open up the folder in-game. However, it seems by default, images are stored under C:\Users\(User)\Documents\My Games\Terraria\Captures. I found out by playing with it. I don't think the wiki is quite up to date now that 1.3 is out, but I imagine new content there is coming soon.
Anyway, I took a screen shot of my mega house. Notice where I'm standing, the only way in the house. Mobs can't seem to figure out how to jump up. =) http://imgur.com/SnP99U9
Oh! If you're like me, you probably have TONS of characters and worlds. Click on the "Favorite" button (looks like a star) on the character and world selection screens to move those to the top of your list. Then your new stuff will be easier to find. =) It seems that the way of telling if you got Crimson or Corruption is by the color of the leaves on the tree on your world selection screen, one half of the tree is either red or purple.
The camera mode is amazing. I just took a screenshot of what I've gotten ready for the CG world when it launches.
https://i.imgur.com/aPTTc0t.png?1
You can see it's up on a hill with a tunnel under it (though there's no lighting there yet) so we can easily get through there. I figure the NPC complex is best placed next to the guide house, and we can build left and right of that hill.
Wow that looks great! Everything I build basically looks the same. Maybe I'm just not that creative or I just don't even try. I'm always impressed with what you build.
I was just figuring out an issue I noticed. My game resolution (1920x1080) didn't match my desktop (1920x1200) and every time I changed it, it would revert after an exit and re-open. I fixed it by setting the resolution to what I wanted, then going into Windowed Mode, and then going back to Fullscreen. Still, the game looks so small. On the mobile version, I always zoom in, I'm not sure you can do that on the PC. What resolution are you all using?
Well, for the starter house I brought in a bunch of stuff from old worlds so that I could make it nice. I'm not bringing anything in to build my own stuff, so it won't look great to begin with :)
I always use the full resolution of the monitor, 1920x1080 (1080p). That's one thing I do like about Starbound-- you can set your zoom level.
Oh, that explains how you were able to make all that in so little time. I don't know what materials you used to build everything.
The shingles are from the traveling merchant. The wood, furniture, and most cheats are pearlwood which you get from trees in the hallow. The green stuff is mythril and green dungeon.
I wanted to share this comment with you all I found in the forums the other day. Someone posted a comment on the changelog post, "this changelog has so much stuff I'm so excited." Cenx replied with, "you should be more excited about the stuff it is missing. :)"
I saw a picture of something it's missing: the final boss. I won't spoil it for people who want to experience it later, but it looks immensely awesome.
I found out the easiest way to get a minecart. If you find tracks, just right-click on them. I haven't found one, but I found some tracks.
Oh and be wary in the ice caverns, you could end up falling to your death through ice. This has happened to me at least twice now.
I didn't know there were more than that. In 1.2 anyway, there weren't minecart items, you just right clicked on the track.
And you can make the track, not sure how, but that's probably the easiest way to get it.
Yeah at least as of last patch, there weren't separate minecarts.
http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Minecart_Track#Trivia
But there's now a minecart slot isn't there?
Yeah, I think so. I think there's also one for your grappling hook.
If you could put this up ASAP it would be wonderful, hardmode bosses are hard without arena, new items are awesome, and expert is life
im waiting for accept
We can join through steam now oof oof
The server is up, everyone please re-read the main post here for the rules of the road and important notes. I just updated those in addition to adding the server info.
im in my boy
Really useful info graphic on how high certain items let you jump: https://i.imgur.com/oHZCv2f.png
Wow! Even by looking at that you can see that there are obviously many new items in 1.3. There are also new monsters and blocks, such as granite and marble. I personally love the granite as it's a beautiful blue! There is also new music, potions, buffs, and so much more!
Yeah I'm gonna need some of those solar wings please.
I have to say, so far my absolute favorite addition is the portable piggy bank.
Yeah, that portable piggy bank is amazing!
I agree with Greg, the granite biome is really cool looking. I kind of want to collect enough granite to redo my house in it.
WBS and I camped the Skeleton Merchant and waited for him to start selling Magic Lanterns again. We each bought 5. I dropped mine in the beginner chest with the magic mirrors in them. Everyone needs these and nobody deserves to camp him for hours like we did.
Yeah, I enjoyed exploring that area with you recently. It turns out that granite drops from granite biome monsters. So, I didn't have to do any digging. =)
I still have the extra 4 I bought on me, I had to log out pretty quick after we camped him, but I'll toss them in the starting house too later tonight.
Last night I jumped into a single player Expert mode world. Here are a few thoughts:
First up, I don't know if this is because I have a small world or the expert mode, but I feel like treasure chests are a lot more common as are heart crystals. I also ran into a lot of railways underground. Oh, and there are a LOT of traps everywhere! I had wirecutters with me, so it was pretty easy to disarm everything. Only one dynamite trap got me at one point.
Regular mobs are a little tougher, but being geared out from our current Multiplayer server they didn't feel tougher. I did notice some zombies now carry melee weapons that they use against you, but they have a pretty short reach. I only felt the extra damage from mobs twice: once when I got swarmed and killed by spiders and once when a Medusa turned me to stone and let her skeleton friend murder me.
I fought the Eye of Cthulhu and the Brain of Cthulhu and the new AI isn't so bad. The EoC just fires out more little eye minions and now he dashes at you like the Twins do. The BoC fight starts the same with all the little floating eye things you need to kill, but once they're gone the BoC disappears and reappears with 3 additional clones. Only the real BoC takes damage (it's pretty easy to tell which is which though).
I tried to take on Skeletron but he does SO MUCH damage now and everything I was throwing at him only did 1 damage. Granted I didn't do any prep work for the fight: no arena, no potions, nothing. I didn't notice any AI changes during the fight, but it was a pretty short fight. :P
Did you take on Skeletron by talking to the Old Man at night, or did you just jump into the dungeon? Because if it was the latter, that was the Dungeon Guardian, not Skeletron, and is meant to be nearly impossible (though you do get an achievement and a pet if you manage to kill him).
I've cleaned out a nice arena for the WoF. A long, mostly straight stretch as close to the lava as is feasible to keep it straight, and a nice little base with all the comforts of home, minus the climate control.
TShock is out, and Multiplay Game Servers are testing it now. Hopefully we can get it soon.
Cool info, Tim. I may have missed you guys yesterday. I've kind of reached a point on the server where I'm not really sure what to do, so I started a new single player character and world just as I did when 1.3 was released. This experience is slightly different from others as I've built the town house slightly underground. Anyway, if I'm not on the server, but you see me on Steam, feel free to send me a message if you want.
BTW, we've often seen the Dryad do something neat. What she's doing is casting a buff called Dryad's Blessing. I haven't looked at what all of the NPCs do now, but I did notice when she cast this buff on me recently. So, it seems fighting around the NPCs isn't always a horrible idea. http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Dryad
Unlike Tim, I didn't create an expert world. I decided to start out fresh with a new single player character and world. As I progress, I'll upgrade/switch worlds. IAmGregoPeck is my server character. It's hard to keep up with so many created characters and worlds. Hahaha
Yeah that's her form of defense. It's great that all the NPCs can defend themselves now, though they aren't stellar at it of course.
From my game play they seem pretty effective, especially the Guide at the beginning. However, Travelling Merchants keep getting killed in my world presently. I think they might be drowning in the pond to my right or getting slaughtered by mobs that get trapped down there with them. I haven't bridged it yet.
Here's a question that needs to be answered: Do we want to allow bringing in the Ankh Shield so we don't have to farm for those insanely difficult-to-find items? If so, when is a good time to allow that?
That's ok with me. As for when, perhaps after those ingredients are ready to be farmed. Really, it doesn't matter too much to me. I usually farm for them.
All those items open up after activating hardmode, but some of them are nigh-impossible until you get some better gear.
On the topic of the Ankh Shield, there's another insane crafting chain that I've almost got everything I need to finish:
http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Cell_Phone
It isn't an accessory, it just sits in your inventory and tells you *everything*. Plus, you can combine it with the magic mirror so it doesn't take another inventory slot.
I'd say just after hard mode.
Awesome, I noticed that after looking up the Ice Mirror as I have quite a few of them now on my own world.
I'm OK with importing the Ankh shield. Even if those items are farm-able, given the difficulty of gathering everything I'd consider them in the same camp as rare items we need to farm/import from other worlds.
Jon, I've changed my build and messed up your spawn point, since you were using my bed. My bed is now in a place that you probably wouldn't want to use. So I left you a bed in your golden chest. It should only take you a few minutes to make your place into suitable housing so you can drop a bed and use it. Sorry for throwing you off! :)
Multiplay says TShock will be up tomorrow! Woo!
Woo! I desperately want to spawn 30 Eye of Cthulhu again! :D
On a side note, when do we want to pop Hardmode and when do we want to switch to Expert?
I vote for popping Hardmode soon. Let's pick a night where we can all get on, and try to find extra heart crystals and such to help people out who may not quite be ready for it due to time constraints and the like.
As for expert, I vote for waiting til we're essentially done with hardmode on this world. I tried out EoC on Expert and was murdered. I guess it also kinda depends on what kind of help TShock might give us.
Also yes, we need tons of EoCs at once again. That's some amazing fun.
Ooooooooh patch notes from TShock
"Added /expert command to toggle expert mode."
Well then. We can try it out and revert if we feel like we're getting screwed. After copious world backups.
Oh wait, looking at the comments, you can't turn OFF expert mode once you've turned it on. So it still might be good to roll a new map.
Honestly, I think that's why I've hit a wall on the server, I think I'm ready for hardmode. That will open up so much more (even if it's more dangerous) to do. Again, if you see I'm not on the server, but playing Terraria, feel free to send me a message on Steam and I can join you or chat. Expert mode after normal hardmode sounds like a good idea from what you guys have said about it.
I like how even after 400+ hours of playing Terraria, there's still stuff for me to do and enjoy. I also like how there are different ways to go about playing the game. I thought about playing things a bit differently this time as there are some things I usually don't bother with. I guess, I figured I'd try a little variety. My current single player game is different than on the server. On the server, I've pretty much explored the surface, but not underground so much. On my own world, I've hardly explored the surface at all, but am instead undground.
I also decided on a different town house build because of the default spawn area. There was a slight hole and I just dug into it and expanded underneath some sunflowers. I may take a screen shot and share it some time. Another game difference I've recently noticed is that your world generates different ore. I guess I forgot about that and was thinking that only applied to hardmode. My current world has tin, iron, silver, and gold. So, I'm trying to get some platinum from slush (I've been in ice caverns).
One of the changes I don't think we've mentioned yet that I've really noticed is the game's ambience. Before, I liked the addition of bird sounds, but now there's plenty of dripping or running water and other things that make the game sound more alive.
"Jon, I've changed my build and messed up your spawn point, since you were using my bed."
I am going to ban your account for failure to provide bed...... j/k yeah that sounds fine, i'll fix that up when I have a free minute.
"Honestly, I think that's why I've hit a wall on the server"
You should try building stuff. The wait between finishing the exploration/combat portion of normal mode and unlocking hardmode is actually one of my favorite times, because I can build stuff :) Or set mini-goals for yourself, like catching every critter, and so on. There's way more to do in the game than the goals the game sets out for you, and that's where it really shines for me. Steam tells me I've spent 606 hours on it, and I'd say at least half of that has been building things.
Yeah, I checked out your Terraria hours last night, I'm at 445 right now. I'm not used to building much after the first town house, which I almost never upgrade. I've done that differently on the server, especially since I didn't have to build a town house. I did change up my rooms with different materials. On my own world, since I built into the ground, I've used more stone brick, even red stone brick (made of clay) to match what was there or the surrounding area. It looks a little Neopolitan at the moment. I could rebuild some of it with new blocks, which I'll probably do eventually. So, yeah building is one of the things I'm trying to add to this play of Terraria.
When will Terraria 1.3 come for mobile version I've already defeated all the bosses and even got dragon Armour and it is getting boring setting and waiting i have not seen and update for mobile for a long time. i make my NPC's walk into my traps i built for when blood moon and solar eclipse happens i haven't had a solar eclipse for days almost 2 weeks. I love terraria but its getting to the point its like whats the point of playing it anymore its so boring without an update i have more than 30 chests filled with useless stuff and i just get bored and be like well lets go play something else. i would really want it to come out on mobile soon and i mean really soon june 30th were suppose to be the release date but i never saw it on july 4 so i would like to know when and if anybody does know email me at
[email protected]
June 30 was the release date for the PC version. A different company entirely is responsible for the mobile version, so it's up to them when (and if) they update it. That said, they still haven't updated mobile for 1.2.4 yet, even after the consoles got their update, so it's unclear when they might get around to it.
The latest on TShock-- they're still working out some kinks, and hope to have it ready today, but it all depends on Multiplay devs and TShock devs figuring out what's going on.
Travis is right, 505 does the mobile and console versions. I know the console version recently upgraded in the last few months. It's been promised that the mobile versions will be updated soon. The version on my Kindle was updated in January and it's still not up to par with the last 1.2 PC version. I remember waiting for ever for it to update. It also crashes often. The next Kindle update has been announced (months ago), but no release date has been posted. As for iOS and Google Play, they've received more updates this year, especially bug fixes. The wiki has a version history for each platform along with (if possible) an expected release date. http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Version_history
Check that and the forums for more info. http://forums.terraria.org/index.php
A few things to note: I'm going to move the Truffle's future home. I've already seen some tricky enemies from the mushroom biome falling down to ground level, and it isn't even hardmode yet. I'll just move it up a screen or so.
Also, I'm going to create some fake biomes. The ones where hard things spawn will be high in the air and far away. This will help for farming/fishing. I'll make it so all of the above can be accessed from the ladder atop the NPC apartments.
1.3.0.4 launched, which slowed down getting TShock compatible, and getting it onto Multiplay. BUT, it's out now! So I'm taking the server down temporarily. If you try to sign on within the next little while it might act funny.
TShock is up! Some crazy things with this release that required help from TShock devs and Multiplay server techs, but it's up now!
One caveat: The minimap needs to be re-explored.
Hey everyone, two things:
1. Please send me a PM with the username and password you want for your account on the server. This gives you access to special commands (like warp, where you can warp to certain defined zones) then when I let you know I've set up your account, sign in and test things out, making sure you can do what you want to do. As some of you may remember there's some weird stuff involved in getting the permissions just right, so it would be good to iron that out soon.
2. There are TShock options to prevent corruption/crimson/hallow creep so it doesn't overtake other areas. The corruption creep is really slow in normal mode but when we pop hardmode it's going to be much faster. In the past we've been able to contain it but it takes some serious work to keep it at bay. Should we enable that or no?
2. I never worry about Corruption/Crimson/Hollow creep, ever. I know Crimson has creeped up on my town house in at least one world, but I usually don't see the problem with it or have a problem with it. I usually don't mind letting it go about it's own growth.
Corruption/Crimson can ruin your town, NPCs will move out. Hallow doesn't but causes the harder enemies to pop in town.
Ok, I got logged in. Someone has been busy! About the biomes where certain NPCs can move into to sell unique items, how do players move them in there? I didn't look into it, but I thought maybe you could set rooms using the Housing button.
Yep, same way you tell them to move into the apartments we have set up. Click their flag, then click the house. There's a transition though, they'll try to walk to their new home, which will of course fail, so in order to actually get them there, everyone needs to be a few screens away from them so they'll despawn and reappear where you want them.
BE SURE to be quick about shopping in those biomes since they're more dangerous and can kill the NPCs, and move them back to their real home when you're done.
I learned yesterday/today building these biomes that the auto-cursor will space trees out for you so you don't have to do weird kludges like putting torches under where to plant them and things like that. It makes things look better.
Also yeah, the trees in the biomes are a free-for-all, take what you need if you want some special wood, but be sure to replant if you take them. Acorns work in all biomes except mushroom/jungle, but they'll grow back on their own. The one-block-high layer of water in the fake jungle is so those annoying bushes don't crop up, and the trees will actually have a chance at growing.
That's cool that we can do it that way. I just assumed. I think some time I might try it out, but I'll probably wait until I feel the need to. That goes for all of the extra biomes you added, I'll probably just wait until I feel the need to use them in whatever way.
I haven't tried the auto cursor on this version yet. I've used it before on the PS3 and Kindle, but not yet here. I didn't use it very much, but I prefer using my mouse (or finger on the Kindle).
CG5 definitely looks like an ultimate Terraria world. I'm sure it's not complete yet either. Even though you've put in some Hallow, this world is still missing the new alien stuff. I re-watched some of the videos posted before the update was released, we still have much to look forward to. I know there are tons of things I still haven't seen (like some of the new awesome weapons and gear).
The auto cursor makes so many things way easier. It's a simple ctrl to disable/enable it so you have that precision when you need it.
So when are we popping hardmode? I think we're all pretty much ready to go at this point.
That's a good question, Tim. I think I've been ready for a week or more, that's why I've been playing my single player character. I'm almost ready for hardmode on it. I'm pretty much where I am with my server character, which helped remind me that I needed to upgrade my server weapon. There's still stuff for me to do on my own world and on the server. I'm not in a rush.
I'll probably be on in the evenings over the next several nights, but I'm not sure how much I can really nail down a time. We're getting ready to move so I'm packing and doing all the fun stuff that comes with moving this week. So if you get a group of people on and are ready to kill the WoF, feel free to do so without me.
That sounds a bit tedious and exciting. I'm ok with waiting for a time when you and others (like Travis) are on and ready, too.
So.... possible bug with TShock. I decided to set up an area outside the temple to farm life fruit and plantera bulbs once we pop hardmode, but first i needed to drain out some water and lava patches. One slight problem... Apparently liquids don't move anymore.
I thought it might just be lag, but I stuck around for probably ten minutes and it never updated. I even tried leaving the area and coming back, but nadda.
I then tried to use buckets to move some of the water. Which kinda worked. I could scoop up the water in the bucket, but turned to stone every time I did. Then when I dumped the water out, it just hung in the air where ever I dumped it and never settled on the ground.
I experienced a bug when I was trying to talk to the Merchant, but he was too close to a weapon mount. Since that area is "protected from changes," it seems the mount ate my weapon. I tried to get it back, but it ate my pickaxe then my hamaxe. This was by right-clicking on it. Luckily, I looted another world and was able to retrieve the same things that I lost. Sometimes an NPC is too close to a bed when I try to talk to them and I end up accidentally changing my spawn point. So, it's important to be careful talkint to NPCs around things that you can right-click, especially around areas that are "protected from changes."
Oh wait, yeah, Tim, I did notice that, too when re-mining for Hellstone. I think lava wasn't flowing.
Check out what I found on the wiki, a bit of trivia:
"The plural of "terrarium", besides "terrariums", is "terraria", which is also the name of the game.
The liquid movement bug is in progress. For the time being you can just type /settle to get it moving again.
You guys should be in a group that are allowed to mod the spawnpoint. I'll just turn that off.
it says I don't have access to /settle.
Ugh, I hate TShock permissions sometimes.
I'll get in a little later and try to fix that.
I THINK I may have fixed that. Turned off region protection, turned on spawn protection. That seems to be less restrictive.
Tim, I just figured out what that "Strange Plant" is. I've seen them and had no idea what they were until I decided to check it out. I got Glowing Mushroom dye, 3 of them!!!! I'm obviously excited.
Yesterday, I finished all the fishing I need to do on the server. So, I decided to go back to my single player game and do it there, too. However, I've decided that TShock is extremely helpful with that Time Lord trick I can do "/time 04:25." So, I set it up with my single player game. I had thought about doing this before to test our server options and also to be able to access certain limited time things (like the Moon events).
If you REALLY want to cheat, you can find an easy quest to complete and then /clearangler to reset the people who have completed angler quests that game day, and then keep fishing that same one over and over. But that seriously takes the fun out of it, I'd imagine.
Oh, it's worth noting that Terraria 1.3.0.5 released today, and TShock hasn't updated for it. I'm not sure if that will cause oddities or not.
Cenx said in a forum thread that 1.3.0.4 should be the last fix before a 1.3.1 update, or I wouldn't have rolled out TShock yet, but things happen I guess and we're in a version disparity for the moment. Hopefully that gets addressed soon-- TShock and Multiplay are good about working these things out fast.
I don't really want to cheat or go overboard with things. I like what I'm doing with the /time and Fishing Quests. It really helps speed things up.
"You are not using the same version as the server." Dang.
Ah well, there we go.
They are "working on the update, as usual" as of 5 hours ago https://twitter.com/NyxStudios
Yep, they'll get it soon. Luckily there's a TShock dev on staff at Multiplay so it should get updated soon
That's what I hate about waiting, "soon," and other unspecific terms. I wonder how long it usually takes them after an update like this. Originally, out of three versions of TShock, I was only able to get the oldest version to work, the others crashed. It turns out it was because of that bad/errored world I emailed to you. Once I removed it, I was able to run the latest version of TShock. I was having fun, and then I had to go and update the game, sheesh. Haha
So, recently Tim mentioned to me that he got a really awesome dye by giving the Dye Trader a "Strange Plant." These plants seem to be spread throughout the world, growing nearly every where, except in Glowing Mushroom biomes. You may have already seen them and overlooked them. There are a lot of dyes now and they're really awesome. My single player character has Acid Blue dye and more, but that's my favorite.
http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Strange_Plant
Actually speaking of that bad world, you should try loading it in 1.3.0.5. Apparently they fixed some code that prevented loading earlier worlds.
Yeah I got a couple of dyes from the Strange Plants. The Dye Trader mentions them to you if you talk to him.
That world works now. There's hardly anything on it, except a very small, yet unfinished, one room house.
As for the Dye Trader, I never really bothered with him (or dye) before. Now I have all kinds of Strange Dye and I know how to make blue dye. =) I have been looking at the wiki a lot as I play, but I haven't looked at everything.
"but I haven't looked at everything."
Good, because if you had I'd think you invented a time machine or stole Hermione's time turner.
Jeez, I just made a Harry Potter reference in casual conversation. I'm so cool.
Oh, but the best Time Lords don't invent time machines, they steal them from the Council. =)
"Jeez, I just made a Harry Potter reference in casual conversation. I'm so cool."
Join the club. I liked it anyway
They're testing it now, looks like a release is close.
I was just about to say that. =)
It's up on the server but seems to be frequently crashing. I opened a ticket.
I haven't tried to log in to the server yet. However, running TShock locally after the update, I noticed a bug. Often opening chests doesn't show their full inventory. It takes a few times of re-opening them for everything in the chest to show up. The NPCs on TShock act kind of strangely, too. Often, I see them move from right to left only to teleport back to the right, but that was even before the update.
I'm hoping to find some more Blue Acid Dye for my server character. My single player character looks really awesome right now. It may be time to update my user pic.
The server is kinda screwed at the moment. They have been taking forever to answer my ticket today, which is rare for them. I swapped to just vanilla Terraria and it was STILL hosed. Keeps crashing every 5 minutes. So we wait...
That's odd to me. Still, locally, on my server I'm noticing some lag. I think that's some what related to the weird NPC movement. Sometimes it takes a few seconds to pick up stuff like coins. Last night, I couldn't pick up any Fallen Stars, I haven't tried today or since the new release. I'm still working on single player fishing.
I've seen the fallen star bug too. The NPC movement is a known TShock bug since even before 1.3, I think we had it with our last server.
It seems also that my imp is despawning. Sometimes it takes me a bit to notice, but I have to use my wand again to summon it. It shouldn't work that way according to the wiki, "the summoned imp is invincible and follows the player for an unlimited amount of time, unless the player dies, summons a replacement minion, or cancels the buff." It's one of those things I'll hae to try to remember to pay attention to so I can figure out when and why it occurs. http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Imp_Staff
OK we're back to standard Terraria, it's working fine now. TShock is still broken.
"Incorrect password"
WTF, hang on. Let me wait til the world saves and I'll change the password.
I got in just fine... that's odd.. Lets see what happens
OK you should be good. I managed to mess up the password twice I suppose.
Sigh, I just got a response from them after 12 hours-- "we're aware of this issue with backups and I'm pressuring our team to fix this as best I can." As if we were having an issue with backups. Did he even read the ticket? WTF.
I'll try again later. I decided instead of putting my single player into hard mode, I'd create a new single player and world. This time I was wanting to do a fresh Crimson world, since my other is Corruption. I'm excited about what awaits for us in hard mode. It's kind of like right before you open a gift about the size of the thing you've been waiting all year long for and you hesitate to open it, savoring that exciting feeling. Once you open the gift, you're excitment is at it's peak, but it's a down hill slope from there. I want to keep my 1.3 excitment boiling for a bit and I think what I've just done will help.
Anyway, I think I'm ready for hard mode on the server, but I'm still in no rush. As before, if you see me on Steam and not on the server, feel free to send me a message and I can join.
It's all good now, all around, but let me know if you have any more issues.
I finished the arena
https://i.imgur.com/zWRp4hi.jpg
Heart lanterns and campfires spaced out just so you never go out of their range, and some heart/mana generators spread about. Better lit than our previous ones. And yes, that's minecart track leading up to it.
I'm working on a nice minecart system to get us about a bit. About a bit. About a bit. That's fun to say.
Next up is digging some trenches to protect us from the spread of nastiness.
Why have I never thought to hook up pressure plates to my doors? Some of them only trip on player interaction, so enemies can't get in. I never have to manually open another door again!
That arena looks huge! We could perhaps place some banners that might be helpful for those mobs that get in it. Funny that you mention pressure plates and doors, I was recently thinking of that, too, but haven't tried it out. I think I did that in Minecraft, though.
This new world I created for Crimson is similar to my previous one where I got Tin, Iron, Tungsten, and Gold. I want Platinum, so I have to mine for slush and silt again. The sad thing is that this takes me quite a while and yet once I get the armor and beat a boss, I'm ready for the next armor upgrade. So, it's a lot of work that ends up becoming obsolete too quickly. Luckily, Tungsten is better than Silver, but I'd rather have Platinum than Gold.
Once again, I ended up building under ground for the second time. It's pretty cool though and there seems to be a lot of space so far, it feels a bit empty. The ceilings are high, which is something I'm trying to make sure of in my builds now. Usually, I grab a table and stand on it and right above my head is where I place the ceiling. To get in and out, I created what I call the "out house." It's a small building with three rooms and ropes to climb up to reach the door, so mobs can't get to the doors.
Really the only enemies that get in there are slimes during the day and zombies at night, aside from the ones we summon in there.
Well we'll just have to kil 50 or more of those and get their banners. Haha.
Sweet arena. What boss fight is that for?
All the mech bosses. And maybe the moon lord I suppose, I'm not sure if we can drag him there.
Greg: I mean we're only taking 1 damage from them and instakilling them, so I'm not even sure banners matter there :)
All: Saturday night wall drop?
I might be in, depending on the time. But put something down and i'll calendar it.
WBS, before I put down a time, you're the one with kids to get to sleep and all, so what's the earliest you'll be ready? If you're up for it Saturday?
The minecart system and protecting our town from the hallow/corruption spread are done. 5 blocks all around town gave the perfect place for a "subway" that attaches to everything else. Various cart track loops connect the subway to the arena, all the fake biomes, and all the sky islands. There are three sky islands to the right and 5 to the left (one is low, below the fake jungle biome and above the tree farm). Since 8 is the max on a large world, we've found them all! The only two full stops (where you can't just keep traveling in a loop on the minecart tracks are at the two farthest islands, one left, one right. Remember to hold up or down depending on which direction you want to go and you should be able to navigate it all easily. Oh, and-- don't freak out if you come across a two-block gap in the track to allow for rope, etc. because you can hop that if you have just a little speed.
I'm thinking about putting some offshoots to the dungeon, the real jungle, etc.
I guess we can get rid of at least some of the sky bridge now to let in stars and meteors, and prevent the islands from getting corrupted on the parts that are done with non-platform blocks.
So as you can tell, I've been building a ton and could really use some hardmode. lol
Oh, and it should be easy to put your own connector track to the main loop if you're interested. Just make sure you get the intersection set so people don't drop into your track accidentally, if that makes sense. I take requests too so if you want me to build you one I will. Also anything else you guys think would be nice to have built, let me know. I'm a building fanatic. :)
That's great that you've built all that and much more. I'm happy to leave the building to you as you seem to have a better knack for it than I do. I'm used to building the NPC town house and that's about it. Well, other than a hell bridge, but I'm finding out that with the right shoes, those bridges aren't really necessary.
Sat. is ok with me. As I said, feel free to hit me up on Steam if you see me there, but not on the server.
How does Saturday night at 11 Eastern, 8 Pacific work? WBS tells me not to count on him for it due to the move but we can leave him some sweet loot.
I think you're probably getting bored waiting for it. I'm still playing a 2nd new character and world, so I don't mind waiting. Yet, again, feel free to hit me up on Steam.
"Yet again, feel free to hit me up on Steam"
There just isn't anything to do with other people anymore really, until hard mode pops.
I wish the Magic Mirror had a shortcut key like the grappling hook uses "E" to use it. I hate accidentally teleporting myself back home when I don't mean to.
I say if we can get three people for tonight we go for it, otherwise hold out for when others can join. Thoughts?
It sounds like only me and you are available. I have no problem waiting long since I'm still playing single player, too.
The Wall of Flesh has been defeated (numerous times)! So, be careful! Check the boss treasure chests for new items.
I thought I mention a bug we've found before it startles you. Sometimes pieces of the world look like your NES screen did back in the day when the cartridge was dirty or poorly inserted.
Oh! The Tax Collector has moved in thanks to Travis. See if he'll give you any money. I talked to him and he said it was too early to hit him up (not his exact words).
Yeah it does look like an NES screen. They've been fixing stuff pretty fast now, how long has this one been an issue?
Travis can answer that better than I since I only noticed it today. Today's the first day in maybe a week or so that I got on the server, I've been playing single player since my character on the server was WoF ready.
It's been since they released a version for the most recent Terraria update. They wanted to get it out even with the bugs so people could keep playing.
I *think* it's fixed in their current testing build but I'm not 100% sure about that.
Greg and I smashed enough altars so ore is all over. Pop a spelunker potion and dive, and you'll find tons. Now the rush to Plantera!
I just put something in Jon's house for him. =) I already have one.
Took bad the game doesn't have Chickens
That could be the problem, if there were chickens, then why stop there? Why not cows or horses? Before you know it there are dinosaurs. LOL
Terrariassic World!
Where's my "like" button?! LOL
Terraria 1.3.0.6 just launched. Waiting for the TShock update as always. We may not have the server working for the rest of the day. I'm NOT turning it back to vanilla like last time unless it looks seriously problematic, because getting everything back up and running was a pain.
Well, Tim might not be on for a while, congratulations again to him and his wife. Jon and others are randomly on. So, perhaps this will keep us a bit more in check. Hahaha. I've upgraded my gear to the third ore, including sword, but I'm still not confident about beating any of the bosses alone. That is to say, I completely forgot about the Destroyer and how easy that one is. I did die quite a few times to Mothron, "/warp arena" during Solar Eclipse, which seemed to happen quite frequently. I didn't defeat it. This reminds me to set spawn point at arena before dying there.
As for my single player game, even with my top gear I'm not too confident about taking on the WoF. I think what I need to do on all worlds is get my gear perfected and figured out, especially accessories. Please share you builds with me
Just heard awesome news: the block separation issue and the issue where sometimes chests wouldn't display their full inventory (and eat any items you tried to put in while they were like this) has been fixed! It was related to the same problem, and took a TShock dev two weeks to fix! But when they finally release the new version for 1.3.0.6, it will be ready to go.
As for build recommendations-- after you're fully dressed in Titanium or Adamantite gear, get your accessories reforged up to Warding if you can, and your weapons up as high as they will go (some will go to Legendary, some Godly, some Demonic, it depends on the type of weapon, and whether it can handle different prefixes).
The wiki has a ton of strategies you can use for the mech bosses. I lucked out by getting a Daedalus Stormbow from a Hallow Mimic drop. You can go looking for them, and get some Holy Arrows, and rain down on them with no problem.
Oh, I seriously thought you said mech bosses, not WoF. lol
In that case, molten armor instead of Titanium, but the reforging suggestion still applies. Then get a minishark and run backwards while shooting him. It helps if you have the well fed buff, so you can get some bowls of soup. Obsidian skin potions work well too. Hitting "B" uses any available buffs in your inventory. Silver bullets or meteor shot will help with the Wall, but aren't necessary IMO.
The bug causing the weird blocks and chests was also the same one causing the NPCs to kinda jump around everywhere, the issue where their chat bubbles wouldn't pop up, the issue where King Slime was spawning literally hundreds of slimes (unfortunately, because I LOVED that bug), and the issue where sometimes multiple copies of the same enemy would appear in the same space.
That one bug took them weeks to solve, but it's a big one.
That's how I usually reforge my accessories, but choosing which ones to use is some times difficult. I'll refer to the wiki for some more info, but you pointed out some good tips.
I'm glad those bugs are (getting) fixed!
Speaking of that bug, one of the TShock devs wrote this plugin just for me :D
https://github.com/WhiteXZ/Slime2Infinity
The bug that caused this initially will remain fixed, but King Slime will still spawn hundreds of slimes like before.
Niiiice! I loved that King Slime spawned so many slimes. That is awesome!
Daaaamn. I just realized that my comment saying the server is up on plain Terraria standard now didn't post. The TShock devs are still working out some bugs. Hopefully it releases today. But until then, we have standard.
And now it's back down, because there was a version bump to go along with the Linux/Mac beta. Shouldn't be too long I wouldn't think.
Ok, so you've been switching the server from TShock to vanilla, it seems. I overlooked that and haven't been on the server since the TShock went down days ago. I was playing my 2nd new single player character and am about ready to fight the Wall, but I need to reforge my gear, which is expensive and I'm so poor.
Anyway, the newest Terraria 1.3 update is very small and doesn't have an official change log. It pretty much opens up Linux/Mac beta testing. So, I imagine it shouldn't take TShock too long to update for this new one.
TShock *just* released the one for 1.3.0.6 like an hour before 1.3.0.7 dropped too. But yeah they don't think it'll be long until they get the 1.3.0.7 version out.
It's pretty sweet on the Mac.
Oh, I didn't mention in my previous comment, 1.3.0.7 vanilla is go, at least. I'll give more info about TShock when it's up.
Aaaaaaaaand TSHock is up and running! At least until there's another Terraria update! At least this time it was easy to go back and forth between vanilla and TShock. I think they've automated some of the extra stuff they had to do to move between profiles, so I don't have to worry about swapping from now on.
Oooh nice tip. Dye your light pet (wisp, lantern, etc) with shadow dye and you still get the light effect but the item itself is barely visible so it doesn't get in the way of your mining. Greg you specifically said that the drawbacks outweighed the benefits for you-- that might help.
Since we are rapidly approaching the end of things here, let's talk about the moon lord chain.
Once everyone gets to the 1.2.4 endgame gear levels, let's all get on (hopefully four of us) and run the cultists, pillars, and moon lord chain. That whole thing would be fun to do together since it's new stuff we haven't seen.
Greg and I have been playing the hell out of the game so we can help gear people up if necessary. WBS and Jon, how are things looking for you and your time these days? I know there are tons of exciting new things taking your time now.
Then once we kill the moon lord a few times and get tons of new-end-game gear, I guess it's time for expert!
In my experience, expert normal mode is brutal even with molten gear, but it will be cheesy easy with end game gear. How should we handle the new expert mode world?
1. We could bring in our characters and world and everything as it is to a new world. I can TEdit in the town and our bases and such.
2. We can start new characters with the same base and do an honor system type thing where we don't take more gear from our base than we should for the content.
3. We start from scratch and then bring in items when necessary.
Opinions?
Next week isn't too bad for me. Thursday night maybe?
Weekends tend to be better since everyone on the west coast can finish dinner and other post work responsibilities and play before the east coasters go to bed. Well, this east coaster anyway, I think Greg is up pretty late.
As an aside, I spent some time reading up on Duke Fishron since he's changed a bit, and you can't take him out of the ocean without him enraging and insta-killing you. So, I set up a minecart arena for him after reading up on it, but he kept despawning because I'd get too far away from him.
Eventually I just decided to hop in my UFO and run away from him spamming attacks at him, and he could barely even hit me. So, some time wasted perhaps but flying mounts are where it's at for Duke.
Jon's suggested timing is ok with me, I'm pretty open.
Excellent and that's great advice. I'll have to get a flying mount for him. Since he defeated me, I decided to go back to my single player Crimson world. Eventually, I'll get those Vampire Knives here. I now have two single player 1.3 hardmode worlds.
Oh, Travis, I've realized some of the enemies I've seen on the server, but couldn't identify due to their quick deaths. I now know what they are, a lamia and basilisk.
My availability is going to be wildly unpredictable for awhile. So you should probably plan stuff without me at this point. I'm keeping up on the event chatter here, and I'll jump in for activities when I can. If i'm horribly behind on gear I'll just loot stuff from my other characters/worlds as needed.
My personal vote is to create a new Expert mode world, import in our base and characters, and just plan on going to hardmode pretty quick.
Oh, and thanks to who ever left me that Kraken yo-yo in a chest outside my house. That thing is awesome! Right after I got that I found the skeleton merchant and picked up a yo-yo glove and then crafted that into the yo-yo bag. It made fighting the hardmode stuff a lot easier!
FYI, fighting Plantera while still equipped with molten armor doesn't end well.
Hahaha, no I imagine it doesn't.
On and two more things: Tim, that was me who left you the Kraken but you should inspect the town chests, because there are way better drops in there now.
I'm getting an Expert world ready for us so there's little to do when we're ready to pop it. Since we really lucked out with world generation on the current world we didn't have to do much NPC protection but that doesn't happen often. Especially with an expert world, adding some extra protection is good (basically, getting them out of the way and doing other things to prevent monsters from spawning).
With regard to the NPC protection bit I talked about in the previous comment, here's a minimap preview of Castle Ghost :D
https://i.imgur.com/dHXiksY.jpg
Work in progress, there's a ton of this that's going to change since I built myself into a corner in a couple of spots. I've been sleeping about half the day with a nasty case of strep throat. When I'm awake I don't have the cognitive capacity to actually play games, but building is a nice distraction.
(Oh and, the new logo is really hard to pixelate, so I used the old one)
Good grief dude.
Haha
I'm now realizing how lucky we were on the server, because Life Fruit was easy to find. I've beaten the Destroyer and I still can't find any on my world. Apparently, this has happened to others.
Vinny's home and now playing Terraria on Mom's laptop. He's pretty excited about all the new 1.3 stuff. Hopefully, he'll be able to join us on the server. For now, I'm letting him play on his own and get better prepared.
Yeah it takes time to spawn, if you ran there after doing one mech boss it won't all be there yet.
Yeah, I ran there again later and still none. I think what I'll do is keep fighting the Destroyer until I have all the Hallowed Bars and stuff that I need to upgrade and then go check the Jungle again.
The Ghost in the mini map looks great! We are going to keep around the old Mascot for situations like this because it pixelates really well and just like old school Mickey Mouse, he's cool to bring out sometimes
In (almost) all its glory: https://i.imgur.com/I4DwnnT.jpg
Still have a couple of things to do but it's almost done. Building in half hour spurts between naps and nosebleeds.
Oh that's very sweet! Is that on the server? I haven't been on in a while, still working on my single player game.
No this is for the expert world. I had started it with the intention of building something simple to keep the NPCs up and out of the way for the most part, but... it grew.
This might be my magnum opus, though. I don't know what I could do to top it.
Yeah, it's beautiful construction.
I just wanted to point out real quick that it seems as though farming Ankh ingredients is easier now. I've farmed them at least twice now and believe the amount of time I spend doing so has been drastically reduced. It's still a randomized numbers game, but to me it just seems easier. You can tell how many enemies you've killed, even without the Tally Counter, because you get a banner for every 50th. I think that helps, at least perhaps mentally letting me know when I should expect a drop.
That said, if you need any items, check the NPC chests as Travis and I collected extras.
Yeah I think it was easier. I got all but three of them accidentally, and only had trouble with getting one of those. But the drop rates haven't changed according to the wiki and patch notes, so we might just be lucky.
That said, we had discussed bringing in Ankh Shields from previous games, and I would have done so if I hadn't gotten most of it accidentally, so if you want to just bring them in feel free.
I know all of the changes weren't included in the change log. I think the wiki is still working on getting updated with 1.3 info. Drop rates may not have changed, that is true. The wiki does seem to be pretty good at documenting drop rate changes for items, though. Right now, I'm trying to figure out how you got all those Paladin's Hammers, I haven't had one drop yet (on my own world). I'd like to get that and his shield.
I found the thing that starts Martian Madness if it finds you. I managed to survive. I ran away from one big ship to heal, but the invasion didn't follow me, so I had to go back to where it started to finish it. At that time, that big ship despawned and I was able to survive the rest. I haven't killed the cultists yet.
Invasions of any kind won't spawn enemies if you're too far away from the spawn point.
Those Paladins just kept dropping hammers, like every single time. And I kept waiting for that wisp in a bottle.
Wow, well I got a wisp in a bottle some how, but so far I only have one hammer. I only need one, but I want the shield, too.
Will any of you west coasters be around tonight to take out some of these lunar events? I'll actually be feeling up to an extended stint at gaming finally, and Greg I assume you'll be available because I see you playing Terraria quite a bit :D
It hurts me deeply that I am not one of the "west coasters." I must do something about that some time in my life. LOL
Yes, I'm pretty much always playing Terraria and I'm ready to go. I do want to beat the Duke, perhaps soon I'll get on and we can do that together. Maybe I'll borrow the Vampire Knives from the character I'm playing on my own, though I haven't really tried them out on much of anything yet. Also, I want to make sure my server charcter has the right armor. I realized that I might not have created the Beetle Shell, which I think I want instead of the Mail because of its higher defense.
I actually might be on tonight. About what time were you thinking of starting the event(s)?
I accidentally started a lunar event on my own the other night. I haven't read much of anything about the 1.3 update, and I've just been discovering it on my own. As such, I found the cultists by the temple and proceeded to slaughter all of them. I then pwned the special boss cultist that spawned afterwards, which then brought down the wrath of the lunar jerks. Killed all four of the pillars or whatever they're called, but the moon boss slaughtered me. When I respawned and went back to where he was he had apparently despawned. :P I'm looking forward to a rematch though!
Any time is good for me. When do you think you'd be available?
8ish pacific time? Is that too late for everyone else?
That's fine with me. It's 9ish right now here.
That works yep. Jon, you in?
Not tonight sorry, we have guests over right now.
https://i.imgur.com/JHzZVGY.jpg
Boom.
That was a hard fight, probably took us a solid 30 minutes before WBS figured out how he was healing himself. It got much easier then. I don't know how people do this in expert mode.
"I don't know how people do this in expert mode."
Without cheesing it, that is.
I don't know how people do it at all! Wow! I think some research is in order.
We figured it out toward the end, really. Fly away from him and hammer on his hands, then his eye, all while making sure to kill the things that heal him, then wail on his body.
One thing I've seen done is a minecart across the whole world basically so that you never vary your horizontal position and he doesn't fly up and down away from your attacks.
Did you guys keep playing at all after I signed off?
I found an easy way to cheese the fight, I only checked online to tweak it a bit after failing about half the time, to see if there was a way to make it better.
First off, you both probably have enough (or nearly enough) fragments from the pillars to make the solar eruption and the stardust dragon. You don't need the luminite bars for these.
Then grab/make a celestial shell, destroyer emblem, and charm of myths. I am also using the ankh shield and kept the yoyo bag, even though I won't need it. You won't actually be moving at all so wings and boots are unnecessary.
Then make/grab some endurance potions, regeneration potions, ironskin potions, and lifeforce potions (bumps your max life by 100. This one is hardest because you have to fish in hallow, and isn't entirely necessary because using this set up my health stayed around 530-600 the whole time). Pumpkin pies or other food for the well-fed buff, and regular greater healing potions obviously.
I retooled the event arena a bit so the two statues inside the little box are heart statues, and the magic ones are outside. Since you don't use magic for these it doesn't matter that they're out of reach.
So, after you've finished the pillars, get to the event arena. Hit the 1-second timer on top to turn on the heart statues, get the sharpening station buff and the bewitching table buff so that your dragon can be bigger. Get in the box and flip the switch. You don't need the traps but they might help for the hands, I haven't used them because they reduce framerate a little. Use your buffs right as he shows up or if you're summoning him through the Sigil or /sb, right before summoning him.
None of the Moon Lord's attacks can get through the box, but your Solar Eruption can get OUT of the box, so wail on all his parts. The True Eye of Cthulhu that spawns after you kill each part will be able to get through the box, so it's best to try to kill all three parts at about the same time. Then wail on the body. It's actually hidden behind the blocks in the arena, but you can see the health bar and the Solar Eruption will hit it.
Easy. 3-4 minutes tops. You'll get hit but not enough to really worry about and you have potions to help if needed, plus a reduction in potion sickness.
(Note: I was able to get him about halfway on my own using the method last night, so I think in multiplayer it would be more fun not to use this, but in single player it's murderous still)
lol, awesome. Way to go Travis for figuring that one out.
As far as less cheesy but easier ways to do this, would a huge asphalt skybridge be worth while? Can we run faster on asphalt than minecarts travel?
Nope, it's 53 mph, mine carts with the iron cart are 66 mph. The mine cart you get from the mech bosses in expert is even faster.
For comparison to last night, the UFO mounts we had travel at 41 mph.
I think a mine cart track across the whole map would help but damn would it take a while to build. Also, removing the block-based skybridge. That got in our way quite a few times in that massive fight last night, and if we replaced it with minecarts all the way we could get wherever we needed anyway.
We took a break afterwards, but tried to continue on later. We were unable to do a /invade as the server said we didn't have permission for that. So, I tried to experiment with my own server, which I managed to get up and running and Tim connected. The only problem was that he couldn't do /invade and I couldn't figure out how to give him that access. So, I can actually run a server and get you guys connected. If you want, I can do this and use CG4 or another world that we could loot if we want or need to. I experienced lag during this, but he did not. Perhaps it was because I had other things open and was switching between windows.
I have all of the accessories you mentioned, I just haven't really used them all and need to get some reforged. As for the strategy, it looks like what I read on the wiki. I'll give it a try some time. It may take some time to fully absorb. Tim and I were also working on collecting ingredients for potions, he only caught one of the fish we need. I haven't done any hardmode fishing yet, but I guess it's not a bad time to start. I did cook all the fish I could and came up with multiple stacks of cooked fish, which I included in the Potions chest. I made some ironskin and regen potions. I took a third of what was in there after that, but we need more (at least regen).
Oh and I was also trying to get a Deadly Sphere staff. I'm also still trying to get enough money to reforge my accessories.
We all have the CG4 world file so we can loot that if needed, no need for another server. If someone is missing that I can re-share it.
Fixed the permissions so you should be able to /invade, /frostmoon, and /pumpkinmoon.
Also a note about the moons: Those two wave 15 event achievements are also single-player only. They won't trigger on any server, TShock or vanilla.
Yeah. I actually have a lot of worlds (including some CG) in a backup folder, so they should be as fresh as I received them. They're really great for looting. I like to use TShock for that and fishing (/time really helps).
As we saw, my permissions seemed to work just fine for /invade and I was able to turn it off.
Thanks for the achievement notice. I had some trouble with some not unlocking. I still haven't gotten the Slime Rain one, even though I'm sure I've done it, perhaps I didn't do it on single player (SP). As for Mecha Mayhem, I got it on SP after using each of the summoning items. I had my own small arena and used some buffs and was able to get it.
Thanks for giving me a walk through of your boss strategy. I didn't pay attention to the signs you created, which explain the operation of the structure at first. It's a great set up and I've created a warp for it (/warp pit). I think it works very nicely, especially since the doors can close you in protecting you from spiky balls and attacks, while providing health regen.
There was already a warp for it, /warp eventarena, I think that's the same name I used last time.
Unfortunately you can't stay locked in for the moons, so you can't always be safe in there.
Greg, you mentioned wanting money, and I mentioned the lucky coin. Better yet...
http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Coin_Ring
Or even better...
http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Greedy_Ring
You can get a ton of gold this way, just requires farming the pirate invasion a few times to get all the items.
Sweet, I'll look into it.
I've been doing some prep work, trying to create enough potions that we may need or as many as I can. I've run out of room on some of the NPC chests, so I've been making some decisions as to what should be in there. One of the things I'm trying to do is not keep more than four of one kind of item in a chest. We may not need that many and if so they're easy to obtain. Therefore, I've sold some extra things. There are many chests throughout the world that contain items related to that biome, where we've stored some things. I'm sure there are more chests that haven't been found.
Another part of this process has lead me to crafting items, which has actually helped inventory management a lot. For instance, instead of a chest containing many duplicates of multiple pieces of an accessory, it contains fewer pieces and/or the accessory instead. Other chests still contain duplicates of random things. This also means that anyone working on the Ankh Charm can find pieces already crafted, instead of a bunch of smaller pieces. I've already stored a couple of shields. There are other more important ones we may need or want such as Frostspark Boots, Star Veil, Charm of Myths, and some others. I have looted previous CG worlds for some things. I'm going to continue to do so because need to make some Bottles. So, I'm trying to gear up for the Duke (because I haven't beaten him alone) and the rest.
Oh and I've left the pit trap on, which has helped provide some money. Every now and then I just run through and collect it.
Yay! I can finally beat the Duke on my own without even healing! Knowing how he attacks and moves is very helpful, dodging is definitely important (or flying away). So is the UFO mount, which removes the need for boots or wings, which may help open an accessory slot or two. Of course buffs, too, ironskin, regen, endurance, and taking advantage of the other objects that boost power. I finally decided to try the Celestial Shell, which seemed to have really helped. Now to get some of those drops.
"Oh and I've left the pit trap on"
Yeah, I found this out the hard way, lol
Since I don't currently have any jump boosting accessories or wings, I fell in and kinda panicked, forgot that I could just hit R to mount the UFO, and fumbled around trying to put on wings and fly out. Nearly died. It was pretty funny probably.
Greg mentioned that part of the event arena looked like part of the mascot, so I got an idea:
https://i.imgur.com/QbUwZss.png
Death Ghost 2000! I haven't wired everything up yet, but it should work the same. I streamlined the switches, but everything that was there is still there, all the same traps and such. I didn't realize you can paint damn near anything,
Loving Death Ghost 2000! That needs to be a thing we implement on all future servers.
Yeah, the platform looked almost like the Ghost. Wow, how'd you do that?
Oh, there are currently (as of the last time I checked when I added them many hours ago) three Gold Rings in the accessories chest. Help yourself! Lucky Coin hasn't dropped yet.
I ended up losing my Terra Blade by talking to the Merchant. It ended up on that Weapon Rack that caused me issues before (I lost another weapon to it). Luckily, it was still there and I was able to retrieve it. So, I moved the WR to the trophy room. I see it's been put to use and the room has been added to. Sweet.
Are the banners still in the mouth of Death Ghost? It might be cool to add some torches to the eyes to make them look like fiery pupils.
Ooooooh ultrabright torches painted black would look badass.
The black stuff is mostly asphalt blocks painted black. Even the border is made of those, that I then actuated to turn them to the background, since the last edge wall always hangs over. I couldn't get it to look right. But the top of the mouth and the eyes are obsidian brick walls painted black. The white stuff is diamond gemspark walls, and for the gray shadow at the bottom I painted the gemspark walls black. Then every piece of furniture, buff stations, light source, etc, is painted to match the background it's on.
I had no idea what that weapon rack was doing in the trophy room but since I was adding things I took it down to make room for other things. I think that was advertising something the merchant sold.
Wow, cool. It's a very sweet spot!
Yeah, like I said that weapon rack caused me problems before, which caused me to have to loot another CG world for what I lost. But, you fixed it and so this time I didn't lose my weapon (trying to right click on Merchant and some how right-clicking on weapon rack instead). So, I decided it was time to move it and looked good in the trophy room. There was a copper sword or pick in there, which I sold.
This also happens when I talk to him and he's over at the Nurse's place and I end up accidentally changing my spawn point. That's ok, though, I can live with that. Making sure to right-click on him when his speech bubble is above his head is at least an attempt at avoiding those issues, which sometimes works.
It seems the merchant some how died. A new one is here, but some where else. Tshock is telling me that I don't have permission to relocate NPCs.
Ok, I've defeated the Moon Lord twice on my own now. Thanks to the pit, he's not much of a problem (until you destroy his eye and hands, then you'll probably need to heal at least once). However, the pillars (not themselves, but their mobs) killed me. It was easier once I upgraded to Solar armor. So now, I think I have everything I want, including Solar Wings. I really love Meowmere, thanks for storing an extra, Travis. However, the Terrarium is the master in comparison. I didn't realize there were already about three in the chest, so the one I was using was dropped for me.
As for the Frost and Halloween events, do you have to do those SP to get the achievement or does it work on the server, too? Working on completing all of the achievements looks like the next thing for me to do.
I stored all of the potions I used as buffs, except for one stack of cooked fish since I made plenty of them. More are needed, which I may work on soon.
Yeah the moon achievements have to be done in single player.
And weird, relocating NPCs should be standard I'd think. I can't actually find any permissions in the list that look like they would affect that.
Oh and Greg, I put item frames instead of the weapon rack in the merchant's house. It looked bare in there. Those should stay out of your way.
When I first read your comment, I was thinking you meant Moon Lord, which I was going to say that there's no way in hell I'm going to do that without my own copy of CG5 for that pit. I don't want to have to build that thing on my own. You know I'm not the builder, you are. But, then I realized we were talking about Frost and Pumpkin moon events. On my own, hopefully I should be ok with my Solar Armor and stuff.
Yeah, the NPC relocation thing was weird. I even made sure I was logged in, by logging in again, and it still wouldn't let me.
So, achievements are my current to-do list (I think that's what some people refer to as a "bucket list"). I'm not sure what else to do, but at least I have something. I still need to do some fishing quests for that one. Vinny is dying to play Terraria with me or us, so it's good that I've hit this point (ceiling). I think everything I need to do on the server is pretty much done, everything else I think I can do on my own in SP or by using TShock (as I have been doing). I guess I'm pretty much ready for Expert mode, which I may start on my own some time.
Not sure when you plan to, but when you shut down the server will you distribute a download? I didn't play it much but if love to get this one!
Oh yeah I'll be distributing.
Everyone-- the server is currently down due to hardware failure. It's been a while. Not sure how they can go this long with a hardware failure without someone getting fired.
We're back up!
They replaced hardware on the 5th that immediately failed on the 6th and we were down all day, but it's back now. It actually seems to be running a little better.
If you have any text color requests, let me know. I found out that you can (kinda through a convoluted but simple process) set text color per-user. So if you'd like a special color let me know. I'm green, Greg is blue.
A few annoying bugs have been squashed with a new TShock update. The tile display bug and the pressure plate bug are no more! Automated doors are back in business.
We're winding down on this map. Tim, Jon, are there any things you want to do before we switch to an expert map?
And on the topic of switching, I knocked out the destroyer in an expert map with endgame armor with no issues whatsoever, it was a cakewalk. Keeping our gear and taking it into a new world is not going to give us the expert mode experience at all. I vote we allow starting with a basic early armor set, maybe silver or gold level? Maybe demonite/crimtane? That might be too far to just give us a boost. Along with the standard torches, rope, platforms, potions, and magic mirror, I also vote we say you can bring in your cell phone if you want, and the portable piggy bank.
As for our houses, I can bring those over with just the structure, without the items.
I haven't tried Expert Mode yet, so I'm not sure what we should bring other than the basics. I wonder how each of the armor and weapon sets stand up against Expert Mode compared to Normal and Hard.
It doesn't exactly work like that. Everything in expert should be roughly 50% as effective as it was on non-expert worlds since enemies have twice as much health and do twice as much damage. Bosses are even harder because they have different mechanics.
The way you worded that comment leads to this next part, you may already know this but your wording made me wonder-- it isn't like a third mode. It actually isn't a mode at all. The world is an expert world and will have a normal and hard mode the same as any other world. It's just that everything in the normal and hard modes will be more than twice as hard as in a normal world.
I don't know much about Expert mode/worlds. I assumed the gear would be less effective since the enemies were more difficult. I knew some of them have new mechanics on an Expert world. But I'm glad you explained it and, as usual, I can agree with you.
BTW, fellow Ghosts, my son has joined us on the server. His name is Vinny, he is 11, feel free to say hello if you see him on.
Travis: Are you going to backup the old server or will everything transfer over perfectly? I might want a copy of the pre-expert server though.
Yeah since it requires a whole new world here's what I'm going to do.
1. Take server offline, download the world file, back it up at least twice, distribute it to everyone. That will be the CG World 5 Normal World Final. Everyone can continue to access that on their own but it will no longer be on the server.
2. Open the current world in TEdit, and create schematics from all of our builds.
3. Open the new expert world and use the schematics from the old world to paste our builds into the new expert world. This may include removing items depending on what we decide about what to keep.
4. Upload the new world file
5. Play the shit out of it.
6. A few months down the line distribute our expert world.
So everyone will get a pristine copy of the normal world when we're done with it, then a copy of the expert world when we're done with that.
Jon: Any opinions about what to keep/how to handle expert?
No opinion on Expert, your plan seems good.
Whatever you guys decide is fine. Also, you don't have to import my house onto the new server. I think I will try to make something a little less boxy this time around. :)
I guess we're not all living in the castle? I'm not really concerned with my house. Like Tim, I think mine is too boxy, but if I re-created it would probably not look any different, I don't seem to have much of a creative building aptitude. That's cool that you can do that, though. I should check out TEdit, perhaps. That pit arena is awesome!
OK last couple questions-- Jon and WBS-- anything you guys want to do before closing out the current server?
Also to both of you, it would be awesome to start this up at a time when we all (at least the four of us really playing it) had a chance to get on the first day and experience the awesome. Jon I know you have a lot going on, and WBS I know you are currently away from home. Any particularly good times to start things up?
And Greg, nah, everyone living in the castle would be boring :) Plus, there isn't really enough room for everyone to keep stuff. We can make a nice little town.
Greg and WBS-- As for making things less boxy, I recommend just hitting up /r/Terraria and checking out the builds there. Some truly inspiring stuff. If you both like, I can put your build in-world somewhere away from everything so you have access to it and you can kinda use it as a temporary base until you build something new.
That sounds good. I thought about saying that you could build me something if you want. Haha It probably would be cool to look at your /r/Terraria recommendation. I'll have to look into it. Maybe I'll come up with something. I do like all the blue stuff, Glowing Mushroom, Slime, Granite,....
If you really want me to build you something I will, I'm not sure if you were joking or not. I'd be glad to. Same goes for anyone else, I take requests :) Just give me some basic specs about what you want.
"Jon and WBS-- anything you guys want to do before closing out the current server"
I don't have anything in mind right now.
"it would be awesome to start this up at a time when we all (at least the four of us really playing it) had a chance to get on the first day and experience the awesome."
This Thursday evening seems OK right now.
I've just been using the current server to farm stuff. I don't have anything too big I want to get done still.
I might be on Thursday for a short time, but it wouldn't be for very long most likely. I won't be on much until next week, so don't feel bad if you start expert mode without me. I'll get caught up later.
No, I wasn't kidding when I said I was thinking of getting you to build something for me. I wouldn't want to add to your work, but I know you like doing it, too. I've looked around at /r/Terraria. I can't even imagine anything other than my standard box type, so I'm not sure what I'd like to see. Just about everything being blue is great, though you know I love Rainbow Brick, too.
I'm thinking of trying to play differently when we go into Expert. Travis and I have talked about how I use NPC chests. I tend to use those instead of my own chests so that I'm contributing to the community chests of items. I do have a few chests in my own place, some have remained empty. I do store some of my own stuff, but not much. I may look into changing that and utilizing my own place for storage.
Originally, I told Vinny to take my Chlorophyte armor, then realized I had my Beetle set, so I told him to take that instead. We did fight the Duke together a few times. I'm not sure if he's gone through Martian Madness, the moon events, or the Moon Lord stuff. However, he can do whatever by himself or any of us. I still have some achievements to complete on my own.
What if we started out with new characters and nothing? Would that be too brutal? The recommendations I've seen thus far here are agreeable. I do support copying over whatever structures that can be brought over. I know you, Travis, have a castle for the NPCs. I think that and both arenas should be copied over as well.
Another Terraria update, another stint waiting for TShock to update. It's a very minor update, and I think all it does is make the different versions for Windows/Linux/OSX line up. So hopefully soon.
So Multiplay doesn't even have 1.3.0.8 vanilla yet. There are apparently some major bugs with the server software in this release even though nothing much was changed in the client. Oddly, the Linux server software doesn't have these bugs, but Multiplay is running Windows for their servers since that's been how it's been done since it first dropped.
All that is to say, no Expert today.
OK, we finally have a server to play on again. Damn these updates!
When do you want to pop open the Expert world?
https://mega.nz/#!HNYXiIgS!VIqHgXkBRw3GDIwMkOKJY3X27QYfWM8gXZX8ELNMxUQ
Here's the final CG5 normal world, now I'm going to get all our stuff in and get ready for expert. We'll launch tonight at 9 Eastern, 6 Pacific, to give the east coasters a few hours before bed and make sure the west coasters can get home and ready.
Greg and Tim, since you've both decided to build something new (or have me build you something in one case) I'll bring in your builds but put them high above, so you can warp to them until you have your new stuff ready.
I'll make a new event for the Expert world, this one has grown way too large :D
Users signed up:
Ok people, who's in? I'm pacific time and available most evenings after 8pm. Do we want to try and set up a group to meet once a week?
Oh, and does anyone know if the PC version limits group size to 4 like the console version? My quick google search seems to indicate yes. I've limited the event size to 8 for now in case we want to set up two groups (maybe one east coast, one west coast?)
One more thing: I marked the game for the event as Borderlands 2 because there seemed to be more interest in that one. But I am completely open to either the first or second game.
They are indeed limited to 4 players. I'm still a maybe due to the time difference, but if you don't find two more I'll be an alternate.
I'm in. I'd like to be the Psycho I've wanted to try that class out.
I'm also on the West Coast, but available at just about any time. It's one of the joys of being "retired."
BL2 is probably the most solid experience all around. BL:TPS has some nifty new mechanics that make it fairly enjoyable and there are a few really good characters in it.
You can count me in too. I'm West Coast. I usually play soldier or commando but I'm open to trying another class if someone else wants to play that.
So it sounds like Bean, Jon, Danny, and I, with Travis as an alternate if someone can't make it? That's a pretty solid group I think.
What days work best for everyone? Would Saturday nights work?
Oh, and dibs on Mechromancer. :)
I'm free most Saturday nights. And even nights when I'm busy with the kids they are usually in bed by 8:30.
Saturday evenings could work. No weekday evenings?
Since today is Saturday wanna play tonight?
Weekdays are going to be hit and miss for me for a little while, but after about... July 18th or so I will have a much more steady schedule.
As of right now, I can probably commit to Monday nights. Looking at the calendar there doesn't seem to be anything planned on Mondays.
I would love to play tonight! I've had BL2 installing today, so it will be ready by tonight.
8pm tonight sounds great.
Monday nights work for me, also tonight might work. Let's drop a time tonight say 8pm on?
That work for everyone else?
Also, everyone message WhiteboySlim your Steam info so he can friend you to setup tonights game.
Great, see you then.
Are we going to use Skype or in game Steam voice chat?
We can have multiple classes but I'll probably bring a Siren. We can work out the details on that once we're in-game.
Tonight might not work for me but that's why there's an alt slot, right? ;)
Keep the event open and I'd be more than happy to join another one.
I'm beansmyname on Steam. Feel free to add me if you haven't already. Also, ping me around 7:30 Pacific and I'll have a more concrete answer.
8:00 should work fine. I've had more success with Skype than Steam chat.
Sadly, I won't be able to make it tonight. However, I have multiple characters and would love to join some other time.
FWIW, the in-game voice chat seems to work fairly well, too.
Ok! First night went well. We're going to try and meet up on Monday nights starting this Monday. We're currently all level 9 and we just got to Sanctuary. We're about to start the firehawk quest.
I have an idea. Let's play the side quests on our own and then when we come together continue with the main quest. One benefit there is we get all the loot drops to ourselves for those, plus we can just focus on the main story together.
Thoughts?
I'm not too worried about loot drops. Gearbox has been handing out golden keys like mad since BL2 shipped and they haven't stopped. Have about 60 or so in BL2 and TPS, so I just spend 4 or 5 at the gold crate every once in a while. And I'm willing to share whatever comes out. Always got better items there than anywhere else (until you get to the end stage and collect the same gear everyone else has).
The real advantage for me in the side quests isn't the loot, but the experience gained. There are some mid-to-late stages of BL2 that become really grindy. OK in an RPG (and possibly expected), not so OK in an FPS. Fighting bullet sponges for a few hours to be able to progress in the story is not fun to me. So, the side quests help alleviate some of that. My only concern is the potential level disparity between those who do the side quests and those who don't.
That's a good point. I guess we can do the side quests too, I just wasn't thrilled with the guns I had to start and after a few side quests I am good. That said, I don't have a problem re-playing those missions.
Golden keys are account bound and limited but there are ways of getting around that.
The only side quests I'd say we really NEED to do are the ones that offer skins/heads, because I like playing dress up with my characters sometimes. >.> Or there are a few that offer unique and awesome guns.
Really I just enjoy the game, and playing as a group is a blast. I don't care if we focus on the main story or side quests or both! We could also do a bit of both: Focus on the main storyline, and then if the mission levels start to pass us up, stop to do a few side quests.
Sounds like you play the way I do. :D
I don't really care for much beyond the skins/heads since the gunplay is a bit lackluster and I'm not interested in having all of the top gear.
Best way I've found to share golden keys is in-game. Head to Sanctuary, open the chest, back away. :P
Golden keys aren't a problem any more. I just went to https://twitter.com/dgshiftcodes and copy/pasted every BL2 code that would work (all the Randy Pitchford ones back to March) and I now have 55 golden keys. I think I'm set, lol.
Sheesh, after a bit of googling I also found this shift code for 20 keys that has no expiration date: 5BW3B-F96CT-KXJFK-TB3B3-39BWZ
I'm going to attempt to run BL2 on my laptop. It should work at minimum settings, as long as my desk doesn't catch fire in the process...
I realize coming in late that you guys already have a solid group. I can try to be a swing man, or get a little side action going with the East Coast ghosters :).
All you need to do is back up a single file, profile.dat I think, open the chest until you're out of keys, then close the game and copy that file back in and you have all your keys back but you retain all the loot.
Dirty cheater here. :) It doesn't give you that big of an edge though.
Just to confirm: we're on for tonight, correct?
Oh bummer... I was hoping to join in for once a week of play. I was pretty busy this weekend and not usually checking the internet much (facebook aside on my phone). I've never played BL2 tho and don't even have it installed probably, so it sounds like I'd be way behind the curve, not to mention you're already full up.
I am more than happy to step aside to let someone else play.
Another idea: If we get one or two more people, just run concurrent games. :D
I played all of two minutes with WBS last night. Got the game running on this little 13" MacBook Pro, and, while it's super tiny on this screen, the hardware seemed to handle it okay. Granted, it might melt in the more open areas. I'll keep a fire extinguisher handy.
I'm supposed to be working tonight, but I might carve out time to play. I'd be up for running on the B-team ;).
One thing we can do is just play with whomever shows up. Make sure that WBS is connected to you and if there are 4 it's fine and if there are 6 we can split into two teams of 3.
Also, we will track what mission we are on so if someone skips they can play on their own to progress onward. I am going to try and hit up tonight at 8pm PDT.
One thing that's cool about BL2 also is that if you join a game that has progressed farther in the story than you have you will still get credit for those missions in your own game. Once you go back to your solo game, you will be set back to your last active mission, but once you "catch up" to where you had completed in a multiplayer game you get a prompt to skip the missions you already completed.
More details: http://support.2k.com/hc/en-us/articles/201335863-How-does-Mission-Fast-Forward-work-in-Co-Op-
It would be nice if there was some level scaling so you didn't have to be near-matched to really play well together.
SO, I installed it and jumped on anyways. I haven't been on my desktop in like a month. Ended up playing for an hourish with WBS. I'm a lvl 7 assassin right now. I'll play some more to get caught up.
Is there a set day people are aiming for for grouping?
Right now Mondays at 8 is kind of our set meeting time.
Ohh, they just added a lot more DLC to the deal, sweet!
What's everyone's level btw? I think I got to 9 last night?
I think we dinged 10 before logging out. My Mechromancer that I played on Monday is 13 I think.
So I bought the BL2 Game of the Year Edition which doesn't come with all the DLC if you get the $15 bundle. I did the math on if I bought the DLC straight up and it's the same price as buying the bundle. I think i'll end up picking up the bundle after all.
Who's on for some BL2 tomorrow night: 7/7/2015 @ 8p PST?
You have my gun.
I'm down - my assassin is ready. Also, fyi, in a random occurrence that didn't impact me deciding to play BL2 or sway my character choice, I realized yesterday that the mousepad I got from loot crate is this:
http://netdna.coolthings.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/borderlands-mousepad-loot-crate-june-2015.jpg
Ha ha ha, that's an awesome mousepad.
It's big too, and thick and smooth, it's the best quality mouse pad I've ever had (then again, I didn't care to use most of the time, but now realize it improves mouse precision).
Ok, well I'll be on as close to 8 as possible (after getting kids to bed). My assassin is lvl 11 I think. Cya in 3 hours!
I'll be joining a few minutes late tonight. Still be on though so start without me and i'll join up during.
Everyone down for this Monday the 13th @ 8p PST?
I'm in, but will probably be a little late. Go ahead and start without me and I'll jump on when I can.
I can't. One of my grandmas passed a few days ago, and I'm slightly wrecked. I'll try to catch up with you guys soon. I'll stay in the event thread, though, if that's okay.
That's cool. Wish you all well.
I'm so sorry hear about your Grandma Scrypt! :( Hope you're doing ok. Of course you can stay in the event thread.
thank you :)
Sad to hear, sorry for your loss :(
I'm down for Monday, btw
Scrypt, I'm sorry for your loss.
Thank you! I probably shouldn't have blurted that out here. I didn't mean to be a downer. I've never lost anyone close before, so I guess I'm in a weird place. I do very much appreciate the condolences, though!
So, anyway, I should be back in Texas in a day or two; back to proper gaming platforms. What level is everyone at? How much catching up will I need to do?
Sorry for your loss, scrypt. I've lost people close to me before and it sucks. It will get easier with time, as with all things.
I'm level 15, which I think is a level under WBS. At least they were 16 when we quit last Monday
Sorry I had to drop early, let me know what levels you ended at and i'll make sure I am caught up for next Monday.
So, with WBS's move, not sure if he'll be on tonight, don't think he has internet yet and set up etc.
Internet is up and running, but I can pretty much guarantee I will not be on tonight. We've had a couple set backs with the whole unpacking thing, so our lives (and my PC) are still in boxes at this point. :P
After you guys play tonight just post what levels you're all at when you quit and I'll try and catch up.
Well, let me know who plans to play tonight
Sorry guys I've been really busy today. I can't make it tonight. Let me know what levels you hit tonight and I'll catch up this week.
Yeah, sorry I can't make it either. Next Monday will be better for me!
I don't think anyone is playing tonight, actually
It's not 100%, but I am going to try and be on tonight. It would have been a for-sure thing, but then my shower broke this morning, so I get to fix that tonight. Anyone else think they'll make it on tonight?
I am available, I'll check back later to see who's able. No biggie either way
Yeah, this week looks unlikely. I am hoping for next Monday. Looks way more open right now.
I don't mind skipping, Rett just introduced me to a game called dungeon of the endless or endless dungeon...looks amaze
Stopping in to say that I definitely will not be able to make it tonight. House stuff calls unfortunately. :\
Yeah I can't make it either.
Hey guys I can't make it tonight. Today's my anniversary.
Happy anniversary Danny!
As luck would have it, I think I can attend tonight.
Happy anniversary Danny!
I am putting myself down as a maybe, but probably. I'm visiting family, but by the time we're going to be playing the kids should all be in bed and we will just be hanging out. I'm installing it on my laptop right now so it should be ready to go by tonight.
So WBS and I completed the alt Firehawk cult mission and then the mission that Hammerlock gives you in the Sanctuary hole. While we were over there we found the Minecraft level and WBS got the Mecromancer Minecraft head.
I think I am going to loot all the Minecraft heads as I unlocked them on the PS3 but not the PC yet.
Also, ding! We're level 19 now. So you all don't have much you need to catch up on. :)
Just writing in to say that I won't be on tonight. I spoke with dannytron earlier and he won't be able to make it either.
I'll be on... oh wait, nm, WBS will be visiting my house tonight, guess I can't play (BL2 anyways)!
Hahaha, oh yeah. Jabo won't be on either. We're going to be playing games in person for a change.
Sounds good, thanks for letting me know. I guess I won't be playing tonight either.
I don't know who else was playing (there's 6 ppl subscibed to the event), but I gotta bail on Mondays. I am going to try to get back into a weekly DOTA2 night. That means I'll be doing DOTA and MtG every week eating up 2 full nights. I can't ask for 3, just too many, so hopefully I won't be missed and somebody else steps up.
Sounds good JaBo, it was fun having you while it lasted.
Quick update for everyone: dannytron and I were the only two to make it this week. We didn't progress through the story at all and just did a few side missions. We dinged levels 20 and 21.
See you next week!
I'll be around for tonight. What about everyone else?
On a side note, my Gunzerker is high enough level to join the main group now, so I think I will be switching. I'm bringing my team ammo-regen class mod too. So... you know... you're welcome for that. :P
I won't be, sorry. I spent some time last night grinding to get all the Minecraft heads & got most of them. One of my friends is coming over and we are opening out Grand Tournament packs together, I think we will be making a video of that too.
I always say "next Monday" but in this case I think that should actually work
Looks like dannytron is out also. So I think we're going to postpone until next week. :)
On a side note, does Monday in general still work for everyone? Would another day work out better for anyone? Friday or Saturday might work better for our East coast ghosts.
Hey everyone im in for tonight. In the middle of a move but I need a gaming break. Anyone else in for tonight?
You have my GUNS GUNS GUNS AND MOAR GUNS MWA HAHA HAHAHAHA!
...
Eh-hem. Yes, I will be on.
Ok, so I won't be anymore. House moving stuff. Will make for a fun story later but for now it's just frustrating. Le sigh
Any responses to "Friday or Saturday might work better for our East coast ghosts?"
I'd love to get in on this :)
I am down for this Friday at 7p PDT.
I can do Friday at 8pm pacific. Would that be too late?
Travis? You in for that time Friday?
WhiteboySlim and I played a couple side missions and pressed forward with the main story some. We ended at level 21-22
We are all level 24 now I think. It was nice to finally make one of these!
After Dan and Jon left WBS and I unlocked my fourth gun slot so I'm all set, and now I have a decent shield, so maybe I won't die so much :D
That's great! I got a ton more good drops because those missions were harder. Plus it was fun too.
OK so what level is everyone at after our session Friday evening?
Ahem...
https://i.imgur.com/WaAXDsv.png
:D
Oh.... Right. Thanks.
This even has officially expired, but curious if anyone wants to play next Monday?
I'll post the exact time the closer we get to the event.
Watch the stream live at the URL below.
http://www.twitch.tv/bethesda
Users signed up:
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.
This event includes Half-Life 2 Episodes 1 and 2. Come play through Half-Life 2 with the Cheerful Ghost community! Whether this is your first time playing the game (like me!) or if you're an experienced veteran, come join the discussion!
This event includes Half-Life 2 Episodes 1 and 2.
Users signed up:
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.
*Note: Please note that... Read All It's the birthday of Reaper of Souls and Blizzard is celebrating with an in-game event! For this week, players are granted a +100% bonus for gold and EXP. Feel free to join me (GregoPeck#1971)! I've created a new character, a Demon Hunter, for this event.
*Note: Please note that the times included in this Cheerful Ghost event's schedule are from the link below and are in PDT.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/18388260?utm_content=external-sso&utm_medium=other&utm_source=App#comments
Users signed up:
Thanks for joining my first event, Jon! It made me feel so good to create it! =)
That said, I just found out about some scheduled maintenance. The news from Blizzard is as follows:
"We will be performing maintenance beginning on Tuesday, March 24, at 3:00 AM PDT and we expect it to be complete at approximately 11:00 AM PDT. During this time the game and many web services will be unavailable. Thank you for your patience."
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/16716772081
Diablo III goes into maintenance mode every Tuesday morning. It's their weekly downtime. It's annoying but necessary, I suppose!
I'm so glad Blizzard created the in-game birthday event for Reaper of Souls, it gave me a reason to play the game again. I was waiting for the new patch to be released, but I decided not to sit out until then. I'm glad for that because I had gotten in to a phase I hated where I didn't know what I wanted to play. I did briefly play Terraria on the PS3 with my son since I bought it so that he and his friend could play together. I also played a bit more of the mobile version on my Kindle Fire.
I'm not sure when the patch will be released. I'm also not sure how far I'll get with this week's in-game birthday event. I think my Demon Hunter is now about level 40 and I'm still in Act II. It is my guess that I will finish the game before the in-game event is over and will, therefore, create another new character and play through it again. My only problem is that I don't know what to name the other characters I know I'm going to create, although I have some ideas.
One thing I'd like us to do here is discuss the game (I guess that's a given). I thought about some things I'm interested in knowing about how you play the game. Do you have a favorite class? Also, if you have a Demon Hunter, do you dual-wield bows? I haven't played all the classes yet, so I think it's too early for me to pick a favorite. I did spend a lot of time with my Barbarian, so that's probably my favorite so far, however I think they're all pretty good. I am not dual-wielding with my Demon Hunter. I have a really awesome bow (or crossbow) equipped with a good quiver.
Another thing I'm interested in knowing is how you decide which skills to equip. While I am leveling, I tend to switch to whatever is new. So, if I unlock a new rune for one skill, that's what I switch to. It gives me some variety and helps me learn and experience all of them. At first, with my Barbarian, I did not use any of the special skills (that are set 1-4). I did, finally, start using them and found them to be helpful. However, as I'm playing with my Demon Hunter I've gone back to not using them. Although I mentioned that I switch to new skills (or runes) unlocked by leveling, I have decided to keep the Companion skill with my Demon Hunter. I like it because it's more like a passive skill that I don't have to activate.
Also, I've noticed that from time to time, I like to increase the difficulty level. I always start out on "Normal," but after a while of not really taking any damage, I decide to increase it. This is good because that helps me get more gold and EXP. Do you do the same or stick with a level?
Anyway, feel free to fill me in on your thoughts and game play. Do you play similarly or differently?
So it's hard to say what my favorite class is because I typically play a class until I burn out on it. It's not a good strategy and I might consider stopping before I get sick on it. But if I had to say, to date, my favorite class is the Crusader. I also quite enjoy the Barbarian but haven't made it too far with one.
I equip skills based on what I want to accomplish and for my Crusader it's dealing damage. Some people have some really unique builds and I consider mine pretty average. I don't have much epic gear and don't hit very hard so I tend to pick stills which help me take things down. After that I pick skills that can get me out of a tough spot or run away, like steed charge.
I usually play at Torment 1. It's pretty hard but the loot is good and it's not boringly easy.
Thanks for the input, Jon! So, you purposefully choose certain skills instead of randomly choosing what you just got by leveling up as I seem to do? Or do you try to learn the skills, play with them all for a bit and then choose? Also, do you use your 1-4 skills often? I still haven't used those skills with my Demon Hunter yet and I'm still choosing whatever is new when I level up. Recently, I selected one of those secondary skills (right-click) I got from leveling up and noticed how great it was at clearing out groups of enemies. I don't know what the name of it is though. I think how I've been playing (when it comes to new characters) is just me learning, even if I don't experiment with everything at first.
Also, I wonder how you and others manage gems. I tend to pretty much stick a really good ruby wherever I can, which almost always increases my strength. I'm also curious as to what followers you and others choose. I pretty much tend to stick with the Templar, although during a time of running through the game with my Barbarian, I decided to switch followers to add a little "spice" to the game.
I was also thinking of seeing the differences between character genders. I think that might be an interesting part of the game to explore. As of now, I've been choosing male characters, but I think it might be interesting to try some females.
Do you start a character on Torment 1 or do you gradually increase the difficulty and get there? I do the gradual increase because, I agree with you, it can get boringly easy and the loot (along with gold and EXP) is good.
Strength is only really relevant on Strength-based characters. With Monks and Demon Hunters for example, dexterity increases your damage, not strength. So it all depends on what character you're playing.
With difficulty level, once you hit level 80 Torment 1 is pretty taxing. I play on the one below that, I can't remember which. But on the grind to 80 I frequently switch between that and Torment 1.
Thanks for the tip, Travis. I haven't been paying attention to my Demon Hunter's dexterity and I now see that I should have. I have been applying Marquise Rubies to whatever items have gem slots. Most often this gives me +62 strength since that applies when put on something other than a helm or weapon. So, I'll have to get back in the game with my Demon Hunter and change those out to emeralds, which give + dexterity when applied to something other than a helm or weapon.
Master is the level below Torment 1, which is what I'm currently playing on. My Demon Hunter is now above level 60 and I just beat Diablo. During that battle, I finally tried out my 1-4 skills. Although I don't recall what the first two do, the latter two seemed pretty helpful. One of the latter two seems to freeze enemies, while the other of the latter two did some kind of attack, which was awesome.
"During that battle, I finally tried out my 1-4 skills."
I'm not entirely sure what this means. You were only using autoattack on your way up to level 60? If so, WOW. I didn't know you could get that far only using the basic attack.
Yeah, I only used my primary and secondary attacks until then. I started out on Normal difficulty and gradually increased it to Master, where it is now. I still use those two skills mostly, but when I fight the harder monsters (blue, yellows, and bosses), I use my other (3 and 4) skills. 1 makes me invisible or something and I never use it. 2 is my companion, which is passive and automatic, so it doesn't need to be activated.
I am getting poor again. I had over 11 million gold, but I finally decided to upgrade my emeralds and rubies. I put the highest emerald in a slot on something for my Demon Hunter. Oh and my DH is now level 70 and my Paragon level is almost to 70 as well. It was only maybe 63 before.
Damn, that's impressive with only using a very small subset of skills.
Thanks! I finished RoS. My Demon Hunter was level 70, Paragon level 71. I some how managed not to get killed by Malthael. I didn't increase the difficulty above Master because I knew he'd be difficult. So, I created a new character, a Monk, and I named him "Adama." =) My Monk is so awesome he found a Black Mushroom in the Cathedral. When I tried to get that item months ago, it took a few attempts at the Cathedral to find it. Oh and I changed the difficulty to Hard sooner than usual. Normal difficulty should really be called Easy and Hard should be called Normal. Haha.
Travis, you once told me about your favorite class. I think you mentioned the Monk or Wizard, am I correct?
The Monk is pretty cool, I was sure I wouldn't be disappointed. Some of his skills are really good like the one where he heals himself and allies. I also like the "bell" one, it seems pretty powerful.
One of the things I didn't like about my play through with the Demon Hunter was that a few Treasure Goblins got away. I really enjoyed his Companion skill. I also equipped two rings, which were pieces of a green set. Since I had two of the set, a skeleton archer summoned when I attacked. That and my Companion skill were very helpful as they created extra allies for me, which would often become enemy targets, saving me from taking damage. I enjoyed that freezing skill of his, as I also enjoy the Monk's skill that freezes enemies when he attacks. I also enjoyed the Demon Hunter's Vengeance skill.
I am now playing my Monk a bit differently than when I had started other new characters. While I am still selecting new skills as they unlock by leveling, I'm using my 1-4 skills more often, which is quite helpful. His 1 skill is a healing one, so I've been keeping that one.
It's probably Monk, yeah. I like all the classes though, they're all really well done.
I like that the Monk also has a "companion" skill. It's a spirit, but it's pretty much the same thing.
Your membership gets you in the door, and there are no additional costs to play individual games."
I'll be attending this year, if you want to... Read All "Over 1,000 game enthusiasts attend GameStorm each year to play games, attend panel sessions, visit the dealers hall, and have fun.
Your membership gets you in the door, and there are no additional costs to play individual games."
I'll be attending this year, if you want to meetup check the post below.
http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/2435/cheerful-ghost-at-gamestorm-2015
Users signed up:
If you're new to the game, create your character on the Anvil Rock server if you'd like to join us in WvW (if we ever get into that). For general gameplay it... Read All Since it looks like many of us have taken advantage of the awesome Guild Wars 2 sale this weekend, let's play together!
If you're new to the game, create your character on the Anvil Rock server if you'd like to join us in WvW (if we ever get into that). For general gameplay it doesn't matter which server you're on. If you'd like to join the Cheerful Ghost guild, we're called "Cheerful Ghost." Please post your ArenaNet username in the comments below so we can add each other.
Or you're way overleveled for our noob content, or you're just antisocial and don't want to play with us, feel free to join in the event anyway to chat about the game.
Users signed up:
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.
Users signed up:
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.
I should be on at some point tonight. Just a heads up, when I first log in I'm using my character from the last map just until my starting base is set up. That way I won't 1) die a lot and 2) have my UFO mount to fly around while I build. :)
Once my new house is up I'll create a new character.
Yeah that's definitely OK.
This will be slightly late coming up, but soon.
OK we're up!
Guys! This is hard!
It really is, I stopped by for a few minutes. Didn't know Zombies could be that hard.
Well I ended up spending way more time on the game last night setting up my house, but it's done! I also created my new character and died several times trying to walk to my house because OF COURSE a blood moon happens right as my poor noob character logs in for the first time.
And Travis... Damn man. That castle is insanely cool. You really outdid yourself this time.
Thanks slim! That's what being sick for days does to me.
Got Platinum armor and an Enchanted Sword, the game just got easier. =)
This whole thing is splendidly overwhelming :). The castle is brilliant. Tim, I had to up my game on my starter house. I didn't realize I'd be neighbors with Haunted Hug Hefner.
After several failed attempts, I finally took down Skeletron. You're all free to explore the dungeon now! :D
Awesome! I haven't been on in forever, because I've moved on to another game. I think being on a server with other players is definitely a good idea, especially for Expert Mode. So, I'll probably really miss the server when it's gone and I decide I want to play again.
In 1.3 they added Steam matchmakimg. So if one of us wants to play something with others we can. The old game didn't support that so we can still play together in a way, after the server goes away.
Which, honestly, when will that be? Travis do you know?
26 days is all I've paid up for. You have to worry about lag far more with Steam or personally hosted servers, as while most download speeds are fine, the upload speed of the host is less than stellar.
And you don't have the persistent world. For example, Jon, if you were playing on my world in Steam, but then I wasn't logged in and you wanted to play, you wouldn't have access to my world.
Yeah, that's all true.
26 days left! Thanks for renting it for as long as you have!
So this didn't really pick up as much as we had hoped, I think people were already getting burnt out on Terraria when the Expert world started.
Next time we should just go straight into Expert.
At any rate, here's the final world file. Enjoy!
https://mega.nz/#!HNYXiIgS!VIqHgXkBRw3GDIwMkOKJY3X27QYfWM8gXZX8ELNMxUQ
Can you also put the old world file at the bottom here too? Sort of so I don't have to climb up the ladder for it. Thanks Travis, I appreciate you hosting the server this time!
You read my mind! I was going to ask you for our Expert world! Thanks!!!
Unfortunately the file name in the above link is the same as the original. The file sizes are the same and contain the same file. So, could you give us a link for the Expert world? Thanks.
@Jon The normal world link is at the bottom of this post text.
@Greg good eye, I copied the wrong one, this is the real link:
https://mega.nz/#!fcZ2ySgS!vdtrodyiSw3Z5FFTSEJ_UvFHeVlOufYKQowmQ7uUExs
Actually I'll do you all one better. Gimme a sec :D
http://cheerfulghost.com/Travis/posts/2671/all-of-our-terraria-worlds-ready-for-you-to-loot
Thanks Travis!
I'm not sure what made me think of it today. I thought of it right as I was in bed about to nap. I forgot, so I'm really glad you thought of this today, too! Thanks!