Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;799401Now that Warlords of Draenor is live, I'm digging it. I was there when the North American servers went live 15 minutes early, and I got my main through the introductory sequence before servers started shitting themselves and I just logged off instead of doing my Sisyphus impression.

In the days that passed as the usual--and yes, aside from the most massive DDOS attack waged upon a game yet, such that the Feds are asking questions, they are usual--problems that always hit got sorted out (Thursday launch; sorted by Sunday, with what is left being tweaks and minor hotfixes, which is fantastic for a launch like this.) I hung out with guildmates or streaming pals in a Ventrillo server, modded a chat room for a Twitch streamer, and finished the first draft of my third novel. Now that shit is stable, I swiftly resumed play and got my main character to 95; should be 100 right on Thanksgiving, and then I can start working on my alts while I gear up the main at get raid-ready.

There were people at L100 in 24 hours after launch (some of them even legally so).

You slacker. ;-)

Started playing DragonAge Inquisition last night on the PS4.  Feels very much like all the other dragonage games, so that's good I guess.  Graphics look good, but not as good as the PS4 touted them in other games.  Still too early to make a good objective evaluation, but so far the controls seem easy enough.  I really like the ability to go into tactical mode and pause the game.  I'm not a fan of action RPGs where it's more important to mash buttons fast and in the right order rather than your actual character progression.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;799472Started playing DragonAge Inquisition last night on the PS4.  Feels very much like all the other dragonage games, so that's good I guess.  Graphics look good, but not as good as the PS4 touted them in other games.  Still too early to make a good objective evaluation, but so far the controls seem easy enough.  I really like the ability to go into tactical mode and pause the game.  I'm not a fan of action RPGs where it's more important to mash buttons fast and in the right order rather than your actual character progression.

I was about to ask if people were playing DA3, but you beat me to it.

What about the storyline?

Quote from: flyerfan1991;799404There were people at L100 in 24 hours after launch (some of them even legally so).

You slacker. ;-)

Yeah, I'm savoring the leveling experience this time, and it's been fan-fucking-tastic so far. As there are no raids or high-end PVP until December 2nd, there is no need to rush. Reach 100 this week; be ready sometime by the end of next week- and then enjoy learning a new raid instance: Highmaul, Seat of the Ogre Empire in Draenor. (So, lots of ogres and giants.) This expansion, in particular, has some old-school SF to its experience; you can see the Planetary Romance (or Sword & Planet, if you like) influences, and they're not hidden.

One thing I liked about WoW was a very light-hearted blend of a lot of stuff, including some very overt Lovecraftian things (like in northwestern Kalimdor), the gnomish technomagic, and so on.

Quote from: Will;799731One thing I liked about WoW was a very light-hearted blend of a lot of stuff, including some very overt Lovecraftian things (like in northwestern Kalimdor), the gnomish technomagic, and so on.

Yeah, they manage to pull it off Palladium-style: openly embracing the gonzo, not worrying too much about being believable, and making the big conflicts relevant right from level 1. Sure, there's the whole 'kill X boars' thing but soon enough you're butting heads with Kul Tiras colonists and centaurs in Durotar, or Scourge and Scarlet Crusade in Loraderon, or Blackrock orcs in Elwynn.

I love GW2 for the game play mechanics, but I have to actually make an effort to care about the NPCs. They all feel so dreadfully samey. Every race gets an "evil" counterpart (Inquest for Asura, Flame Legion for Charr, Sons of Svanir for Norn, etc.) and they make up most of the antagonists, along with assorted wildlife, for most of the starting area and neighboring areas. Every now and then we get a glimpse of other races (Kodan, Hylek, Krait, Skritt, etc.) all of which share (1) silly names, and (2) horribly one-dimensional depictions. The writing for GW2 really leaves me cold. But then I never really made it to the "Living Story" endgame.

Quote from: flyerfan1991;799617I was about to ask if people were playing DA3, but you beat me to it.

What about the storyline?

So I'm about 4 hours in now, total.  Playing a sword&board the first time through.  Couple of impressions:

The world is huge.  Like, really big.  With tons of stuff to explore and do, and it doesn't level scale or hold your hand by preventing you from going somewhere you aren't ready yet.  For example, I'm 5th level and I wandered down a path and ran into a full fledged dragon that started strafing me.  I died  quickly.

Lots of things to craft and improve, but I found myself switching to my ranged party member any time I wanted to kill wildlife.  They are all faster than you otherwise, and hitting them with a sword doesn't work so well

The storyline is pretty decent.  A lot like the first DA, and the reply options are a lot like Mass Effect in the dialog wheel.  Even though the main storyline won't change, I can see myself playing this game at least 3 times because there are so many world decision options you can have, like how you allocate global inquisition resources.

I play Star Trek: Online a lot, I'm ... mostly happy with it.
But man, I am really done with MMOs with lots of abilities.

In ground stuff? I don't know what half my abilities do, I just... whatever. Flail at the keyboard until stuff dies.


In that respect I MUCH prefer Neverwinter's design of a handful of abilities you can swap out as the mood strikes you (though there are OTHER things I dislike about NW (and boy I wish I could mix and match MMOs))

Quote from: Will;800049I play Star Trek: Online a lot, I'm ... mostly happy with it.
But man, I am really done with MMOs with lots of abilities.

In ground stuff? I don't know what half my abilities do, I just... whatever. Flail at the keyboard until stuff dies.


In that respect I MUCH prefer Neverwinter's design of a handful of abilities you can swap out as the mood strikes you (though there are OTHER things I dislike about NW (and boy I wish I could mix and match MMOs))

GW2 does the same thing as Neverwinter, and that suits my playstyle just fine. Too many abilities translate into overly complex rotations and possibilities.

Oh yes. There are a lot of things I like about GW2. My inability to group much has somewhat put a hamper on playing it, and ... I don't know. For some reason I ultimately sort of lost interest in GW2. But who knows, I may swing back to it again.

Stupid getting older things:
Sprained a rotator muscle in my right shoulder, apparently, from playing Star Trek: Online too much (which has a lot of high tension mouse stuff).

... bah.

Quote from: Will;800061For some reason I ultimately sort of lost interest in GW2.

There are only a handful of games I return to time and time again.

TF2
Starcraft II
Magic Online
Super Mario Bros. and its many level-edited hacks
Smash Bros. Brawl
Secret of Mana
Link to the Past
Hexen

But there's no mystery or insult to playing a game thoroughly for a while and moving on. Perhaps less value for money. I know I calculate how much each hour of gameplay was worth in dollars to make myself feel superior ("Alright, this $50 game lasted 100 hours, so that was 0.50 an hour of fun. Waaaay better than a movie ticket!")

I suspect if I had the time/energy to do Fractal dungeons and other group content I might maintain my interest in GW2.

I'm also a HUGE fan of creating my own adventures in a game, which is cool that Star Trek: Online and Neverwinter has Foundry!
Eeeexcept PWE are a bunch of small-minded fuckheads, so Foundry is all but abandoned on each and has crippling basic problems (mainly in reward and search scheme, so cool content is almost impossible to find or showcase).

mutter


Someone give me a billion dollars to make a MMO!

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;800270Link to the Past

Fuck yeah. Best Zelda game, best old school console JRPG, bar none.

Quote from: The Butcher;800296Fuck yeah. Best Zelda game, best old school console JRPG, bar none.

*cough* Link's Awakening *cough*