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Updated things on the blizzard launcher and found they gave me 3 days free on WoW (presumably for the update or whatever).

The update is. .. um...not compelling. Even for an expansion that wasn't very good in the first place. The first cinematic kicks off in the middle of some plot to follow a... spiked disc? into the ocean for reasons that aren't explained, and then the new crab-naga and naga-octopus models hit the boats with a city... for reasons. Something something releasing Cthulhu #4. OK

But then the quests take breadcrumbs for a new low even for blizzard. Move 30 feet and stop. Do it again. and again. Then jump through portals to jump through portals to jump through portals to get to some guys who take you to a cave to click some shiny things and beat up some earth elemental lord who has a single dragon scale that randomly has all the power of all the black dragons ever*. And then talk to a guy to portal and portal and portal to have a conversation to unlock the ... yeah.

(*interesting aside here, the powers of the dragonflights were sacrificed years back to stop Deathwing. Apparently those energies are randomly coalescing of their own accord for reasons so you can pop them in your jewelry to stop the plot. But... this reappearance of 'the energies' implies the dragon's sacrifice was actually completely unnecessary, since this energy just happens naturally. Ah, Blizz writers...)


Anyway, you then go back to the stranded people from the boats in order to help the new subrace of gnomes/goblins (the latter of which isn't actually new but whatever) and this is all in aid of.... whatever the plot is that they haven't explained. At least not in game since the update. Probably in some novel or whatever.

And that ate two hours of my day today. Somehow I'm not seeing myself using 3 days of free game time this weekend.

I've been playing some Don't Starve, the Warly refresh made me interested in the character again. Also the character video did. Dang but it did.

Mechanicus, the Heretek expansion got released a few days ago, but due to a heatwave I couldn't give it a try until now.

Had to do a new game to access the content, ugh. Double ugh because whilst the new missions are labelled "easy" they are anything but, as they throw a lot of dirty tricks at you.. enemy techpriests are immune to attacks until they attack you first, which wouldn't be so bad if their power axes didn't also deal acid damage. On top of that, they once they attacked you they immediately trigger an ability to dodge all incoming attacks, be it melee or ranged..

The game is also a whole lot buggier now, with a non-functional intro, assets missing and some key bindings removed or messed up. Going to wait for an official fix to drop before continuing play.

Picked up and started playing Fire Emblem: Three Houses on the Switch. Enjoying it so far, but I'm still very early in it.

The game is also a whole lot buggier now, with a non-functional intro, assets missing and some key bindings removed or messed up. Going to wait for an official fix to drop before continuing play.

I was looking at picking up the original and this.

Is the original stable / fun?

Installed BB Chaos ed last night.
Might give the Lizzies a run out over the weekend.

Cities Skylines mostly, also Men of War, Rimworld, Crossout, DoW1 often. Rarely Team Fortress, Company of Heroes 1/2, Skyrim or Mordheim, or old, legacy games from 2000-2012.

My personal desktop cogitator is over a decade old, so I'm quite limited by its processing power,

The new Vermintide 2 DLC, which sort of came out a week early as a 'beta'. Its... ok I guess? They changed a lot of the core game, bots are even more stupid than before and now champion is too easy for bots but they die like flies on legend, which they could do before patch 2.0. So that sucks a I usually play as a duo with two bots to back us up.

Final Fantasy XIV has a free weekender / couple of days of free play. Decided to hop back on for a bit and see where I was back then. Clueless AF right now, something about needing to track down an airship or the like?

But hey, at least I'm a Dragoon so wahey.

I bought Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura about midway last year, after hearing it was a great RPG and I'm a big fan of Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines which was developed by Troika too. At first, it kept crashing but then I fixed it, but then found the combat too frustrating. But after getting super frustrated with RimWorld I decided to try it and managed to make myself persevere and by the Emperor, it's amazing, one of the most immersive RPGs I've ever played. Makes me sad Troika died out

 BrookM wrote:
Final Fantasy XIV has a free weekender / couple of days of free play. Decided to hop back on for a bit and see where I was back then. Clueless AF right now, something about needing to track down an airship or the like?

But hey, at least I'm a Dragoon so wahey.

You're still in the Realm Reborn segment?

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that you're in the "this part takes soooo long..." section of the main story quest. It should get better soon, though.

At least you're past the "League of Heroes", or whatever that group was called that you had to deal with before you could fight Titan.

I'm not the target demographic for MMO's. I tend to play a game in bursts of an hour or so, then take a break and do something else.

While there isn't a lot of grind (at level 42 now with a somewhat steady progress), I flipping HATE how many of these quests are simple "go here, talk to that person, have some XP" variety that sees me travel a lot for a few balloons of flavour text that all boil down to "Ah! I see you are here for this quest, but you need to go elsewhere to get help but before I tell you where you need to go, be a dear and do some fetch quests for me first."

That's all this has been so far in search of this ship. Me going places, being told off or told to help out first, then to hear that nobody can help me. Then by a long way around I finally find the location of the ship, at the place where this all more or less kicked off.

Now we know where it is, we almost got it done, but some inquisitor butts in and says no, adventurers are scum and never to be trusted, so now obviously.. more pointless quests.

Standard RPG fare really but still, there's padding and then there's this repeated nonsense.. FML.

Islanders, a cute little citybuilder/highscore game. Cheap as chips and relaxing.

The particular FFXIV segment that you're in is pretty much pure padding. The post-Ifrit segment is considered the worst in the game by far. I *think* it gets better after Garuda, though, which is coming up very soon. It very definitely gets better just before the conclusion of the 2.0 storyline. Then there's a segment with lots of very long cutscenes before it kicks into high gear with the Heavensward storyline that starts when you finally enter Ishgard.

Ha! I'm just glad I finally got to kill that Inquisitor, after a lot of pointless travel to another part of the world to get a bottle of booze or something, I don't know, I tend to click through all the fluff text at this point as it's a lot of words to simply say "go here and do X/Y/Z"

I had help from my brother for some other stuff, including the killing of a Mud Puppy or whatever that giant lizard is called, after which he and his mate went back to the latest expansion, which involved a fifteen minute unskippable cutscene..

The amount of padding is absurd though, it's the primary reason I play it in bursts, as I cannot stand the monotony of the main story line.

At least I got to sit in his car and be driven / flown everywhere.

Does Forge of Empires count ?

705 hours Skyrim Play Time.

Never have I gone further with the main quest than "Go meet the Grey Beards"

So I rolled up an new vanilla character and I'm following through with both the main quest and the Civil War.

Decided to go stereotype and I rolled up a heavy armor/Two-Handed Nord, name Skarri. Gonna back Jarl Olfric, and make sure Skyrim remains for the Nords!!!

Been developing an Oculus Go app where one can teleport about the interior of a Bungalow. I must say that its been more fulfilling than most games I've played over the decades.

Hard to describe how VR feels, but one feels like Doctor Who stepping into the Tardis; a second home in another dimension!

Been nominally playing Bloodstained but I don't think its grabbing me. Thinking I'll download the Mana collection instead.

 BrookM wrote:
Ha! I'm just glad I finally got to kill that Inquisitor, after a lot of pointless travel to another part of the world to get a bottle of booze or something, I don't know, I tend to click through all the fluff text at this point as it's a lot of words to simply say "go here and do X/Y/Z"

I had help from my brother for some other stuff, including the killing of a Mud Puppy or whatever that giant lizard is called, after which he and his mate went back to the latest expansion, which involved a fifteen minute unskippable cutscene..

The amount of padding is absurd though, it's the primary reason I play it in bursts, as I cannot stand the monotony of the main story line.

At least I got to sit in his car and be driven / flown everywhere.

It'll get better fairly soon.

And not long after you finish the original Main Story Quest line at level 50, you'll be able to permantly say goodbye to The Waking Sands (aside from some optional side quests).

Also, when you finish the original MSQ, take a short break and go hunt down the start of the Hildibrand quest line. You won't regret it.

 LunarSol wrote:
Been nominally playing Bloodstained but I don't think its grabbing me. Thinking I'll download the Mana collection instead.

I like Bloostained a lot, but after the 10 hour mark I just hit a patch where I got bored. The level design is pretty meh and the enemies all just meld together.

Finished Bloodstained, but not with the good ending - like in SOTN. Beat the "lady in red" but not a scooby as to what to do next.

That is the one thing about the game that feels so off; Mirium's companions waffle on-and-on in parts where you just want to get on with playing the game, yet when you get stuck and need at least a slight hint - nothing but "hows it hanging?".

SamusDrake wrote:
Finished Bloodstained, but not with the good ending - like in SOTN. Beat the "lady in red" but not a scooby as to what to do next.

That is the one thing about the game that feels so off; Mirium's companions waffle on-and-on in parts where you just want to get on with playing the game, yet when you get stuck and need at least a slight hint - nothing but "hows it hanging?".

I noticed that too. That's the issue I have with a lot of Japanese games in general. I started playing Senran Kagura last night and it seems like fun, but having to sit through 45 minutes of rambling really was off-putting for me.

Tempted to pick up the new Vermintide pack this morning.

anyone played it?

 Togusa wrote:
705 hours Skyrim Play Time.

Never have I gone further with the main quest than "Go meet the Grey Beards"

So I rolled up an new vanilla character and I'm following through with both the main quest and the Civil War.

Decided to go stereotype and I rolled up a heavy armor/Two-Handed Nord, name Skarri. Gonna back Jarl Olfric, and make sure Skyrim remains for the Nords!!!

The Skyrim hole is never as far away as one thinks. I never finished the main quest either.

Bought Rime a while back on sale and just now started playing it. It’s been a long time since I played a explore/adventure game like this. It was a bit dull in the beginning but once it started adding some context to what’s going on I got a lot more intrigued. Now I can’t wait to finish it. It’s a nice change of pace to what I usually play.

Ion Maiden was officially released a couple of days ago, so played through that over the course of a couple of nights.

Quite good, just as it says it is in the description really, if you liked Duke 3D back then and want to play something like it again, this is your game, right down to the cringy one-liners and rather juvenile humour at times.

May return to Final Fantasy around the end of the week, payday permitting, but we'll see.

Taking a short break from Fire Emblem to play some No Man's Sky since it just got a huge update.

 Nerak wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
705 hours Skyrim Play Time.

Never have I gone further with the main quest than "Go meet the Grey Beards"

So I rolled up an new vanilla character and I'm following through with both the main quest and the Civil War.

Decided to go stereotype and I rolled up a heavy armor/Two-Handed Nord, name Skarri. Gonna back Jarl Olfric, and make sure Skyrim remains for the Nords!!!

The Skyrim hole is never as far away as one thinks. I never finished the main quest either.

Bought Rime a while back on sale and just now started playing it. It’s been a long time since I played a explore/adventure game like this. It was a bit dull in the beginning but once it started adding some context to what’s going on I got a lot more intrigued. Now I can’t wait to finish it. It’s a nice change of pace to what I usually play.

Same. I got as far as talking to Paathunax, or how is that silly flying thing called. Then I try side quests, mods, more mods, more mods, then I *uck the game up with even more mods and then I lose interest.

 Nerak wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
705 hours Skyrim Play Time.

Never have I gone further with the main quest than "Go meet the Grey Beards"

So I rolled up an new vanilla character and I'm following through with both the main quest and the Civil War.

Decided to go stereotype and I rolled up a heavy armor/Two-Handed Nord, name Skarri. Gonna back Jarl Olfric, and make sure Skyrim remains for the Nords!!!

The Skyrim hole is never as far away as one thinks. I never finished the main quest either.

Bought Rime a while back on sale and just now started playing it. It’s been a long time since I played a explore/adventure game like this. It was a bit dull in the beginning but once it started adding some context to what’s going on I got a lot more intrigued. Now I can’t wait to finish it. It’s a nice change of pace to what I usually play.

I'm having fun with it right now, just finished up supporting Ulfric, Joined up with the blades and started questing for them. I am taking a break to go and get Wulfrad for the companions because I want that sweet 2H axe before I progress any further.

Is Skyrim SE worth it you think?