Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I've been on a Skyrim kick myself recently, continuing with my post-Dawnguard paladin character who is now beginning to experiment a little with destruction magic and dual-wielding weapons (just because Nordic swords/axes are too cool to only have one of). The Main Quest remains blissfully ignored for the most part, with most of my efforts going into finishing off the various Vampire quests and sorting out Solstheim.

This 'random start' mod sounds great, I take it it gives you much more freedom with the early development of your character? I wish someone, somewhere, would work out how to mod on Xbox.

 Paradigm wrote:
I've been on a Skyrim kick myself recently, continuing with my post-Dawnguard paladin character who is now beginning to experiment a little with destruction magic and dual-wielding weapons (just because Nordic swords/axes are too cool to only have one of). The Main Quest remains blissfully ignored for the most part, with most of my efforts going into finishing off the various Vampire quests and sorting out Solstheim.

This 'random start' mod sounds great, I take it it gives you much more freedom with the early development of your character? I wish someone, somewhere, would work out how to mod on Xbox.

Oh yeah, it gives you a ton more freedom. Aside from spawning you in a random location on the map (possibly even in the bowels of a Dwemer ruin deep underground!), it lets you choose a starting kit of weapons, gear, and potions based on what kinda character you wanna play. There are 3 main categories of kits - Mage, Warrior, and Stealth.

~Tim?

Definitely gonna try that one out next run. Might wait for winter though as it seems appropriate. Maybe fish for a few other mods to further modify difficulty or blend with the random start a little.

 Paradigm wrote:

This 'random start' mod sounds great, I take it it gives you much more freedom with the early development of your character? I wish someone, somewhere, would work out how to mod on Xbox.

There are also mods that monkey with stats and skills on character creation, I use the Character creation Overhaul mods. Most of the mods I have installed make the game pretty and they do a really good job.

The random start mod is exactly that; its entirely possible that you will spawn somewhere incredibly dangerous, there are apparently 463 different start locations. The first time I tried it I spawn next to a dungeon that I obviously entered only to get annihilated to the first beastie I met but anything is better than the irritating scripted sequence at the start of the game.

Another excellent mod is Lockpick Pro, its effectively a cheat that makes the irritating lockpicking mini game trivially easy.

Going back to some Skyrim.

...as in download 10+ essential mods, install and hope for the game not to crash at startup.

Back before my laptop broke, I had 170+ HOUSE mods.
Also, I got to 100 in all magic except enchantment and restoration.
Now that being a Mage isn't as difficult anymore, I put away my robes and put my dragon armour with daedric helmet back on.
Once I get my enchantment to 100 I'l probably smith/enchant/improve a new set of armour. Might even put my daedric battle-axe away and use a sword and shield. But probably not, I like my battle-axe.

Getting my *ss kicked in xenonauts. That game is not taking prisoners. I can do alright in it but somewhere towards the later stages of the game I seem to have screwed myself. I need more funds and they just aren't there.

Grinding, grinding, grinding...

Almost have a new mount.

Why do I enjoy this?

There's some little part of your brain that likes the repetition probably, and the reward. WoW, and mmos in general, are basically one big Skinner box.

All of Rogue Legacy's Remix bosses defeated. Too hard some people say? IMPOSSIBRU?! AH, DONE!

Traitor class unlocked and considering how OP it is, it's time to, putting it mildly, rape the crap outta the normal bosses and monsters. Payback is gonna be a b*tch.

As I can't manage to make much else work on my laptop (screw you Ubuntu) I've installed Project Zomboid. I originally tried to run it ages ago on another computer, but it kept bugging out. Now its running fine. I'm on my first character and somehow haven't died yet. Twenty five days in and I have a nice little fortified house in the middle of the suburbs, and yet it hasn't been besieged once (though I'm waiting for the inevitable horde to turn up and murder my character any day now). At the moment its a scramble to put together rain collectors and set up some crops, as even though I have plenty of non perishable food I'm wary of the power and water going out. One thing I would change (I'm playing sandbox) is setting the days to be longer. The current half hour of sunlight (days are an hour long) is only really enough to check out one or two houses before it becomes dark. With the distance to unlooted buildings becoming longer soon enough my character will either have to be travelling at night, or eventually holding up somewhere (which given how fortified their home is, I'm loathe to hide in an apartment with just a sheet over the window and a rough barricade on the door).

Overall though its a fun game. The resolution could be higher and I'd appreciate it if the view distance was extended (though I suppose that forces players to slink about the back streets). Moving about homes could be better, as currently, at least for me, my character's vision doesn't pop in quite right (as in when moving up a set of stairs to the first floor one has to move out of the stairwell onto the level before you can see anything there. This is a problem when zombies have broken into the house and are loitering about there, as I once found out). Combat's decent, and I kind of like crapping myself whenever a zombie starts grappling with my character as an easy job can quickly turn into a fight for your life (I don't know how one becomes scratched, but luckily that hasn't happened yet). I don't think that I should be using guns at all, but I have a couple stockpiled in my character's bedroom in case of a siege (I've blockaded the inside of the house so the zombies have to break through a few barricades whilst I can shoot at them). As good as things are going for my character right now, I know that one day they'll walk into a back room somewhere or be walking down the street only to be onset by more zombies than can be delt with. I don't know if there's any way to treat an infectious bite, but right now I'm regarding it as a death sentence. So whenever that does happen I think I'll have them scoff down every jar of mayonnaise there is to hand then, racoon plushy in hand, have them jump out of the first floor bathroom window as many times as it takes to make the pain go away (....uh unless they break their legs or something and wind up dying of exposure in the middle of the street).

Man... I kind of feel sorry for your game, poor thing is getting brutalized.


Been 'shopping' skyrim mods, think I may look into iNeed and one of the extra wilderness encounter mods to go along with random alternate start. That way I have to worry about dodging groups of enemies, AND eating/drinking/sleeping, all from a random non-superheroic start.

I got the new expansion for COH2 yesterday The Western Armies, and much to my supprise I am liking it, Some of the new units are like a god sent towards people whom refuses to give ground, and fortify it like mad.
That and early AC rush can now be counterd by a hail of ligth cannon and MG fire couretsy of the US faction

I haven't gone back to Skyrim since the computer I has it installed on died, what two years ago? The problem with Bethesda sandbox games that you need to install so many mods to play them properly, and well I can't remember each and every one of them. I went back to New Vegas last year only to find many of the mods I felt were great to be no longer available (I'm meaning the Fallout 3 ones too, which is like six years old now). Even further back is Morrowind, which I replayed just before New Vegas and found the same issue. Ideally then if I'm going to replay Skyrim I'd buy myself something that can run all the shader mods, as otherwise I'm not touching that time sink with a barge pole (my steam profile states I have 400 hours in Skyrim, but I know that's way wrong as, like both of the new Fallout games Steam doesn't record your hours if you're running a script extender. Which is saying that the 800 hours I have in New Vegas are totally not a fraction of what I actually played ).

As far as mods for Skyrim (and well most games actually) I suggest one which increases damage by about four times the norm, but also makes armour much stronger. I made my own modpack of a couple of dozen item mods (not just armour and weapons, but plenty of generic loot too. Hell I sat there and downloaded images of ancient coins, not just nordic, but of Akaviri and pre-Imperial Morrowind too, and put together a currency mod) to make the game more varied. I'm not so into mods which add new creatures, or at least how they chose to implement them. Again I love extra variety, but for some reason when someone adds new creatures they feel like they need to increase spawn rates so players are guaranteed to see them. See I prefer being able to walk about for lengths of time just enjoying the scenery, not having to fend off Nightmare_Beasty_#11 for the twentieth time in the past five minutes. Immersion mods like hunger systems are a must too, though I also quite liked the weather system ones as well (ie the one where you could freeze to death if you weren't wearing the right clothing or exposed in a snow storm. ...Given my character at the time wore a jacket and trousers more suited to Souther climes, they needed quite a large magicka pool to keep all those fire balls lit).

My favorite Skyrim mod is the "alternate start" mod, which lets you choose how you want to start, including being a house owner, a hunter, some Necromancer in a cave, and so forth, including some options only for certain races.

Yeah i like that one also, a few of them give you too much good loot though.

I like just picking 'i was attacked and left for dead' as there is a tense 5-10 minutes of finding a weapon of some sort, sometimes you can be spawned in some nasty places.

Still playing Witcher 2, got to act 2.

Wait till you get to the end of Roche's path in Act 2. It isn't pretty.

Level 61 baby.

Hmm here's a thought. I've got a Asus Transformer tablet/laptop hybrid thingie. It isn't the cheapest one, but it isn't the high end model either. I'm stuck to mouse and keyboard while using it (unless I get bored enough to get a usb hub and bring my N52 back into the game).

You guys have any suggestions for a bit of an older game that has aged particularly well? I may go back to IWD2 which it runs fine. I can get it to do fine for mount and blade but I'm burnt out there, and starbound I'm waiting for full release. Anything come out lately, maybe something indy or just simpler than usual, that you might suggest?

I'd like to play skyrim but I'll leave that for the desktop in the winter (less work hours then), but it would be nice to play something adventurous sooner. Something you can put down/save/pause frequently since the toddler likes to climb on me while I'm using it

Thanks for any advice

What kind of game are you looking for?

Hitman Blood Money and contracts are fun Steath/puzzle/action games that run on older systems.

Dirty cheap atm

http://www.gog.com/promo/summer_hitman_bundle_200614

Theif 1-2 and deadly shadows are good too, though I remember you not liking it much.

Have you played planescape tourment? Similar gameplay wise to Baldurs gate but far more story focused than IWD.

Fallout 1 & 2 are also both excellent.

Could give Oblivon or Morrowind a try if you are in the mood for some eldar scrolls action.

The combat in the original Witcher game isnt great but the game itself is pretty fun and the story and characters are intresting.

Installed Requiem for Skyrim.

Holy melon-fething gak, THIS is what Skyrim should have been like. It becomes an actual RPG again. Like...holy cow. Amazing mod. I am baffled.

So what does it do then?

I'm exploring ARMA 3, nothing too serious, still trying to find my way around the keyboard.

 Paradigm wrote:
So what does it do then?

lots
There are 8 pages of general notes on the changes. Basically the game seems to have been made a lot harder, leveling has been altered, the world is no longer linked to your level and lots and lots of other changes.

It seems interesting but I don't think that I wold enjoy it.

That sounds somewhat interesting. I wonder a bit if I would really like it either... usually playing through someone else's vision of 'how a game should have been' rubs me the wrong way for some reason. But who knows, it could be cool, game does tend to get overly easy. I'll have to check that one out before I finalize my mod list and try playing the game again.

@Carlos thanks!

I may already have the hitman game from a steam sale a couple of years ago. I own Planescape Torment, just haven't tried it yet. Might, not a bad idea. Thief may not be a bad idea either. I wonder if my poor little rig would be willing to run Oblivion, would be cool if it would though. I tried fallout1 and couldn't do it once. Maybe I'll try it again sometime.

If oblivon doesnt work morrowwind almost certainly will. Its a great game with a lot of freedom even if a little dated.

Skyrim: Requiem is a complete overhaul that aims to make Skyrim a lot more realistic - and it achieves said goal. Extremely higher immersion than before but the difficulty spiked as well - arrows are extremely deadly vs. lightly armored enemies (and you!) as they should rightfully be, stamina is more important, the combat system is improved...so many changes. It's a completely different and, to me, far superior experience.

Mods like Requiem and Skyrim Redone are the sorts of things I tend to leave until after I've beat the game at least once.

Skyrim Redone is the one I'm looking at the most- it's similar to Requiem, but from a different person's perspective of what the game should/could have been.

Also, did you ever hear that the AI and Radiant Quest system in Skyrim was actually dumbed down before release? The world used to act a lot different- more like an actual place, with what you did truly affecting things- but apparently it was either too hard or too weird for the playtesters, so they went and made it more 'traditional RPG'.

SkyRe(done) is the vanilla game with a few very good improvements. Requiem is a huge overhaul. If you have not yet finished the game, I highly recommend doing so first!

So, after a long hiatus, I reinstalled both Starcraft 2 and Company of Heroes 2.

See, I really love Wargame: Red Dragon, but it's currently awaiting a mega-patch/free-DLC update to the factions I enjoy the most, along with the whole dynamic of the game is being looked at (for a Cold War strategy game, no one is using tanks, it's all special-forces and helos), so I'm taking a break until it changes.

Therefore, as I'm primarily an RTS player, I wanted to go back to games I didn't spend much time with. SC2, while I felt it had one of the best traditional RTS campaigns I've ever played, is something I never really tried online.

Well, now I have, and let me sum it up for you: Koreans be Scary.

Lots of games have specific communities which excel at it; the Men of War series, another favourite of mine, is dominated by teams of particularly hardcore Russians. If you see Cyrillic in chat, you know you're going to be fighting for your life. Starcraft, well most people know about its particular community; hell, it's the only videogame I know of broadcasted like sports, so similarly in fact that I can't watch it, I can't stand vapid sports broadcasting.

But back on subject, I got murdered, horribly, repeatedly, and I quickly realized Starcraft doesn't really cater to the kind of RTS elements I'm good with. It's sort of a "twitch" RTS; correct use of hotkeys, actions-per-minute, and manually controlling build ques and blocks of different units with no active AI makes it a very busy game. I see why it's kind of the holy grail of competitive games, but I think I'll stick to co-op comp-stomps (as the AI is actually very competent; Hard just isn't "it cheats more," it's actually hard, using tactics players have used, to say nothing of Harder and Brutal), and the excellent campaign, especially as the campaign has a lot more units to play around with, not being concerned with e-sports balancing.

As for CoH, I loved and played the hell out of the original for years, but I got disillusioned on how the two base factions played like their equivalents in CoH. Especially as the Soviets played just like the USA, and I was, and still am terribad with that particular playstyle, so I couldn't bring Pure Communism to my enemies effectively. I figured I'd give it another shot, especially with two newish armies to spice things up. We'll see how that goes.