I am not actually hating on the sims. I simply avoid any MMO of any sort. Oh, and there is a fourth key too, for something they call "The Sims 3 Date Night". They claim this means you will have all the DLC, but I have no idea if that is true or not. Nevermind that part. They say "All DLC will be available..." not what I read somehow. Here are some screenshots that show what it says about it and the means to redeem the keys. There is another tiny bit, but it is irrelevant and says the following: "8. That's it! You will now have additional clothing and content added in to your Sims 3 game!" So I did not bother making a screenshot of that.
Honestly, I should have guessed, but I did not know that there were mods for those games. I recently did start up games of both Fallout 1 and 2 (haven't gotten all that far in either). Maybe this will give me more of an impetus to continue. Thanks for that ).
The site that hosts those mods has many more too if you want to try something different. Those seem the most polished though. Due to the game engine, most cannot really cooperate with other mods. But most of the larger mods have all the best parts of one-another like the High Resolution patch built in. (Thankfully the modders all seem to work together and allow one-another to use the vital parts of their own mods in whatever way is desired.)
Too many good Total Conversion Mods available. I just found this one for Oblivion of all things. I will have to give it a try. (Gopher mentioned the mod it is turning into for Skyrim, but even if it were ready, I would not feel right playing the next TC without having played the first one.) Nehrim
The way The Sims 3 handles the content is fairly convoluted, but I don't get - at all - what your rant was about.
For anyone who tries this mod, note that I was only able to get it working in a weird way. I tried installing it normally several different times. Finally I realized I had to do it backwards. I installed it as it thinks things should be, then I copied the install of the game over my vanilla Oblivion install. I overwrote everything to ensure it had the right files. (If I wanted to play standard Oblivion, I could have moved my "Vanilla" modified to Nehrim install back where it thought it should be and told Steam to delete the Oblivion install that was messed up by a mod. Then I could reinstall if I wanted. Likewise if I had the free disk space to copy it out before doing this.) Ironically, the Nehrim launcher does not work as a launcher at all. It only serves the purpose of setting everything up correctly. Then the game is launched via the regular Oblivion.exe file. If anyone wants to try it, feel free to PM me if you run into problems. And presuming you get it running, note that for all practical purposes, the Black Troll is invulnerable. You can only kill it via a scripted event. (You will know it when you get to it.)
Alright. Screw Nehrim. That game is way too tough to even figure out. I would have to read spoilers on the forums to even figure out where I am supposed to go and what I am supposed to do. And all that so they can *Not* break immersion? That is a failure. Having some detailed starter quests would be a good way to begin once you get out of the mine. But I am not going to bother with this one anymore.
I tried it myself and had pretty much the same problems. No idea what to do or where to go. I explored a little and it never cleared up. I finally said no thanks and deleted everything. You pretty much have to delete everything as it overwrites core Oblivion game files so that game is worthless unless you back it up first. I hate mods that require this. I can see installing an unofficial patch to fix game issues and to make modding a little easier but making the core game unplayable just to play one mod, no thank you.
I actually went a bit further than the mine and even did the starter deity quest. But I had no idea where I was supposed to go to progress any in the game. At first it felt like a reworked Oblivion that was significantly harder, but as time wore on, I was more and more disappointed with how little direction there is. They just need a big fat "Idiot Mode" button to click to get a map marker added to something a bit more easy to follow. I gave up after no less than around 20 hours in game. And I finally decided that if I had to go read the forums to play the game, I may as well just read them and not bother playing. Sad. It really did feel polished, but still lacking.
I have been playing Risen 2 for the last few days. I like it despite the flaws. Voodoo is absolutely useless in every sense except for the few rare occasions you make a control doll for a NPC. (It is required to progress though, but only two times before you get the boat.) The game can be very hard, yet it is impossible to die once you have enough grog/rum and provisions. (With specific exception for instant death traps and falling from great heights.) I like the game, but have a question for those of you who have played it. Anyone know if the DLCs are worth playing? And do I have to start over to play them, or can I buy them and have the content simply expanded to include that? The DLCs are not cheap though, they each cost $10. If they are genuine expansions like Night of the Raven was to Gothic 2, then they will be worthwhile. But I have no idea if they actually are. There are two DLCs that *Look* like expansion packs, and then some garbage gear for an extra $3. If they were cheaper I would just buy them and find out, but $20 to learn I have to start over would royally piss me off.
I'm not playing a whole lot right now, but I did buy Sid Meier's Ace Patrol after Mooms mentioned it on Twitter, which lead me to look into it and I went "sod it" and bought it. Done two of the four British campaigns, and aside from the horrendous accents it's quite good. Simple to play, hard to master, I'd reckon. But now I'm just waiting on Total War: Rome II to unlock, and for Crypt of the NecroDancer to release (I've paid for both).
I'd been considering getting the Sid Meier's game, but then noticed there's a free version for Ios -- just haven't had a chance to give it a try yet.
1. The free version for iOS sells each of the nations as IAP. The free version will only let you play 1/4 through the british campaign and then stops. 2. This is more for Loer: For what it's worth, all "campaigns" are identical in that they are randomly generated. You can expect roughly the same experience with other countries' "campaigns", just with different unlockable skills and planes.
I played the first 3 missions on the Ios version, and it's moderately fun. I'll decide if I want to continue with it when I finish the free part. Or maybe I'll wait for a better sale. It actually reminds me a lot of an old non-computer game, "Ace of Aces": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_of_Aces_(picture_book_game). It actually was a little bit more sophisticated (at least if you used the Advanced rules set). It was cool and extremely clever because there was a system where each player secretly chose a maneuver, which resulted in a page number that was passed to the other player. You opened the book to the right page and you'd get a view from your cockpit HOPEFULLY of the enemy plane. It was, essentially a two-player, 2-book choose-your-own-adventure book with WWI fighters. And there were multiple books available representing different planes with their own speed and maneuverability and maneuver options so on. The game even took the torque of the propeller into account, so that some planes were much more maneuverable when turning right, rather than left.
This sounded cool: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/994700393/ace-of-aces-rotary-series-limited-edition-reprint-0 except that as I scanned some of the updates, it seems that the artist may have baled on the project. Oh well. My only point was that the Sid Meier's game reminded me of "Ace of Aces" because of the simultaneous choices of different maneuvers, and if you can get your hands on it, it's a fast-playing kind of cool 2-player game. The same principle was applied to various other types of games, such as duels and so on (never played any of the other variants, just "Ace of Aces").
It's a simple turn-based tactical WWI dogfight simulation with some very minor rpg element in that your pilots can learn new maneuvers, and get upgrades after missions. It's nothing like Pirates.