What games are you playing and why?

Is Dark Souls really as hard as people seem to claim? I have heard it is as hard as Nethack was in the day. I may have to install and try it.

*Edit* I left out a single letter. r_b_bergstrom made a whole joke post about it. Bravo.

 

Is "Dark Sous" that game where you try to work your way up the hierarchy of evil chefs? I could never get past that "Chef de Partie" miniboss. His "Glace de Poisson" attack just did too much damage over time.

 

Oh ewww, fish flavor icecream.

 

But you do know there is a racial trait which gives resistance to this taste, right? Right?


On that note, I'm playing “Bionic Dues” now, for whatever reason. It's actually a decent rogue-like-ish game, and of note is the fact that you have a team of 4 exos (mechs, which are your “characters”), but they function like different modes of a single machine.

So far ... hmm, I managed to get horribly maimed and perish twice, and I'm on my third run. But I'll succeed someday, maybe even this year.

PS. And the main menu music is really nice.

 

It's an Arcen game, so I assume the composer is Pablo Vega. And yes, he's good.

 

I had fun with Bionic Dues, but for some reason never bothered to complete my last game. One of these days...
I'm mostly playing old games like MoO. I did try briefly to play Talisman again, but finding the game (which is early access) to still be too buggy, and briefly tried playing Endless Space again, since I saw that I'd missed a few updates, and had a CTD after a bit. Played some of the closed alpha of Dungeonmans, but found that the UI is too problematic for me atm (I'll try again after next update). In some ways, imho, it was a step backwards from the summer preview.

BTW, I did preorder ESO. It's official release date (4/4/14) is very close to my birthday so it's an early birthday present for myself.

 

Not really. If you go into it expecting an incredibly difficult game you'll be disappointed. It's fairly forgiving as long as you get your head around the idea that you'll probably die once or twice before you figure out how to get through each boss or especially difficult group of enemies. There are a few segments of the game that are absolute bullcrap, but it's a game you can reasonably expect to beat in about 40 hours on the first run and in 2-5 hours after that.

I think the difficulty of Dark Souls is really overstated. It's not a game that tutorializes well, so playing it blind you'll need to basically learn the mechanics with no help. I think the best way to play it is by spoiling yourself enough to know what each stat actually does.

 

I need to finish Mass Effect, I'm on Virmire, near the end but... I just feel like I need to get it over with so I can move on to the next game in the franchise.

Having fun with Dead Island, but mostly I'm playing Hearthstone at the moment.

 

I thought you lived in Sweden, Aegho. Shouldn't your heritage would render you immune to all the most unholy things that can be done with or to fish? Isn't that the racial resistance trait Kazeto was eluding to? I spent a month in Sweden two decades ago, and the fish still haunt me. Lutefisk, surströmming, fiskbullar, janssons frestelse... Swedish fish did so much psychological trauma to me in that month, I still run screaming at the sight of the Haribo bear.

 

The very same, yes. Although it is possible that Aegho chose another racial trait, like the one which gave bonus to cold resistance or something ...

On that note, still playing Bionic Dues. It's fun how some enemies have those really weird gimmicks; nothing major in comparison to the other roguelikes, but it's still nice.

 

Newest build of Dungeonmans closed alpha is out and it's a whole lot better than the original release. Again, it still feels like an alpha, but it's now back to a state where I feel I can enjoy it, so I've been playing it a bit more.

FYI: apparently there are beta keys available for Elder Scrolls Online available at www.curse.com. I cannot say anything else about this, other than the fact that there is a closed beta session starting Friday at noon. I hope to be there.

 

Bah, registered only to find out you have to be a paying member of curse to participate in the key giveaway... *sigh*, never mind then.

 

A Curse upon them, eh? Eh? EH?

 

Well it's not like it's going to be a game worth getting anyway, it's in triple dipping monetization hell. What with extra expensive preorder collector edition race exclusives on top of already expensive box price, and then you need to pay sub fees, AND it has a cash shop.

 

PS: Considering the naked greed cash-grabs, I'm gonna call it. They know their game isn't that good, so they're milking it for all they can before the news spreads.

 

Other than the Race thing, this is actually typical for triple-A games on release, with the exception of Guild Wars. Race thing, though, is admittedly odd, but Champions Online, and D&D Online and EQ2 (and now LotRO) do similar things -- charge extra for classes or races, so it's not THAT shocking -- the only difference here is this is more honest. Know what sucks more? When I tried EQ2 and CO after they both went F2P, I could no longer access my old characters without paying, because they were suddenly considered 'premium content'. That's obscene, and kind of a bait and switch. What Zenimax is doing is a lot more honest at least.

In any case, a Cash Shop + Subscription is also fairly typical for subscription games -- main difference here is that there is only a relatively short history of sub games having a cash shop on day 1. Nearly all sub games, though, get one eventually. I know that it's a common complaint, but it's a complaint that has me scratching my head, unless you only play F2P games and refuse to pay a sub at all.

If you know how much you are willing to pay to play a game, and this is over that amount, then that's your real complaint. Not the 'monetization'. Complain that it's too expensive. I get that it's expensive. I don't get the moral outrage though.

 

The problem being: this game was supposed to be based on races in alliances and all that. Thus, what they did with the pre-order and the collector's edition, while perhaps sensible from an outsider's point of view, is for many potential players a major turn-off.

Like for me ... my friend convinced me to get the game and now after seeing the word “exclusive” on something that costs more money from the get-go–which, unless they don't know what “exclusive” means themselves, is a problem because that means it will not be possible to just pay some money to get the extra things and one has to get that particular stuff that is available now–I stopped caring about it, really. I didn't care about the fact that there is a subscription fee (I could take it) or about the fact that there is supposed to be a cash shop (playing with friends, so we wouldn't care), but the very fact that a part of the game is supposed to never be available to me unless I pay more money from the start (and here games of this sort cost a lot more to us, because of the currency exchange rates) on top of that was the wafer thin mint that made me stop caring.

And the funniest thing is, had it not been for the word “exclusive”–that one particular word, really–I wouldn't care if we had to pay some real money to play imperials because I wanted to play a Breton.


All in all, honest or not, right or wrong in however way you think it might possibly be, I still think their marketing department screwed them over with that particular bit. Maybe they gained some extra money with that stuff, but because of the stupid “exclusive” they lost a likely noticeable amount of potential players.

That's it from me, “exclusive”. Because I don't care if I have to pay for a part of the game I might or might not want. I care that this part is supposed to be forever lost for me unless I pay more, blindly, from the get-go. And it's likely to be a very common reason for the outrage amongst complainers. Because it's not even an honest cash barrier, really, all due to that one stupid word.

 

As I said, it's odd, and I don't disagree with you that it's bad marketing. That said, I'm reasonably certain that playing an imperial will be available from the cash shop, if not immediately, eventually, simply because people will want it, and they know they can sell it. How the price will compare with the price differential of the premium edition, I have no idea. Cash shop items in most games, seem really extravagant (a few games have more reasonable pricing but far too many of them are outrageous).

It is a lot of money though. Which is why it's good to be certain that you'll want to actually play the game before you pay for it. It's a gamble, and that's the hard part. The monetization model is NOT an ethics issue the way too many people have been depicting it. It's a marketing issue. IF you like the game enough to play it for 7 months, you'll probably pay between $130.00-150.00, depending on term discounts (say $60.00 for the first month, maybe $70.00 for a 6 month sub as a guess). The initial cost gets amortized over the course of play -- the longer you play, the less significant it is. You also are paying a premium because you are there on day one (instead of waiting for the inevitable price drops or sales. So, in other words, if you like the game but have a problem with the money, don't buy it on day one. Wait a year. Most of the time if it's still around, it will be a better game then anyway..

Like it or not, but $15.00 per month seems to be the price point for subscriptions. It might have been more reasonable had they charged only $20.00 for the box and $20.00 per month thereafter, but in spite of it actually being better for the consumer, people are dumb and won't pay that.

/edit -- ok, it's not better to pay $20.00 per month for everyone -- just for people who are unsure of whether they want to continue or not. Clearly, it's a bad deal if you get hooked on the game lol.