I’m one of those people that falls victim to the regular Steam sales. I love them, and being able to buy games at a steep discount results in “acquisition disorder” whereby my list of unplayed games grows ever longer.
To combat this, I decided to spend some time combing through my collection and uninstall ones I don’t like. My tastes in games tend towards RPGs, strategy, puzzlers, platformers, RTS, tower defense, stealth action, etc. and not so much in the FPS genre. Come to think of it, I could have just said that of all the genres of games, my least favorite are FPSes. 😉
Part of that reason is that I’m one of the people that gets motion sick while playing an FPS. This goes all the way back to the original Doom, which gave us a great FPS and the acronym DIMS, for Doom Induced Motion Sickness. Doom made me queasy, but I was determined to finish the game so I played it in ~30 min chunks.
So it is somewhat ironic that the game in my collection that I am currently working through is Bioshock Infinite. I picked this up for 80% not too long ago, and decided it was time to check it out.
Stained Glass Window
The graphics are fantastic, there are great non-obtrusive cues (Hit ENTER to do some action, then in-game the character says something), action is good… but I can only play about 30 mins before I need to stop.
I’m not too far in, and it remains to be seen if I’ll get to the end (not sure if I’m motivated enough to fight the vertigo), but I’m enjoying it so far.
I know many gamers are eagerly awaiting the Oculus Rift. For me, that thing sounds like a torture device. I am 99% sure that wearing that while playing a game would result in me throwing up. Nevertheless I think it is cool, even if I will probably be unable to use one.
Reading about Syp picking up DDO again, at least for the month of August, made me reinstall the game and fiddle around. That plus I recently found an amazing guide for my favorite class, the Monk. So I skimmed over the Book of Syncletica, mostly to drool over the capabilities that higher level monks get, and then decided to roll up another one.
I took the advice and started from level 1, rather than use Veteran Status to boost higher. What the heck. Maybe I’ll spend August revisiting MMOs I haven’t played in a while, as other bloggers work on getting in a post a day. 🙂
Anyway, after finishing the short tutorial (again, but it’s good for me since I haven’t played in a while), I investigated the crypt in town. Yep, nothing like creepy stuff happening with monsters and odd noises from the crypt – hey do YOU want to investigate what’s going on?? Hehe.
Necromancer
I found out what the problem was. Apparently unknown to the townsfolk, they are being invaded by fish creatures who seek to raise the dead using various altars. Fortunately, I happened by and was able to kill everything and also destroy their equipment, ending this particular threat. 😉
Enhancements
Later I was confronted with the new enhancements panel. Whoa that’s a lot of stuff. Good time to break and skim through Syncletica’s book!
I have also slacked off magnificently in GW2. After using a birthday present (level to 20) and then a birthday xp scroll (bonus xp for 24 hours in-game) I stopped when Glyneth hit 71. So my goal today was to reach 72, and also peck away towards 80 throughout the month of August. When Glyneth hits 80 she’ll join Aurora as my other 80, and then I’ll decide between picking up the living story on one of them, or perhaps working on Summer, my level 40ish mesmer. 😉
I logged in and started working on quest hearts. Originally, I don’t remember much fanfare when completing a heart. In a later update, I remember ArenaNet adding a flying dove animation. Now, you get a blinky/shaky icon in the corner and a nice big message about the rewards you will receive upon hitting “accept”:
Heart Completion
I think this is nice, maybe not totally necessary, but fine with me. At least you can choose when to get the reward, when the action dies down a bit – in case you complete in the middle of a large fight.
Speaking of large fight, that’s when Glyneth hit 72. I worked my way to the pirates in the middle of the Gendarran Fields, and fought along side a few others who showed up. I got the level up notice, but was too slow to grab a screenshot. Which was good, because at the time we were fighting a big group of cutthroats!
Level 72
Anyway, after the fight was over I ran to the waypoint just to the north, and spent my new trait points on Quick Draw in the skirmishing line, to reduce the cooldown on my skills. I’ll see how that works out (I’m not sure there is something better to take right now).
I have been slacking in LoTRO for weeks, so tonight I decided to move Naerys along the Vol 3 Book 13 epic storyline another step.
After logging in, I had to assign trait points again. Yeah, I guess it has been a while. Naerys was a Fighter of Shadow before, and this time around I thought I’d try something a little different, Keen Blade.
Spec Needed
I still plan to play Naerys with a club and shield, like any proper hobbit guardian. Despite not having a “sharp” weapon, many of her new skills apply bleeds… hmm. Best not think about that too much. 😉
Keen Blade
The next problem was finding Aragorn. The quest arrow pointed off to infinity (27000+ meters away) so I knew something was wrong. After looking for a while I gave up and consulted the Palantír Google for help and found an extremely helpful post. Aha, wrong timeline, need to use items on the table next to the NPC – of course, how obvious, how did I ever miss that?!
I may have stumbled on this entirely by accident, since if I couldn’t find any help, I was going to cancel the quest and retake it – this might have led me to redoing enough to wind up in the correct timeline. But holy smokes those are some unintuitive steps.
After gathering men to listen to Aragorn’s speech, and some praise for me – at least I think so; now that I read that again I think Aragorn may be making a hobbit joke!!! 😉 – the instance ended.
Praise, or hobbit joke
My plan was to finish the next epic battle, but I spent too much time figuring out how to find Aragorn. So rather than miss sleep and be a grumpy hobbit I will adventure in the next epic battle another time.
I logged back in to check on my scanning ability, but another corpmate already made bookmarks. So I, being somewhat lazy, just used those ones instead of performing my own scan.
I was able to run the various errands I needed to for Aurora and Summer. But I ran out of time and left Autumn for another day.
That day was yesterday. The corp bookmarks were old, so I had some motivation to scan for myself. And fortunately, I found that whatever glitch that gave me 0% resolution, was now fixed – I was able to scan to 100% and found my own N110 to hisec. I was relieved, because this is a fundamental ability for a wormhole dweller!
The exit led to Uttindar, fairly close to Dodixie, so I gathered up goods from the planets Autumn is farming, and set a course for the market.
Enroute to Dodixie
Once there I sold my cargo for a cool (to me) 164 million ISK. A few more months of this and I’ll have a nice cushion of ISK on all my chars! I’m tempted to train up PI on Aurora… if I can tear myself away from training up her missile skills and bigger ship skills (tech 2 Cruisers, Battleships, etc.)
After returning to the wormhole, I colonized a 6th planet, a gas planet that will produce yet more coolant for Autumn. I’m getting pretty handy at setting up these days:
Gas Planet setup
This is a standard setup: 2 extractors which feed 4 basic industry facilities that feed 2 advanced industry facilities. Everything routes through the launchpad, which also collects the final product (coolant).
I’m experimenting slightly with this planet, and set a 6 day 22 hour extraction cycle. I’m just curious how much worse (or better) it will do versus the 3 day (in actuality 2 day 22 hour) cycles I set. Basically, less maintenance on a weekly basis…
Autumn and Summer are closing in on Command Center Upgrades 5. They are both running 6 planets, and soon will be able to upgrade to the largest planetary command center for the additional power boost. That will come in handy for more extractor heads after the necessary building and links are created. Out of the 12 planets I’m doing PI on, 9 or 10 are fine with the power/cpu that CCU4 provides, but those 2 or 3 other ones could use a little bit more. Soon… next time I check on my factories I’ll be ready to upgrade the ones that need it.
I broke down and bought Divinity: Original Sin, without waiting for a Steam sale (the horror!!) and so far, I’m enjoying it. Computer RPGs and I go way back, starting with Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, on an Apple 2 back in… 1982 I guess.
After playing a bit, I looked over my Steam library of games, to see which RPGs I have. Those were:
Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition
Baldur’s Gate 2: Enhanced Edition
Deus Ex: GOTY
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Divinity: Original Sin
Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind
Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion
Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim
Fallout 3: GOTY
Fallout New Vegas
Jade Empire
Mass Effect
Mass Effect 2
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Titan Quest
I know some of these straddle the line of FPS and RPG, but I’d classify Deus Ex and Mass Effect more on the RPG side, as opposed to Borderlands/Borderlands 2 and the Bioshock series, which are more on the FPS side. Also, I didn’t include Torchlight or Torchlight 2 since they fall more and the action-clicky side for me. I’m arbitrarily deciding that the game needs a certain amount of complexity of char growth (skills, talent trees, whatever) in order to make my already long list, I don’t mean to throw these great games under the bus.
That’s just Steam; GOG purchases I’ve made are:
Baldur’s Gate: Complete
Baldur’s Gate 2: Complete
Fallout
Fallout 2
Icewind Dale: Complete
Icewind Dale 2: Complete
Neverwinter Nights: Diamond
Neverwinter Nights 2: Complete
Planescape: Torment
The Witcher: Enhanced Edition: Director’s Cut
Wizardry 6
Wizardry 7
Wizardry 8
I’ve purchased Baldur’s Gate/Baldur’s Gate 2 at GOG and Steam. What can I say; the GOG purchase was on some crazy discount, and the Steam purchase was probably through a sale (I can’t remember exactly) and the fact is the Steam purchase is really nice since those versions have modern resolutions.
These lists could grow a bit more depending on whether “stealth action open world” games belong. If so, add in Thief, Thief 2, Thief Gold, System Shock 2, the Assassin’s Creed series… heck perhaps the newest Tomb Raider qualifies (and I have this game as well).
My wishlist on Steam includes Wasteland 2; over on GOG I have Wasteland and Witcher 2. Yeah, the original resolution of Wasteland would make my eyes bleed but if it gets cheap enough, I’d pick it up just to have it. 😉
Basically, I really enjoy RPGs.
Meanwhile, the MMOs I have currently installed are:
Age of Conan
EVE Online
Fallen Earth
Guild Wars
Guild Wars 2
Lord of the Rings Online
The Secret World
Age of Wushu and Dungeon & Dragons Online get installed and uninstalled depending, but they are both currently not installed.
The point of all this is that I’ve come to realize that what I like about CRPGs – storyline, character development, self-paced advancement, etc. has bled over into how I play an MMO.
In a single player game, I proceed carefully, build up a certain amount of character/party strength before tackling a tougher challenge. I use quicksaves so that losses/defeats set me back a little but not too much. So when I play an MMO, I also proceed slowly and carefully, minimize risk, avoid PvP, etc. and wind up playing them mostly solo. I group, but I think that wouldn’t amount to more than 20% of time.
In many ways, the original Guild Wars was perfect for me because I could play it like an RPG; it featured henchmen and heroes so I could direct my group just like I would in a single-player game. Yet if I wanted to group I could, or jump into Alliance Battle without loss of items, etc.
One super feature of the CRPG is being able to pause/save and walk away, whereas an MMO is a bit more demanding – ideally I could block a chunk of time off and not get interrupted for that duration, but that is tough for me to arrange.
So, I’m pecking my way through Divinity: Original Sin. The graphics and soundtrack are great so far. I got destroyed in an early fight and decided to restart with a different mix of characters, so I’m working through the first dungeon again:
MMO Juggler 