What video game are you playing?

[Underseer]

I know this is a day late and a dollar short, but that one time I used that Steam Link app to play Civilization 6 on my Android tablet, I stopped using the tablet and switched to streaming to my laptop. At the end of the day, when i went to my desktop, there were two different instances of Civilization 6 running on the desktop.

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Any time I finish up a particular long and engaging game, I go through some weird ennui*. I have a hard time getting into something new, because I am still in the mindset of the game I just finished. It tends to make it difficult for me to go from one immersive game to another without something shorter and less invested in the middle. Over the past year, my "in-between" games have been things like Dishonored, Prey, Tomb Raider, and even Ratchet & Clank. They're good, solid games, but there's a bit of remove from the characters and the focus is more on the game-play than the character development.

Having just recently finished replaying Witcher 3 (which is a really long game with all the DLCs in there), I'm now replaying Portal 2. It's been years since I've played that one, and it is just as much fun as it was the first time though!


*I do the same thing with books. I love long sagas... but I always end up reading something short and "fluffy" when I'm done, because I just can't get back into a new saga yet.

What about using casual games as in-betweeners?

Those are my casual games!

What did you have in mind?

I dunno. I don't play casual games as much as I used to ever since in app purchases soured me on the whole concept. Bejeweled variants and Mah Jong games are generally my go-to games these days on mobile devices.

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Started the Rise and Fall of Civ 6. I like the loyalty and Governors and how you earn new golden ages. I seem to be getting a handle on it, but I've only played a few half games through on Prince. I really want to try the Mech Warrior game you all are talking about when I get the funds.

I thought I was doing well in my current game, but it looks like yet again, I'm going to achieve victory while in a dark age. I'm going to have to look at that and figure out what I'm doing wrong.

 

[Terrell]

I'll know in a few months of the newly announced Fallout 76 can tear me away from Skyrim. Can't wait to see what the good folks at Nexus mods do for this game.

 

[KeepTalking]

Not sure how you are supposed to obtain the other gauss rifle, but that Highlander is an indispensable mech at this point, mostly owing to the massive heat sinks it has. I can fire all the weapons all day long in most biomes, without building up any heat at all.

Short answer is by cheating. You are "gifted" the -732b Highlander regardless whether it survived the mission or not. If it gets destroyed in the mission (like for example when the Zeus, Awesome and Battlemaster show up), you can salvage its parts and still get a brand new -732b in the process.

But, isn't that the mech Kamea is piloting? How can you complete the mission if her mech gets destroyed?

 

[KeepTalking]

I thought I was doing well in my current game, but it looks like yet again, I'm going to achieve victory while in a dark age. I'm going to have to look at that and figure out what I'm doing wrong.

I have only ended in a dark age once, and that was because the age previous to that had been a heroic age, and it can be difficult to earn era points during late game golden or heroic ages. It actually makes me try to actively avoid hitting golden ages in the modern age or beyond.

 

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

I'll know in a few months of the newly announced Fallout 76 can tear me away from Skyrim. Can't wait to see what the good folks at Nexus mods do for this game.

The speculation I've been seeing based on the 1½-minute trailer is the 76 is going to be an MMO which, much as I love the Fallout series, wouldn't interest me in the slightest. OTOH, my own first impression from the trailer was some kind of building game, maybe taking the Fallout Shelter idea and running with it. Just have to wait and see, I suppose.

In other news ... Skyrim? Haven't played that for a while. I am, however, in the middle of my umpteenth playthrough of Oblivion, and loving it almost as much as the first time. Playing it straight this time, my last 2 playthroughs having been with Nehrim and Elseweyr, respectively, installed.

 

[Terrell]

I'll know in a few months of the newly announced Fallout 76 can tear me away from Skyrim. Can't wait to see what the good folks at Nexus mods do for this game.

The speculation I've been seeing based on the 1½-minute trailer is the 76 is going to be an MMO which, much as I love the Fallout series, wouldn't interest me in the slightest. OTOH, my own first impression from the trailer was some kind of building game, maybe taking the Fallout Shelter idea and running with it. Just have to wait and see, I suppose.

In other news ... Skyrim? Haven't played that for a while. I am, however, in the middle of my umpteenth playthrough of Oblivion, and loving it almost as much as the first time. Playing it straight this time, my last 2 playthroughs having been with Nehrim and Elseweyr, respectively, installed.

I'm also hoping it's not an MMO. I have no interest in playing one either. I think building is here to stay in the Fallout series, hopefully they'll do it better than they did in Fallout 4. For starters make it possible for well built settlements to defend themselves without you having to come save them provided you equip them with good defenses. Second make sure that there are snappable interior walls and doorframes. Trying to make multiroom buildings was a royal PITA. I suspect that the building system is here to stay, and will bleed over into other BGS games.

Skyrim. I haven't played without mods. Currently approaching 5K hours according to Steam. There is plenty of mod content I haven't fully explored yet, or not even explored at all just yet. There's a mod called Forgotten City, IIRC, that I have downloaded but not played yet. I've played some of Falskaar & Summerset Isle, but haven't gone through all the content yet. I feel bad for an Altmer woman living in a cave on Summerset who seems to have lost her faculties & has next to nothing. One of the missions may require you to steal from her. The item in question isn't always something of hers. I think it's picked at random. I recently downloaded Beyond Skyrim Bruma, but haven't been there yet. I can say similar to Moonpath to Elsweyr, which I have had for a few months but still need to explore. Since my previous post I managed to find Wyrmstooth, but haven't played it.

Qaxe's Questorium I've done part of, such as Rebuilding Winterhold, which was very easy. The only real issue with Rebuilding Winterhold is if you're early game, poorly equipped, & have Frostfall installed since there is a chance that you'll freeze to death during two of the quests. Coldstone Manor is the reward for fully completing the quest, and has a nice trophy room in the basement. Coldstone also comes with a teleport tome but does not come with smithing facilities. If you've got Immersive College of Winterhold, the lack of smithing facilities is irrelevant since ICOW adds a full set of said equipment to the Midden accessible 24/7 through a trap door on the right side of the entrance to the Hall of the Elements. Also a new smith is added in Winterhold by the mod, but he doesn't have a smelter. Coldstone is fully furnished otherwise, and I think it's a good value for the effort & 5K required to get it as a trophy storage house.

I haven't explored the areas near Clearspire Tower & Clearspire Lodge yet. Those two properties are cheap as the Dunmer who owns the Lodge wants to get rid of it since the miners he intended to house there left. He tells you that some of the miners were killed & the rest up & left. As far as money is concerned the expenditures are in furnishing both the Lodge & Tower. There's also a Dwemer ruin near the Tower (which is also a Dwemer ruin) to explore. I've only seen part of it. In order to get to the ruin (not the player home) to be explored I used all 3 words of Whirlwind Sprint. I'm not sure if it can be done otherwise.

I haven't done Mt. Peril or Smugglers Haven yet, and have only partially explored the tunnels under Whitewater Chalet. I've done some of the Icicle Valley quests as well, but not all of them. Some parts of Icicle Valley have hordes of Thalmor that will attack you on sight. Those are all associated with Qaxe Questorium.

ICOW has an additional quest added after you've become Arch-Mage & done Dragon Rising. If you're using Alternate Start, Live Another Life, it's easily doable to become Arch-Mage without triggering the main quest. The MQ is triggered if you approach Helgen, if you use the vanilla start, camping in the woods start, or start as either side of the civil war and enter Dragonsreach. If you're not part of the civil war you may enter Dragonsreach without triggering the MQ. Also the attack on Helgen will be mentioned, and a quest started, if you ask any innkeeper about rumors before visiting Helgen. It's possible to go to entrance of the cave where you exit from Helgen with Ralof or Hadvar without triggering the main quest. There's an NPC from Qaxe's Questorium near that cave.

There is so much stuff to do in original Skyrim with mods, I don't think I'll ever do all of it.

 

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

Skyrim. I haven't played without mods.

Of course, and likewise Oblivion. When I said I was playing Oblivion "straight", I meant without any added new lands or major questline mods. Unless you count Oscuro's Overhaul, but those are mostly faction things that can be ignored except for the odd Amazon or Sylvan Ranger hanging around outside certain locations.

 

[Terrell]

Skyrim. I haven't played without mods.

Of course, and likewise Oblivion. When I said I was playing Oblivion "straight", I meant without any added new lands or major questline mods. Unless you count Oscuro's Overhaul, but those are mostly faction things that can be ignored except for the odd Amazon or Sylvan Ranger hanging around outside certain locations.

Oh, okay, I misunderstood you. I thought you were saying that most of those playthroughs, including the current one, were without mods, but the 2 prior to the ones used mods. My mistake.

 

[Patooka]

Not sure how you are supposed to obtain the other gauss rifle, but that Highlander is an indispensable mech at this point, mostly owing to the massive heat sinks it has. I can fire all the weapons all day long in most biomes, without building up any heat at all.

Short answer is by cheating. You are "gifted" the -732b Highlander regardless whether it survived the mission or not. If it gets destroyed in the mission (like for example when the Zeus, Awesome and Battlemaster show up), you can salvage its parts and still get a brand new -732b in the process.

But, isn't that the mech Kamea is piloting? How can you complete the mission if her mech gets destroyed?

Kamea is piloting the Atlas II.

 

[KeepTalking]

But, isn't that the mech Kamea is piloting? How can you complete the mission if her mech gets destroyed?

Kamea is piloting the Atlas II.

Well then, it must have been the only other mech that survived the mission. It was beat to shit, missing both arms, and had all weapons destroyed. At the end of the mission, I just had it running around kicking the enemy mechs because it couldn't do anything else. I wondered why they were totally refusing to target that mech, I guess they didn't want me to get my hands on those gauss rifles. Oh well, that mission is so far in the past now I don't think I want to go back to it just to pick them up, but it sure is tempting.

 

[Underseer]

I thought I was doing well in my current game, but it looks like yet again, I'm going to achieve victory while in a dark age. I'm going to have to look at that and figure out what I'm doing wrong.

I have only ended in a dark age once, and that was because the age previous to that had been a heroic age, and it can be difficult to earn era points during late game golden or heroic ages. It actually makes me try to actively avoid hitting golden ages in the modern age or beyond.

How the heck do you deliberately avoid heroic/golden ages?

 

[Emily Lake]

Bethesda Game Studios has put up a "Please Stand By" teaser.

I'm kind of disappointed. It looks like we're going to get another installment in the Fallout series before we get another Elder Scrolls. Not that it will stop me from buying and enjoying another Fallout game, mind you... it's just that Elder Scrolls Online is pure shit, and I'm getting tired of Skyrim after seven years.


ETA: If it ends up being another MMO, I'm going to be really angry at Bethesda.

 

[Emily Lake]

Those are my casual games!

What did you have in mind?

I dunno. I don't play casual games as much as I used to ever since in app purchases soured me on the whole concept. Bejeweled variants and Mah Jong games are generally my go-to games these days on mobile devices.

Oh, that kind of casual. Yeah, I've got a handful of those that I play regularly, but sort of as filler, when I'm waiting around or killing time. They're not games I get invested in and want to keep playing. I think I kind of need an objective for me to actually get into a game. So yeah - ratchet & clank, portal, anything with an objective that takes less than two weeks to complete is what I consider a casual game. Ones that can go on forever are just "forever fillers"

 

[Emily Lake]

Skyrim. I haven't played without mods. Currently approaching 5K hours according to Steam. There is plenty of mod content I haven't fully explored yet, or not even explored at all just yet.
...

Holy cow. I think I really need to go ahead and get off of console and learn to play on PC. That's a huge amount more content than I realized was available.

 

[Emily Lake]

I'm going to be doing some traveling in about a month or so. I've been contemplating getting Baldur's Gate or something similar on my iPad... since I'm not enough of a "gamer" to pack a damned playstation with me for travel (my brother in law does that, I think it's absurd).

Anyone have any recommendations for something semi-RPG-ish that works well on a tablet?

 

[Terrell]

Skyrim. I haven't played without mods. Currently approaching 5K hours according to Steam. There is plenty of mod content I haven't fully explored yet, or not even explored at all just yet.
...

Holy cow. I think I really need to go ahead and get off of console and learn to play on PC. That's a huge amount more content than I realized was available.

Yeah, and all those mods I mentioned are free and on Nexus mods. I think they have around 50,000 there, just for original Skyrim. Some of these mods are DLC sized.

I agree, I'd be upset with a MMO for Fallout. This may be single player with co-op, which if that's the case I can live with it, as long as I can get mods for it. Something good about being The Lone Wanderer or The Sole Survivor, that helps make these games good. The Nerevarine, Hero of Kvatch, and The Last Dragonborn also imply one as unique.

One of the comments that Todd Howard has made about TES 6 was that if he said what he wanted TES 6 to be that he'd be asked if the tech was there yet to do it. I'm not sure, but I suspect that whatever he wants may be more than the current consoles can handle. We'll probably not see TES VI before we see PS 5 and XBOX Next. (I don't know what Microsoft will call the next XBOX). Hopefully it's not the PS6 and the XBOX after the next one.

If you don't already have a PC for gaming get one when you can for the last 3 Fallout games as well as TES 4 & 5. It'll give you plenty of new content, especially for Skyrim, without having to lay a finger on Creation Club. There are also mods on Steam for Skyrim, I'd assume the other games as well. IMO Mod Organizer is the best mod manager for BGS's games. Nexus is making a new mod manager called Vortex, and they have the guy that designed Mod Organizer & Mod Organizer 2 working on it. I think Vortex is in it's beta, but I'm not certain.

With Pete Hines's comment that this may be the longest E3 presentation by Bethesda, I do wonder if there's more to hear about when E3 comes around.

 

[Underseer]

I'm going to be doing some traveling in about a month or so. I've been contemplating getting Baldur's Gate or something similar on my iPad... since I'm not enough of a "gamer" to pack a damned playstation with me for travel (my brother in law does that, I think it's absurd).

Anyone have any recommendations for something semi-RPG-ish that works well on a tablet?

Tablet RPG?

I can't recommend enough Final Fantasy 3 and 4.

Some years back, they were updated to have modernish if crude 3D graphics for one of those Nintendo portable systems, which as it turns out can be easily ported to smartphone/tablet platforms.

I haven't played Final Fantasy 4 yet, but a warning about Final Fantasy 3: the intro title sequence doesn't start until you've been playing the game for a couple of hours. The first time I played it, I thought it was an end credits sequence and thought the game was ridiculously short. That's just the very, very beginning of the game.

On Google Play:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.square_enix.android_googleplay.FFIII_GP&hl=en_US
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.square_enix.android_googleplay.FFIV_GP&hl=en_US

 

[Terrell]

If this guy is right; what do you guys think?

 

[Patooka]

Creation Club for Fallout 3 and New Vegas would be my guess. Second guess would be them going to be free-to-play.

 

[KeepTalking]

I thought I was doing well in my current game, but it looks like yet again, I'm going to achieve victory while in a dark age. I'm going to have to look at that and figure out what I'm doing wrong.

I have only ended in a dark age once, and that was because the age previous to that had been a heroic age, and it can be difficult to earn era points during late game golden or heroic ages. It actually makes me try to actively avoid hitting golden ages in the modern age or beyond.

How the heck do you deliberately avoid heroic/golden ages?

After you have avoided a dark age, and as your era points continue to mount up, just avoid doing things that are going to get you extra era points. Also, be careful in choosing your Dedications as you approach late game. Really, just do the opposite of what you would do to try to hit a golden age. In my experience, the era you need to be careful with is the Modern Era. If you hit a golden age for the Atomic Era, it can be very hard to avoid a Dark Age in the Information Era. So, once you get to the Modern Era, pay close attention to your era points, and don't let them get to high (nor too low). Once you get into the Atomic, you can go wild, and grab tons of era points by doing all of those projects you delayed in the Modern Era, thus hopefully entering the Information Era with a Golden Age, and ending the game on a high note.