Topic: Gamer thread

[patsy02]

I HATE IT. And the bastards wil settle in any crack in your territory that barely allows them to place a city. I hated that more than anything else.

There's only one right way to play Civ; Any neighbour that annoys me gets final solution'd. The only drawback to this is that you can't raze capitals (in Civ 5), so you can't completely purge your enemies.

[Brad]

I remember absolutely detesting the Nioh beta, but I seem to have mellowed since full release.  Played a little bit and it's actually not as bad as I recall.

[Warlord]

They have a date for stellaris utopia. A month away.

Was playing last night and triggered my first leviathan. Problem was, its supposed to be a mid game beast, however i triggered it about 50 years in, and you normally need fleet power of about 20-30k and i have 4k. what im worried about, is because its the spectre wraith, it can just warp anywhere. But i also got another trigger that made it sound like a second one spawned? Im xenophile pacifist so havent really done much in the way of heavy military development or tech researching. I only have high spec'd railguns really.

[Gneisenau]

Hey rufus, quit your day job and stock up on Mountain Dew. Apparently, this is Planescape:Torment 2.0:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/28/planescape-torment-tides-of-numenera-review-adventure

[BAWTRM]

I don't have the Leviathan expansion for Stellaris, but the Spectre Wraith, is that the one that looks like a huge Alien sticking out of a black hole?

Because I know that you can end up with one of those if you follow the entire Horizon's Signal story chain (it starts by you sending scientists into an anomaly and end up losing them, "What is was, what was shall be"). It ended up in my home system (could be because that's where I completed a certain building, can't recall for certain). But this was already past the point in the game where I had crushed the Unbidden so sending in the fleets took care of it.
The quest chain does give you a very nice unique building, 2 even if you're willing to take a little happiness hit on a planet, they both have 'Loop' in their names. I wonder if it's possible to obtain them and subsequently axe the story thread so the monster won't spawn.

[Warlord]

Hmm, interesting.
No, its basically like a giant space amoeba that is fluorescent to match the colour of the star it spawns out of. Once you scan the star, 40 years later it spawns. So i must have scanned it quite quickly for it spawn by year 50. There is apparently a trick that you can only kill it in a sysem with a matching (or opposing) star. If you try otherwise, it just annihilates the fleet.
Going to see what happens tonight...

[BAWTRM]

Acording to the wiki: http://www.stellariswiki.com/Spaceborne_aliens#Guardians

That would be the Spectral Wraith, and apparently you don't even need to have triggered it yourself. No idea what the bit on Spectrum Emitter frequencies means.

[Finlay]

so the switch comes out tomorrow.

has ANYONE pre-ordered one?

the console itself does nothing for me.
tiny internal storage.
I have no interest in the hybrid functionality really.
multi room docking seemed cool (one for me, one for kids room?) but the docks are $90.
friend codes
no online store
no netflix/whatever else apps.

on the other hand
http://www.metacritic.com/game/switch/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/critic-reviews
holy metacritic batman.

I guess it's fairly likely I'll get one at christmas if they release more good games?

in an ideal world for me, it would have all the main aaa developed games too, but it probably wont.

[BAWTRM]

My youngest brother has pre-ordered it and is hyped for some Zelda tomorrow.

While I'd love myself some Zelda I just can't justify the cost of the Switch just for one game (heck I still haven't bought a PS4 and there are a good number of games I'd like to play on that).

[StealthKnightSteg]

hmm playing a bit of World of Tanks now, seems ok so far but wondering if there is some sort campaign thingy I haven't seen yet, maybe under the clan  thing

[Warlord]

Acording to the wiki: http://www.stellariswiki.com/Spaceborne_aliens#Guardians

That would be the Spectral Wraith, and apparently you don't even need to have triggered it yourself. No idea what the bit on Spectrum Emitter frequencies means.

No, it was me.
It was a system I owned and had a few mining stations in. It is also only about 8 system jumps away from my homeworld. When it spawned, i got a notification that my citizens saw a bright flare coming from that system.

So far it has just randomly warped around the galaxy. No major battles with it yet. Its killed a few science ships hear and there, and fortunately it didnt kill the scientist i had been grooming to get to level 5 to be able to research some pre-cursor anomalies (my species are slow learners, so i needed to research some tech to extend leader life or they would die before they skilled up enough).
But yeah, i thought it was going to be doom, but it has actually been more minor annoyance.

[patsy02]

I have no interest in the hybrid functionality really.

Wouldn't it be useful if you're taking the kids someplace where they might get bored?

[BAWTRM]

No, it was me.
It was a system I owned and had a few mining stations in. It is also only about 8 system jumps away from my homeworld. When it spawned, i got a notification that my citizens saw a bright flare coming from that system.

...But yeah, i thought it was going to be doom, but it has actually been more minor annoyance.

Still, you can't really pass up scanning those pulsars and black holes in the starting part, the science you can get out of them can easily double or triple your physics research in the early bit. 

Does it only warp to certain star types?

[phillyt]

I find the Switch to be interesting.  If it was in anyway a usable tablet in addition to being the console that it is, I would buy one.  But it doesn't have even the most basic tablet functionality (which seems odd since it obviously has the horsepower for it), so its forced to function purely as a video game console.

As a console, Nintendo knows it can't touch Sony and even the much close Xbox, so they have gone for another attempt to innovate.  It is a smart strategy since it means they don't directly compete with the two behemoths, but its still going to relegate them to a niche that I don't have much need for.

In other news, Horizon Zero Dawn is fabulous.  Another massive win for Sony for sure.

[Cannonofdoom]

In other news, Horizon Zero Dawn is fabulous.  Another massive win for Sony for sure.

I hate when I cannot play amazing looking games simply because I cannot force myself to buy both an XBOX and a Playstation. I understand console exclusives, but they make me sad. Horizon Zero Dawn, Last of Us, Uncharted series: all titles I haven't played just because I own a different console.

[Warlord]

Still, you can't really pass up scanning those pulsars and black holes in the starting part, the science you can get out of them can easily double or triple your physics research in the early bit. 

Does it only warp to certain star types?

Thats right. Love me some pulsars. I dont think it has such a restriction. But it hasn't appeared in any populated systems yet.

[Aldaris]

Playerunknown's Battlegrounds makes me consider getting into Battle Royale games. The Arma 3 mod looks too clunky for my taste, and H1Z1 looks a bit silly with all the jumping out cars at high speed and jumping around - this one could be up my alley though. Been watching a couple streams on twitch and it looks super fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0DhWQM40XQ

[phillyt]

I have about 20 hours into Horizon Zero Dawn.  It is incredible.  Every bit as good as I hoped.

As my buddy said, its the best Far Cry game ever.  And the lore seems really good so far.

[patsy02]

Apparently there's a lot of sloppy flaws with the Switch, half of them being some physical malfunction related to the switching mechanism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb-srOfRqNc

[Warlord]

I have about 20 hours into Horizon Zero Dawn.  It is incredible.  Every bit as good as I hoped.

As my buddy said, its the best Far Cry game ever.  And the lore seems really good so far.

Hows it compare to Primal? That time setting interests me most....

[phillyt]

I have never played Primal, but my three buddies who are huge Far Cry fans (I loved 3 and enjoyed 4 but wasn't into Primal) say HZD is the best Far Cry game ever.

The setting with its mix of cave man, far future, recovered steam punk, and post apocalyptic mystery is excellent.

[Brad]

say HZD is the best Far Cry game ever.

This is the one thing that makes me hesitate.  I've never been interested in any of the Far Cry games.

But the setting fascinates me.  And what I've seen of the gameplay looks like it could engage me, for a short period of time anyway.

But I still have Nioh, and the Dark Souls 3 DLC is coming out in a couple of weeks, and all the other games in my library that I bought and never got around to playing...

Agh, what to do.

[phillyt]

If you've played Far Cry and dislike it, then I might hold off a little on HDZ.  I happen to enjoy the Far Cry format, but this is really quite close to it and your enjoyment of those games will be an accurate reflection of how you'll like this one.

[Brad]

I haven't actually played any Far Cry, but I did pick up HZD and it's not bad.  It actually reminds me somewhat of the Tomb Raider games of recent years.

[BAWTRM]

If I ever get a PS4 I'm sure I'll play HZD on it. Another good exclusive title for the PS4 it seems, Microsoft must be gnashing its teeth (and apparently not much else).

I'm also stoked to see Guerilla Games having success with this new IP. They're the only Dutch game developer of international note and while they've become part of Sony we all know that the big boys will simply axe a game developer if it doesn't perform. Usually you only need to bomb once.

I also like that they use their own developed game engine, it shows a kind of commitment, plus as the engine's developer you'll be able to coax every last bit of it.