What are you playing?

[Jonas]

On my first playthrough of DXHR, I couldn't get a handle on Hengsha at all, I just followed the objective arrows. But on my second playthrough, I'd disabled those markers, so I had to actually figure out how the map was constructed. Managed it, surprisingly quickly even. Still couldn't draw a rough map of it from memory, which I think I mmmmmmight be able to do with Detroit, but I can usually find my way around now.

[Dragon]

What might confuse you (and certainly did me) is the upper and lower layer in the center zone. I had to look a long time until I found landmarks distinct enough to allow recognizing the area. This lack of distinct landmarks makes it difficult to orient yourself in this map. The other problem is the map changing area between the left and center zone. You have two main places where you switch the zone but the map doesn't match the actual geometry of the map at this place. This way you are constantly confused where you are exactly in this place. The dead-ends don't make it better. Detroit has a bunch of distinct landmarks especially near the map change areas and this allows you to learn the layout of the map rather quickly. 2027 by the way has the same problem in the first Paris map where it takes ages until you find stuff which you can misuse as landmarks.

[bobby 55]

It was pretty cool how in Detroit, you could jump that fence, and not need to go through the train station to get to either areas there. Hengsha still confuses me to some degree, I've still got to follow the sign posts there most of the time.

[Xesum]

I think hengsha's designed like that to purposely give the player a feel of a foreigner lost in another country.

[AEmer]

I wouldn't be surprised if it were, but it doesn't work.

I had a blast rummaging around in detroit, even though I haven't mapped out the sewers in my head entirely. The direlect part is significantly worse than the rest, though.

Hengsha...I just gave up. I tried for a while to get my bearings, and I didn't need signs or anything by the end, but I did rely on the quest markers.

I never found a single arms dealer there because I just got tired of working things out in detail.

I marathon gamed, though, so that probably came with both advantages and disadvantages.

[Phasmatis]

The problem with playing bloodlines as a Malkavian is I'm starting to read everything on the internet as a Malkavian.

hahahaHAHAahahah...HAHA

I am gone.

[EER]

I think hengsha's designed like that to purposely give the player a feel of a foreigner lost in another country.

I have been a foreigner in many countries, and been lost numerous times, occasionally while drunk, on my own and not speaking the language. I can assure you, it feels nothing like that. I wish I had objective arrows in real life, so that when the taxi driver asks 'where to' I would actually know, where to. Or a minimap in my head so that if I think I'm taking a shortcut, I know for sure it is actually a shortcut.

[Jetsetlemming]

OMG DOUBLE POST

I found the time to play the SpaceChem demo today. What a brilliant game! I don't typically enjoy pure puzzle games, but SpaceChem has a really nice context and sort of... superstructure? So it feels worthwhile somehow. It feels like you're building useful shit. I visited my parents later and promptly bought the iPad version for my mom, but I think I'll end up buying the PC version on Steam as well, because as far as I can tell the iPad version doesn't have the little story vignettes, and I miss the context they provide.

Fucking excellent game. Seriously. Surprising amount of room for personal expression too, I've played through the first several planets twice now (once on Steam and once on iPad) and most of the puzzles I solved in different ways the second time, better ways.

Buy the current Humble Bundle, it includes Frozen Synapse, Trauma, and SpaceChem.

[Jonas]

Why would I do that when I explicitly stated I've already bought SpaceChem on both Steam and iPad?

This is the third time somebody's recommended I buy the bundle when I tell them I've already bought SpaceChem. I'm not sure I understand the logic

[Jetsetlemming]

I was drunkposting, that's my excuse. I read that as if you had just tried the demo and was about to buy the game.

I've also played about 12 hours of minecraft in the last two days, on an apocalyptically bad Minecraft server called 2b2t.net. Its map has been up without a wipe or cleanup for over nine months, with the url public and posted on 4chan, reddit, facepunch, etc. frequently, and no mods or admins. The spawn literally looks like the fucking world ended, like a meteor hit or something. You spawn on a giant mountain of cobblestone with no way off it except to fall so far as to almost die immediately, and there's water currents forcing you back towards spawn and lava geysers and a giant monolith and a huge obsidian cross etc. Once you manage to escape THAT, there are roving griefers looking to gank anyone they can find, and cheaters using X-Ray textures to find any hidden rat holes to destroy them and steal any belongings (especially beds and food, the most valuable resources in the entire server). There are no trees within a 2000x2000 square around spawn. Almost no animals either, since animals are seeded rather than randomly spawning in sunlight as of 1.8. The server's set to Hard Mode, so zombies hitting you does four hearts of damage, and you can die from starvation.

So, yeah, terrible, right? I was recruited into playing on it by a friend, who is offended that this bullshit is allowed to exist. He intends to build a machine hidden in the world that crashes the server. We've yet to start building it, so far all we've accomplished is using the Nether to get far out of the old lands generated in old versions of Minecraft, and out into a 1.8 ocean, on a small island, far away from anything, where we'll set up camp and start our Dark Works.

Unfortunately our Dark Works require chickens and chicken eggs, which are in short supply. We've gotten maybe 20 eggs, which have resulted in... one single chicken so far.
Eventually though. Eventually. This world will be doomed. I guess.

[AEmer]

Not to be an ass or anything Jonas, but....

but I think I'll end up buying the PC version on Steam as well

Actually you hadn't.

Though being an ass is always a perk.

[AEmer]

I was drunkposting, that's my excuse. I read that as if you had just tried the demo and was about to buy the game.

I've also played about 12 hours of minecraft in the last two days, on an apocalyptically bad Minecraft server called 2b2t.net. Its map has been up without a wipe or cleanup for over nine months, with the url public and posted on 4chan, reddit, facepunch, etc. frequently, and no mods or admins. The spawn literally looks like the fucking world ended, like a meteor hit or something. You spawn on a giant mountain of cobblestone with no way off it except to fall so far as to almost die immediately, and there's water currents forcing you back towards spawn and lava geysers and a giant monolith and a huge obsidian cross etc. Once you manage to escape THAT, there are roving griefers looking to gank anyone they can find, and cheaters using X-Ray textures to find any hidden rat holes to destroy them and steal any belongings (especially beds and food, the most valuable resources in the entire server). There are no trees within a 2000x2000 square around spawn. Almost no animals either, since animals are seeded rather than randomly spawning in sunlight as of 1.8. The server's set to Hard Mode, so zombies hitting you does four hearts of damage, and you can die from starvation.

So, yeah, terrible, right? I was recruited into playing on it by a friend, who is offended that this bullshit is allowed to exist. He intends to build a machine hidden in the world that crashes the server. We've yet to start building it, so far all we've accomplished is using the Nether to get far out of the old lands generated in old versions of Minecraft, and out into a 1.8 ocean, on a small island, far away from anything, where we'll set up camp and start our Dark Works.

Unfortunately our Dark Works require chickens and chicken eggs, which are in short supply. We've gotten maybe 20 eggs, which have resulted in... one single chicken so far.
Eventually though. Eventually. This world will be doomed. I guess.

Rofl.

I HAVE SEEN IT; THE END OF THE WORLD MUST COME, AND IT WILL BE BY MEANS OF CHICKENS!

I think that's an admirable goal.

[bobby 55]

I Unfortunately our Dark Works require chickens and chicken eggs, which are in short supply. We've gotten maybe 20 eggs, which have resulted in... one single chicken so far.
Eventually though. Eventually. This world will be doomed. I guess.

"Cry havoc, and let loose the chooks of war".

[Jonas]

Actually you hadn't.

I stand sit corrected.

Sorry Jetset

[Jetsetlemming]

We're working on packing up our super secret hidden base. We had gone out though the nether and came out in freshly generated 1.8.1 terrain (the map's ten months old, a lot of it is using antiquated terrain generation rules). We were on an island in the middle of an ocean biome, that we dubbed Pen Island (we're children). Given that oceans in 1.8 tend to be absolutely enormous, we figured we were safe, until yesterday I randomly was sailing about exploring our area, and 2000 blocks west, at around z -20,000, I found the shoreline, which was 1.7 terrain, and a castle that had been griefed. The castle did not appear to have been found by people traveling on the overworld; it had a Nethergate below it that was still active. The invasion almost assuredly came from there. Still, it makes Pen Island remotely possible to be found, and we don't want that. So we've gone to our own nethergate (which had its tunnel from the direction of spawn almost entirely filled in, I seriously doubt anyone would be coming through it), and started digging out a tunnel going further away from spawn at a 90 degree change from the direction we had mostly moved. Taking turns and making food runs, it's so long as to take 20 minutes of walking just to reach the end now. The equivalent distance topside is over 500 kilometers from spawn. My friend still wants to go farther. Shit's nuts.

Also I'm doing all this while listening to a five and a half long hour podcast/audiobook on the end of the Roman Empire. I'm an hour and a half in. I've run out of cobblestone and picks.