What are you playing?

[Jonas]

Somehow 2027 kept me up to 6:30 this morning playing. I wouldn't really give the mod credit for that, it's my own idiocy. But it's a very good mod, I'm enjoying it a lot. The... economy of it is extremely well balanced, you really lust for weapon mods and aug upgrades, and money is actually genuinely useful in a way it never really was in Deus Ex (or TNM for that matter) - you need it to buy ammunition, especially for the sniper rifle and the GEP gun.

Moscow was brilliantly done, even better than Paris, and you can tell the mod creator is from there as it has many details that indicate familiarity with the setting. One thing that annoyed me though was how you never got a map in your datavault, all you got was directions to the places you needed to go, but those directions used street names and the street signs are in Cyrillic so I can't read them... anyway, with some stumbling around I found the places I had to visit in the end. Moscow has a very good conspiracy vibe with the Omar operating out of a night club and a secret base in a metro station. In fact it just oozes of atmosphere with the ambient thunderclasps and lightning strikes that threaten to fuck up your stealth by suddenly illuminating your hideout.

It remains a very shootery mod, and I'm okay with that - it's still recognisably Deus Ex, though more non-linear than I remember DX ever being, and the changes to the skill system and the way the new weapons work all make it a significantly better shooter than Deus Ex was. I would definitely recommend picking either pistols or rifles and then putting most of your skillpoints into that, with a little set aside for electronics and mechanics.

I made the mistake of picking the Afterburner augmentation (essentially the synthetic heart), because I misunderstood the way the augmentation system worked (I didn't realise you could actually upgrade your augs). I assume that, like in Deus Ex, the power saving aug would be a better choice.

[EER]

So the signs are actually accurate in Moscow then? I like that attention to detail (assuming that the Paris signs are French).

[Jonas]

Uh... well I don't know, since I can't read them. I just kind of assumed, since the street name and house number is all the direction you ever get - they do all seem to have consistent house numbers, though, so that's cool.

[bobby 55]

Fallout: New Vegas, with a few mods. The Lonsome Road DLC might not be the best but does have a couple of cool weapons in it. So I've started a playthrough and I'm playing LR for the weapons and then Old World Blues for the perks. That combined with some cool mods will make it seem like a different game in some respects. At least Lonsome Road gives the best Deathclaw killing weapon yet.

[EER]

Downloading NOX from GoG. I wonder if it contains Quest ...
Edit: YES, it does

[Jetsetlemming]

I basically spent all night last night playing Dead Island while drinking, then before going to bed posting a big long rant about all the stupid crap I experienced on a forum I know at least one guy (who is an art guy and has nothing to do with technical or control crap) frequents. Not the most tactful night I've spent playing videogames.

[bobby 55]

Playing Old World Blues again has confirmed my thinking that it's the best of the Fallout: New Vegas DLCs, and a damned entertaining add-on in it's own right. I managed to do all the stealth tests in this run. The first time round I made it more difficult for myself by over-thinking it.
By keeping to the basics it was reasonably simple.

[EER]

DXHR. I did not get seen during the opening mission, but did not get the ghost award

[bobby 55]

DXHR. I did not get seen during the opening mission, but did not get the ghost award

Well don't sweat it, I didn't get it until the FEMA facility.

[EER]

I got it in Shanghai first, although I have to say it was by accident (I didn't know the reward existed )

[miguel]

Just finished 2027. It was ok. but not what I expected.
These last two months have been great. first; New Vision then DXHR now 2027 and Aliens:Infestation for DS will be released soon.

edit: Aliens Colonial marines comes the next year.

[bobby 55]

I decided to start playing Fallout: New Vegas afresh because of the Gun Runners Arsenal DLC. There are even more cool weapons in the game, and a few of the challenges added with the DLC are truly challenging.
Getting to the point, I decided to play the Honest Hearts DLC for the first time since F:NV was patched to accommodate the DLCs because I thought one challenge in particular could be completed in it. Not only was I wrong about that, but also, Honest Hearts has become a crash-a-thon. I'm quicksaving, though that doesn't stop the process of firing up the game constantly from being a pain in the ass.

Edit: Honest Hearts is done thank heavens. Gun Runners Challenge: Creatures 8; Bob 0

[Undisputed]

Syndicate as seen in the other thread

2027 and other games are on hold for now.

[AEmer]

I've been playing league of legends with a group of friends against random internet people...on average 4 games a day, every day for the past month. That shit is addicting.

The metagame, and the free-to-play ness is just there to get you hooked...but also, probably, to reinforce the idea of team roles.

It's hard to describe what a dota-like is to someone who doesn't know, so I won't. It'd be like describing american football to someone who's never heard of it.

But I would like to describe the most flavorful experiences I've had with it.

First, there's a small number of characters that are free to play - it's on rotation, so you can try out all the characters in a matter of 2 months or so. You can buy all the characters for victory points; but it'll take 20 wins or so to get the more expensive characters, and 20 wins in league of legends translates into 20 hours of playtime if you're lucky.

So what you do is, you either play a lot of games with a lot of characters while you're low-level in the meta-game (where you'll be playing against other low-level players), or you pay some money. I paid some money. I figured it was reasonable since I've been having fun.

Anyway, eventually, your victory points will start to go to "runes" - you can have 30 runes at any one time, and you'll want an optimal loadout for your characters. This means that you'll be better with some characters and worse with others; you end up specializing in the play of a small number of characters, maybe just one character.

This is good, because it fosters teamplay. You work out team combos, attack strategies, tactics - because you usually play the same characters, the play shifts and becomes about coordination and various types of plays. You start to make sure your team loudout always has a tank, 2 carries, a jungler and a support.

So interestingly, the metagame actually fosters more interesting play within the actual game, something you wouldn't expect given that you can "buy" advantages...because as it turns out, you only really buy more freedom, but in the process you weaken your team specialization (but on the other hand, you improve your team adaptibility).

So putting down money in the game comes with a tradeoff.

I find this to be a very compelling setup for the free-to-play model.

But I can't recommend the game, because its too hard to get into. Theres artificial boundaries that give long-time players a large advantage, like in any RPG, and that doesn't jibe well with my idea of what good competetive multiplayer is...and on top of that, it can be incredibly confusing to play at first, and theres a focus on skills which are completely useless. Add to that, I've spent 100 hours on the game, and not all of them have been fun. It's a challenge, and it can be very satisfying, but it is absolutely not for everyone.

[Jaedar]

But I can't recommend the game, because its too hard to get into.

It's not that hard to get in to: The tutorial is good and there's bots that are actually competent for you to team up against.

It certainly isn't fun all the time though. yesterday for example we had a nocturne that started out by stealing the junglers blue rune and then kept calling everyone else on the team noobs for the rest of the game.