The Gaming Den

After sucking at both campaign mode and AI skirmish mode, I've decided I'll instead just take my Polish vodka to the LAN and get sufficiently wasted that I don't much care that I'm shit at the game.

Or not show up, but I don't really know the polite way to decline invitations to things that others assume you'll like because they are, broadly speaking, "fun".

Koumei wrote:Or not show up, but I don't really know the polite way to decline invitations to things that others assume you'll like because they are, broadly speaking, "fun".

I've always found that the best way to brush people off is to either a) not give a reason or a fuck, or b) say that you have a prior commitment, and then run off to freshen your Snapple.

So E3 confirmed that in XCOM 2 is indeed considering that you were a save scumming bastards and you actually lost in the first month before you even managed to get lasers.

Also ADVENT gets Mecs right away as an extra "HAHA!" effect.

And in the 20 years since the aliens took over, the only weapon Xcom "researched" was machettes.

Rumors are that the tech up trees will be something around the following:
-Catapults.
-Crossbows
-Pikes
-Horse cavalry.
-Bows (didn't you see how OP those things are in Crysis 3?)
-Sharpened wood sticks.
-Polished rocks.

In brighter new, you can now pick up unconscious/bleeding allies, and also call in the skyranger to any location in the field with enough space for when you want to leg it.

There was a reboot of X-COM? I am so out of the loop. My 25yo self would be flabbergasted.

X-Com2: TFTD, nothing you invented works underwater, eh.
X-Com3: Apoc, it's a reboot, motherfuckers, do it all over again. In the 50's.

So needing to reinvent everything is entirely loyal to the classic series, at least.

tussock wrote:There was a reboot of X-COM? I am so out of the loop. My 25yo self would be flabbergasted.

X-Com2: TFTD, nothing you invented works underwater, eh.
X-Com3: Apoc, it's a reboot, motherfuckers, do it all over again. In the 50's.

So needing to reinvent everything is entirely loyal to the classic series, at least.

There was also UFO trilogy, which is basically X-Com. But yes, about 4 years ago there was an X-Com remake.

Longes wrote:But yes, about 4 years ago there was an X-Com remake.

The full story of the X-Com remake goes something like...

"Firaxis needed money, they decided to do a cheap X-Com remake called XCOM using a third party engine and knocked together overnight with no real effort to exploit what they thought was a tiny vocal fan base and cheat them out of a bit of cash. They gave it to their crappiest designers who made some utterly baffling decisions that destroyed the strategic layer of the game entirely and marginally undermined the tactical layer too. Also the end game was not so much just shit as pretty much entirely missing like they made the front half of a game only."

Then it was a massive smash hit due to them massively underestimating the demand for XCOM games, overnight it became a flagship product for them as big or bigger than their (floundering due to poor engines and baffling design decisions) Civ series.

So they desperately knocked together an incredibly shitty DLC for it. It sold like crazy. So they desperately knocked together a random grab bag expansion (er er... mechs and mutants and stealth flying octopus! focus on the early to mid game, don't fix the broken strategy game, screw the no ending thing, leave that how it is, its fucking perfect!). And made a fortune with that (and made a lot of fans happy who thought that meant there was also a second expansion on the way to finally "fix" the strategy layer and the late game)

Also they never fixed a bunch of basic game breaking bugs the shitty engine and rush out the door produced like broken save games (which even when they work are terrible thanks to shitty "anti-save-scummer" mentality/excuses for not fucking even working right) or the whole god damn randomly teleporting monster bug hunt bullshit (yeah SURE that was "intended").

Now they are making a sequel that seems to have had some slightly better production values/effort behind it in that at least it is capable of supporting some basic necessities like somewhat procedural maps. But baffling design decisions seemingly still abound combined now with (more) baffling fluff decisions, and Firaxis HAS been spiraling into being pretty crappy later what with all the incredibly poor Beyond Earth stuff... so... hrm...

PhoneLobster wrote:

Longes wrote:But yes, about 4 years ago there was an X-Com remake.

The full story of the X-Com remake goes something like...

"Firaxis needed money, they decided to do a cheap X-Com remake called XCOM using a third party engine and knocked together overnight with no real effort to exploit what they thought was a tiny vocal fan base and cheat them out of a bit of cash. They gave it to their crappiest designers who made some utterly baffling decisions that destroyed the strategic layer of the game entirely and marginally undermined the tactical layer too. Also the end game was not so much just shit as pretty much entirely missing like they made the front half of a game only."

You call them "utterly baffling", I call it "Simplify for the bigger crowd". Less strategy/tactics was completely intentional because the previous Xcom are damn hard and your average player nowadays simply wouldn't bother with the old level of difficulty/complexity.

To support that is the fact the UI for the X-com reboot was a thing of beauty. You can see right away how far away where your characters can move, what explosives will hit, preparing your soldiers is easy and effective, you don't have to worry about juggling scientists and engineers and living quarters for all of them, or item prices starting at the thousands, or micro managing hours in production when the off-battle time moves in days, etc, etc.

PhoneLobster wrote: Then it was a massive smash hit due to them massively underestimating the demand for XCOM games, overnight it became a flagship product for them as big or bigger than their (floundering due to poor engines and baffling design decisions) Civ series.

They made Xcom more acessible than ever before. Now any noob could save Earth from the alien invasion!

PhoneLobster wrote: So they desperately knocked together an incredibly shitty DLC for it. It sold like crazy. So they desperately knocked together a random grab bag expansion (er er... mechs and mutants and stealth flying octopus! focus on the early to mid game, don't fix the broken strategy game, screw the no ending thing, leave that how it is, its fucking perfect!). And made a fortune with that (and made a lot of fans happy who thought that meant there was also a second expansion on the way to finally "fix" the strategy layer and the late game)

Transhumanism fanboys fap pretty hard to Enemy Within, I kid you not.

Also falcon punching giant alien cyborgs never gets old. It may be dumb but it is pretty fun.

And Exalted EXALT are an hilarious enemy organization.

They mean business.

maglag wrote: You call them "utterly baffling", I call it "Simplify for the bigger crowd".
Less strategy/tactics was completely intentional because the previous Xcom are damn hard and your average player nowadays simply wouldn't bother with the old level of difficulty/complexity.

So their incompetence was intentional? I guess that's better then.

To support that is the fact the UI for the X-com reboot was a thing of beauty.

What the fuck does this have to do with removing the strategic layer? You can tell the stupid fucking strategic layer was a good idea because of the UI improvements? Are you brain damaged? Even though the strategic layer bullshit was one of the biggest complaints it received and solved by one of if not the most popular mod?

Transhumanism fanboys fap pretty hard to Enemy Within

So you admit it doesn't stand on its own merits and is loved by only a portion of the fanbase and not for actual gameplay? Great points. I never bought the expansion because I heard it didn't fix the strategic layer and Im not the only one. I wont buy the 2nd unless it fixes the goddamn strategic layer.

Shady314 wrote:

maglag wrote: You call them "utterly baffling", I call it "Simplify for the bigger crowd".
Less strategy/tactics was completely intentional because the previous Xcom are damn hard and your average player nowadays simply wouldn't bother with the old level of difficulty/complexity.

So their incompetence was intentional? I guess that's better then.

To support that is the fact the UI for the X-com reboot was a thing of beauty.

What the fuck does this have to do with removing the strategic layer? You can tell the stupid fucking strategic layer was a good idea because of the UI improvements? Are you brain damaged? Even though the strategic layer bullshit was one of the biggest complaints it received and solved by one of if not the most popular mod?

That they made a pretty good UI proves that they didn't just half-coded the game over a weekend. So yes less strategy/tactics was intentional and that's one of the reasons it sold so well. That was my main point.

There's also quite a lot of hate for the Long War, which is aimed exclusively at the grognards who want a masochistic experience.

Shady314 wrote:

Transhumanism fanboys fap pretty hard to Enemy Within

So you admit it doesn't stand on its own merits and is loved by only a portion of the fanbase and not for actual gameplay? Great points. I never bought the expansion because I heard it didn't fix the strategic layer and Im not the only one. I wont buy the 2nd unless it fixes the goddamn strategic layer.

Being able to play a mech with an hat that punches enemies through walls and then your other squad members shooting through the hole is a merit on its own right.

This is, does God of War has great gameplay? No, it's a glorified button masher where the button you need to click shows up flashing and everything. But it's still enjoyable and has plenty of fans due to all the over-the-top stuff you get to do on it.

(also you're contradicting yourself since you claim Long War fixed the strategic layer, yet you didn't bought the expansion, which is needed for Long War last time I checked)

maglag wrote:That they made a pretty good UI proves that they didn't just half-coded the game over a weekend.

So then the fact you are bat shit crazy and the UI is actually pretty fucking piss poor is proof that they DID!

See the UI... is full of stupid shit, it's passable, but nothing better, because it was fucking vandalized for the PC because XCOM was made for fucking consoles. The tactical action selection for troopers is the most incredibly glaring bullshit, I mean the entire tactical interface is designed for controllers ahead of mouse+keyboard (PC gamers are expected to just eat it for the cause of... actually the game was a relative obscure failure on console AHAHAHAHA), but the action selection thing, where the keyboard shortcuts for the same fucking action CHANGED constantly, AND the position of the same action button for the mouse ALSO changed constantly, from soldier to soldier because "fuck you for having a keyboard and/or mouse you dirty PC gamer we barely fucking support!", apparently.

Maybe you mean the ant-farm base UI? The very existence of which is part of why the strategic layer is so fucking not there? Parts of it are pretty, but to call it a good UI? It's not easy to navigate (except if you are already saddled with a fucking console controller), it isn't easy to quickly get to the options you want, it doesn't display useful information etc...

Why the fuck you think its a good UI is baffling. Unless you are a console gamer. Those guys thought it was brilliant, but they were already working with a crippled interface to start with.

There's also quite a lot of hate for the Long War, which is aimed exclusively at the grognards who want a masochistic experience.

Its a giant compliation mod made by a fanatical fan base, having good things and stupid bad things in it is just how those are, and hey, its free non-professional material. Still even though I would strongly disagree that the mod "fixed" the strategic layer (it basically cannot, its too broken on too fundamental of a level), even as a random shot in the dark by crazed amateurs pretty much everything it does for the strategic layer is a net improvement on what the base game offers. Which is, when you think about it bat shit crazy for a mod written by fan boys who think some of the choices they made about opponent numbers and health bar sizes in the tactical section were appropriate in ANY sane world.

So how could it be such a net improvement for the strategy layer? Just because the strategy layer was that fucking bad that just about ANY changes improved it, Firaxis actually produced almost the WORST possible strategy layer, THAT is how crazed fan boys managed to improve it.

(also you're contradicting yourself since you claim Long War fixed the strategic layer, yet you didn't bought the expansion, which is needed for Long War last time I checked)

You are wrong. It isn't. Long war was written for the base game without expansion originally, the long war with support for the expansion is still (sort of) "beta", and for a long time the long war didn't properly support the expansion at all.

I call it "Simplify for the bigger crowd". Less strategy/tactics was completely intentional because the previous Xcom are damn hard and your average player nowadays simply wouldn't bother with the old level of difficulty/complexity.

What are you fucking stupid?

XCOM's entire sales pitch is "old school hard, your guys will die, screw save scummers, hard core iron man mode is the true way, play on classic difficulty!" etc... It's a bunch of bullshit horrible sales pitch I do not like, but it IS the sales pitch they are going for, they sure as heck aren't dumbing down difficulty or complexity as a sales strategy.

The only dumbing down the game got, and it IS full of it was for several basic reasons. 1) Fuck PC gamers, this one is for the console market! Which meant there were a lot of technical limitations 2) Screw complexity, the design team just CAN'T BE ASSED, and the project is a cheap money grab anyway so multiple bases a real working strategy layer, and the ENTIRE SECOND HALF OF THE GAME, anything "hard", fuck it, we don't need that shit just get it out the door to milk the tiny stupid market that... OH MY GOD EVERYONE REALLY DID WANT AN XCOM GAME LIKE THEY'VE BEEN SAYING ALL THESE YEARS!

And anyway. The strategic layer in the game in many respects, especially the geo-sphere/ufo interception stuff is actually markedly MORE complex than the original. It's complete and total shit, it's worse than those already shallow aspects of the original, but it IS in fact more complex in the whole satellite (hacky replacement for extra bases), hanger (hacky replacement for extra bases), expendable aircraft boosters made from alien corpses (hacky replacement for in any fucking way adding to UFO interception game play after HOW many decades?).

Oh and then the whole "three missions, pick one, get screwed twice" was nintendo hard style bullshit where the random placement of the missions could utterly screw you over in the strategic game no matter what you did even on low difficulties... but it actually sort of HAD to be there because they had made a strategic layer so fucking lazy and shallow that without that pure random fuck you in it there would have been NO strategic challenge left whatsoever. But anyway, that alone simultaneously shows that no, they weren't (deliberately) "making it easy for a broad audience", they were actually inserting deliberate fuck yous into the game for no other reason than "short cut hack short cut cop out cheapskate short cut yay!".

And hell there is plenty more terrible stuff I could go on about XCOM, like the whole MMO mob pulling bullshit with the aliens and their free moves on sight (and no real actions out of sight) and so on. But why bother? You live in a batshit crazy alternative world where the game is a simple elegant user friendly game with a great UI instead of a bullshit hack job full of random lazy fuck yous and horrible anti-PC UI decisions.

edit: corrected stray quote tag.

I didn't write that quoted part.

So yeah, been playing New Vegas. It's fun, but I'll agree it's not as fun as Fallout 3. None of the settlements I've been too except the New Vegas Strip really stick out in my mind.

I have the opposite feeling. FO3 was sort of shit and samey, and I honestly could give less of a crap about the DC wasteland. NV on the other hand made me feel invested in the politics and hating the shit out of Benny. Also, it had a lot more gags and jokes.

Koumei, you could always do some digging and find some fun custom games from the old days and bring them yourself. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch of the imagination to guess that people interested in WC3 would still have fond memories of custom games. I remember Dark Deeds 6 fondly, and haven't played a game since then that felt the same.

Nah, it has a full-on schedule and stuff. Other games include Farcry 1 and Chivalry.

Besides, it has been really occurring to me that it's not just that I don't particularly enjoy LANs in the first place (although that is also true) and that my favourite games are all single-player (although that is certainly true). It's ten people, and I don't think I'm up for that kind of thing. That's just too much.

Well, DDO added warlocks. I'll let you know exactly how much it sucks, as I am contractually obligated as a satanist to play anything with warlocks.

People are still playing DDO?

Enough for them to add a new class, I guess. I'd stopped playing long ago, but I'll give the warlock a shot.

...when you first posted that, my mind just subbed in Neverwinter MMORPG and I thought "Yeah? It's been in there for like half a year now."

But DDO? Cool. I dicked around with that game a little bit some time ago, and noticed that one of the high-level Cleric talents is "Look, here, just have Divine Power literally always on as an adjustment to your base character sheet."

Ah, of course the warlock is a VIP class. So there goes that idea.

Edit: I'm looking through the various classes now. I think it's hilarious that DDO is explicitly Eberron, but actual Eberron specific stuff like artificers and warforged is only available to people who pay. It's like if WoW players could only use elves, draenai or tauren if they subscribed.

Pretty sure one flavour of elves and the draenei did require you to buy the expansion at first. Now they're for everyone because of their business model where every time a new expansion comes out, basically everything in the old expansion becomes standard.

I didn't pay much attention to WoW in the early days, because I couldn't afford it. Hell, I still don't, for pretty much the same reason.

Avoraciopoctules wrote:http://www.polygon.com/2015/6/23/883651 ... s-nintendo

Yay Nintendo for finally acknowledging that it's the 21st century!

It's only been like two years since Tomodachi Life...

Shrapnel wrote:

Avoraciopoctules wrote:http://www.polygon.com/2015/6/23/883651 ... s-nintendo

Yay Nintendo for finally acknowledging that it's the 21st century!

Nintendo still did it faster than the government of the USA recognized gay marriage.

Also let me know when either Xbox or Sony release an exclusive game that allows gay marriage. No, PC games don't count.