While I wish there was more "value" in my current characters and if I was paying for them.
I'm glad I got my subscriptions cancelled and my cash back when I did. I am actually very surprised they have gone this route. I wish there was at least one more character slot per account so users can make a new clone for this "release". But I'm happy that my characters were always based around their faction... Bar my "Gallante" character who was born a Caldari... given the limitations of the "Alpha" clone that still won't be a hassle.
I do foresee a lot of throwaway alts and ganking squads as more of a pain in the a** than ever before.I hope there is a lot of discussion.....
Ghost Recon Wildlands had dropped off my radar due to what I thought was the need for the game to be more multiplayer than single player. After reading up on some of the Gamescom 2016 material my interest has been peeked again. I'll be keeping an eye on this.
Not that long ago Virgin Media bought out another company. I had previously enquired about this type of broadband from the old company and was told that the infrastructure was not yet done in my area. Strange that the website of the new company says it is available in my area..... Yet there has been no works done..... I think I'll savour this time and think about upgrading to fast or faster broadband.
Since I heard about the "Ending" of No Man's Sky I've not been back to the game until today.
Even at that I only spent a few minutes. Those few minutes did nothing for me. I was left wondering why I should move on from
the system I am in if the games end does what it does.
I renamed the
planets in the current system with the truth of the games end. I'll see
if they will get erased or renamed. I've not noticed anything else I
previously renamed being erased as some have stated this week.
Random screenies:
I've been keeping up on the post launch media fiasco that is the media storm around Hello Games et al. The community wants answers. Hello games seems to be saying they did nothing wrong and have listed gamplay video's etc. They seem to have been a bit too selective in their defence, avoiding a lot of what peeved people off or just replying with very vague or opaque answers. It's all got a bad taste.
They did a live stream on twitch just before the launch but their channel no longer has that video.
Thankfully the internet never forgets. Watching that video makes me think that the really are a bunch of cowboy's, how on earth did they not get called out on things sooner.
Their troubleshooting I thought was very ironic, when they ask that your GFX card be above the minimum spec for the game. If the min spec is too low to run the game it's not the min spec then is it!
A lot of PR was bungled and fudged. So much could have been mitigated if they had said so clearly and in time.
The more discussion I see and hear the more it peeves me off and makes me think more negatively.
The game has good points and bad points and all can be argued till people are blue in the face but with no answers forthcoming people are going to be talking about this for a long time.
It's been an interestingly, uninteresting month since I logged into Eve last.
A month ago CCP's actions built up and got me peeved so much that I "rage" unsubscribed.
I was glad to have done it. From what I've seen I haven't missed anything. Nothing has changed to draw me back. Maybe the teaser of PVE changes will be something. Time will tell.
I was trapped in a way. Constant training of a character for more skill points for the sake of doing so. Stuck in a routine that worked for me on one level but did little else beyond the Status Quo. Sometimes that's not enough. Especially with the newer methods of selling and buying SP cheapening the game imho. I won't waffle on about that or the many issues. A lot of other people are continuing to express their feelings about CCP, Eve Online and the CSM.
The CSM seems to be weak in communication with their constituents. Like all politicians they seem to only see the player base as a means to an end. Getting elected. Once elected they have the only true thing they need, their special interest groups. the real people they answer to and take orders from.
I know or rather I hope I will return to Eve. I did mention before that if my interest is peeked again I could run a few trial accounts or maybe actually use one of the two 60 day codes I have. See if it is worth coming back.
A month is a short time and so far nothing yet has changed to the parts of Eve that I love and would call "my" gameplay. CCP is slow and I expect the game to change little in a few month's. I think that any changes will take a while even a year....
Speaking of trials and testing the waters, I read with interest: http://sandciderandspaceships.blogspot.ie/2016/08/starting-over.html
The first time I saw Dual Universe I was not impressed with the graphics but I backpedalled on that decision when I saw and understood the pre-alpha nature of the games "current" (at the time) state.
With a release date for an Alpha version early in 2017 and a full release coming in 2018, there is a lot of info yet to come.
Since the epic disappointment of No Man's Sky I am glad to take another look at Dual Universe.
The post patch, pre expansion invasion "rifts" have been a great way to level up characters.
So far I've gotten a Shammy from her mid 70's to level 100 and another Druid on a different realm from 91 to 100 in what seems like the blink of an eye.
There is great XP to be had. It's easy and makes me want to level up another character while I can.
BellularGaming on YouTube clued me into this and his video's are well worth watching!
I'm not that big on merchandise for game but the physical map of Nuka World does look cool in a well done way. Not to mention it shows what's coming up....
I've been enjoying the journey within the game despite the flaws. Flaws that will either bug the heck out of you or ones you can live with depending on your play style and aggravation level.
Most of which I've personally not come across outside of lag and fps issues that can be worked around.
For me the one thing that proved a major drive was the main "quest". To play the game, experience the journey and get to the centre of the galaxy.
But after seeing the 'spoiler worth spoiling' moment in the AngryJoeShow review, I'm gutted.
The review is well worth watching for that information alone.
Patch 7.1 will go the PTR (Public Test Realm) following Legion's release later this month. So should be out on the live servers soon after that for all to enjoy.
I like the trailer for it a lot. The change of Kara from a Raid to a 10 boss 5 player dungeon for the expansion is going to be great for gaming. It will also have hints of a nostalgic nature, at least for me. I'm looking forward to it.
I'm still giving some time to level an elemental shaman. I've been hearing good things about them for this coming expansion so I might push and level as much as possible.
With the new expansion all but out, the time to sell items for a "good" price is nearly over.
I've never bought a power level token outside of getting one with a pre purchase of an expansion.
At least some of the potions that sold well can be used with alts for levelling up the last one or two to 100.
Better to use them than sell them for a crappy price.
No Man's Sky is a very polarising game, I've said before that you will either love it or hate it and there are a lot of people saying both. I wish the game company were more transparent in what they are going to bring to the game next in features and gamplay. The lovers and haters are almost a bigger thing than the game itself.
I do love the game and I'll try to stop repeating myself but it's hard for me to state the good as it goes hand in hand with the bad. I'm still enjoying the game. And it's worth sharing and keeping up to date on both sides. As said by G.I. Joe, "knowing is half the battle".
It's a pity that Hello Games is not answering it's haters issues and in doing so taking away their haters way to hate.
It's a truly good looking and extensive game. The video below from Gamescon
is a sight for sore eye's.
It will be a great experience when it comes.... WHEN it comes.
An interesting comment during the o7 show message from CCP Seagull......
I may not be playing Eve but I am keeping up on the news.... time will tell what this new PVE will be.... 10% of me is hopeful, the other 90% is ready to eyeroll at the version of PVE that is being CCP'd before deployment.
I'm spoilt for choice in my gaming hobby. The number of games I want to play let alone complete is growing. The games I usually go for are not casual or "lite". The irony of it all. Besides trying to find time to get through them, I need to also ask the question of weather I need to complete them fully to feel that I've gotten good value out of them.
Take Rome Total War. It's a game that I've purchased at least twice over the last 12 years and it gives a huge amount of entertainment. I've completed it and the expansions so many times I know everything there is to "win".
Whereas Close Combat 2 I've played many times in single combat skirmish matches. I don't feel the need to complete the grand campaign all the time to feel like I've "won". Or Cities Skylines where having developed a city to a smaller scale and be "free" to tweak it's development is a win in itself.
Each game is different.
Usually the mantra of time or money is true but not for MMO's. You pay to spend time with them either as a subscription and/or microtransactions (WoW/Eve/STO). They may be lasting longer than many thought they would but they are still an in the moment form of gaming. After spending time, money or both you are left with nothing once they are "closed". I dread the day that servers are shut off for them (WoW, Eve, STO).
So as of the here and now, my games are in this "order":
Current Main:
No Man's Sky
Waiting for Fallout 4 Nuka DLC (x3charecters)(has season pass)
World of Warcraft (leader in all things of the "grind" time-sink)
Current but no pressure:
Star Trek Online (grind for rep/gear)
Cities Skylines (like a dog chasing cars)
Darkest Dungeon (start of the NG+ playthrough)
Fallout 4 (faffin about x3charecters)
Want to get started/restarted:
XCOM 2 (only a few missions in)
Homeworld Remastered 2 (second mission in after v2 patch)
The Witcher III (no DLC) (need to start - soooo far behind on this one!)
Thief (the new one, part of bundle in steam sale) (just started but may not play?)
Transformers Devastation (Second mission in, not feeling the love.)
Endless Space (I'm so far behind the curve ES2 is coming out!)
Games to come/get:
Southpark the fractured but whole
Battlefield 1
Battlefleet Gothic: Armada?
Dreadnought? Games still a long way off:
Sea of Thieves ?
Mass Effect Andromeda?
Out when they are out:
Star whatyoumacallit......... Citizen
Dust/Legion/shooter from CCP? lmao
And of course the games that are installed and float in the background waiting to be clicked on....
Games in the background.....
Euro Truck Sim 2
Rome Total War
Silent hunter III
Star Wars Rebellion/Supremacy
Civilization III
FTL
Minecraft
Democracy 3
Terraria
Close Combat 2: ABTF
Before I waffle on about what I'm currently doing in the game I have to say that No Man's sky is a game that you will either love or hate. I've been seeing alont of things being said by a lot of people in txt and video's online. Nothing can be all things to all people.
As you can probably guess from my last post I'm a lover of the game. It's kept me engaged and intrigued. I'll explain more below, but before I do I'd like to share some youtuber insights that are helpful in understanding gamplay (gamers of the game) and the game/game company.
I've linked the next clip from boogie2988's video "Rambling: Cravecon, Traveling, NO man's Sky", at the No Man's Sky part....
I've continued to play and some things have become more clear while adding yet more mystery. I'll try to explain without spoiling too much but even for as much as I know I'm still lost in the dark.
I've been killed twice, both in space battles. Both times I respawned in the local space station and got to then fly out and reclaim all my inventory items. Death in this game is not so scary. I've only lost time. If I'd have lost most of all of my inventory I would have been peeved. It's a lack of real risk but if there were that real risk it would have peeved me off further and having to grind for materials again or grind to sell and buy items again would have made me log off and not return for a while. Not quite a rage quit but defenitley would have narked off if it was that way. Thankfully it isn't. It "just" a little inconvenient. And that is without doubt much better.
Those deaths' lead me to a part of the story, when you respawn the title message given is "Generation #", so on my first death I was respawned and read "generation 1" the second time "generation 2". What this means beyond respawning in a new body I don't know. Is my character a machine? A clone? Something else? Maybe the journey will answer all these questions.
The more I delve into the monolithic ancient structures to initially learn the language, I come across them and learn their stories. Those stories point towards many things but the overall sense is a dislike of the galaxy sentinels. A war with them for one race. I could say a lot more on what I've found but it's fragmented and leads me to draw conclusions. Is my character a weapon? Or just a lost traveller.
The bigger picture is also being revealed more as I travel from system to system. Some races are very laid back and relaxed, there seems to be a war on but nothing is really happening. But the latest system I'm in is really on the front lines. No wonder I've been killed twice. I've come across scared npc's both looking to have their responsibilities removed from them. Even talking to these front line NPC's seems vague as I know only some of the language. One NPC wanted me to injure them, maybe so they could go home. Another wanted me to shoot it's omnitool while pointed at him in another "casualty" go home moment. Others are just straight out belligerent and aggressive hurting me no matter what I answer. They are aliens and I don't know the language. I know 50 words and their conversations have none of them. Well OK one word keeps popping up. "Interloper". Yep that's me. It's strange when you see a two line sentence from an alien and it had the word interloper four or five times. Me needs me more words.
I choose at the start of the game to take direction from Atlas. This has been a mysterious force/entity/faction that revels little and explains even less. My last scan and prompt form atlas gave me the system I'm in at the moment. War is in the air in more ways than one as I've explained. But in this system Atlas has it's own large station. I went, I saw, I have more questions. I'm sure this is going to be a long journey.
I'm the kind of gamer who does the side quests. A completionist. This game is O.C.D. central for a completionist because it will never be done, even with the "main" story line completed. My current system is the last system I will visit and do "my thing". My thing is to visit all the planets/moons, gather a resale materials and catalogue the plants and animals for credits/units.
When I move on I intend to do as little as possible and besides "claiming" the system name, I'll gather only what I need to move on. Easier said than done but I'll see how that works out for me and how long I can resist the "one more look" instinct.
One big draw to me was the statment from the game creators
that the game would not have paid DLC and that all content after release would be free. It
seems that they are reconsidering that. Which really peeves me off. More detail's here: http://www.pcgamer.com/no-mans-sky-creator-walks-back-no-paid-dlc-statement/
For a great lets play I've found Dan Gheesling's series to be interesting. Worth a watch if your trying to make your mind up or just want to see more.
With the pre expansion patch and release of the world events it's interesting
to see people farming them for the gear. I've been doing it on all my characters,
it is the best way currently to do it.
I've been trying to hold off as I don't want to be burned out from it. I
also don't want to regrind what I've just done. As it looks to me like the gear
dropping from the events is getting better the further into the event we get.
At the start it was all ilvl 700 gear but last night on my Demon Hunter farming
crystals I was surprised to get a few ilvl 710 gear. If that gets better I'd
rather wait a week or so and then hammer the alts through am farming binge.
The latest storyline quest is a painful character walk and
talk. Roleplayers must be jizzing themselves with glee.
There has been so much anticipation for the game. It's had a lot of conflicting and confusing "official" comments on what the game "is". Now it seems like the big talk is about the varying pc gamer experience in running the game. I wasn't hyped for the game but I was expecting a more polished game.
In writing this blog post I've been getting bogged down in how much detail there is in the game and what to talk about, one thing leading onto another etc. Even with people talking about how "little" gameplay there is. There is a lot to this game.
It's different.
I decided to buy the game one day before the extended launch date. So in
doing so I got the "better" spaceship. But I didn't upgrade to it until
I left the first planet and docked at a space station.
Other than the alt-tab crashing I've had no problems with running the game. Unlike a lot of other pc players.
For the most part I'm liking the game. I've played about 14 Hours as I write this.
The unknown nature of the procedural generation is good in regard to the exploration and the wonder of discovery. The vastness of the game's environments and the need created by the procedural generation drives that need to explore. To see whats over the next hill or valley is echoed going from moon to planet and from system to system.
Ship and suit inventory management integrates storage space with upgrade slots. If you upgrade your suit with a new enhancement it will us a slot and that slot wont' be usable for anything else until you free that slot if ever that happens. crafting can be tricky as you need a few empty slots for created items to be held and then combined when creating something. Inventory management can be very tricky.
It's not a game with fast gameplay, it is slow for the most part in almost a serene way.
On planets you do gather materials, scan plants and animals to upload and get credits for. You also interact with aliens, buy and sell items to them as well as interact with computer terminals and wreckage as a means to both gather and upgrade items for your ship, suit and multitool. Traders come and go to outposts and space stations and even if your not seeing any there are terminals that allow you to interact with a galactic trade network.
Trading
I do foresee a point where I may not upgrade much more, ignore most exploration unless I need more fuel's and start off a big push to get to the main objective of the game. Get to the centre of the galaxy.
I've not had a hard time to get the minerals needed to fuel the ship, suit and multitool. At least from what I've experienced.
I was envious of a trader I meet with a ship that had 31 inventory slots but it cost 25 times the credits I had. Maybe someday I'll have a better bigger capacity ship that is good in combat as well.
It didn't take too long after getting a few low fuel messages that made me look into what I needed and gather a stockpile.
I now have so much of what I need to keep myself going that I was scanned by NPC's while on my way to a planet and they tried to take it from me. Combat wasn't complicated and was over soon enough. A jolt of excitement for combat and fear of loosing my items.
I've liked looking for a new multitool after I passed on one and regretted it. So I went with the Hello Kitty version until I upgraded again to a more badass looking gun/tool.
I passed on it.
Hello Multitool
Oh Hello!
Upgrade! upgrade!
Exploring the 8 or so planets so far I've come across a lot of plants and animals and all have looked plausible. Until I came across the funny flying fairy cow that "moo"ned me.
Mooooooooo'ning
Exploring ancient ruins much like other settlements or outposts can be rewarding. The least part of which is your character learning new words for the alien language.
One problem I've had is the ship on the planets is very inaccurate to land. Trying to judge how far you are over/near something that you want to land at is tricky. When you do start the autoland and your view starts to become clearer on where you are landing it can be surprising where you end up. Too far away, right on to of your target or near it but down a large valley dip. It can be awkward.
Auto landing needs more skills....
I wont' waffle on too much more about my explorations and harp on in an attempt at describing it.
Below are some interesting video's discussing the game and a few (lot) of my own screenshots.
