Divinity Middle-earth Original Shadow Sin 2 of Mordor....

The last two games of my long-term game uninstall reconsideration hit-list..... Two of the harder games to consider, but in the end it makes sense to call it on them.

Divinity: OS2:

It's been a long time since I've been back to the game. It's stayed installed in the hope(ever fading) that I'll get back to it(solo or with a friend). That hasn't happened. I should have learnt by now.

It's a game a player will either love or loath, for one reason or another(or many). For me I'm neither as funny/odd as that may sound. I liked what I saw and I bought an all bells and whistles edition to play. I'd hope I'd get a lot out of it; Liked that the option to play co-op with a friend was there. However he like me found the reality of the game 'meh'. So solo and co-op play pretty much fell at the first hurdle. Maybe it was too much choice, too much game; Maybe it was the top down view that was unsustainable.... A combination of all? Whatever it was it dissuaded me and my friend from playing it.  

Looking back at old posts early on you'd not guess that(like this one). All gung-ho for hundreds of hours of content. Between buying, liking and playing it early on, there were a lot of good updates/patches(here, here, here and here); But it was on a downhill trajectory for me/us. Two years on from this post which was two years on from buying it says it all; And yet I still have the game installed. A game that's been uninstalled and reinstalled as me and my friend attempted to get into it again(we needed something like it to play together) it was worth another try...... But again things haven't happened.... It is what it is, hard to pinpoint and explain the 'meh'. 

If it was going to get played it would have been by now.... Hope springs eternal till the final uninstall, today.

Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor

There's nothing that knocks the wind out of the a players game-play sails than to loose progress due to a 'bug'. It's what happened to my 'go' at the game. When such a bug hit and the main objective marker disappeared never to return. Not knowing it was a bug at the time I went on to do other content which only compounded the loss of progress I was facing.

I tried restarting on a new save a good while ago; But it never felt the same again. As good as the game is my enthusiasm was drained. Especially with a potential prospect of a 'bug' happening again. 

Bug aside it's a good game. It's not flawless but the nemesis system, worg riding and (assassination)take-down's are fun.

A Casual Carebear Gamer

In a wait and see mode to get back into the game, other games have taken precedence in a similar vein of gameplay. Mainly Assassins Creed Origins. A better world with better systems and a better story to get lost in....

Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor....

Yea my save is not gonna work properly. I might retry this game from scratch at some stage in the future but the sting of the problem is still too near to do it now.  

Last night I decided to take my character on one more wander in Mordor to finalise my time in game. So here's a condensed 20 minutes of orc hurting, flower picking, camp fire exploding, wall climbing, Carogor releasing, Mordor wandering fun....

Casual Carebear

Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor....

With my recent adventures into the world of Ghost Recon on console. And my surprise at how well it translated. My view of a game with keyboard and mouse compared to a controller has changed. I tend to just go with pc games as a keyboard and mouse. A game that's been on my long list of games to play, one that also seems to work better on PC with a controller is Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor. The game came out just over 3 years ago. I bought the full, all content version 10 month's ago during a steam sale. Once purchased I ignored it. I knew it was a lengthy game, I had played it for a split second then put it on the long finger.

Getting into it now with a controller in hand feels perfect. The controls in game react to whatever input you use. Put the controller down and the Xbox symbols change to the appropriate keys when you move the mouse/keyboard and vise versa.

To readjust myself to the game I decided to ease in slowly, gathering and stealth killing as I went.

This gave way to a build up of my game mechanic confidence and in turn grander enemy take-downs, fire explosions as well as the 'weaker' non-storyline 'featured' Orcs.

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There is great fun to be had in the combat system. It's a visual pleasure to watch once you start to become familiar with the combo's/finishing moves.

So with a healthy amount of orc's at my feet I think I overstaying my reintroduction. I'd already collected herbs, mushrooms, artifacts, hidden eleven texts in all the area's. All the while obliterating targets of opportunity. Yet this is the story mode I'm supposed to be playing. I better get into the meat of the game. So marking the lesser of the two story mode orc captains I went on to progress; And this is where I've hit a snag. When they are selected their markers show up on the map but not when you go to that location.

Orc selected but no marker in game area.

With no marker on the ground to activate there is no mission to progress.

This is apparently a well known bug in the game. One that has not been fixed in all it's time!

As described in the steam forums, a potential fix is to create a second playthrough, complete the intro and retry the first playthrough. I did just that with no joy.

Here is what it should look like from a second character's perspective.

The only solution seems to be a deletion of the save and a start from scratch....
Not fun after 10 hours of gameplay. I'm not in any mood to redo those 10 hours after having just done them..... The game is fun but the thoughts of redoing it again is not good at all, not fun, not fun at all.

I'll try file verification, but if it works on the second character I doubt it's a fix. This could be the end of the game for me.  If I did get a second playthrough going I wouldn't want the same thing to happen to me after another 10, 15 or 20+ hours of gameplay. I'll need to reconsider it.