STO.... Competitive....

Competitive mode has my interest peeked. A new scenario: Binary Circuit looks to be very interesting.

GRW.... Patch 3

Patch 3 is due in a few hours and fixes a lot, at 6.3 GB I should think so!

They did fix the boats, "Fixed boats spawning on top of each other in Agua Verde".

Cities Skylines....

Nice to see that Cities Skylines is getting a port to Xbox One (Out on April 21st).
I'm sure that with the port there will be additional changes and updates (not counting Mass Transit) for all versions in the future.

Paradox Interactive

Windows Central

http://www.windowscentral.com/cities-skylines-xbox-one-edition-preview

Darkest Dungeon....

Now with mods! The Steam Workshop is a proving to be a little goldmine! While I'm not too heavily interested in modding my current playthrough's, there are some nice mods that do cosmetic changes.
The flood gates are open.

Eve Online....

I've had this post as a draft for what seems like month's. To talk about patches, game changes and the way they have changed my gameplay. I've gone from rewriting it in a glass half full kind of way to a glass half empty, from not caring to a boiling vat of rage. In all the rewriting one thing stayed the same, the Eve universe goes on, people adapt and in the end what was all the fuss about. If you did it before and it's changed you either keep doing it accepting the changes or you never do it again.

A lot of what I was going to talk about was made redundant by the arrival of fanfest. Changes on changes with more planned make for more of a fluid landscape that needs to be commented on there and then, if not the item you wanted to talk about has moved and shifted.

Fanfest. Backslapping, Backslapping, Backslapping, with CCP overall promotion at no other event it's no surprise that they should slap themselves on the back at Fanfest. It such a hard backslap that I'm sure it even hurts the onlookers over the internet like me. It's cringe worthy stuff at times. CCP doing what CCP does best, makes me roll my eye's a lot.

It's never a good sign when your skipping ahead in a presentation. New vids are done well but I'm not drooling over them and in watching the first day I skipped over the second viewing of the intro vid during the keynote. Then again I'm not the target audience.

New Intro video: "Birth Of The Capsuleer"

EVE Online - Between Fanfests (2016-2017)

CCP ghost, stole the show for me. He can present well and does so in a personal way that draws you in and makes you connect more with him, his job, his mission in the company and the changes he is forging.


It's a very delicate balance with the space colonization "dream", I'm glad there is a pause and they are not going to do it for the sake of doing it.

What did I really take away from Fanfest this year... The dynamic PvE in the winter expansion. I can only shudder at what is to come in that regard. I'm not that hopeful and expect a shitstorm lot of changes to fuck with my chi change the game.

Too true....

I see a lot of myself in these comments:

TheLazyPeon

Project....

I'm glad that there has been no real mention of Project Legion. I wasn't happy at it being turned into an arena shooter but I had hope. Perhaps now with an admission from CCP that the version of the game wasn't 'Eve enough' will take the game in a proper direction.
With it still in development who knows when and in what form that will be, I do know a community that will be waiting.

Eve Online....

While I have a larger post about the ongoing Eve Universe I just wanted to share another moment from my PvE Alpha clone.

The character removed himself from the corp is was in, mainly due to the amount of war dec's and the lack of activity that those bring. With that I got to reconsolidate all his assets and make a few tweaks to ship fits so they are a bit more efficient (for him).

Gnosis

His Gnosis in level 4 missions is greatly outclassed. Pushing it hard in a few has proved that. It can just about clear a very basic drone level 4 but it can take around 2 hours and needs so many warp out's. If it were not for the free rep's from local player structures it would cost isk to finish missions.

Level 4's may be a pain to clear but they are looking a lot more beautiful to look at.

Back to running faster level 3's in a cruiser. Not that I'm running many. The search for a good hi-sec PvE corp goes on....

Targeted assassination....

The latest elusive target is a strange one as the timer on the target is 11 day's. I can only presume that is due to the new players brought in via the release of the boxed version of the game.

The Paparazzo does take his time in the mission and I'm sure there are faster way's to complete the contract but I'm very happy with the result.

 
A way better result than the utter disaster of the previous elusive target. I put success down to the current being in Paris. A location/map I know back to front. Whereas the previous target failure is definitely down to my lack of knowledge of the Colorado map.

A brief view....

I tried out Squad for a bit this weekend. Not for as long as I wanted but still a good hours worth of game time. My time was curbed mainly by the full servers, no surprise given the free weekend.

I veered away from the open slots on the lower ping servers.


Graphically the attention to detail seems on par with Arma 3. That's not to say that all portions of the game are perfect, it's still well in development. There is a lot of polish to be applied yet.
 

Controls are easily memorable, no really complex button mashing contortionism. I still stand by my view that Squad is the perfect mid ground between the likes of Battlefield 4 and Arma 3.  Trying it out confirms that to me. Intricate but not overly complex and more approachable in a pick up and play kind of way.

The game does depend on a lot of interaction between players. The more organised the group the better. Get on a server that has an open space in a squad who's leader is afk/noninteractive and you will be in a world of hurt.

Long story short it's a game worth keeping an eye on. 


This video is a good view of a gamer going into into Squad as a single player.

The Shermanator

The games video tutorials are also worth a watch and show a lot of thought on how they want their community to work together.

 

[Squad] Tutorial Series

 

The chair....

It's the small touches that add so much to a level. With Marrakesh being my current level in Hitman, I found the IKEA chair dude in the embasy funny and worth a share:

Notex

WoW ilvl 900....fast?

BellularGaming makes it sound so easy..... Maybe I shouldn't have spent all my gold on pets and mounts.

Legion Patch 7.2 Gearing Up Guide - Get Up To & Past iLvl 900 Fast! 

 

Ghost Recon Wildlands.... Completed

My progress with the game has outpaced the post I was going to put up. So since I've finished the game I'll compile everything into this post. Not that I can gush about it more than I already have.

I've been really enjoying this game. My pace at consuming the content says it all. I've levelled and maxed out everything. The fact that I created a second character (see end) right after doing the rerun of the final mission shows I love the game. Once again I'm as happy as can be that I went all in on this game, gold edition dlc/season pass.

 
A plane I didn't crash..... will wonders never cease...

The reward G36C assault rifle served me well but the Aug A3 was so much better.

But in my late game I grudgingly changed over to the Tar 21. The in game increase in stats it gives are noticeably better, accuracy and rate of fire do make the difference.

Plus I had an extended magazine for it.

The MSR remains the best weapon for sniping and I'm glad I got it. I'd rather have a longer reach with the power to take a target down in one shot than two shots at a closer range.

While I never got to really use an LMG or SMG my favourites were the Stoner A1 LMG and the good 'ol P90 SMG.

LMG:

SMG:

I found missions quick and action filled for the most part so that even if you need to get more resources the way you go about that task is as diverse as the weapon configuration.
You want to claim that truck full of fuel. You can snipe the driver. Lay mines. Attack from a helicopter. Ram the truck with an armoured car. Have the rebels block the way. Or cause a traffic jam yourself. That's a lot of freedom.

The storyline is diverse as well with it driving things forward and your actions having meaning. Making you feel like you are the team making the difference. It's over the top because it is storytelling, it's better gameplay for it.

 Ins0mn1ac13

You can change the difficulty to an insane level and make the game a very long drawn out tactical challenge. Normal is doing me fine.

This is a game that has two endings to please all players view on how it should happen. I do prefer the original and not the alternative. But I can see why they gave both.

Given the large number of soldiers I've killed I thought this place would have been bigger.....

The only real bug I found in my playthrough was with trying to pick up a medal. On first glance there is a chair that is blocking you. While you can normally knock over or push items that are in your way, this chair is in an awkward position. One grenade later and I'd blown away the chair and the items on the desk (bar the medal). I was still not able to get to it. An invisible barrier was blocking me. I had to crouch run to the desk to get near enough to pickup the medal. But at least I was able to get it.
This problem was noticed in the forums and is on a list of known problems.

Last of my playthrough screenshots:

My next character is going to be doing a quicker run through.
Where my first was using assault and sniper rifles this new character will be using an SMG with an LMG as the secondary.

I have plans to up the difficulty a lot further for a third character using pistols and shotguns... for fun.... Lots of fun to be had.