Video Games Randomness - Prioritize specific game threads!

[morlac]

And now they are making another bad game called Anthem. Its just crap Destiny with a loot game like Diablo mixes with a great game called Tribes.

Wait, this is a thing? Anthem is like that? Signe me up!

[Daehawk]

Ya you'd think but if you see a trailer you see how crappy it really is. Way too must Destiny and Destiny 2 in its blood. Giving Bioware money is wasting it and supporting a bad group of people these days. They died when EA bought them and the 2 founders ran off when the running was good.

Maybe Ill reinstall Destiny 2 and give it another go.

[Kasey Chang]

Tried to play a session of Drox Operative. It's... interesting rendition of Elite, in 2D, and feels like Space Rangers lite, in a way, yet different.

Basically, your objective is to be aligned with the winner in the sector. Everybody else can be either aligned... or eliminated. And they can be eliminated by proxy (i.e. use diplomacy, sabotage, treaties, etc.) to get someone else fight the battles for you. And the different races will battle each other, destroy each other's colonies, colonize planets (that are unclaimed or had its colony wiped out), as well as conduct research. Your job is to build up your ship, make lots of credits, and make sure you're aligned with the winners,

Each "session" is one sector, composed of several systems (randomly generated) with random "monsters" different factions on different planets.

Getting there is different. Your ship is a bit on the small side, and deciding what components to fit will always be difficult. You have hull (structure), optional armor, optional shields, and power generator. Components come in 3 sizes: heavy, medium, light. Your ship starts as a fighter with 3/3/3. As you gain levels, your ship grows if you allocate points to "command". Some components will require different attributes as prerequisites, like an engine may require engineering 3. Or some weapons require tactics 5, and so on. On the other hand, some ship components can also enhance your attributes.

Every component can be normal, enhanced, rare, legendary, and so on. And they often come with bonus stuff, like ATK+20, or generate extra power. The rarer the part, the bigger the bonus.

Fighting is pretty good, sorta 2D isometric / sprite based space combat. Control mechanism is interesting, as you *can* do WASD and shoot with mouse, sort of dual-stick thing, but as the ship doesn't have afterburner, if enough ships come after you they'll just burn you to pieces any way. Picking the right fight is crucial. While you do have "insurance", i.e. you will respawn at home "home" system in the sector, there is obviously a penalty.

I will have to try again, as I managed to lose my first sector.

[Daehawk]

I liked Drox well enough. I think Ill reinstall it and start again. VoidExpanse is a much much better game though. Off to Drox with me!!

[Skinypupy]

Out of sheer curiosity, I tried Bless Online last night. It's a "new" Korean MMO that recently went F2P after a very short stint as a P2P game on Steam. It's a game that has failed spectacularly in two different markets (Europe and Asia), and they tried to give it another go in North America. It's been widely panned, but I have somewhat of a soft spot for Korean grindfests, so I figured I'd give it a look.

That might honestly be one of the worst games I've ever played and is a master class on how not to make a game. Everything about it - from the UI to the controls to the story - are remarkably unintuitive and confusing. The first couple hours are nothing more than random button mashing through poorly translated, awkward dialog. Even thought it's on Unreal Engine 3, the game runs like absolute garbage on my mid-range system with a frame rate that absolutely craters when you get more than 3 or 4 characters on screen at the same time.

After playing for 2 hours, I literally felt absolutely zero interest in continuing. There is nothing compelling in the least about this game, it's not even in the "bad enough to be slightly entertaining" category...it's just plain awful.

[dbt1949]

Steam's autumn sale has been brutal on me. 5 games so far.

[hitbyambulance]

i thought everyone owned all the games already

[Smoove_B]

I guess Bethesda doesn't want you to buy regular copies of Skyrim anymore, eh? It's buried on STEAM and it's not on discount as part of the sale. I'd get a copy of the Legendary edition (whatever they're calling it) but it's for my daughter and I'm not sure if her PC can run it. I'll probably just get it for her Switch as that comes with Zelda stuff (apparently) and she's out of her mind for all things Zelda.

[Baroquen]

Out of sheer curiosity, I tried Bless Online last night.

Wow. Glad I read this. I was almost thinking about trying the game earlier today, as it's F2P, so even if the reviews were bad, maybe I'd get a little entertainment out of it. I'm in kind of a gaming lull anyway. But given your review, I'm glad I held off. Maybe I'll try something from my backlog instead.

[dbt1949]

i thought everyone owned all the games already

No, that's JetFred.

[JetFred]

Nope. Best purchase of the quarter was Shaolin vs Wutang yesterday. I wanted it so bad, I paid half price.

[Kasey Chang]

Trying to get into Sunless Sea. It's atmopsheric as heck, but it's also difficult as heck. ALL your money went into fuel and supplies. And ANY damage comes out of your cash. Trying to accumulate money for upgrade is nearly impossible. Add to the bits about some of the islands moved around a bit for each playthrough, and the map becomes impossible. Trade routes are impossible too, or somehow I'm skipping some events which ruined the trade route.

I helped the island of rats and got the rats into power. Somewhere along the way, I obtained 4 bolts of fabric. According to the Wiki, I can unload it in Iron Empire. However, when I finally got there (down to 5/75 hull) the sell price is ZERO. WTF? Left the port, and before I can say WTF I got sunk by a "revolutionary" ship with one shot.

-----

Playing Carrier Deck. Wow, they really did capture the spirit of busy dance on a carrier deck. My main complaint is why can't I queue a launch order when I have 3 cargo aircraft in the air or on deck? When a cargo craft lands it automatically adds a launch order, and if there's 3 of them then I can't launch any more aircraft until I launch one of them. ARGH. If it's a real aircraft carrier any threat nearby would have caused an abort/bolter in all landing patterns and all priority would be allocated to launched armed aircraft to neutralize the threat.

[Kasey Chang]

Playing VoidExpanse. It does capture a 2D Elite feel pretty well. I just hit lvl 30 and I'm upgrading to a light cruiser soon, if I can build up more cash so I can buy some decent weapons. The quests are not too bad. I'm trying to be admitted into the Order.

[Daehawk]

Playing VoidExpanse. It does capture a 2D Elite feel pretty well. I just hit lvl 30 and I'm upgrading to a light cruiser soon, if I can build up more cash so I can buy some decent weapons. The quests are not too bad. I'm trying to be admitted into the Order.

Really loved that game. Used to talk to the dev guy on the forum some. Seemed nice. Not a fan of the new game he is doing Im sad to say but he does want to get to a Void Expanse 2 sometime. I never got super far in it even though I loved it. I disliked my ships I have stored not being available to me in a new system. I like having a fighter type and a big old freighter but it was forcing me to choose. Which is something on me not the game. Next time I go at it Ill just pick a ship and go

[Blackhawk]

Screw it.

25 years or so ago, mouselook became a thing. When that happened, people began to move from the arrow keys to the left side of the keyboard. There was a perfectly logical place to move - for nearly a century and a half, typists have been taught to use the 'home row', to place their fingers on ASDF and JKL;. So why not just move there? Keyboards are designed on the assumption that your fingers would be in those places. Keys are located so they'll be reachable from there. If you're gaming and want to type, you have to have your fingers there.

But nope. Doom and Quake player Dennis “Thresh” Fong decided to move one key further over - for absolutely no practical reason (and it even removes an entire row of keys from easy use.) And he won. Not because of his layout, but because of his natural skill. His handbook on how to play became the de-facto place to learn. And his key configuration (WASD) became the most popular option. By 20 years ago, it was the default setup on most games.

I started first/third person action games about that time. My first foray (Unreal) I played with a joystick. Before long I moved to the arrow keys and mouse. After playing a couple of games I moved to the keypad so that I'd have easy access to a few other keys for things like jumping. Rainbow Six and Everquest, both of which I played in 1999, were a huge pain that way. Not only did they make heavy use of the number keys, Everquest made you type. Moving from the numpad to the keyboard and back all the time was a huge pain. So I did the logical thing - I started gaming with my hands in the typing position: ASDF. I used E for forward (exactly the same key arrangement as WASD), which gave my index finger access to R, T, G, H, V and B, and my pinky access to Q, A, Z, tab, shift, and control. I'd never even heard of WASD at that point - I didn't play competitive online shooters.

Every game I had to rebind. No big deal. Most games haven't caused an issue. Now, though, it's becoming a problem. More and more games hardcode their controls, due to a combination of PC being low priority and lazy developers. You might not be able to rebind at all, or some controls may be hardcoded to one of the movement keys (Fallout 4 and 76, I'm looking at you, locking 'F' to rotate.) Some games I've had to remap my entire keyboard in order to play (Fallout 4, again), but it makes typing a nightmare when your 'E' key types 'w' and your 'W' key types 't' (and all the rest of the keys are the same.)

So, thanks to Dennis “Thresh” Fong, I've finally had enough. I'm so sick of fighting with lazy developers that I'm going to learn the inferior option. And I get to un-learn decades worth of muscle memory to do it.

Thanks, Thresh.

[Smoove_B]

Well, I had exactly the opposite experience. I am a trained typist; I can probably type somewhere north of 80 WPM on a computer keyboard. I took to WASD like it was my job after resisting the use of mouselook for years. Rainbow 6 was the game that broke me and since then, I haven't turned back.

Anyway, to get back to being a trained typist, I tried playing Epistory - Typing Chronicles. For combat, I can hammer out words like crazy. But the movement? They want me to use the insane (it's insane) movement scheme you're describing with ASD and JKL or something similarly crazy. It's not possible to rewire your brain after ~30 years of daily typing reinforcement.

I also don't understand the obsession with key rebinding, but I suppose we all have our demons.

[Daehawk]

With me I use arrows and mouse. Its the way I sit. I dont have a desk. My PC sits on a cedar chest. I cant get my knees under it. I sit at an angle...sideways to my PC with my right side facing the chest and PC. I would have to really reach for the WASD keys but arrows are perfect.

Arrows = movement
crtl = duck
alt = prone
shift = jump
numzero = sprint
del = talk
NUM 1,4,7 = assorted uses

mouse left = shoot
mouse right = aim
thumb = reload
2nd thumb = grenade or melee

I have to sit here and twist to the right to use the pc. This is how I started and learned on DOOM and DOOM II and have used arrows and mouse ever since.

[Blackhawk]

I also don't understand the obsession with key rebinding, but I suppose we all have our demons.

Because I'm also a trained typist, as are most people who spend much time at a computer beyond email. It only makes sense to use that training in gaming. After all, I spent hours and days doing drills to know exactly where the '4' and 'T' keys are with my fingers on ASDF. Why wouldn't I leverage that?

The alternative is to effectively learn one keyboard for gaming, and one for everything else. It just doesn't make sense. But someone decided that would be how we'd play games, and I'm tired of fighting it.

[GreenGoo]

As a left hander I remap the keys on anything where keybindings matter. If it weren't for a ready made grouping of keys found in the keypad, I almost certainly would remap everything to the home row on the right side.

I completely agree with everything Blackhawk said, but have little sympathy given the sometimes extensive remapping, testing, remapping I have to do with some games.

You have a point, however, welcome to the club.

[Alefroth]

With me I use arrows and mouse. Its the way I sit. I dont have a desk. My PC sits on a cedar chest. I cant get my knees under it. I sit at an angle...sideways to my PC with my right side facing the chest and PC. I would have to really reach for the WASD keys but arrows are perfect.

I have to sit here and twist to the right to use the pc. This is how I started and learned on DOOM and DOOM II and have used arrows and mouse ever since.

That sounds like a nightmare. No wonder you get pissed at games. Doesn't seem like it would help with your pain, either.

[Daehawk]

It doesn't.I have 5 pillows under me too.

[Kasey Chang]

Went to play a bit more Carrier Deck. This is a great version of "spinning plates" game where you keep doing things until some can't be kept up any more. There's always quick game and survival mode if you want to try that. I've been 5-star'ing the scenarios so far except for one mission I got a 3, mainly because I seem to have LOST one of two Marine Chinooks I was supposed to use against enemy positions, and one chopper can't attack 2-3 targets at the same time. Just played that mission again and got 5-star.

I have to admit though, I was cheating a little. I used Cheat Engine and turned the game speed down to half speed.

[morlac]

It doesn't.I have 5 pillows under me too.

This sounds horrific, Why not just get a cheap used table to play on? Garage sale, flea market, side of the road, etc

[Max Peck]

Such a tease...

[Blackhawk]

It doesn't.I have 5 pillows under me too.

This sounds horrific, Why not just get a cheap used table to play on? Garage sale, flea market, side of the road, etc

Seriously. As someone with back problems, my first thought on reading about sitting that way was that it was a perfect set up to either cause back and neck pain, or make it worse. Human spines aren't made to support weight in that position for an extended period.

[jztemple2]

I'd love to give you my desk. Not that it isn't a very nice desk. We got it twenty years ago but didn't realize when we ordered it that, while it has a cherry veneer, it had some rock solid, heavy as shit wood composite composition. The damn thing weighs, no joke, 600 pounds. Twenty years ago I could lever it around, but now it's a permanent part of the room. I still have an old XBox power supply behind it that I just abandoned in place rather then try to fish it out.

The point of the story (does it really have a point?) is that a good gaming desk, along with a good chair, are essentials. I'd say they are worth their weight in gold, but for my desk I don't know if there is that much gold around

[GreenGoo]

I can't even begin to fathom a 600 lb wood desk that is not solid wood.

I had my father's old steel desk for a long time. Wait, I just realized I still have it downstairs. It can't weigh more than a couple hundred lbs, and that's with 6 steel drawers.

[jztemple2]

Yeah, it's a pretty amazing desk. It's six feet across and three feet deep with integrated cabinets and shelves on top that makes it top out at six feet tall. There's no bracing for the desktop, the bottom is just an open sided box essentially, but it's so strong that in twenty years of having stuff on it nothing has bowed the tiniest bit.

Back to gaming related... I'm coming up on the fifth year anniversary of my current rig. I replaced the video card earlier this year and I have 16 GB of RAM so that should still be good for awhile. So my thought is, how long will it be before the recommended specs for a game show that my i7-4770K no longer hacks it?

[Kraken]

I can't even begin to fathom a 600 lb wood desk that is not solid wood.

Particle board is much heavier than wood. It's also well-nigh indestructible in ordinary use (although it doesn't hold up well when moved). Wife's computer desk is 32 years old, and mine is about 25. They are both crazy heavy. Somewhere along the line we agreed to never buy particle board furniture again, but these desks are grandfathered in.

[Daehawk]

I just got used to it. I used to want a desk so I could use a wheel and pedals but finally gave up after a couple years. I couldn't use a normal desk now after sitting this way for 24 years.

[Unagi]

sitting what way?

[Smoove_B]

Its the way I sit. I dont have a desk. My PC sits on a cedar chest. I cant get my knees under it. I sit at an angle...sideways to my PC with my right side facing the chest and PC. I would have to really reach for the WASD keys but arrows are perfect.

"Hey doc, it hurts when I sit at my computer and do this."
"Don't do that."

[Kraken]

Ha. I always lean back with my feet on the desk, next to my monitor, and the keyboard on my lap. The veneer is worn off where my feet rest.

[GreenGoo]

Particle board is much heavier than wood. It's also well-nigh indestructible in ordinary use (although it doesn't hold up well when moved). Wife's computer desk is 32 years old, and mine is about 25. They are both crazy heavy. Somewhere along the line we agreed to never buy particle board furniture again, but these desks are grandfathered in.

Neither of those things are particularly true.

Particle board density is right in the middle of natural wood density, with many woods heavier and many lighter. Of course it depends on the particle board as well, but there isn't a huge variance there.

Particle board is absolutely terrible for durability, although with a quality veneer and good construction quality it can last forever. That's because it's protected though. Getting particle board wet is particularly fast in destroying it. Wood may or may not warp depending on a number of factors, but particle board will inflate like a sponge and then all the qualities it gained when being made disappear.

That's assuming we're talking about the same product of course. Particle board is sawdust (dust in this case could be bigger particles) and glue (resin). Aspenite is a brand name that I used to call oriented strand board (OSB) in the same way that some people call photocopies "xeroxes". OSB is a different product and is used in the construction of houses. To the best of my knowledge particle board is not, because it's not durable without expensive veneers, not to mention the water issue.

I'm not in the construction business and products and names may have changed since I was younger, although I think particle board has been particle board forever and continues to be particle board. I'm no expert, but I know a little.

I have particle board desktops with an excellent veneer on top of steel legs that I bought at Ikea of all places. They are awesome and far better quality than I expected from Ikea. They are probably 15-20 years old now and show no signs of falling apart. The edge veneer on one of them has been stripped off through constant wear and while I tried to glue it back in place I had neither the correct glue or clamps that can handle applying pressure to the edge of a surface. The fact that it was a curved edge didn't help matters. Like trying to glue a piece of wood to the inside of a circle. My efforts lasted a month, at which point I tore the rest of it off and threw it away. Even with the exposed particle board, there have been no issues. The desk surface is heavy, but not particularly so. It's definitely heavier than a similarly sized sheet of pine, for sure. Probably closer to spruce, but it's been 15-20 years since I lifted them independent of the steel legs.

[dbt1949]

We have particle board floors in our house. We were told they were plywood but we were lied to.
Where ever we have had a water leak in the house the particle board has swollen up and disintegrated.
So I've had to cover the holes with 3/4 inch plywood.
I have put together furniture that was made of particle board and after about 10 years have fallen apart because the board disintegrated around the screws.
My computer sits on a hospital table and I sit in a 22 year old Lazy Boy for my computer adventures. Slide the table out of my way when I want to get up.

[Daehawk]

I have some particle board shelves. One of the dogs papers are near one of them and he got the shelf instead. That bottom area on that side is peeling apart.

[Kraken]

Particle board is much heavier than wood. It's also well-nigh indestructible in ordinary use (although it doesn't hold up well when moved). Wife's computer desk is 32 years old, and mine is about 25. They are both crazy heavy. Somewhere along the line we agreed to never buy particle board furniture again, but these desks are grandfathered in.

Neither of those things are particularly true.

Particle board density is right in the middle of natural wood density, with many woods heavier and many lighter. Of course it depends on the particle board as well, but there isn't a huge variance there.

Particle board is absolutely terrible for durability, although with a quality veneer and good construction quality it can last forever. That's because it's protected though. Getting particle board wet is particularly fast in destroying it. Wood may or may not warp depending on a number of factors, but particle board will inflate like a sponge and then all the qualities it gained when being made disappear.

Then I'll amend that to say that our particle board furniture is much heavier than our natural wood furniture. "Ordinary use" doesn't include getting it wet. Moving it often causes its joints to fail -- the main reason it's called "fall-apart-icle board." We bought a lot of cheap particle-board furniture when we furnished our house 30 years ago. Since then we've gradually upgraded most of it. But our massive computer desks are eternal.

[GreenGoo]

I thought about putting a caveat at the beginning of my post to try to head off appearing to be a contrarian and the length of my post seeming to be overly lecturing. I'm not good at tone fairly often.

Mostly I just wanted to say that I didn't agree, and the rest was just informational, but not guaranteed to be the final word on the subject, because I don't work in construction and don't keep up on building material development.

Particle board can be heavier than natural wood, depending on the wood and particle board. I think I took "much heavier" to mean a bigger difference than was intended.

In any case, if I came off overly aggressive I didn't intend to be. I was just writing out information as I understood it. There's also the very real possibility that there is confusion about what particle board is. Like I said, press board has always been Aspenite to me, even though Aspenite doesn't even exist any more, I don't think. There are enough woodchip building products that I'm sure some are being called the wrong thing. Not that I think that's happening here, just that might be. Seems unlikely.

[Kasey Chang]

From what I understand, the deck material is some sort of a composite made of wood scrap/waste and other materials, usually some sort of recycled plastic. Several companies, like Trex, Fibreon, TimberTech, and so on make them with proprietary formulations. It's similar to a particle board, but much more durable, albeit in smaller sizes.

[Kasey Chang]

Speaking of awkward gaming positions. My current setup is a weird mix of utility and make-do. I am using a "mobile" computer desk (it has 4 wheels) with hutch, but it's a NARROW one. Apparently nobody wanted dual monitors back then. It still had CD racks on the sides, that's how old they are. I am using it with my laptop, on a laptop stand that's adjustable angle. Then I have a separate "computer cart" (with its casters taken off, using it as a stand) to the side, angled slightly, with a monitor stand and some extra stuff to prop up my external monitor so they are "roughly" the same height. It also has enough room for my mouse. That means I have no desk space, as I can't fit a monitor arm on this desk (no "lip" for it to clamp onto). I have to clamp an "arm rest" to my cart side of the desk, so my mouse hand doesn't hover in mid-air. At least my chair isn't totally crap (it's supposedly rated for 300 pound person, but not really).