coaxmetal

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Posts posted by coaxmetal

  1. Posted

    Durability systems in games exist explicitly to be inconvenient, as far as I can tell. Generally, I don't approve of them. In bethesda games, like elder scrolls or (recent, for babies) fallout, they are simply an annoying inconvenience that don't add anything to the experience, other than potentially a currency sink. I think in Dark Souls, the inconvenience fits thematically very well, so there is value there. Additially, they tend to use to as fuel for special weapon attacks that some weapons possess. In this game they significantly changed out durability worked. Everything breaks faster, but now simply resting at a bonfire repairs. This seems like it intentionally encourages you to rest at a bonfire, it extends the limited spell casts to weapons as well. 

     

    Now whether you like that is a different story, but I certainly thing there is intention behind it and that it contributes to the game experience.

  2. Posted

    So if you use the red sign soapstone in the candle-filled room near the arena for the looking glass knight boss fight, there's a chance the looking glass knight in another world will summon you to assist it against whoever is fighting it.

    I will totally have to try that.

     

    Bringing back one of the coolest parts of Demon's Souls (though in that case, the player WAS the boss, not just a helper). Apparently it is far more common to be summoned for this in NG+, but people have said that it is still possible in NG.

     

     

    Also, what is this durability bug? Is it just that things break more quickly than expected? Been out of the loop here for a bit and haven't heard about it.

  3. Posted

    Big Huge Games actually survived after the 38 Studios collapse for about another year. Epic acquired them and renamed them Epic Baltimore, then shut them down about a year later.

     

    As for Reckoning, I played it on PS3 shortly after its release and enjoyed it for what it was. I remember also being impressed with the combat mechanics. I had planned to finish the game on my last naval deployment, but ran into an issue which prevented me from loading my (single player) save games without the game polling back to some server to verify that I owned the preorder DLC items associated with the saves, so I never ended up finishing it.

     

    Oh did they really? I thought they went down with 38. Bummer they got shut down anyway though.

  4. Posted

    I recently picked up the game (Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, henceforth referred to as "reckoning" or "the game") on a steam sale, and decided to give it a whirl. I ended up enjoying it far more than I expected to. 

     

    For those unfamiliar with the backstory behind the "Kingdoms of Amalur" "franchise", it was initially made as the world that the MMO being made by 38 studios, the studio founded by Kurt Schilling with money from the Rhode Island govt, and there was the whole debacle of them running out of money and not paying off loans and getting shut down and never shipping the mmo they worked on for like 7 years or something.

     

    Anyway, at some point, they purchased the studio Big Huge Games, who had previously shipped several games, including Rise of Nations, and I think were owned, at the time, by THQ. Big Huge Games made reckoning, the only amalur game to see the light of day. Rerportedly, they had brought in a lot of heavy hitters to write millenia of backstory for this universe, minds such as the esteemed R.A. "Bob" Salvatore, of Drizzit fame, and one of the elder scrolls guys I think. Reckoning benefited from all this backstory, but the game was made, and presumably written, by BHG.

     

    So, the game. I had seen coverage of it around when it was released, a few years ago, and was largely unimpressed. It has the cartoonish artstyle of something like Fable, though a bit less exaggerated I think, which is a style I am generally not fond of. They had talked about its incredible scope as comparable to an elder scrolls game, but the bits and pieces I heard made it sound as though it was large, but mostly empty. I never played it at the time. Now that I have started playing it, and quite enjoying it, those criticisms, while true to an extent, don't seem so damning. 

     

    I still am not a big fan of the style, but I can deal. The game itself, is quite well made, the combat system in particular, though simplistic, is a lot of fun. All the backstory writing seems to have paid off as well, as, despite the cartoonish and stereotypical fantasy nature of the world, if feels as though it has history, that there is some depth there -- something that Fable as I mentioned above as a comparable, felt lacking in, though I didn't notice it at the time. The main quests, and faction questlines are fun, and somewhat compelling. Sidequests, however, while sometimes entertaining, are so common and so frequently not rewarding that I stopped doing them at all.  Still, they made a good game and I enjoy it, and a sequel would have been able to address a lot of the complaints. I think there is a lot more to this game than people gave it credit for.

     

    Unfortunately, because of the mismanagement at 38 studios (and perhaps the fact that they were trying to make an MMO when the market had moved one), they were shut down, and since big huge games had been purchased by them, they went down with that ship despite the fact that they were a separate studio who had shipped games before, and were the only part of 38 that shipped one. That part is a real bummer, had they not been purchased, they likely would have remained as a studio and still able to make good games.

     

     

    So uh. Anyone else played this game?

     

    e: as an addendum, if anyone worked there or knows stories about it, and how that went down and where people ended up, I'd like to hear it

    e2: thanks to Dinosaurs for informing me that the "one of the elderscrolls guys" I referred to was Ken Rolston (Lead on Morrowind, one of my favorite games)

  8. Posted

    Well I finished the game today. Non-story general comments on the ending, but spoilered in case anyone wants to go in expecting nothing:

    the ending was incredibly abrupt, and I did not realize it was actually the end of the game until the credits started roling

     

    I've picked up a decent idea of the story, but going to have to play it again to get more, most likely on the PC since that is so soon. There is also more to do after finishing the game (it doesn't sent you to NG+ immediately, you go back and can choose when to go to NG+, which is new)

  12. Posted

    Hmmm, I'll have to stay alert. Is there a guild everyone is a part of? I heard that plays a role in pvp and teaming up for jolly good co-op. 

     

    there is a return of everyone's favorite covenant and related gesture from Dark Souls 1, and is very good for jolly cooperation. They have also added a ring that lets you select a particular deity (not afilliated with covenants) and you will be matched with other peopel who did that. I think it is their way of allowing people to match up with friends without breaking their in-world conceit, and it seems to work.

  13. Posted

    Philz is fantastic coffee, all aboard the philz train.

     

    Also, wrt phone coverage, I was on verizon when I moved to SF, and their coverage was perfect. I switched to tmobile a while ago, and, while not as good as verizon, their coverage is adequate. In some buildings I lose signal, and I don't get proper LTE everywhere in the city, often a slower network, but otherwise it works.

  14. Posted

    thanks! I actually don't have too many questions about it at the moment, been following it a good amount seeing what people are saying is a must to do so I don't get stomped too badly etc. 

     

    As fair warning, though I have good intentions, I plan to stomp new players badly, simply with experience in the various PVP areas :P ...  for like half a week till people figure it out and I suck again. But expect that, because I won't be the only one. I never invade, but people will, though getting invaded will probably still be unlikely and uncommon (except in certain covenant related areas, some akin to forest in Dks1, and sometimes its reverse invasion). Genuine invasions are few and far between though -- the invasion item is a limited resource this time around, and the pool of players is much larger so the odds of being invaded are much lower. I suspect the same will hold true on the PC.

     

    I also really look forward to the 25th though, starting anew in a much better looking version of the game.

  16. Posted

    The connections to the first game are sparse, but they are a lot of fun to find. Someone (I forget who, actually) referenced

    a lord of light who tried to stop the darkness in humans, or something like that, which is probably Gwyn. I think it was the guy in Undead crypt that referenced it, not sure

     

    Another cool possible reference is

    when you kill Freja on NG+, she drops 2 souls, her soul, and another soul, the Old Pale Drake Soul. That soul has the great soul icon, and her's doesn't. That soul can be used to get crystal soul spear, or the moonlight greatsword. Both of those things are associated with Seathe, who was a pale dragon, and also the Duke, probably the Duke of "Duke's Dear Freja"

     

    None of the references are explicit or call out anything from dks1 by name, making it possible that it is unrelated, and making it seem like anything from then has been lost to time.

  17. Posted

    Yeah, I have no regrets about buying it on PS3, I am still loving it, taking it super slow. I probably won't do NG+ though, once I beat it, since I have already purchased the PC version and will make a new character on there. I often end up playing on my PS3 which is hooked to my PC monitor, but I have my laptop next to me and hang out in an irc channel dedicated to talking about d* souls, asking about things as I see them, though intentionally leaving a lot to myself to discover, since I only get that once.

     

    Super excited to play it on PC too though.

  18. Posted

    I ended up playing Morrowind in high school, when I had all the time in the world, so I played it a whole whole lot. I think it was a lot easier for me to get into games that were perhaps less approachable. I still love it, and think it is a fantastic game, but I can't tell if that is nostalgia or not. It certainly does things in a way that shows its age, but I loved the range of environments, and some of the spectacles like the ghost fence -- at the time I encountered it, just wandering around, it was amazing and I had no idea what it was.

  21. Posted

    Additional items have been added to the 1.03 patch notes on the Japanese site.  I'm a little conflicted on these, some are good, some are meh.  I really want a chance to try the OP version of Wrath of the Gods before it gets nerfed, but don't really feel like playing most of the way through NG++ to get it.  Soul Greatsword getting nerfed is a good thing, it's so hard to see coming in PvP on someone with maxed casting speed.  I'm fine with mages being powerful (now that I understand how to counter them), but having highly effective, high damage options at every range imaginable is still bullshit.  The RRA needed toned down.  But I'm bummed about nerfs to the LS, that's such a good fight as it is.  Increased defense for some NPCs is really good, as some of them are so freaking hard to keep alive to get through their storyline.

     

    It sounds like this may be dropping today or tomorrow, but the translation is spotty and its not clear that it will go worldwide today. 

     

    the RRA is getting nerfed? RRA was probably the easiest boss, but I guess I sorta cheated. It only took a single chaos storm, but I think I played it later in the game than most people would have.

  22. Posted

    To those of you who have been playing the console versions, has the experience held up for you throughout the game? I'm tempted to pre-purchase the game on Steam, but something is holding me back.

     

    If you just mean the general quality of the game, it has held up great, and i'm on ps3. I've been playing it super slowly, but i'm approaching endgame I think. I did already pre-purchase the PC version though, and I look forward to playing it there.

     

    I'm hoping there will be a bunch of people who chose to wait for the PC version, so I can be a jerk in PVP until everyone figures out whats good and I'm bad again. I don't do invasion PVP though, just bellbro and ratbro.

  23. Posted

    So uh...I just watched the first few episodes of Attack on Titan, because some people recommended it to me. It's one of the worst things I've ever seen. Like, it's bad in pretty much every way an animated series can be bad. What the hell do people see in this?

     

    I haven't seen any of it, but i have read quite a bit of the manga. I do like that, but I remember not liking it as much at the start, so perhaps it gets better.