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Borderlands 2

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The first Borderlands was a game i was honestly kind of expecting to be terrible. I thought that it was going to be a disaster, considering its long and tumultuous development cycle and believing that they wouldn't be able to create a satisfying and skillful shooter based around rpg number crunching. The game surprised the hell out of me, and i ended up sinking something like two hundred hours into it. I think i would count it among all-time favorites.

So now Borderlands 2 is a thing, comes out in a couple weeks.

Looks pretty rad.

There's some good details in that quick look. One of the things i'm happiest to hear about is how they've reworked the quest eligibility system for co-op.

It used to be that if it was a quest you didn't have available in your own instance of the game, you wouldn't get any credit for it. The problem came when the host was a little bit ahead of you, your games would never sync up and you'd be left behind. It made organizing co-op sessions amongst friends a really fiddly pain in the ass.

Now you're always going to get credit for any quest you do in co-op, and when you head back to your own instance of the game, you can simply elect to skip quests you've already completed as they arise.

Also, Gearbox put up some skill tree calculators like they did for the first game. Salvador, Maya, Axton, and Zero. So there you go, if you're into that.

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I'm busy wrapping up the DLC for borderlands 1 that I didn't play years ago. I finished Knoxx yesterday, and still have Claptrap's Revolution to go. What annoys me is the amount of backtracking you have to do, specially in Knoxx you have to travel a lot and replay the same areas quite a bunch of times, and what makes things worse is that quitting the game means you respawn and the home town, so you have to travel that same tedious road again.

I really hope they fixed that in Borderlands 2.

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I'm going to be getting a copy of it for going to the Gearbox panel at PAX last year (Randy gave everyone who went a card with a code to redeem the game), so I'll be playing it for sure. That being said, knowing I won't have to make a buying decision has made me not really care about following the game at all. I think I looked at the names of the playable characters, and I know there's a 5th class that is day 0 DLC (I think?), but that's it.

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The add-on character won't be available until october, and will be free to pre-orders, i believe.

They've also talked about plans for four other content add-ons, and a DLC pass thing to pay a reduced cost up front.

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Never touched the first game, and i don't really know what i'm getting myself into but i going to pick this up

I usually hate the idea of co-op, stuff like Res evil 5 and Army of two make me run a mile. (probably because i have no similarly skilled friends)

But i do like the frantic free for all style co-op that games like Earth defence force delivers

So i'm hoping this is a drop in/drop out shoot some shit up type of game, where your team mates are there more for the lolz and not much strategic teamwork is required

...i'm not really a team player :P

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I'd say that's a fair expectation. I mostly played the first with friends but the few public games I did join seemed pretty functional. And now that they thankfully fixed the questing issues associated with multiplayer (used to be you had to be on the same quest in SP to receive xp for a MP teammate finishing one) it should be super easy to jump in and jump out, probably similarly to how Diablo 3 works.

And if you're on PC, hit me up on Steam. That goes for anyone who wants to team up!

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I've played BLands1 without any help, it is very playable as a SP. I hope blands2 will also be.

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I've played BLands1 without any help, it is very playable as a SP. I hope blands2 will also be.

Heck, you're here. Join someone here! Borderlands 1 was a FANTASTIC co-op experience. One of those rare games where the only possible thing playing with others could do was enhance the experience. Yeah, there are co-op games that depend on others to be fun. Borderlands (assuming it's similar to 1) isn't that type of thing. It's totally drop in/drop out, skill independent co-op where others just add more chaos and fun and explosions to the mix. You don't even need to worry about others in the game, you can work together (or not) as you see fit.

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Heck, you're here. Join someone here! Borderlands 1 was a FANTASTIC co-op experience. One of those rare games where the only possible thing playing with others could do was enhance the experience. Yeah, there are co-op games that depend on others to be fun. Borderlands (assuming it's similar to 1) isn't that type of thing. It's totally drop in/drop out, skill independent co-op where others just add more chaos and fun and explosions to the mix. You don't even need to worry about others in the game, you can work together (or not) as you see fit.

It's probably because most of my experiences with Borderlands were in playthrough 2, but that absolutely wasn't my experience with the game. If somebody gets left behind on the leveling curve, they are totally boned since the game scales the difficulty to the highest level. Additionally, difficulty is also scaled by the number of players, so if you aren't pulling your weight, you're making it more difficult for everybody else.

I mean, i love it, but it can be pretty savage. (Again though, end-of-game on playthrough 2, but being in playthrough 1 wouldn't fix the convoluted quest eligibility scheme.)

The game was also ripe with item hacking on all platforms, so public matches couldn't even be a consideration.

I do think it works as a solo game though, but that opinion seems to vary from person to person. If you're the kind of gamer that burns out on very shootery shooters, the solo game and its absence of group dynamics probably won't work for you.

Anyways, for the first Borderlands, have an organized group or play it alone, is what i'd say.

For the sequel, who knows?

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I didn't play Borderlands 1 cos I hate stat-based numbers-heavy games.

It looks like they've gone all-in with the personality and character in this one though, and gave it some more variety, so that's won me over. A submachine gun that gets more accurate the longer you fire it? Sounds good to me.

My friends don't play Video games at all, so I'm bummed about not playing co-op.

Xbox Gamertag TOMBRIEN if anyone wants to add me.

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I didn't play Borderlands 1 cos I hate stat-based numbers-heavy games.

Borderlands might not be what you think it is, because it's very much a shooter. It's balanced like a shooter, it feels like a good shooter. Shooter tactics and strategies are in play. Your ability to duck behind cover is more important than your defense buffs.

It looks like they've gone all-in with the personality and character in this one though, and gave it some more variety, so that's won me over. A submachine gun that gets more accurate the longer you fire it? Sounds good to me.

My friends don't play Video games at all, so I'm bummed about not playing co-op.

Xbox Gamertag TOMBRIEN if anyone wants to add me.

Perhaps we should organize a weekly co-op session for the forum or something?

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Not really, the first one has a notoriously poor ending.

There will doubtlessly be a lot of nods to the first Borderlands in its sequel, and you get to interact with the characters from the first one as well. Except you never learned anything about them in the first game other than bio blurbs so essentially if they have a story, it's starting in Borderlands 2 not in 1.

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Is there any reason I'd want to complete the original Borderlands before playing the sequel?

Probably not?

Gameplay-wise, Borderlands 2 looks light years beyond the first game. The first game was very much a diamond in the rough. A lot of ambitious ideas begetting spartan execution of those ideas, with some relatively big problems along the way.

Story-wise, not much actually happens in Borderlands. The four main characters all had big narrative arcs in the planning stages and none of it made it into the final game, a casualty of its troubled development.

If you want a spoilery summary of what happens -

The vault hunters show up on Pandora looking for an ancient alien vault and are greeted by a lone claptrap that helps them on their way, while a "guardian angel" begins talking to them through their headsets, guiding them towards said vault. Many silly characters are met, laughs are had, a whole ton of bandits and skags are killed. Atlas corporation shows up and also wants the vault. The vault hunters and the Atlas goons fight over it, angry aliens show up, and then everybody fights a squid monster trying smoosh its way out of the alien vault. The vault hunters emerge victorious over all. Then, only to the player, the guardian angel is revealed to be a Hyperion corporation satellite.

The Zombie DLC has zombies and an island, Moxxi's DLC has even less.

The Knoxx DLC has Atlas reinforcements showing up and being promptly defeated.

The Robot Revolution DLC has the main claptrap from the opening of the game going all Shodan.

Borderlands 2 starts with Hyperion showing up in force and claiming credit for opening the alien vault and moving in to secure its contents, and early details strongly suggest that a lot of the dropped narrative threads from the first game will be carried out in the sequel.

With what looks like most of the main characters from the first game returning, you're sure to miss out on lots of little nods and references, but whatever.

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It's funny, I can totally hear Anthony Birch's style in the writing (at least in the claptrap). Lots of good dorky jokes inserted throughout; reads a lot more clever than the first game already (an hour in).

I'm into teaming up if anyone's down. Though it may be a bit early to do so, don't want any story beats spoiled (either by me or to me) or so on.

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So I hated the first Borderlands, but 2 fixes all my issues,

What were your issues with the first game?

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The combat felt terrible (even once I'd turned off all the stupid inbuilt decisions like mouse accel), the environments were bland, both visually and geometrically, and it felt like it adhered too closely to Diablo 2, which I also didn't like.

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Just started it, and already very happy (I bloody loved the first one). I even like the way the opening credits sequence calls back to the opening credits sequence of the first game.

Funny thing, though; this is my first FPS back on a console in months. I've been playing bits and pieces of FPS games on the PC, though mostly RPGs, Brink being the main exception. The controller feels WEIRD. And very sluggish. Is this what you PC guys have been dealing with all these years?

PS - By "you PC guys" I mean thumbs who have considered the PC their main gaming machine for years. I started using a PC for gaming primarily only in the last year or so. Before that (or at least between then and my teens) I was all about consoles.

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The original Borderlands has somewhat messed up mouse controls too (I'm playing it now whilst Borderlands 2 decides to sit in its preloading state taunting me). There's something off about them. I think the same is true of B2 from what I've read which is a shame, but you get used to it. I found it easier to aim with my PS3 controller but not to actually control it. I don't know if it's something new with FPS games on the PC - perhaps to do with consoles - or just because I'm getting older and and more decrepit but I've noticed it a lot more lately.

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My main complaint with mouse controls in the first game was that aiming felt imprecise and floaty, and I'm having no problems with it this time around, aside from the stupid inbuilt sway. The first game it felt like my aim was always sliding past where I wanted it, wasn't going as fast/slow as it needed to be, felt like my mouse was on ice. Second game, point and click.

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I played the first game on console and this one on PC so I can't make any comparisons. But so far mouse control has been 1:1, excepting sniper rifles which have built in weaknesses that you eliminate through leveling up. Overall I think they've tried to make up for their mediocre Borderlands 1 port with a pretty well-done Borderlands 2 port. Total Biscuit goes into it in further detail here:

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So i've already managed to sink a considerable amount of time into Borderlands 2, somehow i ended up playing a solo game on top of contributing to two co-op runs. (Playing on the 360, since the first game had such a solid and well-supported 360 version.)

I think Borderlands 2 is phenomenal.

It's a sequel that is a dramatic improvement while playing it a bit safe. It features some fairly sweeping changes, but none that lead to the core of the game feeling any different. It's the kind of game that i don't necessarily think would win over people who weren't already on board, but i guess it might actually be doing that, judging by the people i've talked to about the game.

It feels like Gearbox has kind of figured out what they want Borderlands to be, it's a much more fleshed out game, there aren't a ton of rough edges to look past. It's also a much bigger and more balanced game, with a significantly larger emphasis on narrative and interesting mission design in a much broader range of scenery. It is a much more fully realized game.

The revised weapon system is absolutely the best change that has been made, the way they've done so much more to differentiate the different manufacturers in the weapon system, it creates a lot of wildly distinct weapon styles. It ends up feeling more like you can choose your gun by preference, as opposed to gradually distilling your selections down to the highest DPS weapons.

I like the new classes, there doesn't seem to be any one character that is dramatically out in front of the others like Lilith was in the first game. (Salvador is a riot to play, if you're not sure who to pick, i'd recommend either him or Axton.)

The enemies generally display much more dynamic behavior, they aren't as much of immovable damage sponges this time around.

The story is... a story... Handsome Jack is a one-trick pony, but i kind of dig that they've pulled in the player characters from the first game as active participants of the new narrative. I was concerned that the increased emphasis on plot might actually detract from the game, but It's largely inoffensive, it's reasonably well written and it doesn't get in the way of the open-ended gameplay.

I think it's also a significantly better looking game, from both a technical and design standpoint, particularly that the weapons are much more interestingly stylized.

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