December 2023 General Discussion Thread

[Brian Boru]

starts humming

You realize how close that got me to uninstalling the game?
This would've been so much better.

 

[ZedClampet]

You realize how close that got me to uninstalling the game?
This would've been so much better.

Wow, that brought back memories. Haven't thought about Laurie Berkner in a long, long time.

 

[ZedClampet]

But of course! (Zloth grabs Brian's feet and starts humming a little tune.)

I saw Jaws in the theaters when I was 9. I must have had a good imagination because then I went to the pool, jumped in off the high dive, looked around under the water, thought about the movie, panicked and swam as fast as I could to the side, and didn't use the deep end of the pool anymore.

My parents were really permissive about what we could watch. My younger (actor) brother was only 5. That summer we went to my aunt's house. They had a very rambunctious new kitten who was always hiding and jumping out and attacking you. It scared my little brother to death. He marched into the living room and said, "You all are going to ignore this problem until it jumps out and bites you on the a$$" which was kind of a quote from the movie. All the adults died from laughter.

 

[BeardyHat]

The biggest barrier to me playing games with stories is that I don't want to stop listening to the radio shows that I'm streaming. I really want to start Alan Wake 2, but I really want to listen to local sports talk more. They are perfect for playing something like Weed Shop 3 or Ranch Simulator, but not so perfect in any game where there's a lot of dialogue. But hey, it's only from 6 am to 7 pm, so I can play at night. Of course, we have one station that's 24 hours local sports, but I don't like the hosts on those shows. They are incredibly obnoxious.

I have this issue too, much of the time!

Usually though it's that as soon as I hit a story beat, one of my kids has something very important to tell me, like, "Dad, watch this!" then just screams or "Dad, did you know the Urbanmech doesn't have jump jets?"

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Wow, that brought back memories. Haven't thought about Laurie Berkner in a long, long time.

Haha. My family listens to her Christmas album every year when we put up the Christmas tree for nostalgia.

 

[Zloth]

OK, here's a better one for @Brian Boru

View: https://youtu.be/vlFgg7sgG3E?si=KGWV_tfAG5Ph4glE

"Dad, did you know the Urbanmech doesn't have jump jets?"

Good to see you're raising the kids right! Urbie is just a slow-moving turret, kidd'o. (Unless you start, you know... tampering with it. Replace the big gun & ammo with a fake, aluminum gun and a great speaker system. Replace the lawn mower engine with something that will let it move like a light mech should. Give it the quietest jump jets you can find. Then jump in behind the big mechs in a firefight and play the recording of an AC/20 shot. Big mechs panic, try to turn around. Urbie runs/jumps away, Urbie's friends get to take shots at big mech's backside!)

 

[BeardyHat]

OK, here's a better one for @Brian Boru

View: https://youtu.be/vlFgg7sgG3E?si=KGWV_tfAG5Ph4glE



Good to see you're raising the kids right! Urbie is just a slow-moving turret, kidd'o. (Unless you start, you know... tampering with it. Replace the big gun & ammo with a fake, aluminum gun and a great speaker system. Replace the lawn mower engine with something that will let it move like a light mech should. Give it the quietest jump jets you can find. Then jump in behind the big mechs in a firefight and play the recording of an AC/20 shot. Big mechs panic, try to turn around. Urbie runs/jumps away, Urbie's friends get to take shots at big mech's backside!)

My six year old is absolutely obsessed with Battletech right now and it's pretty much all he talks about.

I showed him Mechwarrior 5 and since then, bought him a Clan Star box of models, showed him how to paint them and then taught him how to play the (simplified) Tabletop game. For whatever reason, he becomes particularly obsessed with the Mechs my buddy has, which he's played against, one of which is the Urbanmech. He just got a stuffy Urbie for Christmas...

As long as I can keep him away from Mecha, I think we'll be ok.

 

[Zloth]

... one of which is the Urbanmech. He just got a stuffy Urbie for Christmas...

Wait a... oh, stuffy! OK. As long as nobody nerfed the poor Urbanmech.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Finally played a few hours of Against The Storm on Gamepass and bought it. A city builder thats not hectic but always gives you a goal to be working towards, perfect.

The Warcraft 3ish look making me feel all nostalgic. It does feel like base building and resource gathering from that era of RTS but with some Settlers 2 mixed in. Looking forward to seeing how the wider campaign works. I dont think its really right to call it Roguelike, just because you have to start a new village on a new map every time, maybe I just didnt play enough yet.

 

[Pifanjr]

I only messed with those a little. I like how you can have that special pathfinding raytracing do-dad just kick in when you're taking screenshots!

I used this one: https://www.nexusmods.com/subnautica/mods/14

However, it looks like that no longer works - or at least the mod manager you are supposed to use to install it no longer works. You probably want to use something like this: https://www.nexusmods.com/subnautica/mods/984

I would only back up saves every 10 hours or so. It's rare to have a problem, plus this game is such that you can catch up to where you were WAY faster than normal. Most of the important stuff is in your own head. When you know (roughly) where to go and what you'll find there, you can zip through it quickly.

Thanks, I got that one and a mod that condenses the blueprint menu. I don't know why the developer decided 5 slots would be enough instead of just using all 10 number keys, especially since there are plenty of tools to put on there.

 

[ZedClampet]

Played some Lethal Company without Discord because Guido and Elly May said it made things too easy, and they wanted the "official" record for most days survived. I didn't really notice much of a change.

Played Aliens Fireteam Elite. It's basically an enormous and expanded Left for Dead where you never repeat a mission, have persistent weapons, weapon mods, perks, leveling, etc. So nothing like Left for Dead, but exactly the same except for...

But for once I picked the right class right from the beginning. Guido picked the medic. I'm not 100 percent sure why, but it might have been because I complained in Remnant 2 about always being the medic. Love my weapons, though, and Guido seems content enough. Honestly, we could probably play without a medic if he decides he wants to play another class. There are health packs you can pick up now and then.

 

[Colif]

Spent 4 hours trying to work out a buzzing noise in my PC case just to find noise was caused by the case itself.
Even after I turned all fans down it was still there... um?
Wonder if its pump in AIO... but noise seemed to come from front of case, thats not where pump is.
It wasn't constant, it would be quiet at startup and slowly build up to point I would turn PC off and wonder what I was going to do next. I was convinced it was the AIO Fans so I took two videos of them - you can't really hear anything apart from the fans. I could hear it better from outside case...
Take top removable mesh cover of case off and noise stopped... I had taken top off on Xmas night to clean it, I clearly didn't put it back on right. Strange it took me 4 days to hear noise.

old photo of mesh top, its cleaner now but not taking off again just for a photo

Put top back on, silence... only thing I hear now is some fan noise and me typing. It is a bit lose on the corners as there are no connections there, but I have had case 3 years, so its weird it started last night.

Last thing I needed was a buzzing noise in PC at start of a 3 day long weekend.

 

[Zloth]

I've been on "staycation" all week. Now I need to start transitioning back from staying up past midnight and sleeping until 9am.... I'm closing in on 40 hours of game time in Cyberpunk and I've only had the game for a week!

Thanks, I got that one and a mod that condenses the blueprint menu. I don't know why the developer decided 5 slots would be enough instead of just using all 10 number keys, especially since there are plenty of tools to put on there.

A controller thing, maybe?

 

[Johnway]

with 2023 drawing to a close, i'm still playing Path of Exile. 13 challenges done, need 3 more completed to get my hat. After that i'll probably need to review and decide what i want to do. getting the 26 challenges is a tall order, one that will require grinding/luck/investment to succeed (annoying as the challenges this time were fairly reasonable). having gotten lucky with my christmas lootbox, i'm tempted to call it quits after getting hat. I might jump in now and then to see if there is any challenges i can complete following the coat tails for better players, but honestly i want to attack my game collection.

 

[Pifanjr]

A controller thing, maybe?

That's the only thing that I could think of, but I can't imagine adding two extra slots would have made switching items with a controller that much harder, while those two extra slots would save a lot of time switching stuff around from the inventory.

 

[BeardyHat]

I can’t recommend Eviternity and Pirate Doom enough. Both are masterfully crafted, showcasing how much is possible with that engine. Eviternity does get pretty difficult at times, Pirate Doom is more my style gameplay wise, but still both are absolutely incredible. So glad I randomly got the urge to play Doom mods on Christmas Day.

I’ll also throw out an off the wall recommendation, Hocus Pocus Doom. It’s a total conversation like Pirate Doom with unique weapons and textures. It’s very lighthearted as far as Doom goes, with its bright colors and silly style. It’s like Doom for kids but that’s why it was so interesting to me. You play as a wizard with an electric spell and need to collect all the jewels in each level, all of which are very bright, colorful, and evokes classic wizard imagery like huge mushrooms and gorgeous green groves. I had a lot more fun with Hocus Pocus than I expected to, I think the fact that it’s so different from all other Doom mods is exactly the reason why I played it so much.

Well, thanks to this, I was reminded of Hocus Pocus, which I bought not too long ago on GoG, so I've started playing through that. I used to play the Shareware as a kid (though only with the PC speaker, so the actual midi music is new to me) and had intended to properly play it at some point and now here I am. It's not the most amazing platformer I've ever played, but it's decent enough that I'm on the third level, so I'll have to keep going with it.

Also, this popped up on GoG Galaxy last I opened that up and for $2, I couldn't refuse, so I started playing Realms of Arkana. It's a remake and I recall I've seen the original in Youtube videos, so I figured I'd give this a go. It seems...ok? It's definitely an old CRPG and all the baggage that comes with, but it's interesting so far, aside from the combat, which is rather crap. But, I'm still playing after 2-hours, so I guess that says something?

 

[BeardyHat]

Oh, I guess I should say that I also picked-up Superhot VR for my Oculus, which is great fun, if a bit challenging. Gives me a nice little workout dodging bullets left and right, though I find it a little annoying that if I die in scene 5/6 of a sequence, I need to do the entire sequence over again from scene 1, but I guess it gets my lard ass moving.

 

[ZedClampet]

In Lethal Company we continued our "No Discord run for the record" tonight, and finished day 27. We're in great shape. Ship is piled high with treasure (except treasure doesn't pile. Everything just clips through everything else).

As far as the record goes, I don't think there actually is one. No leaderboards. So this is just going to be a record in our own minds.

 

[Brian Boru]

@ZedClampet I didn't read this, but fyi:

The Best Games In Early Access Right Now

Early access gives developers time to collect feedback and perfect their games before releasing them — these are the best early access games out now.

www.thegamer.com

 

[ZedClampet]

I despise my Medieval Dynasty character because of the voice I chose when creating him. The voice is generally pleasant, but when he becomes hungry or thirsty, he starts whining in the worst possible way. A grown man shouldn't sound like he's about to cry because he's thirsty. I've become so disgusted by him that I have considered starting over and picking a different voice. There is no way to modify your character once you started your game. As it turns out, your character only talks when he is hungry or thirsty, and now after playing for 75 hours, every time he opens his mouth I want to beat him to death with a blunt object.

 

[Brian Boru]

every time he opens his mouth

I'd give him a drink or a cookie… but to each, his own

 

[ZedClampet]

@ZedClampet I didn't read this, but fyi:

The Best Games In Early Access Right Now

Early access gives developers time to collect feedback and perfect their games before releasing them — these are the best early access games out now.

www.thegamer.com

Thanks. Found a game, Fabledom, that looks worth investigating.

I don't actually have a preference for early access. It just happens that the indie games I like often start off there. If they are finished, all the better. However, many early access games are now getting a lot of post launch development, too. It's almost to the point that games are never fully finished anymore.

It's not unusual for a game to spend several years in early access then spend several years getting a combination of free/paid expansions. I'm too old to wait 8-10 years for a game that I'm interested in.

 

[ZedClampet]

I'd give him a drink or a cookie… but to each, his own

Oh, he eats and drinks all the time. But if you get distracted for a few minutes, he starts crying. He's pathetic.

 

[ZedClampet]

I'd give him a drink or a cookie… but to each, his own

You know I do have a child in the game now. He's 2 and the best blacksmith I have, but I can't put him to work yet.

 

[Colif]

Looks at time and date

thinks this thread is out of time

Happy New Year BTW