General Game Discussion for March 2026

[BeardyHat]

The DDR3 16Gb 1866 Kit I bought arrived yesterday. It was absolutely terribly packaged, where the seller just wrapped them altogether with packing tape. I cleaned the contacts with some IPA just to make sure there was no adhesive left on them and the tape annoyingly ripped off the data sticker on the side of one stick.

However, they work and bonus, it's actually 32Gb and not 16Gb. Unfortunately, I hadn't realized my motherboard is incapable of overclocking the 2500k.

 

[dxchase]

The DDR3 16Gb 1866 Kit I bought arrived yesterday. It was absolutely terribly packaged, where the seller just wrapped them altogether with packing tape. I cleaned the contacts with some IPA just to make sure there was no adhesive left on them and the tape annoyingly ripped off the data sticker on the side of one stick.

However, they work and bonus, it's actually 32Gb and not 16Gb. Unfortunately, I hadn't realized my motherboard is incapable of overclocking the 2500k.

At least you got extra gb! but bad packaging on electronics is unacceptable. Id be mad and nervous at first too. Are you putting them into a spare laptop?





The Division 2 has dropped a new visual update and a "realism mode". So im gonna squeeze some time for that into my mostly-arc raiders-game cycle. Its also a time to take a trip down memory lane of ubisofts terrible launcher where i bought it. Its still slow and laggy as always.





Diablo 4 has a new season starting tuesday and its also the start of a new collab... DOOM!!! So naturally ill be throwing my money away for that.

Im also kinda sad cause the DOOM outfit is a Barbarian outfit and i already have a great barbarian outfit through the Bezerk Collab. I might be missing something, but thats what ive seen so far. Its still a cool crossover that works imo.

As for the seasonal overview? Im not too excited, its centered around being The Butcher (who is also now a new boss to relentlessly grind) and getting kill streaks, but good luck keeping those kill streaks up in helltides and other public activities if you dont have an AOE build which will absolutely suck up kills from you.

The reliquary (battle pass) is still the same which sucks imo but there are tweaks coming to that when the expansion drops.

The biggest upside to this season for me is that its only ~2 months long. Starts March 12th and goes to April 28th when the expansion drops. So even if its not a crazy season, its a month shorter than the rest.




Anyone here planning on getting Crimson Desert? 1st game, for me, in 2026 to come out of nowhere that im really interested in. Never really got into its announcements and stuff, but as the date approaches its being reviewed everywhere and it looks amazing.




I also like the forums look now! Like the 'dark mode' of the more grey/white one.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Anyone here planning on getting Crimson Desert? 1st game, for me, in 2026 to come out of nowhere that im really interested in. Never really got into its announcements and stuff, but as the date approaches its being reviewed everywhere and it looks amazing.

Several have talked about wanting it. It looks great, but action/adventure isn't really my thing. Throw in some RPG skill trees or something, and I'd be more interested

 

[dxchase]

Also, went to launch division 2 through ubisoft launcher... crashes every time. DDU'd my system, still crashing. So now im verifying the files and if that doesnt work a whole new install is needed and its like, why did i even bother coming back. Have had 0 games crash on me in quite a while and as soon as i load up a ubisoft title through ubisofts launcher....

 

[Zed Clampet]

Also, went to launch division 2 through ubisoft launcher... crashes every time. DDU'd my system, still crashing. So now im verifying the files and if that doesnt work a whole new install is needed and its like, why did i even bother coming back. Have had 0 games crash on me in quite a while and as soon as i load up a ubisoft title through ubisofts launcher....

Based only on my experiences, it's even worse than it used to be.

 

[Pifanjr]

Anyone here planning on getting Crimson Desert? 1st game, for me, in 2026 to come out of nowhere that im really interested in. Never really got into its announcements and stuff, but as the date approaches its being reviewed everywhere and it looks amazing.

I hadn't really taken a look at Crimson Desert yet, but I just watched the first trailer on Steam and it looks amazing. I love games with a lot of freedom of mobility where you basically fly around and the combat seems great as well.

I'm not going to spend €70 to get it at launch though. If the user reviews are good I might get it for my birthday in May and otherwise I'll wait until it's on sale in a couple of years.

 

[Johnway]

Also, went to launch division 2 through ubisoft launcher... crashes every time. DDU'd my system, still crashing. So now im verifying the files and if that doesnt work a whole new install is needed and its like, why did i even bother coming back. Have had 0 games crash on me in quite a while and as soon as i load up a ubisoft title through ubisofts launcher....

Based only on my experiences, it's even worse than it used to be.

i've been hearing concerning things with ubisoft games lately as well. i was told that older games take forever to load now. A recent example was Wildlands. on my aging rig it takes seconds to load into a game. For those with more modern systems, it could take minutes (as much as 5-12 minutes).

Tbh, there are times i just turn off the ubisoft client/overlay to boost performance and i do remember needing to fiddle with system files to get Asscreed unity to work. I still have a few games to play, but frankly i'm in no rush.


Playing POE mirage league and i decided to go with the Blade vortex build for some gentle work. not familiar with build so fingers crossed its decent. its sort of like righteous fire in that you just walk around and let your aura of blades do the work. Fewer clicks to win. Seems like it can do a lot of content, but no idea. in 2 days i'm almost halfway done with the campaign as i've just ran through most of it. I'll go back to do any side content later as its faster/easier to do it later when i'm juiced up.

But that said i'm wondering whether i should take part at all. I'll play a bit more and see what happens. i should be playing an RTS game to maintain rotation. Like Homeworld or something.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Am coming back around to some games that I enjoy but have never finished. One of those is Crime Scene Cleaner. I can't emphasize enough that if you enjoyed Viscera Cleanup then you need to get Crime Scene Cleaner. It's a superior game in every way.

 

[Frindis]

Been playing tons of Path of Exile 2 making builds. It is a lot of fun to see how far they will take me and to try to find damage scaling from skills and uniques that complement each other. Often, I find myself changing up the skill points a lot because what would work really well in earlier acts would not work in later, and it is most of the times the bosses that tell me if that is the case, as using too much time on one tells me that something is not working with my build.

In April/May Grinding Gear Studios will launch a new league for Path Of Exile 2, so very much looking forward to that. Then we will get new map mechanics to play around with (this league we have a temple we can build tiles in and fight mobs) and hopefully we get sword or axes! League start is also a breath of fresh air because you start as lvl 1 again and with an empty stash.

Crimson Desert is launching very, very soon, but I am not sure what I will do because I think the price for the game is too high, and I'm not a fan of this ongoing trend of pricy AAA(A) that does not deliver in quality vs price point. Now, IF Crimson Desert is insanely polished and all the angels' trumpets sings and it manages to deliver something incredibly unique of the utmost quality, then at least I will have to think hard about it. Do I want to be with the wave of the first players to set foot on the new land, or am I going to be the stubborn guy sitting on the fence looking at the other guys having fun while I wait for prices to drop?

 

[Pifanjr]

Wanderburg Demo on Steam

Drive your Castle on Wheels into battle in this minimalist medieval roguelike of roaming fortresses! Devour entire villages, build your modular arsenal of siege weapons and arcane machinery as you grow with every stronghold you crush.

store.steampowered.com

I tried this demo today. You're a castle on wheels trying to destroy other castles on wheels using a combination of weapons, like cannons, rams, mortars, mines, etc.

It's pretty fun to play once or twice, but I doubt it would stay fun for very long.

 

[Johnway]

Path of exile and we're half way through act 6 and i'm making a hash of the Blade vortex build. The problem is that the build is a dex build and the witch is predominately intelligence build. The annoying part is trying to get gear that builds on not only resistances and Life but also dexterity which is proving very tricky. At this point the only option is to go low level gems which restricts the build further.

At this point i might cut my losses and run. Pick a different build that is easier to build. Like my old earthshatter build. but that got nerfed slightly so i'm not sure what to build. hell, at this point i might just not play this league. Go back to playing some RTS games. But again, which one? maybe the homeworld series perhaps.

 

[BeardyHat]

At least you got extra gb! but bad packaging on electronics is unacceptable. Id be mad and nervous at first too. Are you putting them into a spare laptop?

They've gone into the "new"computer I put together for Oldson, my oldest. The old MSI laptop he was using was crapping the bed and I had installed Linux on it to revive it, which was ok but annoying. I kept having to change the graphics driver on it on a per game basis; had a very old gaming PC sitting in my office which was returned to me, so I cleaned it up and set it up for him.

Funny enough, the only thing that will remain from the original system will be the motherboard, since I'm replacing the processor now too

i5-2500k (soon to be i7-3770)
32Gb DDR3
GTX 1080

It's doing the job. It's more powerful than the old laptop and plays everything pretty well at 1080p. Hoping for a little improvement with the new processor.

 

[BeardyHat]

Finished up Half-Life 2 Episode 2 this afternoon. Really makes me disappointed they've never finished the story, even after playing it again here for the first time in 10+ years.

I want to play Alyx, but I've got to work-up the motivation to be jumping around in VR in the evenings after the kids are in bed. I may try tonight, we'll see. Hopefully runs on my HTPC, that way my wife can watch a lot easier.

Maybe I'll play Portal if it doesn't.

 

[Zed Clampet]

My optimism for Marathon may have been misplaced. I can't imagine they are overly happy with having 30k concurrent players right after launch. Of course, they could have hundreds of thousands on Playstation for all I know.

 

[Pifanjr]

My optimism for Marathon may have been misplaced. I can't imagine they are overly happy with having 30k concurrent players right after launch. Of course, they could have hundreds of thousands on Playstation for all I know.

Their 24 hour peak concurrent players on Steam is 77k, which is about what Arc Raiders has as its lowest concurrent player count every day.

It would still be great for an indie game, but considering it apparently cost 250 million to develop Marathon they're probably not very happy indeed.

 

[Zed Clampet]

onsidering it apparently cost 250 million to develop Marathon they're probably not very happy indeed.

Good grief. At least in the trailer it's an impressive looking game, but how you can spend $250 million to make an extraction shooter is beyond me.

 

[Johnway]

To tide myself over the constant play of POE, i decided to play something else. i had thought of playing an RTS but i just couldn't get round the feeling that i wanted to play project warlock for some reason. i decided it would be faster just to play it rather then fight that urge.

So far its been a blast. Granted, the combat is quick, breezy and not particulary difficult even on hard. But its still early days, i'm on the second stage and the slight improvement on enemies seems like it spices up the challenge a bit. Some people might find the gameplay abit samey as whilst the wall textures and enemies change the tight corridor or elevation rarely changes. So its like playing a dungeon crawler at times. Still, the banging sound track, fast pace combat and satisfying weapons eases the pain.

Will probably finish it fairly quickly, then i can go back to POE or an RTS game.

 

[dxchase]

To tide myself over the constant play of POE, i decided to play something else. i had thought of playing an RTS but i just couldn't get round the feeling that i wanted to play project warlock for some reason. i decided it would be faster just to play it rather then fight that urge.

Diablo 4's new season launches wednesday!





So i got so sick and tired of crashing Division 2 on the ubisoft launcher that i bought the game for 2.69usd on Steam. I instantly unlocked 55 achievements but i was nervous about running the game. Runs perfectly. No crashing.


I was crashing out a little last night trying to play Assassins Creed Shadows (off of the ....ubisoft launcher...) because i got a 40% off coupon on their ubiconnect (which still works through steam) but i dont have AC Shadows on steam, so i was stuck with using the launcher.

TELL ME HOW this game is the only game to EVER come up on my portrait-viewed 4th connected monitor (1 tv, my oled, a xeneon edge and portrait-turned old asus monitor). I have my tv as my main (when im using it, which in this case i was) my oled as the 2nd, my xeneon as the 3rd and this other monitor at 4.

Nope, ubishit and its launcher figured THATS where i wanted this game to load. Long story short game crashed twice and had to manual wait for screens to refresh to get it working on my tv in 4k. Maybe its my card, maybe its my pc never figuring out monitors when they are connected but i have never had this issue happen with a game, at least in a long time for me to forget but of course, its the ubisoft launcher that did it.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Diablo 4's new season launches wednesday!





So i got so sick and tired of crashing Division 2 on the ubisoft launcher that i bought the game for 2.69usd on Steam. I instantly unlocked 55 achievements but i was nervous about running the game. Runs perfectly. No crashing.


I was crashing out a little last night trying to play Assassins Creed Shadows (off of the ....ubisoft launcher...) because i got a 40% off coupon on their ubiconnect (which still works through steam) but i dont have AC Shadows on steam, so i was stuck with using the launcher.

TELL ME HOW this game is the only game to EVER come up on my portrait-viewed 4th connected monitor (1 tv, my oled, a xeneon edge and portrait-turned old asus monitor). I have my tv as my main (when im using it, which in this case i was) my oled as the 2nd, my xeneon as the 3rd and this other monitor at 4.

Nope, ubishit and its launcher figured THATS where i wanted this game to load. Long story short game crashed twice and had to manual wait for screens to refresh to get it working on my tv in 4k. Maybe its my card, maybe its my pc never figuring out monitors when they are connected but i have never had this issue happen with a game, at least in a long time for me to forget but of course, its the ubisoft launcher that did it.

So the Ubisoft Launcher doesn't automatically open anymore if you launch a Ubisoft game on Steam? If that's the case, I might reward them for having a terrible launcher and pick up a couple of duplicates on Steam while they are still on decent discount. I would love to play Division 2 again. Of course, I've got DLC on Uplay which probably won't be credited to me.